We (Kees Boeke and Jill Feldman) founded Olive Music out of a desire to record repertoire that was at the time hard to sell to the mainstream labels. We had each already recorded more than 50 Cds with various companies, but found ourselves with projects piling up that needed to be realized. His interests revolved around music of the 14th century, contemporary music, music for his main instrument,
the recorder, and music for viol consort, viol and medieval viella being his secondary instruments. The first two Olive Music productions, realized in 2003, reflect exactly that: : Monografia, compositions for recorders written by Kees Boeke, and Trecento, a two voice medieval program for soprano & recorder or medieval fiddle. Jill realized three solo recitals for the new label: Ténèbres, (Charpentier, Delalande, Couperin) , Pianger di dolcezza (17c Italian monodia), and Songs of Charles Ives. We have realized most recordings with sound engineer Valter Neri with whom Kees had been producing recordings since the mid 80’s. Throughout the catalogue we have maintained the same graphic idea, usually highlighting a cover image that is closely associated with the musical substance on the disc. In 2006, Olive Music embarked on a research project of 14th century music from the Italian Squarcialupi manuscript. The ensemble Tetraktys, directed by Kees Boeke, including singers and instrumentalists specializing in medieval repertoire, was born. 3 volumes with music from the Chantilly Codex, “de Tristesse, de deuil, de desplaysance “ with songs from the Oxford Canonici Ms, music from the Johannes Heer Songbook, Songs by Guillaume Du Fay and Matteo da Perugia have so far been published. In the year 2008, Olive Music merged with the Et'cetera label, and continues to produce Cds with Kees Boeke as its artistic director, producer, and editor.
