We recently learned that Nicolas Linfield, one of Camerata’s most valued and important collaborators during the 1970’s and early 1980’s, died in Florida last December.
Many, many of you have heard Nick’s voice on the “Medieval Christmas” and “Sing We Noel” Nonesuch albums, reading in his utterly convincing and eloquent version of Chaucerian English. Those beautiful recorded performances, we are glad to say, are still available commercially, and continue to delight thousands.
Besides reading texts, Nick was a gifted educator, scholar, mime, and actor. He exuberantly road-managed Camerata’s first European tour in 1975 and became a friend and confidante to several of us. We think back on those years, their joys and sorrows, with a great deal of emotion.
In this photo, recently unearthed from an old box of slides, we see Nicholas Linfield, right, acting in his own edition of the middle-English “Third Shepherd’s Play,” alongside Mark Baker (left) and the late Robert J. Lurtsema (center), during a mid-1970’s performance of “A Medieval Christmas” at Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Joel Cohen
