The Renaissance Ensemble from Belgrade began its life in the autumn of 1968, when they played early music scores on historical instruments that Dragan Mlađenovic-Shakespeare had brought from Prague and Vienna.
The founders of the Ensemble, Miomir Ristić, Ljubomir Dimitrijević and Dragan Mlađenovic (supported by two ladies Dušica Obradović and Iskra Uzelac) gave their first concert on January 14, 1970 in the Gallery of Frescoes in Belgrade.
On November 4, 1971 in the hall of newly established Students Cultural Centre (SKC), the ensemble organized a concert of medieval and Renaissance court music.
The ensemble began its numerous and important tours outside Belgrade and Serbia in 1975, with visits to Zagreb, Zadar (“Musical Evenings in St. Donatus”) and Dubrovnik.
On 26 April 1979, on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, the ensemble organized a big concert at the Atrium of the National Museum in Belgrade.
During their highly eventful international career, Renaissance organized concerts all over Europe, Middle East and North Africa.
In its forty-year-long history the Renaissance Ensemble gave more than 3,000 concerts all around Europe (6 in France, 7 in Spain, Portugal, Finland, 6 in Italy, Cyprus, Greece, 3 in Bulgaria, 4 in Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Russia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Sweden, Syria and Algeria).
Some of their concert programs include: the beginnings of European polyphony, the first preserved medieval ductia dances from the Reading Abbey, 13th Century French court dances - estampies, 12th and 13th century, songs from Carmina Burana, Cantigas de Santa Maria, the music of troubadours, trouveres and minnesang, Italian Trecento, the ballata of Francesco Landini, Jacopo da Bologna and others, in addition to the istampittas preserved in the manuscript kept under the number MS 29987 in the British Library.
The baroque era is represented through the works of Claudio Monteverdi, Heinrich Schütz, Antonio Caldara, George Frideric Handel, Alessandro Scarlatti, but also Johann Sebastian Bach, Henry Purcell, Marin Marais and other old masters.
The Ensemble gathered young musicians who, during their schooling, took up studies and interpretations of early music in the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque.
Their next album Los primeros siete annos from 1993 was a summary of the material recorded in their early years (1969-1983) and was released for Edi Vox in Barcelona.