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.
