GRAMMY® nominated ensemble AGAVE is “an energized, free-spirited group” (EMAg), based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and specializing in string chamber music of the seventeenth through twentieth centuries. Agave has received numerous awards and accolades and gained local and national attention for its “brilliant and knowing” (Gramophone UK), "profound" (EMAg), and "precise and stylish" (American Record Guide) playing, "a certain let-down-your-hair quality" (AllMusic), as well as its growing discography, which recently garnered the comment, “One comes away from the release believing there's nothing musically AGAVE […] can’t do.” Now in its fifteenth season, Agave continues its fruitful affiliations with star countertenor Reginald Mobley, phenomenal soprano Michele Kennedy, and the Acis record label, and continues to be a unique and innovative voice in the historical performance and chamber music communities nationally.
During its initial season, Agave was selected by Early Music America to perform in a showcase concert at the APAP Convention in New York. In 2009, The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles commissioned Cold Genius: The music of Henry Purcell, which Agave premiered at the MJT in 2010, and subsequently recorded. In 2011, EMA selected Agave as one of five finalists in the NAXOS/EMA Recording Competition. In 2012, the San Francisco Early Music Society chose Agave to present a main stage concert on the 2012 Berkeley Early Music Festival, about which Early Music America Magazine said, "Rapturous music and impressive playing...[Agave] kept the audience entranced." Later in 2012, EMA selected Agave to compete in New York as one of six finalists at their Baroque Performance Competition. Agave received their first grant from the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music (now Intermusic SF) to record Friends of Ferdinand, which VGo Recordings released in 2013. For the 2014-15 season, Agave became an ensemble in residence at the Presidio Trust's new concert series Presidio Sessions, collaborated with Los Angeles new music concert series Jacaranda: music at the edge, and embarked on a Southeastern US tour with Reginald Mobley.
In 2015, Agave released Queen of Heaven: music of Isabella Leonarda, their first of three albums with Mr. Mobley, a countertenor "destined to make his mark in the early music world" (Chicago Tribune). In 2018, Mr. Mobley and Agave collaborated on a second album, Peace in Our Time, whose release marked the 400th anniversary of the start of the Thirty Years' War, when conflict and The Plague ravaged much of Europe. The album features sublime, heartfelt music, which brought people above the conflict and provided much needed comfort and expression of sorrow. A review of their 2018 run of performances of the same program for the San Francisco Early Music Society said, "the interaction between Agave and Reginald Mobley... created the real magic" (SF Classical Voice). In May of 2018, Agave and Reggie performed the first ever baroque program and the first to feature a singer on the Chamber Music at the Clark Library series at UCLA.
Their third album with Mobley, American Originals: a new world, a new canon, was released in September 2021 on the Acis label, and celebrates four centuries of music of mostly Black and brown composers from the United States, Mexico, Cuba, and South America, including new transcriptions of songs by the remarkable Florence Beatrice Price. The album received a GRAMMY® nomination in the Best Classical Compendium category, got rave reviews in Gramophone Magazine (UK), EMAg, American Record Guide, MusicWeb International, The Whole Note, and Textura, was a BBC Music Magazine Brief Notes pick in December 2021, WCLV's (Cleveland Classical Radio's) 2022 Album of the Year, and the track ‘Tobacco’ was one of three featured tracks in a New York Times article about Florence Price’s 135th birthday.
Agave recently received their second grant from Intermusic SF as well as a generous grant from the California Arts Commission to record In Her Hands featuring soprano Michele Kennedy, their sixth commercial album, as well as to complete a year-long workshop and residency in rural Cedarville, California, working with local artists and featuring the repertoire from this program.
Agave has performed to sold-out crowds throughout the Bay Area, including Barefoot Chamber Concerts, BAMPFA's "Full" series, SF Music Day, Chattanooga Chamber Music, Noe Valley Chamber Music, Sonoma Bach, MSRI, and multiple times at Redwood Arts Council, as well as at La Jolla Athenaeum Karatz Chamber Series, Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Jacaranda, The Arizona Early Music Society, Seattle Early Music Guild, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Appalachian State University, and several main stage performances at the Berkeley Early Music Festival. On-air appearances include several live performances and interviews on KPFK Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, KALW San Francisco, WDAV (North Carolina), New Mexico Public Radio, as well as numerous features on Sunday Baroque and Harmonia radio programs. The upcoming season will feature their new program Rum and Rebellion with Mr. Mobley at the Boston Early Music Festival series, New York’s Morgan Library, University of Chicago, University of Southern Oregon, and a return to La Jolla Athenaeum.
AGAVE's core lineup features countertenor soloist Reginald Mobley on several programs and three albums, along with co-director and violinist Aaron Westman, violinist Anna Washburn; William Skeen, cello and viola da gamba; Kevin Cooper, guitars and theorbo; and Henry Lebedinsky, co-director, harpsichord, organ, and piano. They are joined regularly by Katherine Kyme and Cynthia Black on violin and viola. Since 2021, AGAVE has been exclusively represented by Schwalbe and Partners artist management group.
