Daniel Hutchings, tenor
A recent arrival in Colorado, Daniel Hutchings has been a fixture of the San Francisco Bay Area music scene for nearly a decade. He is a regular performer with American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque, and Magnificat, and has recently appeared as a soloist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion, and B Minor Mass, Monteverdi’s Vespers, and various works by Vivaldi, Charpentier, and others. He has provided many performances of the Bach Cantatas, especially with the San Francisco Bach Choir. He performed for five years at the Carmel Bach Festival, and was one of its four 2003 Virginia Best Adams Fellows.
The San Francisco Classical Voice says, “tenor Dan Hutchings…performed with great sensitivity. Hutchings’ high clarion tenor is perfect for Bach’s music.” The Denver Post says “Hutchings commanded rapt attention in his beautifully-phrased performance…with extraordinary breath control and fine-tuned interpretation, he delivered this piece… with aplomb.”
Dan also performs recitals with pianist Rachael Hutchings, his wife. He is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory under the instruction of Richard Miller.
Eric Brenner, countertenor
American soprano/countertenor Eric S. Brenner’s voice has been described as “dazzling,” “startlingly true,” and “arrestingly beautiful.” A Long Island, New York native, Eric began his training on violin and viola before beginning to sing — as a tenor — in high school. Several years later, he discovered his soprano/countertenor voice, and all of the remarkable repertoire (both very old, and very new) available to him.
Recent projects include Eric’s debut as SOPRANO soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Cathedral of St. John’s, Albuquerque, NM; Beast in Hannah Lash’s chamber opera, Blood Rose, as part of New York City Opera’s VOX series at Le Poisson Rouge, NYC; Arbate in Mozart’s Mitridate with Little Opera Theatre of New York; various roles in Purcell’s Fairy Queen with Big Apple Baroque; soloist in Copland’s In the Beginning and Mozart’s Laudate Dominum with the choirs of University of Honolulu, Manoa; alto soloist in Messiah & soprano soloist in Purcell’s Evening Hymn with the St. Thomas choir in New York; featured work on 2011 Guggenheim Fellow Toby Twining’s new CD, EURYDICE & NYC area performances with Toby Twining Music; D.A.V.E. in Kamala Sankaram’s chamber opera, Miranda, NYC; Erica/Valkyrie/Zombie in Rob Reese’s Survivor: Vietnam, with Amnesia Wars, NY; Gramma AND Grampa in Rachel Peters’ and Royce Vavrek’s chamber opera, Prairie Dogs.
Eric is also writing music for an untitled play by Rob Reese and is hard at work on his second novel. He is represented in the US by Wade Artist Management.
Amanda Balestrieri, soprano
Soprano Amanda Balestrieri was born and educated in England, and brings an impressive list of credits from both sides of the Atlantic. She won an Open Scholarship and the William Ackroyd Foundation Scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford University, where she received her MA degree in German and French. She also received diplomas from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in voice, piano (Lloyd Hartley Memorial Prize), and violin. She studied privately with Marjorie Thomas of the Royal Academy of Music in London and spent a year in Milan, Italy, where she studied with Maria Luisa Cioni. She appeared as a soloist in Oxford and London and toured in Europe with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner, before moving to the United States.
Her U.S. credits include several appearances with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, a performance at the 92nd Street Y in New York, and a broadcast on National Public Radio’s Performance Today. She has sung under the baton of Neville Marriner, Christopher Hogwood, Leonard Slatkin, and Peter Phillips. The Washington Post has praised her “great intelligence and musicality” and her “deep emotional involvement, flawless style and precise diction” and described her voice as “unusually versatile,” “dazzling,” and “resplendent.” The New York Times praised the “clarity and shapeliness” of her voice, The Boston Globe referred to her singing as a “first-class vocal tournament.” The Albuqerque Journal praised her “radiant intelligence” and “luminous warmth.” The Santa Fe New Mexican described her singing as “compelling,” and the Times Union of Saratoga, New York, wrote: “Balestrieri’s voice was gorgeous, marked by the kind of breath control and fluidity that make for an ideal baroque singer…beautifully sung, with an almost sensual feel.”
Much in demand for her skills in baroque repertoire, Ms. Balestrieri received critical acclaim for her performances of Messiah with the Santa Fe Pro Musica and in New York with the famed St. Thomas Choir, for which she was praised in The New York Times, and for her appearance at the Maryland Handel Festival. Other notable performances have been several recitals at the Phillips Collection, most recently in 2010, Rameau’s opera Pigmalion with renowned French tenor Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, Bach’s Easter Oratorio with the Washington Bach Consort, Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the Santa Fe Pro Musica. Ms. Balestrieri has also appeared in numerous performances of French baroque repertoire with Opera Lafayette in Washington DC, and she was featured in a critically-acclaimed eighteenth-century Zarzuela with the New York Collegium and conductor Eduardo Lopez Banzo in New York and Boston. She performed Bach’s B Minor Mass with the New York Collegium and St. Thomas Choir, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, Messiah and St. John Passion at the Washington National Cathedral, Honegger’s King David, and Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light with Anonymous Four at the George Mason Center for the Performing Arts.
Ms. Balestrieri appeared with the National Symphony and Leonard Slatkin at the reopening of the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, performed Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock on the Fortas Chamber Series in the Terrace Theater, and joined maestro Christopher Hogwood in a performance of Mozart’s Davide Penitente with the NSO at the Kennedy Center Mozart Festival. She made her New York debut with Concert Royal at Merkin and Florence Gould Halls, appearing as “La Paix” in Charpentier’s Les Arts Florissants with the New York Baroque Dance Company in New York, Princeton, and Lancaster Pennsylvania, and performed a program of Purcell at the Lincoln Center with the Four Nations Ensemble. Ms. Balestrieri has been a frequent guest of the Folger Consort, best known for her portrayal of Marjorie Gubbins in the baroque farce, The Dragon of Wantley, and has recorded with the American Bach Soloists for the Koch label, and with Ensemble Five/One and the Folger Consort. In 1999 she was nominated for a “Wammie” (awards given by the Washington Area Music Association) in the Best Classical Vocalist category.
Ms. Balestrier’s Denver area debut in October 2010 was described as “luminous” and “technically accomplished” by The Denver Post. Last season’s performances in the Denver area include Bach’s Non sa che sia dolore with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado (BCOC), Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 with the Monteverdi Soloists, and programs of Purcell songs and New World baroque repertoire with BCOC. In addition to her appearances with the Boulder Bach Festival, the 2011-12 season features Ms. Balestrieri with The Pearl Ensemble in Denver, in recital for Early Music Colorado, with a new baroque ensemble in Boulder, and with BCOC in John Blowe’s Venus and Adonis.
Bruce Barrie, trumpet
Bruce Barrie is a noted performer on modern and historical brasses, including the piccolo trumpet, keyed bugle, saxhorn, natural trumpet and cornetto. In addition to sixteen recordings with the Chestnut Brass Company, Dr. Barrie is solo natural trumpet on the critically acclaimed Buxtehude Project (PGM), and is solo trumpet on the widely praised Naxos recording of the chamber music of George Antheil. He has been a soloist with the Boulder Bach Festival, Philadelphia Classical Orchestra, Concerto Soloists and the Princeton Bach Festival. He has performed with the Colorado Symphony, the Mont Alto Silent Movie Orchestra, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra as well as Boulder Brass and Denver Brass. Dr. Barrie has taught at Temple University in Philadelphia and Westchester University. A graduate of the University of Colorado, Westchester University and the Philadelphia Musical Academy, Dr. Barrie had studied with Frank Kaderabek, Samuel Krauss, Terry Sawchuk and James Burke. Dr. Barrie is a founding member of the Chestnut Brass Company, which started in Philadelphia in 1977.
Joe Damon Chappel, bass
JOE DAMON CHAPPEL, a native of Nashville, is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. At Eastman, he was a William Warfield Scholar and had many solo credits with the Eastman Chorale and the Eastman Opera Theater. His career has demonstrated proficiency in a wide range of musical genres, from early music to opera and musical theater. He has performed with groups such as Bachworks, NY Collegium, Early Music New York, Les Gouts-Reunis, Vox Vocal Ensemble and The Tiffany Consort (founding member).
He was hailed by the New York Times as a “warm bass anchor…” and after his first Verdi Requiem, The State of Columbia, SC wrote “Chappel’s ‘Mors Stupebit’ kept the audience hanging on every breathy syllable, filling the hall with his strength even in the softest moments.” He was a member of the Carolina Chamber Chorale (C3) at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC and was bass soloist in world premieres by several American composers, including Dan Locklair and Anthony Davis. In October 2004, Mr. Chappel sang his first Verdi Requiem with the South Carolina Philharmonic, Nicholas Smith, conductor. Subsequently, he and Maestro Smith have worked on several projects, including a Verdi Requiem at the Bollington Festival (UK), the Palmetto Opera’s production of Marriage of Figaro (as Figaro), and a return to the South Carolina Philharmonic as soloist in Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast.
A champion of music new and/or rarely heard, Mr. Chappel is frequently heard as a soloist in world premieres of newly written or newly discovered works. In February 2007, he made his Lincoln Center debut as bass soloist in the world premiere of South Carolina composer Andrew Fowler’s Directions for Singing. In 2006, he gave the New World premiere of a recently unearthed Kuhnau mass for solo bass and strings, and in 2002 Mr. Chappel sang the role of the Pilot in the world premiere of Anthony Davis’ Restless Mourning, written in the wake of the events of 9/11/01. In February 2008, Mr. Chappel gave the world premiere performance of Joelle Wallach’s Firefighter’s Prayer at Powell Hall as part of the Saint Louis Symphony’s “On Stage at Powell” recital series.
On the opera stage, Mr. Chappel has performed the roles of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), Mustafa (L’Italiana in Algieri), Frere Laurent (Romeo et Juliette), Mr. Gobineau (The Medium), Giove (La Calisto), Angelotti (Tosca), Sparafucile and Monterone (Rigoletto). He has participated in productions by One World Symphony, Dicapo Opera, the American Singers’ Opera Project, New Hampshire Opera, Connecticut Grand Opera, the Bollington Festival (UK), Opera at Eau Claire, and Palmetto Opera. A specialist in the sacred cantatas and Passions of Bach, he has also performed Bach’s secular cantatas, including Phoebus und Pan, the Coffee and Peasant Cantatas at the lunchtime concert series of Trinity Church Wall Street. A believer in the power of educational outreach, Mr. Chappel has performed roles in A Band of Angels and The Orphan Singer, two children’s musicals created by the New York City based company, Making Books Sing, and most recently as Noye in the Eau Claire High School (SC) production of Noye’s Fludde. He has been heard in St. Louis, New York, Lubbock, Myrtle Beach, and Rochester (NY) in productions that include La Traviata (Verdi), St. Matthew Passion (Bach), Christ lag in Todesbanden (Bach) and Requiem (Durufle). His teachers include Tracy Prentice, Carol Webber, and Gary Kendall.
Michael Unger, organ
Canadian-born organist and harpsichordist Michael Unger currently resides in Rochester, New York. A multiple-award winning performer, he appears in recital as a soloist and chamber musician in North America, Europe and Japan. In 2008, he was awarded First Prize and the Yoshida Minoru Memorial Award in the Sixth International Organ Competition Musashino-Tokyo, Japan. Earlier that same year, he won both First and Audience Prizes in the American Guild of Organists’ National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance (NYACOP), and in 2009, he was awarded Second Prize and Audience Award in the Eighth International Schnitger Organ Competition on the historic organs of Alkmaar, the Netherlands. Other awards include two of Canada’s top scholarships for the study of organ and church music, the Lilian Forsyth and Godfrey Hewitt Memorial Scholarships, both awarded in Ottawa in 2007. His debut solo compact disc recordings on the Naxos and Pro Organo lables have received favorable international reviews, and his performances have been broadcast on radio in the United States, Canada and Germany.
Unger completed masters’ degrees in both organ and harpsichord at the Eastman School of Music as a student and teaching assistant of David Higgs and William Porter. In 2007, he was awarded Eastman’s Jerald C. Graue Musicology Fellowship, and at present he is completing doctoral studies. He completed undergraduate studies at the University of Western Ontario, where he was a graduating recipient of the University Gold Medal. Former teachers include Ethel Briggs, Sandra Mangsen, Joel Speerstra and the late Larry Cortner, in addition to European summer academies specializing in historical keyboard performance. He is a published composer, active teacher, and has worked as the Director of Music of Rochester’s Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word since October 2009.
Ross Snyder, violin
An avid chamber musician, Ross Snyder is a founding member of the Tesla Quartet, which formed at the Juilliard School in 2008 and is currently the Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado-Boulder. With the quartet he has held fellowships at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Center for Advanced Quartet Studies at the Aspen Music Festival and School. He began studying chamber music with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at age twelve, and at age sixteen he and three of his colleagues formed the Callisto String Quartet. For three years the CSQ performed outreach concerts at various venues in Pittsburgh. Ross has also studied with members of such world-renowned ensembles as the Artis, Borromeo, Guarneri, Juilliard, Kronos, Leipzig, Miró, St. Lawrence, Takács, Tokyo and Vermeer string quartets. In 2011 Ross was appointed Principal Violin of the Boulder Bach Festival.
In March, 2008, Ross won Second Prize in the Hudson Valley Philharmonic String Competition. He is also a first prize winner of the Dorothy J. Bales ’41 Violin Competition at the New England Conservatory and was awarded the use of a violin by Jean Baptiste Vuillaume. In 2007 Ross was a finalist in the NEC String Concerto Competition. Other competitions include participation in the Concours International de Violon Jacques Thibaud in Paris, France.
Ross’s extensive orchestral experience began age 10, when he joined various youth orchestras in the Pittsburgh area. Later orchestral projects include performances at Heinz Hall with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He spent the summer of 2008 serving as an assistant concertmaster of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland and also participated in the VFO’s 2008 European tour to Milan, Luzern, Berlin, and Madrid. During his studies at Juilliard he served as one of the leaders of the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra. Ross has performed as concertmaster at Jordan Hall with the New England Conservatory Symphony and Sinfonietta Orchestras, and as a member of the NEC Philharmonia Orchestra. He has also been a member of the Aspen Chamber Symphony, and in the summer of 2008 he toured China with the Juilliard Orchestra.
Currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Ross received his Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Joel Smirnoff. He received his undergraduate degree from the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he studied with Malcolm Lowe.
Rick Erickson, harpsichord and organ
Richard (Rick) Erickson began his tenure as Music Director for the Boulder Bach Festival in July 2011.
In addition to his duties with the Boulder Bach Festival, Mr. Erickson serves as Cantor and Organist at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in New York City, where he also directs the renowned Bach Vespers series. In this post, he presents over 20 cantatas and other major Bach works each season with the all-professional Bach Choir and Bach Players on period instruments. Since his appointment in 1992, he has led the performance of over 100 cantatas and the major works of Bach. During the past ten seasons, Erickson has more than doubled the number of performance offerings of Bach Vespers series. The New York Times in 2008 called Holy Trinity “New York’s temple to Bach.” New York Newsday refers to Holy Trinity as “the place for bacchanalians!”
In addition to Holy Trinity, Erickson has served as musician at Incarnate Word Lutheran Church in Rochester, NY, where he founded the “Second Sundays Plus” series. He has also served as interim musician at Marble Collegiate Church in NYC. He has performed as organist, conductor, clinician, and at conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. He served the AGO as Regional Councilor, is a founding member of ALCM, and is an Associate in Ministry in the ELCA.
He taught improvisation and church music at the Eastman School of Music for four years, where he continues to teach in the summer Organ Improv Festival. In 1994 he founded BachWorks, NYC. He has conducted “Bach events” in Houston, Seattle, Tulsa, and Minneapolis. Equally renowned as an organist, Erickson has been featured in concerts throughout the USA and Europe. He has performed two complete cycles of Bach’s organ works in New York City and in Rochester, NY and is currently in the third cycle.
A native of Superior, Wisconsin, Erickson began organ study at the age of fourteen following in his mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps. His father’s favorite comment about music is: “If you have Bach, you have enough.” He holds a Bachelor Degree in Music and German from the University of Wisconsin, Superior, where he has been honored as “Distinguished Alumnus” and cited as “one of the 100 distinguished graduates” in the school’s 100th anniversary year.
Erickson earned a Master Degree in Organ Performance and Literature and is recipient of a Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. He studied organ with David Craighead, Lucile Hammill Webb, and Russell Saunders, improvisation with Gerre Hancock, accompanying with Robert Spillman, and conducting with Robert DeCormier and David Effron.
He served as co-editor for the choral edition of Bach for All Seasons, and has recorded for Augsburg Fortress, Naxos and JAV, among others. He is featured in a new Buxtehude recording scheduled for release by Deux-Elles in 2011. His choral arrangements are published by Augsburg Fortress and Kjos Publishers, and he appeared in the acclaimed film 13 Conversations About One Thing. In 2006 he arranged and directed music for the play The Orphan Singer (off-Broadway play/opera about Vivaldi), produced by Making Books Sing and published by Boosey and Hawkes.
Matthew Dane, viola
Violist Matthew Dane enjoys a career of both teaching and playing. Living in Boulder, Colorado, he is a member of both the Boulder Piano Quartet and the newly-formed Lefthand Canyon Trio. As a chamber collaborator, he has performed with the Dorian Wind Quintet, Houston-based CONTEXT, Athelas Ensemble (Denmark), the Fischer Duo, and members of the Brentano Quartet, among others. With Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia he performed Boulez’ monumental Le Marteau Sans Maitre. Chamber music festival appearances include OK Mozart, Portland (Maine), Chamber Music Quad Cities (Iowa), Ruby Mountains (Nevada), Land’s End (Calgary), and Tanglewood.
He and his wife Christina Jennings founded Brightmusic, a chamber music series in Oklahoma City. Currently playing in titled chairs of both the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (ROCO) and the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Dane has also been a featured soloist with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, St. Martin’s Chamber Choir, and ROCO. With the Boulder Piano Quartet and Jon Manasse he recorded quintets of Lowell Liebermann for Koch. His chamber performances have been broadcast on NPR’s Performance Today and BBC’s Channel 3. Teaching has long been a passion. Dane earned tenure as a Professor of Viola at the University of Oklahoma, and more recently has served on the faculties of Metro State College and the University of Colorado. He actively maintains a private teaching studio in Boulder. In 2011 Dane will take a year away from the Texas Music Festival to teach at Greenwood Music Camp. He is inspired to teach by his own principal teachers: Philipp Naegele, Hatto Beyerle, Wayne Brooks, Karen Ritscher, and Martha Katz. Among violists nationally and internationally, Dane is proud to be a community organizer. He serves on the Board of the American Viola Society (AVS) and its local chapter in the Rockies. His Doctoral Document, which examines the teaching influence of Karen Tuttle, enjoys wide circulation among amateur and professional violists nationwide.
Erika Eckert, viola
Erika Eckert is currently Associate Professor of Viola at the University of Colorado at Boulder and was a member of the faculty at the Brevard Music Center in 2011. She has also served on the faculties of The Cleveland Institute of Music, Baldwin Wallace College, and the Chautauqua Institution in New York. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music as a student of Heidi Castleman. As co-founder and former violist of the Cavani String Quartet, Ms. Eckert performed on major concert series worldwide and garnered an impressive list of awards and prizes, including first prizes at both the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Competition and the Cleveland Quartet Competition.
Performing engagements have included the El Paso Pro Musica International Chamber Music Festival, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, the Garth Newell Music Festival, Vail Bravo!, Music in the Mountains Chamber Music Festival, the Sitka Summer Music Festival Autumn Classics, Niagara International Chamber Music Festival, and Fontana Chamber Arts. Ms. Eckert has also performed chamber music recitals at the International French Horn, Flute and Double-Reed Conventions and solo performances at the SEAMUS and ICMC electronic music national and international conferences.
Teaching engagements have included presenting viola and chamber music pedagogy sessions, and coordinating the chamber music program at the American String Teachers Association International Workshops in Brisbane, Australia and Stavanger, Norway; serving on the faculties of the Perlman Music Program, The Quartet Program, and the Takacs String Quartet Seminar; and coaching chamber music at the Suzuki Association of the Americas, Inc. Ninth Conference, the International School for Musical Arts, the Chamber Music Connection, the Interlochen Arts Academy, the Chamber Music Wyoming Young Artist Program, the Britt Institute Chamber Strings, and the Madeline Island Music Camp Adult Chamber Music Program. Ms. Eckert serves on the board of the Rocky Mountain Viola Society and for the past three years has served as an adjudicator for the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (NFAA) Arts Recognition and Talent Search, the exclusive nominating agency for the Presidential Scholars in the Arts, and appeared in their Academy Nominated Documentary, Rehearsing a Dream.
Zachary Carrettin, concertmaster/violin
Zachary Carrettin has performed as violin soloist and conductor in twenty five countries on four continents, and has established a reputation for presenting dynamic and diverse programs which feature repertory from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. In the realm of baroque, classic and romantic period instruments, he has served as concertmaster and concerto soloist with acclaimed chamber orchestras such as the American Bach Soloists in San Francisco, Musica Angelica in Los Angeles, Camerata Pacifica in Santa Barbara, Houston’s Ars Lyrica and the Holy Trinity Bach Vespers Orchestra in New York. He has toured and recorded with New World baroque music group, El Mundo, and toured the California mission churches with the world-renowned choir Chanticleer.
Known for his expressive approach to the baroque violin, the New York Times wrote, “Carrettin played freely, as though improvised.” He served as Concertmaster for the U.S. premiere of Vivaldi’s recently rediscovered opera, Motezuma, in collaboration with Long Beach Opera, California. He has performed manuscript research in Italian archives on numerous occasions in collaboration with violinist Kenneth Goldsmith, focusing on the chamber music of Venetian composer, Antonio Capuzzi (1755-1818). In addition to a vast experience with Italian baroque music, Mr. Carrettin has performed in one hundred cities with world music icon, Yanni, and on four continents with aerial dance troupe, Project Bandaloop. His own compositions have been heard at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the historic Shubert Theatre in Boston, the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, and in Sao Paulo, Brazil, presented by the Bachiana Chamber Orchestra. In collaboration with Project Bandaloop, Carrettin performed his solo violin works in a private concert for the Sultan and Royal Family of Oman, in Muscat. Mr. Carrettin holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in violin performance from Rice University Shepherd School of Music, where he was a student of Kenneth Goldsmith and Sergiu Luca. He holds a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Performance Diploma in conducting from the National University of Music, Bucharest, Romania. He teaches violin at the University of St. Thomas Music Preparatory School in Houston, Texas, where he is a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Rice University Shepherd School of Music.
Ann Marie Morgan, viola da gamba/cello
Baroque cellist and violist da gamba Ann Marie Morgan is active internationally as a soloist, chamber musician and recording artist. A frequent guest with major orchestras and choral societies she has been viola da gamba soloist in the Bach St. Matthew and St. John Passions with the Philadelphia and the Minnesota Orchestras, under the direction of Helmuth Rilling. Her expertise on the viol has been called for at long-standing Bach Festivals in Oregon and Bethlehem as well as with the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom and in Europe at the Prague Spring Festival. She has toured as soloist with Les Violons du Roy (Bernard Labadie) and continues to be in demand throughout North America.
Baltimore Sun reviewer Tim Smith praised Morgan for her “beguiling musicality” on cello piccolo in performing the Bach 6th Suite in D. During her tenure at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore she performed on Baroque cello with ensembles up and down the eastern seaboard from New York City to North Carolina and toured with ground-breaking ensemble BIMBETTA. In addition to concerts and recordings with her own ensemble, Olde Friends, she performed with many other ensembles including the Washington Bach Consort, Tempesta di Mare, Ensemble Oubache (Indiana) and the Dallas Bach Society. In October of 2010 she joined Grammy-nominated flutist Joshua Smith, harpsichordist Jory Vinikour and baroque violinist Allison Edberg in a recording of the Bach Flute Sonatas with Continuo and the Sonata from the Musical Offering (available on the Delos label).
In live performance Ms. Morgan has been characterized as “a consummate player of this rare instrument (viol), played to perfection” (The Record - Kitchener, Ontario). It has been noted that her sound comes “straight from heaven” (H&B Recordings Direct) and that she “sings beautifully with her instrument and expresses the rustic symmetry of the line with great economy and understatement” (Classical Disc Digest). She can be heard on two dozen recordings, many of those as a cellist with Apollo’s Fire: the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra. Her solo viola da gamba CD, offering works by French and English composers entitled “Among Rosebuds”, was featured for broadcast on the syndicated show “Harmonia.”
As a teacher Ms. Morgan has served on the Early Music Faculties of the Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Peabody Institute of the John’s Hopkins University and the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. She gives master classes at universities across the country and this season marks her first at the Rocky Mountain Center for Musical Arts, initiating offerings in Early Music. Ms. Morgan teaches privately and coaches both vocal and instrumental period ensembles in the Denver/Boulder area including the Regis University Collegium and the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado.
Boulder Bach Festival Chorus
The Boulder Bach Festival Chorus had its start in the early 1980s as the St. Cecilia Singers. Its evolution happened when St. Cecilia members wished to expand their scope of performance and took on the role of chorus for the newly formed Bach Festival. For over 25 years now, the BBF Chorus has been a major contributor both to the success of the Festival and to the vital cultural scene of the Denver-Boulder region. The chorus comprises around sixty volunteer singers from all walks of life, who share a love for the works of J. S. Bach and the desire to perform them meaningfully. To create the consistently high quality that our audience expects is no small feat. Much of the success is owed, of course, to effective direction and leadership, but a lion’s share also goes to those who, in a mere two and a half months of rehearsal, take that direction and make it real for an audience. Please direct any inquiries about joining this respected group to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Christina Jennings, flute
Flutist Christina Jennings is praised for virtuoso technique, rich tone and command of a wide range of literature featuring works from Bach to Zwilich. The first flutist in 15 years to win the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, other honors include First Prize at the Houston Symphony Ima Hogg Competition and the William C. Byrd Competition. In 2007 Musical America listed her as “an artist to watch.”
Active as a concerto soloist, Ms. Jennings has appeared with the Utah and Houston Symphonies, Orchestra 2001, Park Avenue Chamber Orchestra, Flint Symphony, Spokane Symphony, Orchestra de Camera (Mexico) and Pro Musica (UK). Recent chamber music festivals include Strings in the Mountains (CO), Cascade Head (OR), OK Mozart (OK), Chamber Music Quad Cities (IA) and the Bowdoin International Festival (ME).
As broad-gauged in her musical pursuits as she is in her repertoire choices, Ms. Jennings is Principal Flute with the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (Houston), collaborates with pianist Lura Johnson, and enjoys mixing disciplines through projects with David Parsons Dance Companies and members of Pilobolus. In addition, she is the founder of Oklahoma City’s Brightmusic Series. Chamber music partners have included So Percussion, the Brentano and Takacs Quartets, soprano Lucy Shelton, and cellist Colin Carr.
In great demand as a teacher, Ms. Jennings is Assistant Professor of Flute at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and on the summer faculty of the Texas Music Festival. In recent seasons, she has presented master classes at The Juilliard School, Rice University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Peabody Institute, the Longy School of Music, and the flute associations of Seattle, Utah, and Texas. She received her Bachelor and Master’s degrees at The Juilliard School, and her principal teachers include Carol Wincenc, Leone Buyse, George Pope, and Jeanne Baxtresser. Ms. Jennings lives in Boulder with her husband, violist Matthew Dane.
