Medieval & Renaissance Workshop
June 19-25, 2011
Music from the Edges of Europe

Described as "a player to watch" and praised for her "warm tone and fine form," Rebekah Ahrendt performs regularly in the United States and Europe as a soloist and with a variety of ensembles. A graduate of the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Rebekah co-founded the ensembles Les grâces (with fellow faculty member Annette Bauer), Faire Violls, and Disperata (Netherlands). She performs regularly with Les Violettes and has appeared with ensembles including the American Bach Soloists, the Pacific Collegium, Yusiëla (Netherlands/Spain), Het Internationaal Collectief Oude Muziek (Netherlands), and Vocaal Ensemble Photonen (Netherlands).

Rebekah's festival and series appearances include the San Francisco Early Music Society series, Trinity Chamber Concerts (Berkeley), the Berkeley Early Music Festival, and the Festival Oude Muziek in Utrecht, the Netherlands. In 2009, her ensemble Les grâces was the only group from the United States invited to compete in the Van Wassenaer Early Music Concours (Amsterdam). Thanks to a grant from the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music Foundation, Les grâces will release their first CD, Les grâces françoises, in 2011. Rebekah is in demand as a teacher and ensemble coach and has taught workshops for the San Francisco Early Music Society, the San Diego Early Music Society, and various chapters of the Viola da Gamba Society of America.

Rebekah is also active as a musicologist. She will complete her Ph.D. in Musicology at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2011. Her work on music, performance, and identity at the turn of the eighteenth century has garnered prizes and support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies, the American Musicological Society, the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music, the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, and the University of Utrecht. In 2010, she was invited to share her work on the chanson à danser, "Gesture on the French Stage, 1675-1800," at the performance practice symposium of the Utrecht Early Music Festival, organized by Jed Wentz of the Sweelinck Conservatory, Amsterdam.
www.lesgraces.com

Annette Bauer, a native of Germany, holds a diploma in medieval and Renaissance performance practice from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, specializing in recorder techniques with Conrad Steinmann (2001). Supported by a scholarship from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), she pursued an M.A. in music from UC Santa Cruz (2004). Annette has also studied sarode since 1998 at the Ali Akbar College of Music in California under Maestro Ali Akbar Khan.

As a recorder player, Annette performs with medieval ensemble Cançonièr, Baroque group Les grâces, and Farallon recorder quartet; she has appeared with early music groups throughout the US. In 2010 she released several new albums, with Cançonièr (supported by a San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music grant), Farallon, and The Lost Mode project (with Shira Kammen and Peter Maund). Her recordings are available on Magnatune and CD Baby.

She has served on the recorder faculty for several of the San Francisco Early Music Society summer workshops and the Amherst Early Music Festival, among others. Certified in Orff Schulwerk, she teaches recorder pedagogy to music teachers at the San Francisco Orff Course. In 2009 Annette was selected for the recorder residency at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Oregon.

Annette's musical passions include original notation sources in early music, improvisation in modal music traditions, and playing music in beautiful acoustics. She is the co-founder of Magic Carpet, a duo dedicated to the art of improvisation. Annette also plays Brazilian percussion with Maracatu Luta and has studied Maracatu and other rhythms with groups in Recife, Brazil, and at the California Brazil Camp. She is currently studying the duduk, an Armenian double reed instrument, and is active in the San Francisco Artmonk Chapter, exploring connections between silent contemplation practices and creativity.
www.annettebauer.com

Karen Clark's repertory includes the medieval chant of Hildegard von Bingen, chansons of the troubadour and trouvere,19th century German lieder, and new music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Her singing has received critical acclaim from the New Yorker, New York Times, Seattle Times, South China Post, and San Francisco Chronicle. "The most striking performance was with Karen Clark. With minimal vibrato and malleable tone, Ms. Clark showed an astonishing range of expressive subtlety, carrying the listener rapt." James Oestreich, New York Times

From Boston to San Francisco and Hong Kong to Holland, Karen has performed in prestigious festival and concert series. She has toured North America with New York Early Music and the Waverly Consort, Europe with Ensemble Sequentia. Career highlights include singing Bach's B-minor Mass with Joshua Rifkin's Bach Ensemble in Brixen, New York, and Perth and with the National Chorale in Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall; and singing in Thomas Binkley's reconstruction of the Greater Passion Play (Carmina Burana ms.), where she sang the role of Maria Mater in Berkeley, Bloomington, and New York.

In 2011 Karen's recording with the Galax Quartet—On Cold Mountain: Songs on Poems of Gary Snyder—will be released on the Innova label (American Composers Forum.) Karen is also recorded on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (Sequentia), Dorian (El Mundo), Erato (Boston Camerata), Focus (Indiana University), Musica Omnia (Magnificat), and New Albion (American Baroque.) Karen has held adjunct positions in the music departments of Princeton University, Swarthmore College, University of Southern California, and Sonoma State University. As guest director, Karen has led the Early Music Collegium at USC in a performance of Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame and the Chamber Choir at University of California, Berkeley, in Machaut's Le Lai de la Fonteinne. Karen holds degrees from the Indiana University School of Music, where she studied opera and was a graduate assistant (voice) in the Early Music Institute under Thomas Binkley. Karen received her Feldenkrais certification in 1999. She lives in Northern California, where she maintains Berkeley and Petaluma studios.
www.karenrclark.com

Bruce Dickey is a performer and researcher who has devoted himself since 1975 to the revival of the cornetto. He has taught cornetto and 17th century performance practice at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel (Switzerland) since 1976 and is founder and co-director of the ensemble Concerto Palatino. As a performer he has made many ground-breaking recordings both as a soloist and with his ensemble and has collaborated with most of the leading figures in the field of early music. His many students, over his more than thirty years of teaching at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, have helped to consolidate and elevate the status of this once forgotten instrument; many have gone on to become distinguished performers as well.

In 2000 the Historic Brass Society awarded Bruce the Christopher Monk Award for "his monumental work in cornetto performance, historical performance practice and musicological scholarship." In 2007 he was honored by British conductor and musicologist Andrew Parrott with a "Taverner Award" as one of fourteen musicians whose "significant contributions to musical understanding have been motivated by neither commerce nor ego." Bruce Dickey has published numerous articles on the cornetto and performance practice. Together with Michael Collver, he has published a catalog of the surviving cornetto repertoire and, with trumpeter Edward Tarr, a book on historical wind articulation.
www.concertopalatino.com

In sixth grade, Greg Ingles decided he wanted to play a brass instrument in band, but since his older sister already played the French horn he chose to take up the trombone. Greg attended high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy and went on to graduate from the Oberlin Conservatory. Two days after graduation, he won the position of Solo Trombone in the Hofer Symphoniker in Hof, Germany. He returned to the United States and completed both a master's and doctoral degree in trombone performance at SUNY Stony Brook. During his graduate work, Greg became acquainted with the sackbut and historical performance.

Soon after beginning his early music studies, Greg became a member of Piffaro, the Renaissance Band. He has since played with such ensembles as the American Bach Soloists, Chatham Baroque, Chiaroscuro, Concerto Palatino, Quicksilver, and Tafelmusik. Greg is also a member of Ciaramella and has recorded with this group on the Yarlung and Naxos record labels. He is Music Director of Spiritus Collective, an ensemble devoted to rarely performed brass music of the 17th century. He has also recorded with Anakekta, Centaur, Dorian, Kleos, and reZound. Greg was the adjunct trombone professor at Hofstra University for over a decade. He teaches sackbut at the Madison Early Music Festival each summer and taught at the SFEMS Recorder Workshop this past summer.
www.spirituscollective.info

Daniel Johnson has been the artistic director of the Texas Early Music Project since its inception in 1987. Johnson has toured extensively in the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, performing medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music both as a soloist and ensemble member in such groups as the New York Ensemble for Early Music, Sotto Voce (San Francisco), and Musa Iberica. He has performed frequently at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston and with various Texas ensembles, including the Clearlight Waites, Texas Baroque Ensemble, Istanpitta, and the New Texas Consort (now Conspirare). A former member of the Higher Education Committee of Early Music America, Danny was also the director of the UT Early Music Ensemble, one of the largest and most active in the US, from 1986 to 2003. In 1998, he was awarded Early Music America's "Thomas Binkley Award" for university ensemble directors. He is also the recipient of the 1997 Quattlebaum Award at the College of Charleston, and in 2009 he was inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame. He teaches master classes in performance practice, serves on the faculty and staff (and is an assistant co-director) of the Amherst Early Music Festival, and is director of the Texas Toot workshop. This will be his fourth Med/Ren workshop, and he is pleased to be invited back!
www.early-music.org

An acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, Tim Rayborn plays dozens of musical instruments from medieval Europe, the Middle East, and the Balkans. In addition to solo work, he co-directs the medieval ensemble Cançonièr with Annette Bauer, performs with Celtic harpist Patrick Ball, and regularly works with Shira Kammen.

Tim lived in the UK for seven years, studying for an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds and working as a musician. He has toured in the US and Europe (from Ireland to Turkey) extensively, performing concerts at both the York and Beverley Early Music Festivals (UK), Alden Biesen Castle (Belgium), Bunyola (Majorca), and the Spitalfields Festival (London). He has given a number of performances for BBC in the UK and Channel Islands, toured in Canada and Australia, and worked with folk musicians in Marrakech and Istanbul. Recent concerts include the MusicSources concert series, the Renaissance and Baroque Society of Pittsburgh, and the Indianapolis Early Music Festival. Future performances include the MusicSources' 2010-11 season, the Kalamazoo Medieval Conference, World Arts West, and a 2012 tour of Australia.

Tim has taught at the SFEMS Medieval & Renaissance workshop and Pinewoods Early Music week in Masssachusetts and has collaborated and performed with a number of early and world music professionals, from Ensemble Alcatraz and Margriet Tindemans to Kitka, and Ross Daly. He has recorded to date on more than thirty CDs for a number of labels, including Gaudeamus, Wild Boar, Magnatune, EMP, and Harmonia Mundi.
www.timrayborn.com
www.canconier.com

Mehmet Sanlıkol came to the United States in 1993 when he won a scholarship to Berklee College of Music. In 1997, he founded the contemporary jazz ensemble AudioFact, with whom he toured Mexico, Argentina, the USA, and Europe. That same year, he received Berklee College of Music's Clare Fischer Award and completed his degree in Jazz Composition and Film Scoring. In the beginning of 1998, he released the CD entitled Black Spot with AudioFact. In the year 2000 he graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with a master's degree in Jazz Composition. In the year 2003, he released AudioFact's second CD, entitled Asitane, and began teaching in the theory and music history departments of New England Conservatory. In the year 2004, he completed his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Composition at the New England Conservatory.

Mehmet co-founded the organization and musical ensemble Dünya in 2004 and acts as its president. Dünya is an organization dedicated to the presentation of Turkish traditions, from ancient to contemporary, alone and in interaction with other world traditions, through musical performance, publication, and educational activities. Since its founding, Mehmet has produced, performed, and delivered talks at over eighty Dünya events. The organization has also released six CDs (Come See What Love Has Done To Me, Psalms of Ali Ufki, Music of Cyprus, The Tulip and the Sword, The Language of Birds and For You the World, For Us the Roses) as well as a DVD (Wisdom and Turkish Humor) featuring Mehmet both as a director/performer and a composer.

Mehmet has composed for and performed and toured with international stars and ensembles such as Tiger Okoshi, Bob Brookmeyer, Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, Okay Temiz, Erkan Oğur, Yansımalar, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, and the Boston Camerata at numerous prestigious International Music Festivals and venues such as the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York. He is currently a faculty member at Emerson College and Brown University. Dr. Sanlıkol's book, The Musician Mehters, about the organization and the music of the Ottoman Janissary Bands will be published during 2011 in both English and Turkish.
www.dunyainc.org

For most of her adult life, Mary Springfels has devoted herself to the performance and teaching of early music repertoires. She earned her stripes performing with many influential pioneering ensembles, including the New York Pro Musica, the Elizabethan Enterprise, concert Royal, and the Waverly consort. For 20 years she directed the innovative Newberry Consort, and can be heard on dozens of recordings. In 2006, Mary moved to the mountains of New Mexico, where she is active in the formation of an intentional community called the Wit's End Coop. She continues to teach and perform extensively. The past year's highlights include appearances with the Folger Consort, the Tallis Scholars, and concerts of medieval music at the Dallas Museum of Fine Art, and in London, at Old St. Bartholomew's Church. This summer, she will be teaching and lecturing at the Texas Toot, the San Francisco Early Music Society, The Viola da Gamba Society of America, Amherst Early Music, and the Pinewoods Early Music Week.

Nina Stern is one of North America's leading performers of the recorder and classical clarinet. A native New Yorker, she studied at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, where she received a Soloist's Degree. From Basel, she moved to Milan, Italy, where she was offered a teaching position at the Civica Scuola di Musica.

Nina has appeared as a principal player or soloist with groups including the American Classical Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, the New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera, Sinfonia NY, the New York Collegium, Concert Royal, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, L'Orchestra della Scala (Milan), I Solisti Veneti, Hesperion XX, and Tafelmusik. She has recorded for Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Sony Classics, Newport Classics, Wildboar, Telarc, and Smithsonian labels. Her latest projects include performances of traditional music of Eastern Europe, Armenia, and the Middle East as a soloist and with her ensemble East of the River. Her new solo CD Rose of the Compass will be released in the spring of 2011.

Nina has served on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music—where she directed the Historical Performance Program from 1989 to 1996—the Civica Scuola di Musica, Oberlin Conservatory, and the Five Colleges in Massachusetts. In recent years she has also been hailed as an innovator in teaching school-age children to be fine young musicians. She is the founder of S'Cool Sounds, a successful hands-on music education project in inner city public school classrooms. The Washington Post applauded this program as a model in its "innovation in the classroom" series (11/9/03). For this important work she was awarded an Endicott Fellowship in 2003 and was honored in 2005 with the "Early Music Brings History Alive" Award, bestowed by Early Music America. She is the author of Recorders Without Borders, two innovative books for beginning recorder players and percussion intended for use in the school classroom.
www.ninastern.com

As a player of a wide variety of medieval and Renaissance wind instruments, Daniel Stillman has toured extensively with the Boston Shawm & Sackbut Ensemble, Boston Camerata, and Waverly Consort and has performed and recorded with such groups as the Gabrieli Players and Taverner Players (London), Oltremontano (Antwerp), Apollo's Fire (Cleveland), Folger Consort (Washington, DC), La Nef and Les Sonneurs (Montréal), Trinity Consort (Portland, Oregon), and the avant-garde ensemble Roger Miller's Exquisite Corpse. Recent performances include a concert in Istanbul with the Boston-based group Dünya and concerts commemorating the 400th anniversary of the death of Tomás Luis de Victoria with Blue Heron Renaissance Choir. He is a member of the trombone section of the period-instrument orchestra Boston Baroque and has performed with such groups as the Handel & Haydn Society, Washington (DC) Bach Consort, Arcadia Players, and the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra.

Dan is a highly sought-after instructor of Renaissance wind instruments, having taught at Wellesley College, the Longy School of Music, Tufts University, and the Five College Early Music Program (Amherst, MA), as well as at workshops for the Amherst Early Music Festival, the San Francisco Early Music Society, and the Texas Toot. He can be heard on some two dozen recordings for the Telarc, Erato, Harmonia Mundi USA, Deutsche Grammophon Archiv, EMI, Dorian, Eclectra, and SST labels.

Tom Zajac is a multi-instrumentalist praised for his versatility and stylish playing of music from the medieval and Renaissance periods. He is a member of the wind band Piffaro and the New York-based theatrical/musical group Ex Umbris and has toured extensively, appearing in concert series and festivals in Hong Kong, Guam, Australia, Israel, Colombia, Mexico, and throughout Europe and the United States. As a guest artist Tom appears frequently with the Folger Consort, King's Noyse, Newberry Consort, Hesperus, and other leading US ensembles. He has performed 14th-century music in the East Wing of the White House during the Clinton years, played serpent in a piece by PDQ Bach on an episode of A Prairie Home Companion, and awakened the astronauts every morning on a 2001 space shuttle mission with the sound of his bagpipe (on a recording, of course). He has performed on the sound track of several PBS documentaries for Emmy award-winning producer and composer Brian Keane and has participated in over forty recording projects ranging from medieval dances to 21st-century chamber music.

As a director, Tom has an abiding interest in the confluence of historical and socio-cultural approaches to music making, working happily in the realm where time and place meet. He has done research and performance projects on colonial Latin-American music, the music of the three religious cultures of pre-expulsion Spain, and the music of Eastern Europe, from Poland to the Ottoman court of 16th- to 19th-century Turkey.

Recent performance projects include a 13th-century music-theater piece, the Tournoi de Chauvency, with the French-American company Ensemble Aziman (with performances in France, Luxembourg and the US) and work as percussionist for recent Boston Early Music Festival opera productions. Last season, Tom performed in Bolivia with Piffaro, in Istanbul with the Boston-based Turkish music ensemble Dünya, and in St. Croix and Puerto Rico with longtime collaborator Grant Herreid. Tom teaches at several other workshops throughout the US and directs the early music ensembles at Wellesley College near his home in Boston.