Magnificat Baroque Ensemble

Magnificat Musicians

Magnificat — Sun, 02 May 2010 05:03:23 +0000

First Row
Jolianne von Einem
Paul Elliott
Jennifer Ellis Kampani
Richard Van Hessel
Catherine Webster
Robert Stafford

Second Row
Christopher LeCluyse
Jennifer Paulino
Rob Diggins
Julie Jeffrey
Daniel Hutchings
Carla Moore

Third Row
Katherine Heater
Martin Hummel
Laura Heimes
Warren Stewart
Louise Carslake
Peter Becker

Fourth Row
David Morris
Anthony Martin
Nigel North
John Dornenburg
Aaron Sheehan
Jillon Stoppels Dupree

Fifth Row
Andrew Rader
David Wilson
Hugh Davies
Stephen Escher
>Herbert Myers
John Lenti

Annette Bauer

Magnificat — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:52:36 +0000

Annette Bauer, a native of Germany, holds a diploma in Medieval and Renaissance performance practice from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, where she specialized in recorder techniques with Conrad Steinmann (2001). Supported by a scholarship from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), she pursued an MA in music from UC Santa Cruz in conjunction with her studies at the Ali Akbar College of Music, where she studied sarode under Maestro Ali Akbar Khan. As a recorder player, Annette regularly performs with medieval ensemble Cançonier, the Baroque group Les grâces, and the Farallon Recorder Quartet. She has appeared at the Santa Cruz Baroque and Carmel Bach Festivals, as well as with early music ensembles across the US, such as the California Bach Society, Catacoustic Consort, Chamber Music San Francisco, Istanpitta, Magnificat, and the Texas Early Music Project. Annette has served on the recorder and early notation faculty for several of the San Francisco Early Music Society summer workshops and the Amherst Early Music Festival. Certified in Orff Schulwerk, she teaches recorder pedagogy to music teachers at the San Francisco Orff Certification Course. Annette was selected for the 2009 recorder residency at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Oregon.

Annette’s musical passions include original notation sources in early music, and improvisation in modal music traditions, from the highly intricate and complex Indian ragas, to medieval modes, to the modal repertoire of European, Middle Eastern, and North African music traditions. 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 from the Brazilian Northeast with groups in Recife, Brazil, and at the annual California Brazil Camp.

Visit Annette Bauer’s Website

Peter Becker

Magnificat — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:06:22 +0000

Peter Becker is an avid performer of repertoire ranging from troubadour to torch song, plainsong to art song, with arias, broadsides, ballads, new compositions and popular standards interspersed throughout. His concert credits include appearances with the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, the Linz Philharmoniker, ARTEK, and the Twenty First Century Consort. Peter is a long time performer with Magnificat and a founding member of the male vocal sextet Hudson Shad.

Background photo by Nika Korniyenko

Vicki Boeckman

Magnificat — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:00:33 +0000

Vicki Boeckman is an active and passionate performer of all styles of music and plays all sizes of recorders. Her travels and performances have taken her across the United States as well as Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England, Scotland and Germany. Her various recordings can be heard on the Kontra Punkt, Classico, Da Capo, Horizon, Musical Heritage America, Paula, Kadanza, and Primavera labels.

In great demand as a teacher of the recorder and related performance practices, Vicki coaches and teaches at workshops and seminars all over the United States and in British Columbia. She was chosen to be the recorder in-resident at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in 2005 and 2010. She is current Artistic Director for the Port Townsend Early Music Workshop and is the Music Director for the Portland Recorder Society. Vicki has been on the faculty of the Music Center of the Northwest in Seattle since 2005, and with colleague, Darlene Franz, is the resident recorder teacher for the 3^rd grade recorder program at West Woodland Elementary. She is also on the faculty for the newly launched early music program at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.

Since settling in Seattle in 2004, Vicki has been a featured soloist with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, the Portland Baroque Orchestra, Portland Opera, Philharmonia Northwest Orchestra and the Skagit Symphony. She is a returning guest with the Medieval Women’s Choir led by Margriet Tindemans and the Gallery Concerts Series. Her Seattle-based chamber trio, Ensemble Electra, with violinist Tekla Cunningham and harpsichordist Jillon Stoppels Dupree, specialize in music of the 17th and 18th centuries as well as newly-composed works. Her duo with recorder maker David Ohannesian is a popular addition to the Early Music Guild’s School Programs, and is often asked to return to the same schools year after year.

Vicki resided in Denmark from 1981-2004. She taught at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen for 12 years, and at the Ishøj Municipal School of Music for 23 years. She co-founded a regional recorder orchestra for children and teenagers which continues to flourish and grow. She was also co-founder of two Danish-based ensembles, Opus 4, and Wood’N’Flutes, with whom she continues to perform as often as possible in spite of the geography.

Visit Vicki’s Website

Photos by Bill Stickney

Meg Bragle

Magnificat — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:31:50 +0000

Recognized for her “expressive virtuosity” [San Francisco Chronicle] and “memorable, raw-silk voice” [Toronto Star], American mezzo-soprano Meg Bragle is garnering praise for her dynamic and eloquent performances of music from Bach and beyond. Recent highlights include a European tour of Bach’s Mass in B Minor with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists, including performances at the Bachfest Leipzig, the Prague Spring Festival and the Aldeburgh and Brighton Festivals, Handel’s Messiah with the Dunedin Consort in France, the premiere performance of a new edition of Salieri’s Requiem in Washington, DC and Pergolesi’s La Maddalena al Sepolcro in New York City. During the 2010-2011 season, she debuts with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Houston’s Mercury Baroque Orchestra singing Mitrena in Vivaldi’sMotezuma, and Les Voix Baroques with Ensemble Arion.

Meg has appeared in Europe and North America with the English Baroque Soloists, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Dunedin Consort, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, as well as with the symphony orchestras of Memphis, San Antonio, Charlotte, Akron, North Carolina and Nova Scotia. She has collaborated with the Mark Morris Dance Group in music by Franz Schubert, Antonio Vivaldi, Johannes Brahms and Stephen Foster. Her opera performances include the roles of Dido and the Sorceress in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Dardano in Handel’s Amadigi,Amastre in Handel’s Serse, Speranza in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Ippolita in Cavalli’s Elena, and Elpina in Vivaldi’s La Fida Ninfa.

An accomplished violinist before pursuing singing, Ms. Bragle studied both violin and voice at the University of Michigan before earning a Bachelor of Musical Arts degree in Voice Performance and English. She also completed a Master’s degree in Choral Conducting from Michigan State University. She is the recipient of several awards and recognition from Symphony Magazine, the American Bach Society, the Carmel Bach Festival and the Bethlehem Bach Festival.

Ms. Bragle has recorded Mozart’s Requiem with Apollo’s Fire (Koch), Cozzolani’sVespro della Beata Vergine and Messa Paschale with Magnificat (Musica Omnia), Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine (Avie) and L’Orfeo (Eclectra) with Apollo’s Fire, Music of Medieval Love with New York’s Ensemble for Early Music ( Ex Cathedra Records), Toby Twining’s Chrysalid Requiem (Cantaloupe Music), Anthony Newman’s Requiem (Khaeon World Music) and Copland’s In the Beginning with John Scott and the Men and Boy Choir of St. Thomas Fifth Avenue and the Oratorio Singers of Charlotte on their own labels. A recording for Koch of Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne with Apollo’s Fire is forthcoming.

Visit Meg’s website

Photo by Fernanda Monteiro

Stephen Buescher

Magnificat — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:30:20 +0000

Stephen Buescher has performed nationally and internationally, in numerous productions, with Dell’Arte International, where he has been a company member for over a decade. He is the Head of Movement and Physical Theater, in the MFA Graduate program, at the American Conservatory Theater. Stephen has taught physical theater in various Masters Programs including; Brown University/Trinity Rep. Consortium, Yale School of Drama, New York University (La Pietra), University of Connecticut, and the University of Missouri Kansas City. Stephen has choreographed/designed movement for various theaters including Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Trinity Repertory Company, Long Wharf Theatre, and the Providence Black Repertory Company. He is the Artistic Director of Workhorse; an ensemble based physical theater company. He directed the company’s original productions of Sawbones: the Cabinet of Dr. Jekyll, With Claws and Beak and Wild Porcelain (nominated for best new play in Motif magazine, RI, 2008). He is a first round recipient of TCG’s New Generations grant, a Board member of the Network of Ensemble Theaters, and a graduate of the Dell’ Arte International School of Physical Theater and California Institute of the Arts.

Louise Carslake

Magnificat — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 22:51:42 +0000

Louise Carslake is well known to Bay Area audiences as a performer on the baroque flute and the recorder. She is a member of the baroque ensemble Music’s Re-creation, the Farallon Recorder Quartet, Magnificat, and the Jubilate Orchestra. She has performed widely in her native Britain, as well as in New Zealand, Poland, Ireland, China and the Netherlands. As a recording artist, Louise has made has made CDs for the Meridian, Centaur, Magnatune, Intrada, and Musical Heritage labels, and has appeared on radio and television internationally.

In addition to her performing activities, Louise teaches early music performance on the faculty at Mills College, and coaches baroque flute at U.C. Berkeley. She is a popular workshop leader for the American Recorder Society, and is a co-founder of the Bay Area’s Junior Recorder Society. Louise holds the graduate diploma in flute from Trinity College of Music, London, and the diploma for baroque flute performance from the Arnhem Conservatory in the Netherlands, where her teacher was Wilbert Hazelzet. She also studied baroque music performance practice with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.

Background photo by Nika Korniyenko

Daria D’Andrea

Magnificat — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:53:48 +0000

Daria D’Andrea lives in San Francisco where she is a respected member of the early music community. Much of her period instrument training was in Europe where she worked with outstanding leaders of the early music movement including Roy Goodman, Ton Koopman, Andrew Manze and Jaap Ter Linden. While living in Oxford, England, Daria toured Europe extensively playing viola with the European Community Baroque Orchestra. Since 1996, she has specialized in solo viola recitals with fortepiano, exploring solo and chamber literature of the late 18th century. Along with her Magnificat appearances, Daria has
performed with American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque, Jubilate, San Francisco Bach Choir, City Concert Opera, California Bach Society, Ensemble Mirable, and Arcangeli Baroque. Daria studied in Oxford, England with noted pedagogue Kato Havas. She is an alumnus of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Reed College. Daria teaches violin and viola at the University of San Francisco and at the San Francisco Waldorf Schools. Some career highlights for her have been performing Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Alan Curtis at UC Berkeley, being onstage with Luciano Pavarotti, and playing for the Dalai Lama
in St Ignatius Church, San Francisco.

Hugh Davies

Magnificat — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:11:51 +0000

Hugh Davies was born and educated in England, and started his singing career as a boy chorister at St. Albans Abbey under the direction of Peter Hurford and Simon Preston. While a student at Cambridge University, he was a Choral Scholar at King’s College, where the director of music was David Willcocks. As a professional singer based in London, he appeared with Glyndebourne Opera and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, and performed as a soloist with leading choirs and orchestras throughout Europe. He was a member of the Monteverdi Choir, the Schütz Choir and the John Alldis Choir, and made many recordings and broadcasts on television and radio.

After teaching music in Australia for two years, Hugh moved to California in 1986. He now sings, mostly in the San Francisco area, both as a soloist and as a member of several professional ensembles, and has appeared with groups such as Theatre of Voices, American Bach Soloists, California Bach Society, Magnificat, Albany Consort, San Francisco Bach Choir, Santa Rosa Symphony, Sonoma County Bach Choir and Symphony Silicon Valley. He has also appeared with Boston-based Cut Circle and, in Southern California, with Pacific Chorale and Musica Angelica.

Hugh is also President of ACFEA Tour Consultants, an organization that arranges international tours for amateur performing arts ensembles, and serves on the board of Chorus America and as President of American Bach Soloists.

Background photo by Ya-Hsuan Huang

Joe Dieffenbacher

Magnificat — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:57:53 +0000

Joe Dieffenbacher is a former circus clown and elephant jumper, physical comedian and master teacher in the art of Clown, Mask Performance & Design, and Slapstick. He has taught at the Dell’Arte School in California, Teater Studion in Stockholm, the Belfast Community Circus, and universities in North America and Europe. He is the co-founder of theater company Nakupelle, based in Oxford, England, touring Europe with their original circus and mask-based theater shows.