More than thirty years of performing as an internationally acclaimed viola da gamba and lirone player with such top-flight ensembles as Les Arts Florissants, Tragicomedia and many others, countless recordings on major labels, and her unique status as the world’s leading authority on the lirone have made Erin Headley preeminent in the field of early music. Before the founding of Atalante, Erin Headley had already made more than 100 CDs on labels such as Harmonia Mundi France, Hyperion, and Deutsche Grammophon. She is the author of the lirone articles in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (second edition) and The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. To further her research on the lirone, in 2007 Erin Headley was awarded a prestigious Arts and Humanities Research Council fellowship in residence at the University of Southampton, where she is now an honorary fellow.
In 2011 she received a Distinguished Alumnus award from Pennsylvania State University, and in the spring of 2013, she was Musician-in-Residence at the prestigious Villa I Tatti, Harvard University’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence. To ensure that the instrument and its Italian repertoire flourish as they did in the 17th century, Erin Headley has produced and presented staged performances, recordings, videos, masterclasses, lectures, published articles and performing editions to reach a larger audience.