Hallifax & Jeffrey are viol players who first came together in 2005 to play the music of Forqueray, the last of the great French 17th-century violists. The success of their first concerts led them to expand their repertoire to the other French masters, Couperin, Dollé, and Marais. In 2006, they performed the complete works of Forqueray in a series of five concerts over five days at the Berkeley Festival, and repeated the series in 2008. In between, they toured programs of Forqueray and other French composers throughout the western states.
In 2008 they added yet another completely different repertoire, the English viol music of Simpson, Locke, Jenkins, and their contemporaries. They are currently working on projects involving English music for lyra viols and music by Lawes, although they still love to perform Forqueray and his contemporaries.
They play as a duo, and also as a larger ensemble with other musicians: lutenists, violinists, singers, keyboard players, and other viol players, as needed.

Peter Hallifax studied viol with Jane Ryan in London, while completing a Bachelor’s Degree in Music from the University of Surrey and a Master’s Degree in Musicology from the University of London, King’s College.
In 1976, he moved to the Bay Area. He was a founding member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and taught viol at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and many workshops and seminars throughout the US, while maintaining an active concert career throughout the US as a violist.
After a 20 year hiatus, he started playing again in 2005, concentrating at first on the music of Forqueray, Couperin, Marais, and Dollé. More recently, he has been exploring English 17th-century music and the Bach sonatas.

During her 32-year love affair with the viol, Julie Jeffrey has developed a career on the instrument which has taken her all over the world, performing, recording, teaching and inspiring enthusiasm for the viol. At home in the San Francisco Bay Area Ms. Jeffrey is a member of Sex Chordæ Consort of Viols, is the creative mastermind of the acclaimed trio Wildcat Viols, and is half of the French Baroque specialists, Hallifax & Jeffrey. Devoted to promoting all aspects of interest in her instrument, Ms. Jeffrey is a co-founder and active member of the Viola da Gamba Society, Pacifica Chapter, and currently serves on the board of directors of the Viola da Gamba Society of America.

Lynn Tetenbaum has been hailed by the Boston Herald as a “master musician, fluent, intelligent and natural.” She holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and the Artist Diploma from Oberlin Conservatory where she studied with Catharina Meints. The recipient of grants from Wellesley College and the Ministry of the Flemish Community, she spent five years in Belgium where she studied with Wieland Kuijken at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, receiving the Premier Prix in 1987 and the Diplôme Supérieur in 1990.
While living in the Boston area, she was a cofounder of “Défense de la viole,” a series dedicated to music featuring the viola da gamba, and performed for many years with Musica Poetica, an ensemble focusing on music from 17th-century Germany. Since moving to the Bay Area in 1988, Ms. Tetenbaum has performed with many of the area’s leading early music ensembles including American Baroque, the California Bach Society, Magnificat, and the San Francisco Bach Choir. She has toured and recorded with groups such as Jacobean Viols (Holland), the Boston Camerata and the Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, and has appeared at the Berkeley Early Music Festival, the Regensberg Festival and on numerous San Francisco Early Music Society concerts. She has taught at workshops in Belgium and England as well as in the US and teaches privately in the Bay Area. She has recorded for Erato, Koch, and Centaur.