Ensemble Tympanon performs dance music, songs, and airs of the distant and recent past.  The group explores various traditions in the Gallic realm from Flemish and Breton to Alsacien and Provencal with bagpipes, accordions, guitar, cittern, mandolin, hammered dulcimer, tabor pipe and drum.  Originally the band included (from l to r)
Steve Schneider, Maggie Sansone, Paul Oorts and Nick Blanton.  Currently the band consists of Paul and Nick with special guests on occasion. 

Nicholas Blanton, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, began playing the hammered dulcimer in 1977 and has also mastered a variety of whistles, including recorders, tinwhistle and galoubet.  Blanton also makes instruments: hammered dulcimers, bowed psalteries, cimbaloms, citterns and the only "Renaissance" banjo.  Blanton has also worked with mime troupes in Romania and puppet shows in Baltimore and is a member of the Compagnie Barbaroque, which performs Baroque and new music in Grignan, France.

Paul Oorts, a native of Belgium, performs on classical and steel string guitars, cittern, mandolin, and musette accordion, and teaches French at Peabody Conservatory of Music.  Oorts specializes in Celtic, Brazilian choro, swing, Flemish, French and American music.  He has recorded with his wife Karen Ashbrook, the group Simple Gifts, with Steve Schneider and numerous other hammered dulcimer artists and contra dance bands.