Chris Fritzsche, Countertenor
Internationally recognized for his effortless countertenor voice, Christopher Fritzsche can be heard on well over a dozen recordings on Warner Classics’ Teldec label. From 1992 until 2003, Mr. Fritzsche performed with the world-renowned a cappella vocal ensemble, Chanticleer. In those 11 years he sang over 1000 concerts world-wide appearing with The New York Philharmonic, the Atlanta Symphony, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and he participated in and helped lead numerous choral and vocal workshops for singers of all levels. He has also appeared with the Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra in Chicago as soloist in Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and, as a member of Chanticleer, earned two Grammy awards for the CD’s Colors of Love, and Lamentations and Praises by the celebrated British composer, Sir John Tavener.
He is active in the studio voice program at Sonoma State University, teaching private voice lessons to students from the Music and Theatre Arts departments. He also serves as Education Coordinator for the Sonoma County Choral Society, the umbrella organization for the choirs here at SSU and helps develop, coordinate, and teach classes specific to the needs of choral singers. He also performs regularly as a soloist.
Karen Clark, Mezzo-contralto
Karen’s rich mezzo-contralto is acclaimed world wide for her performances in repertory spanning the middle ages to the 21st C. Critics for The South China Post, the New York Times, and San Francisco Chronicle, have described her as “a mezzo of more dramatic difference: graceful and impassioned,” “strong, pure, and passionate,” “striking with an astonishing range of expressive subtlety.” Karen has appeared on prestigious concert series throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia in Utrecht, Köln, Royaumont, and Hong Kong with the outstanding chamber ensembles of Rifkin/Bach Ensemble, Ensemble Sequentia, Boston Camerata, and Waverly Consort. In oratorio, she has performed Handel’s Messiah, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, and Bach’s Mass in B minor, in Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Pierpont Morgan Library, and New York's Town Hall.
In June 2008, Karen is featured with poet, Gary Snyder and the Galax Quartet in new works by Robert Morris (Eastman), Fred Frith (Mills College), W. A. Mathieu, and Roy Whelden. The San Francisco series Concerts at Old First Church hosts this celebration of Snyder’s 50-year publishing career. In May, Karen is soprano II and alto soloist with the Santa Rosa Symphony in Bach’s B-minor Mass.
Karen is recorded on the New Albion, Erato, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Opera Omnia, Musical Heritage Society, and Focus labels. She holds degrees from the Indiana University School of Music and has taught in the music departments of Swarthmore College and Princeton University. Karen lives in Sonoma County and is adjunct faculty at Sonoma State University and University of Southern California.
Marion Verbruggen, Recorders
Amsterdam-born recorder player Marion Verbruggen is one of the most extraordinary virtuosos of her generation. Famed for her high-spirited, technically dazzling performances, she has earned an international reputation as a master of style on her instrument throughout North America, Europe, Africa, Japan and Australia. Enamored of the recorder at an early age, she studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory in The Hague with Frans Bruggen. Upon completing her diplomas cum laude, she was invited to join the faculty at the Royal Conservatory. Her prizes include the first International Recorder Competition in Bruges, the Nicolai Prize for the Performances of Contemporary Dutch Music, and the Erwin Bodky Award for Early Music. As a soloist Marion Verbruggen plays with prestigious ensembles including Musica Antiqua Koln, Akademie fur Ancient Musick Berlin, The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Tafelmusick Orchestra. She performs in chamber music ensembles with other renowned early music artists including harpsichordists Gustav Leonhardt, Bob Van Asperen and Ton Koopman, gambist Wieland Kuijken, baroque cellist Jaap ter Linden, and violinist Lucy van Dael. Her early music festival appearances include Utrecht, Berkeley, Berlin, Boston and Tel Aviv. Marion Verbruggen also plays solo recitals throughout the world. Marion Verbruggen guest teaches at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and gives master classes and workshops throughout the world. Her diverse discography includes music ranging from 17th century Spanish songs and theatre music to her own transcriptions of the JS Bach Cello Suites. She has recorded for BMG, EMI Erato, harmonia mundi usa, Ricercar, Sony, Titanic, and Accent.
Frances Blaker, Recorders
Frances 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.
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.
Washington McClain, Oboe
A specialist in Baroque and Classical oboes, Washington McClain is a former member of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and is currently principal oboist with l’Ensemble Arion (Montreal) and Le Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montreal. Washington has also performed with many groups in the United States, including Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra (Cleveland, Ohio), Washington Bach Consort, and Opera Lafayette (Washington, DC). Washington has made recordings with Sony Classical, ATMA Records, Analekta Records and Centaur Records. He holds degrees in musicology from Northeast Louisiana University and in oboe performance from Northwestern University. Washington makes his home in Windsor, Canada.
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.
David Morris, Cello
David is a member of Musica Pacifica, The King’s Noyse, the Sex Chordae Consort of Viols and the NYS Baroque Ensemble, and has performed with Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, the Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle Baroque Orchestras, Musica Angelica, the Mark Morris Dance Company and the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra. He was the founder and musical director of the Bay Area baroque opera ensemble Teatro Bacchino, and has produced operas for the Berkeley Early Music Festival and the San Francisco Early Music Society series. Mr. Morris received his B.A. and M.A. in Music from U.C. Berkeley, and has been a guest instructor in early music performance-practice at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Mills College, Oberlin College and Cornell University. He has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, New Albion, Dorian, New World Records, NPR's “St. Paul Sunday” (with The King's Noyse) and New Line Cinema.
Arthur Haas, Harpsichord
Arthur is one of the most sought after performers and teachers of Baroque music in the United States today. He received the top prize in the Paris International Harpsichord Competition in 1975 and then stayed in France for a number of years as an active member of the growing European early music scene. He is a member of the Aulos Ensemble one of America’s premier period instrument ensembles whose recordings of Bach, Vivaldi, and Rameau have won critical acclaim in the press. His solo CDs include the Pièces de Clavecin of Jean-Henry D’Anglebert, Suites de Clavecin of Forqueray, music by Purcell and his contemporaries, and a newly released recording of Pièces de Clavecin of Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre and François Couperin. Annual summer workshop and festival appearances take him to the San Francisco Early Music Society’s Baroque Workshop, the Eastman Continuo Institute, the International Baroque Institute at Longy, and the Amherst Early Music Festival, where he has served as artistic director of the Baroque Academy since 2002. Mr. Haas taught for many years at the Eastman School of Music, and is now professor of harpsichord and early music at Stony Brook University where he directs the Stony Brook Baroque Players – both a modern and period instrument ensemble.
Phebe Craig, Harpsichord
Phebe 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.
Tangkao Tan, Historical Dance
Mr. Tan has studied Baroque dance with Helena Kazarova, Dorothee Wortelboer and Marc Leclerq in Europe, Angene Feves and Ken Pierce in America. For two years he appeared in monthly performances with Collegium Marianum, a Prague based Baroque ensemble consisting of musicians and dancers. From 1998 to 2002, he danced with National Theater in Prague as a soloist in Jean Philipp Rameau’s ‘Castor et Pollux’.
In 2001 Mr. Tan founded his own ensemble “Delices de la Muse.” and since then he has taught Baroque dance in California and Shanghai. Mr. Tan holds a BA degree in Dance Pedagogy.
Bob Worth, Choral Director
Bob Worth is choral director and professor of music at Sonoma State University. He is a graduate of the department, having earned a BA degree in 1980. He then earned an MA in musicology from UC Berkeley; somehow discovering along the way that musicology was not his calling in life. Fortunately, he simultaneously stumbled upon what proved to be his future as a musician: directing choirs. He was hired in 1983 at his alma mater, and is now in his 25th year of teaching.
Bob directs two choral ensembles at SSU: the Sonoma County Bach Choir and the SSU Chamber Singers. The groups focus especially on music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, performing several times each semester, and touring occasionally to such places as Italy, Mexico, and Germany. An upcoming tour in spring, 2009, will take the groups to New Orleans.
After many years of working with the Santa Rosa Symphony and its director, Jeffrey Kahane, on choral productions, Bob was named choral director of the Symphony in 2002. Under current music director Bruno Ferrandis, he is in charge of the Honor Choir, which is assembled as needed for each project, using singers from SSU ensembles, from local high schools, and from the community at large. In addition, the Symphony presents the Sonoma County Bach Choir in a special choral-orchestral production once per season.
At SSU, Bob also teaches sightsinging and choral conducting, and serves as musical director of the Sonoma County Choral Society, a university-community partnership which supports choral music in Sonoma County.