An early music specialist, Allison Monroe performs on Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical violin and viola, viols, vielle, rebec, medieval harp, and sings. Her performing credits include concerts with the Newberry Consort, the Boston Camerata, Apollo’s Fire, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Les Délices, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Oregon Bach Festival’s Berwick Academy, the Washington Bach Consort, Bourbon Baroque, Alkemie, and the Brecon Baroque Festival Orchestra. She won Early Music America’s 2017 Barbara Thornton Memorial Scholarship which enabled her to study in Italy, England, and Switzerland for a few weeks. Alongside performance, she actively passes on her love of early music through teaching. She has directed Case Western Reserve University’s (CWRU) Collegium Musicum, comprising the Medieval and Renaissance ensembles, since 2018. At Interlochen’s 2019 Early Music Workshop, as a Guest Artist, she coached students and gave lectures/workshops. She will teach a course through CWRU’s Siegal Lifelong Learning in January 2020.

As a historical performer, Allison combines performance with scholarly research. Her research interests currently center on medieval song accompaniment, self-accompaniment and the lira da braccio, and early seventeenth-century English violin bands. Her work on the latter topic most recently resulted in a soon-to-be-released album of music from the courts of the Jacobean princes for voice, lute, viol, and violin band, recorded in the summer of 2019. On it, she played both violin and viola, as well as served as the Artistic Director. Allison researches medieval music and performance in her capacity as a member, co-founder, and Director of Programming for Trobár, a trio of voices and instruments dedicated to bringing medieval music to modern audiences. Trobár has a regular season in Cleveland, but has also performed as part of the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe, been in residence at Avaloch Farm Music Institute and the University of Louisville, and presented concerts on the Gotham Early Music Scene concert series in New York, the Catacoustic Consort series in Cincinnati, and the Eliot Society series in College Park, MD.

Allison holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Historical Performance Practice from CWRU, where she studied with Julie Andrijeski, Ross Duffin, and Debra Nagy, among others. She earned a Master of Music in Viola Performance from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and a Bachelor of Arts in Violin Performance from the University of Maryland.