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 national and international 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.  Now in its sixteenth 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.

AGAVE has been joined by countertenor Reginald Mobley for three albums and multiple touring programs. A review of their 2018 run of performances of Peace In Our Time for the San Francisco Early Music Society said, "the interaction between AGAVE and Reginald Mobley... created the real magic" (SF Classical Voice).  Their 2021 American Originals: a new world, a new canon 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 MGP grant from Intermusic SF as well as a generous grant from the California Arts Commission to record AGAVE: In Her Hands (2023, Acis) 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 expanding on the repertoire from this program.

AGAVE was a finalist for the EMA Baroque Performance Competition, the NAXOS/EMA Competition, and has performed to sold-out crowds throughout the Bay Area, including multiple times for San Francisco Early Music Society, Presidio Sessions, Barefoot Chamber Concerts, BAMPFA's "Full" series, SF Music Day, Chattanooga Chamber Music, Noe Valley Chamber Music, Sonoma Bach, and Redwood Arts Council, as well as at UCLA’s Chamber Music at the Clark Library, La Jolla Athenaeum, Karatz Chamber Series, Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Jacaranda, The Arizona Early Music Society, Bitterroot Baroque (Montana), 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 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, SalonEra, and Harmonia radio programs. The upcoming season will feature their new program Rum and Rebellion with Mr. Mobley at the Boston Early Music Festival season, University of Chicago, University of Southern Oregon, and a return to La Jolla Athenaeum.

AGAVE's core lineup features co-director, violinist, and violist Aaron Westman; violinist Anna Washburn; violinist and violist Katherine Kyme; William Skeen, cello and viola da gamba; Kevin Cooper, guitars and theorbo; and Henry Lebedinsky, co-director, harpsichord, organ, and piano. Since 2021, AGAVE has been exclusively represented by Schwalbe and Partners artist management group.

“One comes away from the release believing there's nothing musically AGAVE can’t do” - Textura 

AGAVE

Peace in Our Time

“gorgeous—fine playing”  -- American Record Guide  

Humanity Triumphs on Agave Baroque Disc: "Grammy, are you listening?... 

[T]he really impressive thing about this recording is its emotional wallop.” - Early Music America

FULL REVIEW

It was the interaction between Agave and Mr. Mobley that created the real magic.”   

—San Francisco Classical Voice

FULL REVIEW

Queen of Heaven

“These are very good performances of very fine music. Dramatic tension (as in the boldly declaimed violin line at the start of Sonata 12), courtly elegance and supple vocal articulation (‘Quam Dulcis Est’ motet), and lively lyricism (violin duo sections in Sonata 4) underline the music’s expressiveness and appeal.”  -- American Record Guide

The Fantastical Mr. Biber

“a thoroughly engaging account of just how inventive Biber could be”  -- The Rehearsal Studio 

"A distinguished national early music group, Agave Baroque, made its Seattle debut last Tuesday night at Trinity Parish Church with a superbly played and sung program of music by a composer virtually unknown to most of us...” – The Sun Break, Seattle

"Another audience favorite was Agave Baroque 's concert of music by Biber and his contemporaries. Rapturous music and impressive playing … kept the audience entranced. As one concert-goer put it, "I was blown away ... the performance was just about perfect!"[Text Wrapping Break]— Early Music America

Friends of Ferdinand

“The title refers to Ferdinand I and II, Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperors, and five composers at the courts of Vienna and Salzburg, two of them well-known (Johann Heinrich Schmelzer and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber) and three of them now in total eclipse (Antonio Bertali, Marco Antonio Ferro, and Giovanni Battista Granata)….Agave Baroque, led by the brilliant violinist Aaron Westman, makes an effulgent case for this early- to mid-17th-century music. This recording immediately engages the listener with a sprightly Chiacona by Bertali, establishing Agave Baroque as an energized, free-spirited group from the start…This young group of Californian virtuosi have created a strong future reference for this little-known repertoire and a great follow-up to their widely acclaimed premiere recording Cold Genius: The music of Henry Purcell and his contemporaries.—Early Music America

Cold Genius: The Music of Henry Purcell and his Contemporaries

"I recently had the good fortune of hearing probably one of the most exquisite performances of my life. In the tea room at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, packed so full that it was sweltering inside despite the cold outside, I heard Agave Baroque present a program of works by Henry Purcell and some of his contemporaries on period instruments. The harpsichord alone seemed to take up 1/3 of the room. Henry Purcell’s complete set of secular songs on Hyperion has been getting a lot of play in my headphones lately, and I was quite excited for this concert. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for this performance, which was just… I mean… there is nothing that I can really say to give justice to it, except to say perhaps that if you were not there, you missed out on a rare treat." -  Scout Network Blog

American Originals

WCLV Recording of the Year 2022 

“this adventurous survey of vocal and instrumental works from across the Americas, dating from the Baroque to the 20th century. In six gorgeous songs – and two instrumental song arrangements – by Florence Price…Mobley and the versatile musicians of Agave convey the impassioned vision underlying the composer’s evocative imagery. The Brazilian priest José Mauricio Nuñes Garcia’s exquisitely Mozartian Te, Christe, solum novimus leaves me wanting to hear more from this composer...A virtuosic performance of Baroque composer Esteban Salas y Castro’s Taedetanimam meam reveals its sublime intensity. It’s hard to understand why his music is so rarely heard outside his native Cuba. Mobley draws on seemingly endless reserves of power and beauty. But there’s something even more exciting going on here – a direct, urgent connection with the music. In this he is well matched by Agave’s vivid colors and stylish phrasing.” – The Whole Note

“a welcome invitation to listeners in the know and those who ought to know better alike to re-examine outdated notions about classical music” – Music Web International

“a compelling thread of legacy through a time warp of composers related by history and hemisphere.” – Gramophone Magazine

“Exquisitely performed by the brilliant countertenor Reginald Mobley and the superb instrumental ensemble Agave, …. Mobley and [AGAVE] craft a stunning playlist of neglected works by composers of color. Part of the album’s beauty is it’s inclusiveness…. Mobley and AGAVE…embody all the emotions and sounds needed to deliver these works to their fullest effect….each line has direction, and nothing is overly fussy or sentimental.  

While all the music and performances on American Originals go a long way toward creating a canon for a new world, what it just might do best is to shine light on what a diverse society the New World is and has always been. Like any great musical program, American Originals offers listeners the opportunity to learn more about the lives of composers, their music, and the opportunity to engage in conversation.” – Early Music America

In Her Hands

“If AGAVE's latest release, a collaboration with soprano Michele Kennedy, seems especially panoramic in scope, it should: its set-list spans no less than four centuries. Focusing exclusively on works by female composers, In Her Hands features songs by Black American composers Florence Price (1887-1953) and Margaret Bonds (1913-72) alongside instrumental pieces by Clara Wieck Schumann (1819-96), Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-47), Barbara Strozzi (1619-77), Pauline Viardot (1821-1910), and others. One comes away from the release believing there's nothing musically AGAVE can't do. Credit must be given to AGAVE on curatorial grounds for the historical breadth of the material featured. Consider by way of example Canzona Seconda à 4, which stems from a 1630 volume of sacred music by Italian nun Claudia Francesca Rusca (1593-1676). Versatility must be Kennedy's middle name, as the singer shows herself to be as adept at delivering the songs by Bonds and Price as a formal classical setting such as the graceful sacred cantata In braccio di Maria by seventeenth-century composer Antonia Padoani Bembo.” – Textura.com

"Heartrending...carefully planned, beautifully paced, this album forges connections
deeper than the composers' shared womanhood." –Early Music America