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SFEMS Baroque Workshop 2009

Faculty Biographical Sketches

	Soprano Christine Brandes has been blessed with a diverse and fascinating career. After graduating from Case Western reserve with a degree in Performance Practice, she went on to work with Nicholas McGegan, William Christie, Phillipe Herreweghe, Freider Bernius, Jane Glover and Christopher Hogwood – to name a few. She has also had the pleasure of working with the Newberry Consort, Philharmonia Baroque, Tafelmusik and the American Bach Soloists. Among the many exciting projects in the 2008-2009 season, Ms. Brandes will be returning to the Lyric Opera of Kansas City as Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare and to Seattle as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, premiering a new opera by Alan Shearer The Dawn Makers and appearing with Philharmonia Baroque and the Mark Morris Dance Group for the Cal Performances presentation of Handel's L'Allegro. In the last season Ms. Brandes’s operatic appearances included her Washington National Opera debut as Catherine in William Bolcom's A View from the Bridge and  as Maria Corona in  Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street for Central City Opera. Concerts included performances of Das Paradies und die Peri with Sir Simon Rattle and the Philadelphia Orchestra (at the Kimmel Center and at Carnegie Hall), the Mozart Requiem with  the Handel & Haydn Society,  Handel's L'Allegro with the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Seattle Symphony, and Haydn's Mass in the Time of War with Bernard Labadie and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. She has sung for the following opera houses: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington National, LA Opera, Houston Grand, Opera Pacific, Minnesota, San Diego, New York City Opera, Philadelphia, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Glimmerglass, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Opera de Nancy and Central City in principle roles ranging from Handel and Mozart, through Verdi to Bolcom and Britten. She has sung with the following orchestras:  Cleveland, Chicago, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta, Detroit, Seattle, Minnesota, National Symphony,  with such distinguished conductors as Simon Rattle, Pierre Boulez, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Frühbeck de Burgos, Robert Spano, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Alan Gilbert.
	Frances Blaker , recorders, received her Music Pedagogical and Performance degrees in recorder from the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen where she studied with Eva Legêne.  She also studied with Marion Verbruggen in the Netherlands.  Ms. Blaker has performed as a soloist and with various ensembles in the United States, Denmark, England and the Netherlands. She is a member of Farallon Recorder Quartet and the Tibia Recorder Duo and of Ensemble Vermillian.  She teaches privately and at workshops throughout the United States. She is an assistant director of the Amherst Early Music Festival, Inc.  Ms. Blaker is the author of The Recorder Player's Companion and the "Opening Measures" column in the American Recorder, and a collaborator and performer on the Disc Continuo series of play-along recordings. She was awarded month-long residencies focusing on music composition at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Otis, Oregon in April 2003 and 2006. Her compositions have been published by PRB Productions and Lost in Time Press. Her new work, Five Poems, based on poems by Chinese Buddhist nuns, was premiered in Carmel Valley, CA, November, 2007. Ms. Blaker has recorded works by Ludwig Senfl with the Farallon Recorder Quartet, and two CDs of 17th century German chamber music centering around Buxtehude with Ensemble Vermillian – volume I: Stolen Jewels, and volume 2, released December 1st: Topaz & Sapphire.
	Harpsichordist Phebe Craig spent her student years in Berlin, Brussels and San Francisco. Phebe has earned a reputation as a versatile chamber musician and recitalist and has performed and recorded with many early music ensembles and soloists. She has appeared at the Carmel Bach Festival, the Regensburg Tage Alter Musik, and early music festivals and events throughout the United States. She has performed with the New York State Baroque, American Bach Soloists, Arcangeli Baroque Strings, and Concerto Amabile. Phebe is a co-producer of the popular DiscContinuo series of early music play-along CDs and co-author of a recently-published guide to Baroque dance for musicians (Dance at a Glance). She is on the faculty at the University of California at Davis where she teaches harpsichord and co-directs the UCD Baroque Ensemble, in addition to keyboard proficiency, theory and ear-training. She is also co-director of the Baroque Music and Dance Workshop that is sponsored by the San Francisco Early Music Society and takes place at Sonoma State University.
	Sand Dalton has been playing and making baroque oboes for over thirty years. He maintains a busy workshop on Lopez Island, Washington, which produces about forty instruments annually.  He recently spent a year of living in Florence, Italy where he immersed himself Italian culture, history, music and enjoyed the food and wine. Concurrently, he has pursued an active career as a performer and teacher. Over the years he has performed and recorded with many ensembles, including the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Boston Baroque, the Handel and Hayden Society, Magnificat, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Seattle Baroque and the Pacific Baroque Orchestra of Vancouver, B.C. He has been on the faculties of the New England Conservatory, the University of British Columbia and Longy School of Music, as well as taught at the summer workshops for the San Francisco Early Music Society, Vancouver Early Music Program, Amherst Early Music Workshop and the International Baroque Institute at Longy. In 2000 he began directing his own summer workshop for baroque oboes and bassoons on Lopez Island in Washington State.
	Brazilian recorder player Clea Galhano is an International renowned performer of early, contemporary and Brazilian music. Galhano has performed in the United States, Canada, South America and Europe as a chamber musician, collaborating with recorder player Marion Verbruggen, Jacques Ogg, Belladonna, Lanzelotte/Galhano Duo, Galhano/Montgomery Duo, Farallon Quartet and Blue Baroque Band. As a featured soloist, Galhano has worked with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan and Emmanuelle Haim, World Symphony, Milwaukee Baroque and Lyra Baroque Orchestra. Among other important music festivals, Ms. Galhano has performed at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Tage Alter Music Festival in Germany and at Wigmore Hall in London, Merkin Hall in New York and Palazzo Santa Croce in Rome, always receiving acclaimed reviews. Ms. Galhano was featured in 2006 in the Second International Recorder Congress in Leiden, Holland and in 2007 at the International Recorder Conference in Montreal. Galhano studied in Brazil, the Royal Conservatory (The Hague), and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, earning a Fulbright scholarship and support from the Dutch government. As an advocate of recorder music and educational initiatives, she served for six years on the national board of the American Recorder Society and was featured many years as teacher and soloist at Suzuki and AOSA conferences. A popular teacher and ensemble director, Galhano regularly conducts workshops across the United States, Europe and Brazil. Currently, Galhano is the Executive Artistic Director of the St. Paul Conservatory of Music and she is on the faculty of Macalester College. Ms. Galhano has recordings available on Dorian, Ten Thousand Lakes and Eldorado labels, is artist-in-residence at the prestigious Schubert Club in St. Paul, Minnesota and is the Music Director of the Recorder Orchestra  of the Midwest.
	Kathleen Kraft, Flute Kathleen Kraft began specializing in Baroque flute after completing her studies at the Royal Conservatory in Holland with Frans Vester and Frans Bruggen. Her extensive chamber music and solo performances include concerts for the San Francisco Early Music Society, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the National Flute Convention, the Locronan Festival de Musique in France, and Tage Alte Musik in Regensburg. She has performed with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Concerto Amabile, and Pacific Baroque Orchestra in Vancouver. She lives outside of Occidental CA, and is active in watershed restoration and native coastal prairie conservation projects.
	Michael Sand, Violin Michael Sand received his B.A. from Swarthmore College and a M.M. from the Yale University School of Music, studying with Broadus Erle of the Yale Quartet. After graduation, he began his professional life in San Francisco, where he joined the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, and played principal second violin of the Oakland Symphony. Becoming interested in original instrument movement, he went to Holland to study Baroque violin with Sigiswald Kuijken at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. For a long time, his career centered around Baroque music. He was one of the founders of Philharmonia, the first period instrument orchestra on the West Coast, while commuting to Europe to work with some of the leading Baroque groups such as Les Arts Florissants and La Chapelle Royale. Back home, he was also involved in the founding of Arcangeli Baroque Strings, a concerto grosso group whose recordings of Bach and Vivaldi have won high notices. His work outside the Bay Area has included appearances as guest director with numerous chamber orchestras in this country and abroad, and he taught for many years as the Jerusalem Music Center in Israel. He is currently the Music Director of NYS Baroque, an original instrument orchestra based in Ithaca, NY, where he has led performances of Bach's B Minor Mass and St John Passion, Handel's Jephtha, and the Monteverdi Vespers. Mr. Sand has recorded for Meridian, Harmonia Mundi (both in France and the United States), Art and Music, KATastroPHE, Wildboar, and Titanic Records. He teaches at the University of California at Davis and at the San Francisco Early Music Society's Baroque Music Workshop.
	Mary Springfels, viola da gamba Mary Springfels has been musician-in-residence at the Newberry Library since 1982 and has served as director of the Newberry Consort since its founding in 1986. Ms. Springfels has played with many American and European ensembles, including the New York Pro Musica, the Waverly and Folger Consorts, Concert Royal, the New York Renaissance Band, Pomerium Musices, the Harwood Early Music Ensemble, and Orpheus Band; she was a founding member of the Elizabethan Enterprise and Les Filles de Sainte-Colombe. Ms. Springfels serves as director of the Collegium Musicum at Northwestern University and has taught at Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Chicago. She also is an active teacher in early music workshops across the United States. Ms. Springfels has recorded for Titanic, Nonesuch, Columbia, Decca, and harmonia mundi.
	Peter Sykes, Harpsichord Peter Sykes performs widely on the organ, harpsichord, clavichord, and fortepiano as a soloist and as an ensemble musician. With Christa Rakich he created "Tuesdays With Sebastian," an independent two-year benefit concert series in which he and Ms. Rakich performed the entire keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach for the organ, harpsichord and clavichord in thirty-four recitals in five Boston-area locations in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 concert seasons. He appears regularly in concert and on recordings with Boston Baroque. In March 2004 he was given the honor of performing the dedication recital on the newly restored 1800 Tannenberg organ in Old Salem, North Carolina, a performance featured on the nationally broadcast television show "CBS Sunday Morning." In November 2005 he performed the inaugural recital on the newly restored 1866 Koehnken organ in the Isaac Wise Temple in Cincinnati. His solo recordings include J.S. Bach's complete Leipzig Chorales recorded on the Noack organ of the Langholtskirkja in Reykjavik, Iceland, and music of Reger recorded on a Steinmeyer organ in Altoona, Pennsylvania. His recording of his organ transcription of Holst's orchestral suite "The Planets" was named Best of 1996 by Audio Review, a "Super CD" by Absolute Sound in 1999, and garnered accolades in every review. He appears on the Cambridge Bach Ensemble recording "The Muses of Zion," performing organ works of Tunder and Buxtehude on the Fisk meantone organ of Wellesley College, the Music from Aston Magna recording of Handel's oratorio "The Triumph of Time and Truth" containing Handel's first known organ concerto, a recording of the organ concerto "Cymbale" of Julian Wachner, and the Grammy-nominated Boston Baroque recordings of Handel's Messiah, Bach's B-Minor Mass, and Monteverdi's Vespers. Soon to appear will be a recording of Bach's harpsichord Partitas on the Centaur label. As an ensemble musician he has performed with Musica Antiqua Köln, Ensemble Project Ars Nova, the King's Noyse, the New England Bach Festival, Winsor Chamber Music, Mistral, Aston Magna Festival, Chameleon Ensemble, the Van Swieten and Borromeo Quartets, Cantata Singers, New England String Ensemble, and the Portland Chamber Music Festival. He was a member of the continuo team for the Boston Early Music Festival opera productions of Cavalli's Ercole Amante, Conradi's Ariadne, and Lully's Thesée and Psyché. He holds degrees from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Gabriel Chodos, Blanche Winogron, Mireille Lagacé, Robert Schuneman, and Yuko Hayashi, and Concordia University in Montreal, where he studied with Bernard Lagacé. In 1978 he was winner of the Chadwick Medal from the New England Conservatory for outstanding undergraduate achievement. He was the 1993 laureate of the Erwin Bodky Award for excellence in early music performance. In May 2005 he received the Outstanding Alumni award from the New England Conservatory for career achievement since graduation. He is Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Historical Performance Department at Boston University, Director of Music at First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, a member of the faculties of the Longy School of Music and the New England Conservatory, and is a founding board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society. www.petersykes.com
	Tanya Tomkins, a virtuoso on both the Baroque and modern cello, is equally at home playing a Bach cello suite in an intimate house concert or anchoring the cello section of the internationally renowned Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra on concert stages around the world. NRC Handelsblad (The Netherlands) describes her as "a cellist with a very special and unusual intensity," and the Cleveland Plain Dealer calls her "a performer who combines an intense dramatic fire with Apollonian poise." Tomkins studied in the Netherlands with renowned cellist and early music specialist Anner Bylsma. She received her Soloist Diploma from The Royal Conservatory of Music at The Hague. Living in Europe for 14 years, she immersed herself in the study of early music and particularly music of the Baroque period. She founded the Trio d'Amsterdam, which toured extensively throughout Europe and subsequently made its New York debut at the Frick Collection. In 2001 Tomkins won the Erwin Bodky Competition for early music soloists in Boston; she was the first cellist to be awarded the prize. As a performer of Baroque music, Tomkins serves as co-principal cellist of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the Portland Baroque Orchestra. She has been featured as soloist with Philharmonia Baroque; American Bach Soloists; the Oregon Bach Festival; the Mozart Festival in San Luis Obispo, California; at an early music festival in Paradise, Montana with acclaimed English Baroque violinist Monica Huggett; and at the Göttingen Handel Festival. Immersion in early music was not Tomkins's exclusive focus, however, and, like her teacher Bylsma, she did not neglect the repertoire for the modern cello. She became equally fluent in this music and toured as a soloist and as a member of the Euridice String Quartet and the SoLaRe Trio. As an active recitalist and chamber musician on the modern cello, Tomkins has appeared to critical acclaim throughout Europe, Israel, and the United States. She has performed at major concert halls, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Recital Hall, New York City’s Lincoln Center as part of the "Great Performances" series, and the 92nd Street Y for the "Meet the Virtuoso" series, also in New York City. Music festival appearances include the Moab Music Festival in Moab, Utah and Music in the Vineyards in Napa, California, and the Umeå Chamber Music Festival in Umeå, Sweden. As part of the Zivian-Tomkins Duo, Tomkins collaborates with pianist and fortepianist Eric Zivian on both modern and original instruments, and she is also a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and the San Francisco String Trio. www.tanyatomkins.com

Last updated 03/18/2009.