Frances Fitch

Frances Conover Fitch has performed extensively in North America and Europe, and recorded for Swiss, German, Dutch, and French National Radio as well as for the BBC and NPR. Her ground-breaking ensemble, Concerto Castello, won critical acclaim as well an Honorable Mention in the Deutsche Schallplatten Preis of 1983. A particularly sensitive and inventive continuo player, she has worked and played with Spiritus Collective, Cantata Singers, Emmanuel Music, Aston Magna, Boston Cecilia, Handel and Haydn Society, Concerto Palatino, and the Boston Camerata, among others. Ms. Fitch has participated in major music festivals, including the Gilmore Festival, the Festival d'Art Lyrique/Aix-en-Provence, Pepsico Summerfare, Tanglewood, Boston Early Music Festival, Tage Alter Musik (Regensburg), the Castle Hill Festival and the Festival de Musica Antigua in Mexico City, where she also gave master classes at the National Conservatory. She has over twenty solo and ensemble recordings on the EMI-Reflexe, Titanic, Harmonia Mundi, Nonesuch, Centaur, Koch International and Wild Boar labels. Ms. Fitch teaches at Tufts University and The England Conservatory of Music and for many years was Chair of the Early Music Department at the Longy School of Music, teaching harpsichord, organ, chamber music, figured bass improvisation and bibliographic research. She has also served on the faculties of Wellesley College and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, and recently completed a semester as Guest Professor in Performing Arts at Ferris University in Yokohama, Japan. Ms. Fitch has degrees from Bard College and New England Conservatory, and pursued studies with Gustav Leonhardt and Veronika Hampe at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam. Her playing has been praised as “perceptive”, “stylish” and “spectacular”, and noted for its “precision and delicacy of wit”.

http://www.francesconoverfitch.com/

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Peter Barnes

Peter Barnes has been playing more instruments, in more genres, in more interesting locations, for longer than most of us can remember. Averaging over 250 gigs per year, he currently plays in the Latter Day Lizards, Bare Necessities, Big Bandemonium, Dark Carnival and Yankee Ingenuity. Peter also keeps himself busy with teaching, recording, publishing music books, composing and crafting wooden whistles.

http://www.canispublishing.com/

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

English Dance Musicians Course at Early Music Week

Harmony of Song & Dance at Pinewoods

English Dance Week at Pinewoods

Michael Barrett

Michael Barrett (voice, chorus) is active in the Boston area as a professional musician and teacher. As a singer he has collaborated with the Boston Camerata, Huelgas Ensemble, Blue Heron, the Netherlands Bach Society, L'Académie, Seven Times Salt, and Exsultemus, and has performed in several recent operas produced by the Boston Early Music Festival. He can be heard on harmonia mundi and Blue Heron record labels. Mr. Barrett directs the Renaissance choir Convivium Musicum and the professional vocal ensemble Sprezzatura, and he serves on the advisory board of L'Académie, a professional ensemble for Baroque music. Mr. Barrett has worked as a conductor and music theory teacher at Harvard University. He is a faculty member of IMC, a New York-based company for music curriculum and instruction, and has served as a workshop leader for professional development courses. He also maintains a studio for private instruction in voice, piano, and music theory. Mr. Barrett earned an AB in music from Harvard University, an MM in choir conducting from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and First Phase Diploma in Baroque and Classical singing from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. In the fall of 2010 he began doctoral studies in choral conducting at Boston University.

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Sheila Beardslee

Sheila Beardslee (recorder, historical dance) has taught recorder, historical flutes, viol and historical dance for early music societies and workshops in Maine, Florida and a good many places in between. Sheila served as EM Week Program Director, 2009-2011. Director of Recorders/Early Music Metrowest and Concordia Consort, she teaches privately and led the recorder program at the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School for 10 years. She also directs the vocal ensemble Ars et Amici, and is a founding member of Phillips Consort of Viols, twice winner of the VdGS-NE's Silbiger Grant. She has led ten performance/study tours to Italy (most recently to Venice and the Dolomites) and one to Croatia. Recordings: VdGS-NE, Amherst Early Music, Northeastern, BACS and Concordia labels.

http://earlymusicboston.com/

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Joanna Blendulf

Joanna Blendulf has performed as soloist and continuo player in leading period instrument ensembles throughout the U.S. Ms. Blendulf holds performance degrees with honors from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. In 1998, she was awarded the prestigious Performer's Certificate for her accomplishments in early music performance from Indiana University. Joanna is currently performing with the Portland Baroque Orchestra, Bach Collegium San Diego and Pacific Musicworks in Seattle and has been a guest artist of Early Music Vancouver in British Colombia. She is also an active chamber musician, performing and touring internationally with the Cascade Consort, Catacoustic Consort, Ensemble Electra, Ensemble Mirable, Music of the Spheres, Nota Bene Viol Consort and Wildcat Viols. Joanna’s summer engagements have included performances at the Bloomington, Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals, the Aspen and Ojai Music Festivals as well as the Carmel and Oregon Bach Festivals. Ms. Blendulf resides in Eugene, OR and is sought-after as a teacher and chamber music coach.

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Sarah Cantor

Photo by Mark FJ Maiden Photography

Sarah Cantor has performed and recorded with The Berkshire Bach Society; with violinists Eugeine Drucker and Ani Kavafian; Boston Cecilia with soprano Lisa Saffer; The Gloria Dei Contores choir; and Sarasa with violinist Elizabeth Bloomenstock, and Soprano Emily van Evera. She has played under the direction of Ton Koopman, Stanley Ritchie, and Kenneth Cooper. She has given solo recitals for The Boston Early Music Festival, The Boston Recorder Society, The Massachusetts Council of the Arts, The King’s Chapel Recital Series, Marlboro college, Sing-Sing prison, The Almity School in Arrezo, Italy, and The National Theater of Limon, Costa Rica. She is also an active chamber musician and is a founding member of The Hague Baroque Ensemble, The Artemis Trio, The Brookline Early Music Ensemble, Saltarello, Sarasa, Newton Baroque and La Sylva. In addition to her performing career, she is an active teacher and dancer. Ms. Cantor has worked as a dancer and musician for the Utah Shakespearean Festival and in numerous Christmas Revels productions. She was a finalist in the 2007 Early Music America Medieval Renaissance competition.

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Graham Christian

(English country dance) started dancing English and Scottish at Swarthmore College. He has taught English country dance all over the U.S. as well as in England and Europe. He has studied Renaissance and Baroque dance with Dorothy Olsson, Kaspar Mainz and Ken Pierce, and has created many reconstructions of Playford-era dance, as well as writing the acclaimed dance history column Tell Me More for the Country Dance and Song Society News.

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Jan Elliott

Jan Elliott, from Woods Hole, MA, is widely known for her infectious enthusiasm and broad knowledge in teaching many different styles of traditional dance. A particular interest is the relationship between dance and music, and classes often focus on dancing to the music and playing to the dancers. While fairly new to teaching English country dance she has danced and played for this style for most of her life, having first discovered the joy of English dance at Pinewoods in 1974. She is also a specialist in morris and sword dancing, having taught for 25 years and performed with teams from California to Oxfordshire, England. A founder of Ha'penny Morris and formerly with Muddy River Sword and Commonwealth Sword, all in Boston, she is currently artistic director of Vineyard Swordfish and Clownfish rapper, dances with Thames Valley International and plays English concertina for the Pinewoods Morris Men.

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Wayne Hankin

With over 4000 concerts to his credit, period wind specialist Wayne Hankin has played every major city in the United States and Canada, as well as countless venues worldwide. He has worked on 7 productions with Cirque du Soleil, most recently Totem. His varied career includes over a hundred performances with Early Music NY. He's served as music director for top theatre companies (Schaubühne, Long Wharf, Alley, Center Stage, BAM, Odeon Paris), recorded on major labels (ECM, RCA, BMG, SONY), television (CBS, ABC, NBC, HBO, BRAVO) and made his conducting debut at Houston Grand Opera. He has performed solo on many major Hollywood films from Resident Evil II to Disney's Princess Adventures and his most recent television work has been Breaking Bad on AMC. With over 300 works composed for period instruments, Wayne has received numerous awards and commissions for this work (ASCAP Awards, National Endowment of the Arts). His film 7 SOLOS was awarded best short subject by the World Music and Independent Film Festival.

http://www.waynehankin.com

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Judith Linsenberg

Judith Linsenberg, recorder, is one of the leading exponents of the recorder in the United States and has been acclaimed for her "virtuosity," "expressivity," "fearless playing, and combination of “masterly control with risk-taking spontaneity." She has performed extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe, including solo appearances at the Hollywood Bowl and Lincoln Center; and has been featured with such leading American ensembles as the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco and Los Angeles Operas, the Oregon Symphony, LA Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, American Bach Soloists, the Portland and Seattle Baroque Orchestras, the Oregon and Carmel Bach Festivals, Musica Angelica of Los Angeles, and others. She is the winner of national performance awards, and has premiered several pieces for the recorder. Judy is Artistic Director of the Baroque ensemble, Musica Pacifica, whose performances and nine recordings on the Virgin Classics, Dorian, and Solimar labels have received international acclaim, and have caused the ensemble to be described by the press as "some of the finest baroque musicians in America" (American Record Guide) and “among the best in the world" (Alte Musik Aktuell). Judy has also recorded for harmonia mundi usa, Koch International, Reference Recordings, Musical Heritage Society, Drag City Records and Hännsler Classics. A Fulbright scholar to Austria, she was awarded the Soloist Diploma with Highest Honors from the Vienna Academy of Music. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University, holds a doctorate in early music from Stanford University, and has been a visiting professor at the Vienna Conservatory and Indiana University’s Early Music Institute in Bloomington.

http://www.linsenberg.com/  www.musicapacifica.org

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Dana Maiben

Dana Maiben, (violin) hailed by the Boston Globe for her “supremely joyous artistry,” performs on violin, viola, medieval fiddles, tenor viol and harpsichord and as a conductor. She was a founder member of the groundbreaking ensemble for 17th-century music, Concerto Castello, and in 2002 she launched a new ensemble for 17th-century music, Concerto Incognito. She serves as music director of the string orchestra and women's advocacy group, Foundling, and is a founding member of the new 5-part string band, Quince. Dana was also a founding member of the ensemble for medieval music, Sequentia, following an apprenticeship with the Studio der Fruhen Musik in Basel, Switzerland. She has been on the faculty of the Amherst Early Music Baroque Academy since 2004. Since 1989 she has taught at the Longy School of Music, where she teaches violin and performance practice, coaches chamber music, offers classes in baroque and medieval music and occasionally directs opera.

http://pegasusearlymusic.org/content/biographies/danamaiben.html

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Sarah Mead

Sarah Mead first encountered early music in high school, when she danced and sang as Queen Elizabeth in a production led by Ingrid Brainard. After studying music history and choral conducting at Yale, she pursued graduate study in early music at Stanford both as a viol player and a choral conductor. She and her spouse were musicians at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival before moving east in 1979. She began teaching viols at Brandeis University in 1982, and is now Associate Professor of the Practice there, directing the Early Music Ensemble, teaching music history, and serving as a frequent guest choral conductor. In 2007 Early Music America recognized her with the Thomas Binkley Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Collegium Director. Her handbook on 16th-century music theory is a staple in performance practice programs, and she is recognized throughout North America as a clinician in historical performance. She has taught early music ensembles at Tufts & Northeastern Universities in the Boston area, as well as at Trinity College of Music in London, and has taught theory & performance practice in the graduate program in early music at Longy School of Music in Cambridge. She has been a guest International Tutor for workshops in Australia and Great Britain. Formerly Program Director for Early Music Week at Pinewoods, she now directs the annual Conclave of the Viola da Gamba Society of America. She serves on the boards of the VdGSA, Early Music America, and Pinewoods Camp, Inc.

www.nb-viols.org

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Dan Meyers

Dan Meyers holds a Master of Music degree in Early Music Performance from the Longy School of Music, and BA degrees in Music and English literature from Whitman College. A versatile multi-instrumentalist performing throughout the eastern U.S., he has also been featured at venues in the U.K. and Ireland, where he received a Watson Fellowship to study the Irish uilleann pipes. He is a founding member of the English consort Seven Times Salt, performs regularly with the Boston-based 7 Hills Renaissance Wind Band, and has played with the Boston Shawm and Sackbut Ensemble, Schola Cantorum, the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, the viol consort Long and Away, Ensemble Trinitas, El Fuego, and the Cambridge Revels. He teaches for the Boston Recorder Society and Early Music MetroWest, and is Assistant Music Director at the UU Church of Greater Lynn in Swampscott, MA. Equally comfortable in the classical and folk music worlds, he also performs southern Italian music with the award-winning band Newpoli, and traditional Irish music with a number of different groups.

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Emily O'Brien

Emily O'Brien (recorder, flutes) is a native of Washington, DC where she played recorder from a young age. She studied recorder and french horn at Boston University, and recorder and Baroque flute at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe, Germany. She performs and teaches in the Boston area, including the Society for Historically Informed Performance concert series, the Boston Recorder Society concert series, and in fringe events surrounding Boston Early Music Festival, as well as Early Music New York, Helios Opera, and the NEC Baroque Society. She is also on staff as a dance musician this summer at Amherst Early Music's New London Assembly, and plays frequently for English country dance in the Boston area. Currently she is also working with Friedrich von Huene on his "Well-tempered Recorder" project, a collection of recordings of the entire Well-tempered Klavier in arrangements for recorders. Emily works for the Von Huene Workshop and the Early Music Shop of New England in Brookline, MA as well as for her own company, Dill Pickle Gear, making instrument cases and cycling bags. In her spare time, she enjoys long distance cycling.

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Anna Rain

Anna Rain's first tune book as a beginning recorder player (c. 1970) was Six English Country Dances. In choosing an ECD program, she is tune-driven: how does the melody inspire and support the dance figures? As an ECD leader, she channels the discipline of her day job as a certified Iyengar Yoga instructor, teaching efficiently and effectively, and calling every body to move with ease and grace. Anna plays recorder in two ECD bands: Hot Toddy (playing this year at NEFFA) and Night Cap (see us at Dance Flurry!).

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Ellen Tepper

(Harp) began to play the harp, dance and sew at age eight in Vienna, Austria. A childhood spent being dragged through every available ruin resulted in a passion for early music, embroidery, dance and a backyard that looks like ancient rubble. She teaches early, modern and folk harp in the Philadelphia area, serves on the board of the Historical Harp Society and plays in the English dance bands E.T. and the Aliens, Sutton Who? and Quidditas. She has taught workshops on dance music for the International Society of Folk Harpers and Craftsmen, presented lectures for the American Harp Society and released several CDs.

Early Music Week at Pinewoods

Lisa Terry

Lisa Terry (viola da gamba, violoncello) practices, performs and teaches viola da gamba and violoncello in New York City, where she is a longtime member of Parthenia and the Dryden Ensemble, and a new member of BaroQue Across the River. She was a founding member of ARTEK and has performed with the New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera, Juilliard Opera Orchestra, Opera Lafayette, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Concert Royal, New York Collegium, American Classical Orchestra, Four Nations Ensemble, Santa Fe Pro Musica and Chicago Opera Theatre. She earned her degree in cello performance from Memphis State University and continued her studies in New York with Richard Taruskin, viol, and Harry Wimmer, cello. Ms. Terry has appeared to great acclaim as soloist in the Passions of J.S. Bach, notably under the batons of Robert Shaw, Richard Westenburg and Lyndon Woodside in Carnegie Hall, in the Jonathan Miller staged performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music conducted by Paul Goodwin, and with Andrew Parrot, Gary Thor Wedow, Kent Tritle and Simon Carrington. Ms. Terry teaches viola da gamba and cello at the French-American School of Music in New York and at workshops around the country.

http://www.learningmusician.com/gambalisa

Early Music Week at Pinewoods