Meet Archetti

Archetti was founded in 2009 by violinist Carla Moore and viola da gambist John Dornenburg to perform the rich chamber concerto repertory of the baroque era. The collective experience and artistry of Archetti’s members allow them to develop distinctive, dynamic and historically-informed interpretations without a conductor. The ensemble’s size is perfectly suited to the bountiful 8-part-book violin concerti of composers such as Vivaldi, Corelli, Handel and Torelli, yet it is also small enough for the intimacy of Bach’s harpsichord concerti.

Archetti (pronounced “ar-keht’-tee”) means “bows” in Italian and naturally alludes to the dominance of Italian string music in the baroque concerto repertory.

John Dornenburg, violone, is a Bay Area performer, recording artist, and educator. As viola da gamba soloist he has performed in Europe, Turkey, Australia, and New Zealand, and can be heard locally with Music’s Re-creation, Sex Chordæ Consort of Viols, and Magnificat. He has also performed occasionally with the San Francisco Symphony, American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia, the Carmel and Oregon Bach Festivals, and many other groups across the US. He has made over 30 compact discs of solo and chamber music. John holds music diplomas from The Royal Conservatory in The Hague and the Salzburg Mozarteum, where his teachers included Wieland Kuijken and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He teaches the viola da gamba at Stanford University, and is Lecturer Emeritus in music history at CSU, Sacramento.

Cynthia Miller Freivogel, violin, received a BA in musicology at Yale University and an MM in violin performance at the San Francisco Conservatory. A member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Ms. Freivogel is also the concertmaster and leader of the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, and the lead violinist in Brandywine Baroque in Delaware and the second violinist in the Novello Quartet. Ms. Freivogel spends summers playing violin in the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra in Boulder. She has also played with the Tanglewood Music Center Fellowship Orchestra, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, the State Orchestra of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Apollo’s Fire, Portland Baroque, American Russian Young Artist’s Orchestra and Amerus chamber players. Ms. Freivogel studied principally with Camilla Wicks and Marylou Speaker Churchill. She is a certified Suzuki teacher.

After being one of the leading baroque violinists of his generation, violinist Anthony Martin is savoring his retirement playing with the New Esterházy and the Novello Quartets as well as the cross-over group String Circle.  He still plays violin now and again with Philharmonia and with Orchestra of the 18th Century. When he appeared in their first concerts in 1981, both these groups were 3000 miles away from where Mr. Martin lived in Boston. He still teaches the occasional lesson in early violin at Stanford, where as an undergraduate in the 1960s he majored in draft evasion. His wife, Titia, is a Board Certified Music Therapist from the Netherlands. Their three children play horn, harp, and sax, instruments of which their parents have no knowledge or experience.

Carla Moore, described by Strad Magazine as possessing “unerring musicality,” moved to the San Francisco Bay Area from New York City in 1991 when she joined Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. She now serves as one of Philharmonia’s concertmasters and soloists, as well as concertmaster and soloist for Portland Baroque Orchestra (Oregon). In 1989, Carla won First Prize in the 1989 Erwin Bodky Competition for Early Music. She has recorded extensively, including highly praised solo performances as well as chamber music. Carla teaches baroque violin and coaches the Baroque Ensemble at the University of California at Berkeley. She received her Master of Music Degree from Indiana University’s Early Music Institute where she was a student of Stanley Ritchie.

Davitt Moroney is a Professor of Music at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also University Organist and Director of the University Baroque Ensemble. He has made over sixty commercial CDs, especially of music by Bach, Byrd, and various members of the Couperin family. His recordings have been awarded the French “Grand Prix du Disque” (1996), the German “Preis der Deutschen Schallplatenkritik” (2000), and three British “Gramophone Awards” (1986, 1991, 2000). In 1987 he was named Chevalier dans l’Ordre du mérite culturel by Prince Rainier of Monaco and, in 2000, Officier des arts et des lettres by the French government.

Until 1998 cellist, Tanya Tomkins, lived in Holland for 14 years, where she toured and recorded extensively as a chamber musician. She was the first cellist ever to win the international Bodky Competition for Early Music Soloists and has recently recorded all of the Bach Suites. Currently one of Philharmonia and Portland Baroque’s principal cellists, she has performed as soloist with both orchestras. On modern instruments she is a member of the Left Coast Ensemble and appears regularly in summer festivals including Music in the Vineyards Festival and the Moab Chamber Music Festival. She is a member of the Tomkins-Zivian Duo and the Benvenue Fortepiano Trio with violinist, Monica Huggett. Tanya teaches at the American Bach Soloists Summer Academy and San Jose State University.

David Wilson has performed extensively with period instrument ensembles in the United States and Europe. An avid chamber musician, he has played with Baroque Northwest and Magnificat, and he is a founding member of Florilegia, the Galax Quartet, Aurora Baroque, and other ensembles. He has taught baroque violin at Indiana University, where he earned the Doctor of Music degree in Early Music, and he holds degrees in violin from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Georg Muffat on Performance Practice, published by Indiana University Press.

Violinist Jolianne von Einem received her musical training at UCLA and USC, where she studied modern violin with Alex Treger and Alice Schoenfeld.  Concurrently she studied baroque violin with Monica Huggett and began dedicating her career to historical performance practices.  She is a currently member of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Magnificat, and Portland Baroque Orchestra, and has also been featured with the highly acclaimed west-coast groups such as the Allard String Quartet, Archetti Baroque Strings, American Bach Soloists, California Bach Society, Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, Musica Angelica, and the Seattle Baroque Orchestra.  She has traveled to Europe to perform and record with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Hausmusik, and Trio Sonnerie. Recordings include Mendelssohn’s Octet w/Hausmusic (EMI), Early Music of the Netherlands 1700-1800 w/ Trio Sonnerie (Emergo), and Eighteenth Century Music for Lute and Strings w/ Trio Galanterie (Audioquest). For fun she enjoys the family life, old movies, yoga, gardening in Humboldt County, and playing jazz/ bebop with partner Rob Diggins in Cuckoo’s Nest Gypsy Jazz Sextet.

About Magnificat

For twenty years Magnificat has explored the emotionally charged music of the 17^th century, each season bringing together an assembly of internationally recognized musicians to present unique and innovative programs that engage the senses and inspire the imagination. Magnificat has offered audiences the chance to hear many significant works by well-known figures of the 17th century while also uncovering forgotten masterpieces, including many modern premieres. With dramatic flair and sensitivity to historical perspective context, Magnificat imbues each concert with an infectious joy and a delight in musical make-believe. Over the past decade Magnificat has taken a special interest in promoting the works of women composers, undertaking a project to record the complete works of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, devoting entire programs to the music of Barbara Strozzi and Isabella Leonarda and hosting a conference on Women and Music in Seventeenth Century Italy. For its 20th Anniversary Season (2011– 2012,) Magnificat is performing Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers, oratorios by Carissimi including Jephte, a reconstruction of Christmas Vespers from the Electoral Chapel of Saxony in 1664 featuring Schütz’ Weihnachtshistorie, and a selection from Monteverdi’s Madrigals of War & Love. In addition to its annual series, Magnificat has appeared five times on the Berkeley Early Music Festival and numerous times on the San Francisco Early Music Society concert series. In September 2011 Magnificat will be presented at the Bloomington Early Music Festival in a program of selections from Monteverdi’s Madrigals of War & Love. Magnificat has also been presented by Music Before 1800, The Seattle Early Music Guild, The Tropical Baroque Festival, The Carmel Bach Festival, and The Sonoma County Bach Society and by the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music. Magnificat has recorded for Koch International and Musica Omnia.

About The Whole Noyse

The Whole Noyse is celebrating its 25^th year as one of the country’s leading early brass ensembles. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the ensemble plays European instrumental music from the 15th through 17th centuries, performing on a wide range of historical band instruments including recorders, flutes, crumhorns, shawms, slide trumpet, gittern, violin, and viola, but primarily on cornetts, sackbuts, curtal, the instruments that made up the primary professional wind group of the 16th and 17th centuries. In tonight’s performance, Stephen Escher and Alex Ospahl play curved cornetts; Richard Van Hessel and Sandy Stadtfeld play sackbuts, or early trombones; and Herbert Myers plays the curtal, ancestor of the bassoon. The group derives its name from a musical term dating from medieval England, when a group of loud wind instruments was called a “noise.” Later, the word came to refer to sets of wind instruments in general: in 1584, an English town band called the Norwich Waits considered a set of five instruments as “beeying a Whoall noyse.”

In addition to their own concerts, which have been enthusiastically received throughout Europe and North America, the Whole Noyse has collaborated with some of America’s most respected early music ensembles, including Magnificat, The King’s Noyse, The Newberry Consort, and Sex Chordæ Consort of Viols, as well as a number of choirs, including the Vancouver Cantata Singers, Pro Coro Canada, San Francisco Choral Artists, and AVE. Last year, the 400th anniversary of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, The they participated in more than a dozen performances of the work in cities all over the US and Canada, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Vancouver, Calgary, and Honolulu. They participated in a staged performance of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in Edmonton and premiered a composition, “Marina,” written exclusively for them with the San Francisco Choral Artists by local composer Ted Allen. The Whole Noyse has a solo recording, Lo Splendore d’Italia, and can be heard on recordings by Magnificat, the San Francisco Bach Choir, and the Vancouver Cantata Singers. The Vancouver Cantata Singers’ CD Venetian Vespers of 1640 was nominated for a Juno award and won the “Outstanding Choral Award” from the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors.

About Sex Chordæ Consort of Viols

Sex Chordæ Consort of Viols was founded by gambist John Dornenburg for the purpose of performing and recording the rich body of music for viol consort of the 16^th and 17th centuries. The Consort has performed widely in California with presenters including the Berkeley Early Music Festival, San Francisco Early Music Society, San Jose Chamber Music Society, Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, Gualala Arts, and Magnificat. In 1999 they made their European debut at the Tage Alter Musik Festival in Regensburg, Germany. The Consort currently has three highly praised CD recordings released on the Centaur label. The most recent CD features Renaissance Music by Josquin Des Prez and Heinrich Isaac with guest vocalists Scott Whitaker and Susan Rode Morris. The group also has recorded suites from Johann Hermann Schein’s Banchetto musicale of 1617, and Claudio Monteverdi’s Third Book of Madrigals played on viols alone without vocalists. In naming one of their CDs Recording of the Month, Germany’s Alte Musik Aktuell praised their “warm and joyous interpretation… and taut and energetic performance.” In the chamber music of this period the consort of viols occupied a place of honor that in later centuries would be awarded to the string quartet. The repertory for viol consort embraces a wide variety of styles ranging from the chansons, madrigals, and dances of the Renaissance to the fantasias, anthems, consort songs, and suites of the early baroque. Three and sometimes four different sizes of viols create a blended sound that is warmly resonant yet surprisingly transparent. Austria’s Salzburger Nachrichten said of Sex Chordæ’s playing, “…their tones hovered like silver threads throughout the hall, producing nothing less than time travel.”

Annual Holiday Party & Silent Auction

Celebrate the Season & Support SFEMS

YOU ARE INVITED

The SFEMS Annual Holiday Party
& Silent Auction

Pre-Concert Dinner:
The Musical Offering Café & Classical Record Shop  in Berkeley will offer a elegant holiday inspired table-service dinner for SFEMS concert-goers on Saturday, December 17, from 5:30–7:30 p.m., immediately before our Berkeley performance by Magnificat.

Reservations are recommended.
Please call 510-849-0211 for reservations and more information.

 

Post Concert Party & Silent Auction:
SFEMS members and friends are invited to join us for a special holiday party and reception at The Musical Offering Café following the Berkeley concert.

The Musical Offering Café & Classical Record Shop is located at 2430 Bancroft Way, just a block away from First Congregational Church, the special venue for our December concert.

Christmas Card © Natasha Newton

http://theblackbirdsings.typepad.com/

 

Meet Garry Clarke

British violinist and conductor Garry Clarke has recently come to notice as one of the finest of the new generation of interpreters of baroque music. A Time-Out Chicago music critic calls him “an outstanding violinist,” adding “[Clarke] plays with real style and panache,” while the Washington Post praises his playing as “a riveting, cut-to-the-bone performance, every note crackling with purpose and electricity.” As director of Baroque Band, Chicago’s period-instrument orchestra, Clarke has assembled a “stylish and exciting period-instrument group” (Chicago Tribune) which gave “a tremendous debut” in May 2007 with “an abundance of style, a crisp esprit de corps, and a palpable affection for it’s repertoire” (Chicago Tribune).

In the UK, as Artistic Director of The 18th Century Concert Orchestra (2001–2006), he was praised by the Oxford Times as “one of the finest exponents of baroque music in the country.” Clarke has performed, recorded, and broadcast with The Academy of Ancient Music, The Sixteen, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Kings Consort, The Hanover Band, and the Scholars, working with musicians including Christopher Hogwood, John Elliot Gardener, Harry Christophers, Andrew Manze, Sir Charles Mackaras, Rene Jacobs, Anthony Halstead, and Robert King. Clarke was also a member of the European Baroque Orchestra under the direction of Ton Koopman, and has performed, recorded, and toured with William Christie and the French ensemble Les Arts Florissants.

Since moving to the United States in 2004, Mr. Clarke has concentrated on conducting, chamber music, and solo engagements, working in a duo with American harpsichordist Michelle Roy and serving as principal conductor of the Garth Newel Music Festival in Virginia in 2005 and 2006. Other American ensembles with which Clarke has performed include the Washington Bach Consort, Opera Lafayette, The National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, and The Orchestra of the 17th Century in Washington, D.C.; Ars Antigua and the Callipygian Players in Chicago, and New Trinity Baroque in Atlanta. He is also a member of the early music faculty of the Music Institute of Chicago and teaches at Roosevelt University, Chicago.

Clarke graduated from the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied with Catherine Mackintosh, concertmaster and soloist of the Academy of Ancient Music and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and founding member of the Purcell Quartet. He also studied with the late Michela Comberti of the English Concert and the Salomon Quartet, and he has performed in masterclasses with Monica Huggett, Marie Leonhardt, Lucy Van Daal, and Sigiswald Kuijken.

About Baroque Band

Founded in 2007 by British baroque violinist Garry Clarke, Baroque Band has rapidly established itself as a leading member of Chicago’s musical community. As Chicago’s period instrument orchestra, the Band has been consistently hailed by critics and audiences and has gained a reputation as one of the most exciting period instrument ensembles in the United States. In his year-end round up in the Chicago Tribune, music critic John von Rhein singled out Baroque Band as one of the top ten most important happenings on Chicago’s classical music scene of the entire decade (2009).

Now in its fourth season, Baroque Band has already given nearly 100 performances in Chicago and throughout the Midwest and is regularly heard on the airwaves, broadcasting from the studios of 98.7 WFMT Radio. In the summer of 2008, Baroque Band was appointed WFMT’s first-ever Resident Ensemble and continues in that role today.

In Baroque Band’s first three seasons, the orchestra presented each of its four subscription programs in three Chicago-area locations: downtown at Chicago’s Symphony Center, home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO); on the City’s north side at The Music Institute of Chicago in Evanston, and on the south side in Hyde Park, home of the University of Chicago. In 2009, to commemorate the 250th year since Handel’s death, Baroque Band added to its regular concert series three performances of Handel’s rarely heard “Dublin” Messiah— the original version of his masterpiece that was given at its premiere performance in Dublin in 1742. These performances were chosen by NewCity, alongside concerts by Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti with the CSO, as one of the top five classical concerts of 2009. In April 2010, Baroque Band was featured as one of the principal performing ensembles and partners in the first-ever Chicago Early Music Festival, organized by the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Also, in April 2010 the Band began a three-year collaboration with Chicago Opera Theater to perform a trilogy of Medea operas starting with a production of Cavalli’s Giasone. The Wall Street Journal praised the orchestra, saying “The best musical work came from the excellent nine-member period instrument orchestra.”

Writing of a performance at the beginning of last year, Chicago Classical Review said, “Last week would have marked the tercentennial of Pergolesi’s birth, and Garry Clarke and his Baroque Band saw fit to celebrate the occasion with a trio of concerts. If there was a lesson to be learned, it’s that this talented ensemble shouldn’t wait for another anniversary to bring out this composer’s vibrant and provocative music. This was period-instrument playing at its finest.”

Following Baroque Band’s highly acclaimed Ravinia Festival debut in 2009, the orchestra returned in August 2010 to this prestigious festival. Other performances by Baroque Band have included those at the Madison Early Music Festival, American Bach Society Conference, the International Viola d’amore Society, Dame Myra Hess Concert Series, City of Chicago Sunday Salon series, Chicago Latino Music Festival, Purdue University, Grinnell College, the Birmingham Sister Cities, and the British American Business Council 2009 Conference.

February 2010 saw the release of Baroque Band’s first CD. Recorded by Chicago’s Grammy Award-winning Cedille Records and distributed by Naxos International, the recording of Biber’s Mensa Sonora is already meeting with international acclaim. Classics Today called it “A fine disc that all fans of Baroque music will want to consider.” Fanfare magazine called it “An excellent, urgently recommended debut disc.”

During Baroque Band’s first three seasons, the orchestra welcomed international guest soloists including former Chicago Symphony Orchestra principal oboist, Alex Klein; baroque violinist and director of the newly founded Juilliard historical performance practice program, Monica Huggett; mezzo-soprano Jennifer Lane; violinist Rachel Barton Pine; soprano Jennifer Ellis; and French bassoonist Marc Vallon. For its 2010–11 season, Baroque Band welcomed international conductor Harry Bicket, director of the UK-based English Concert, who directed the orchestra’s program “Heavenly Angel,” which also featured the renowned English soprano Lucy Crowe. As well as performing with the orchestra, these artists offered educational classes for students as part of Baroque Band’s International Master Class Series, giving opportunities to the next generation of period instrumentalists to work with these celebrated musicians.

Baroque Band’s fourth season, entitled “Angels and Demons,” opened in October 2010 with “Hells Angels”—music of Locatelli and Tartini, and continued with: “Charlie’s Angels”—music from the court of Charles II; “Heavenly Angel” with Bicket and Crowe; and Handel’s La Resurrezione—Lucifer and the Angel! Other season highlights included participation in the 2011 Chicago Early Music Festival and continued its collaboration with Chicago

Opera Theater in performances of Charpentier’s Médée, as well as a return for a third visit to the early music series at Byron Colby Barn. Additionally, Baroque Band presented a series of three chamber concerts in Ganz Hall at Roosevelt University and traveled to Grinnell College for a series of concerts and workshops.

Sophie Larivière

Sophie Larivière is a member of Ensemble Caprice and has been its Artistic Co-Director since 1997. In this capacity, she helps to enrich the creative direction of the ensemble in its quest for musical discoveries that blend virtuosity with expressivity. With Ensemble Caprice, Ms. Larivière has appeared in numerous concerts, in particular in Israel (Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean Arts Festival), Europe (Vienna, Berlin, and Stuttgart), the United States (Chicago, Los Angeles and the Boston Early Music Festival) and Canada (Edmonton, Grande Prairie and a Debut Atlantic tour). An eloquent performer, Ms. Larivière is regularly invited to appear with early music ensembles, including Arion, the Opéra de Montréal, Le Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, La Nouvele Sinfonie, the Theatre of Early Music, Rebel (New York), Les Violons du Roy (Quebec), the New York Collegium Musicum and Le Concert Spirituel (Paris). Ms. Larivière has made recordings on the Analekta, Virgin Classics, Atma Classique, Antes Edition and Interdisc labels.

Matthias Maute

Matthias Maute has achieved an international reputation as one of the finest recorder and baroque flute players of his generation, as a composer and as director. His solo career has soared since winning First Prize in the soloist category at the renowned Early Music Competition in Bruges, Belgium in 1990. He made his debut at Lincoln Center in New York in December 2008. In 2003 and 2005, he was the featured recorder soloist at the Boston Early Music Festival. Mr. Maute is also esteemed for his artistic direction of Ensemble Caprice, for whom he produces ingenious and fascinating programs. With this ensemble he regularly appears at major festivals world wide. In Canada he has performed at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, Festival international du Domaine Forget and Elora Festival among others. To these achievements Mr. Maute has added choir and orchestra direction, to which he has dedicated a large portion of his time in the past several years. In this regard he has focused more and more on large-scale projects, directing among others such works as Bach’s B Minor Mass, G.F. Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks and J.D. Zelenka’s Miserere. Under his direction Ensemble Caprice was awarded the prestigious 2009 JUNO Award for Best Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral performance for its CD Gloria! Vivaldi’s Angels on the Analekta label. Matthias Maute’s compositions hold an important place in the world of contemporary recorder music and are published by Breitkopf & Härtel, Amadeus, Moeck and Carus. Mr. Maute has made some twenty recordings on the Analekta, Vanguard Classics, Bella Musica, Dorian, Bridge and Atma Classique labels. He is a professor at McGill University in Montreal.

About Ensemble Caprice

For the past 20 years, Ensemble Caprice has received national and international acclaim for their performances of early music. Under the artistic direction of Matthias Maute and Sophie Larivière, the ensemble gives concerts in Europe and is regularly invited to participate in such early music festivals as those in London, England; Bruges, Belgium; Utrecht, Netherlands; as well as in Germany at the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, the Early Music Festival in Regensburg, the Händel Festival in Halle and the Festival in Stockstadt. On this continent, Caprice has given concerts in New York City at the Frick Collection and the Miller Theatre, and also at the Boston Early Music Festival and in Washington at the Library of Congress. In Canada, Ensemble Caprice is invited to perform at musical events such as the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the Elora Festival and the Domaine Forget’s International Festival. The ensemble also has toured in Israel and Taiwan.

In November 2009, The New York Times featured them in a lengthy article, praising them as “imaginative, even powerful,” and called their playing “top-flight.” Ensemble Caprice’s most recent CDs on the Analekta label all have been highly acclaimed: Gloria! Vivaldi’s Angels won Canada’s prestigious 2009 JUNO award, Telemann and the Gypsies was recommended by Gramophone, Vivaldi and the Baroque Gypsies had two nominations in 2009 for Echo Klassik awards in Germany. The Ensemble also has won three Opus Awards from the Conseil québécois de la musique, notably Performer of the Year (2010), and was awarded two prizes by the Montreal Arts Council: the Audience Appreciation Prize (2008-2009) and Finalist (2009) of the Grand Prix de Montréal.