A BC DE F G HI J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W

Steven Adby - gesture, dance & stage movement

Steven Adby was co-director of Festival Vancouver production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo in the summer of 2000. He started his early dance and movement career at the age of 17. In 1979 he co-founded The Renaissance Dance Company of London, renowned for its lively and entertaining renaissance spectacles, Stuart masques and baroque ballets. He is much in demand as a performer and teacher and his distinct style and humour ensures that all are made to feel welcome. He has guest-lectured for the Boston and Utrecht Early Music Festivals, acts as a consultant for numerous heritage sites within the UK, and has established himself as a director of baroque opera, becoming recognised for his ability to realise and interpret period gesture and movement into an understandable medium. Other recent works include several productions of Dido and Aeneas, The Fairy Queen, Acteon, Orpheus ed Euridice and the first UK performances of Adonis by Rameau and Orfeo from Campra’s Carnaval de Venise. In April 2006 he directed Rameau’s Anacreon and in 2008, Gluck's Orpheus ed Euridice. He also co-directs a very successful theatre in education company, Partake, which specialises in taking historical and drama-based workshops into schools, colleges and numerous historical houses.

Julie Andrijeski is among the leading baroque violinists in North America. she is a full-time Lecturer in the Music Department at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where she teaches performance practice and Baroque dance, and directs the Case/CIM Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Ensembles. She was also Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin College during the 2009-10 academic year.

For many years she was a full-time member of the early-music ensemble Chatham Baroque, an award-winning group that performs throughout the Americas. In addition to her work with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, she regularly appears with many ensembles including Cleveland’s Apollo’s Fire, the New York State Baroque Orchestra, Quicksilver, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Cecilia’s Circle, and the Renaissance group The King’s Noyse.

Her unique performance style is greatly influenced by her knowledge and skilled performance of baroque dance, and she often teaches both violin and dance at workshops. She has been on the summer faculties of the Vancouver Early Music Programme & Festival, the Baroque Performance Institute at the Oberlin Conservatory and the Madison Early Music Festival.

Julie Andrijeski began a D.M.A. degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music where she studied with Linda Cerone before turning her focus to historical performance practice. She holds a D.M.A. in Early Music from Case Western Reserve University, an M.M. in Violin Performance from Northwestern University, and a B.M. in Violin Performance from the University of Denver. A native of Boise, Idaho, Julie Andrijeski resides in Cleveland, Ohio.

Her recordings can be found on Dorian Recordings (with Chatham Baroque), Centaur, and Musica Omnia.

Christopher Bagan is a versatile young artist, equally at home on the modern piano, historical fortepiano and harpsichord. He is currently completing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance at the University of British Columbia on full scholarship with Jane Coop. Throughout his degree he has had the opportunity to study with leading early keyboard specialists including Robert Levin, Jacques Ogg and Colin Tilney. Increasingly in demand as an early keyboard specialist, he has performed with VoiceScapes in Calgary and Regina’s period-instrument ensemble, Per Sonatori.

Along with early music, Christopher has a passionate interest in 20th century and contemporary music, particularly the Second Viennese school of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. Believing strongly that the performers’ voice is vital to music scholarship, he is active in researching and presenting papers and lecture recitals in the areas of historical performance practice and theoretical analysis. Christopher is the recipient of numerous study grants including major awards from the Johann Strauss Foundation of Edmonton, the Winspear Fund of Edmonton, the University Graduate Fellowship (University of British Columbia) and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (University of Toronto) as well as summer study awards from the Banff Centre for the Arts, Internationale-Sommerakademie Mozarteum and the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute.

With assured musicality and the varied tonal palette of a lieder specialist, Canadian lyric Colin Balzer's current season includes a debut on the distinguished Philadelphia Chamber Music Society series, Messiah with the Edmonton and Toronto Symphonies, his Atlanta Symphony debut in the Mozart Coronation Mass under Roberto Abbado; Mozart's Idomeneo and Mass in C in Salzburg under Marc Minkowski; Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Cantatas with Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent and Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni with Louis Langree conducting at France's Aix-en-Provence Festival. In 2010-11 New York hears his solo recital debut at the Frick Collection, as well as Messiah with Kent Tritle conducting both Musica Sacra and the Oratorio Society of New York, the latter at Carnegie Hall. In addition he participates in the Boston Early Music Festival performances and recording of Steffani's Niobe.

Recent seasons includes the title role of Monteverdi's Orfeo in Edmonton, Haydn's Die Schoepfung with Yoav Talmi and the Quebec Symphony, Handel's Messiah with the Calgary Philharmonic, the Mozart Requiem with the National Philharmonic, Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Purcell's The Fairy Queen with Early Music Vancouver, Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass throughout Belgium with Philippe Herregweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent; a European tour of Haendel's Brockes Passion with Marcus Creed and the Akademie fuer alte Musik; and the role of Sacerdote in Mozart's Idomeneo under Marc Minkowski at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Mr. Balzer has given concerts with the Het Brabants Orkest, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Luxembourg Symphony, Munich Bach Choir, Leipzig Baroque Orchestra, Toronto’s Tafelmusik, Quebec's Les Violons du Roy, the Victoria, Quebec, Indianapolis, Ann Arbor, Oregon and New Jersey Symphonies. In addition he sang Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch at Finland’s Savonlinna Festival, Acis in Handel’s Acis and Galatea at Festival Vancouver, and Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow and Lully's Psyche at the Boston Early Music Festival. He frequently collaborates with such distinguished conductors as Leopold Hager, Bernard Labadie, Helmuth Rilling, Simone Young, Simon Preston, Gabriel Chmura, Christof Perick, Mario Venzago and Kenneth Montgomery.

Particularly esteemed as a recitalist, he has been welcomed at London’s Wigmore Hall (accompanied by Graham Johnson), the Britten Festival in Aldeburgh, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, the Wratislavia Cantans in Poland, and at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden. Recordings to date include Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch and Eisler and Henze song anthologies. A prizewinner of Holland’s ‘s-Hertogenbosch Competition, the U.K.’s Wigmore Hall Song Competition, Stuttgart, Germany’s Hugo Wolf Competition and Munich's 55th International ARD Competition, Mr. Balzer also holds the rare distinction of earning the Gold Medal at the Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau with the highest score in 25 years. Born in British Columbia, he received his formal musical training at the University of British Columbia with David Meek and with Edith Wiens at the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg/Augsburg.

Born in Quebec City, Sylvain Bergeron has perfected his expertise on the instruments of the lute family through numerous stays in the United States and Europe with, among other teachers, Paul O'Dette and Eugène Dombois. In 1984 he was a finalist at Toronto’s First International Lute Competition. As a member of Ensemble Anonymus from 1980 to 1990, he performed in all the productions of the ensemble, and was the musical director of three of them. In the spring of 1991 he co-founded La Nef, a musical ensemble of which he is one of the three artistic directors. Since then, he has been at the helm of many productions such as Perceval, the Quest for the Holy Grail, Montsegur, The Garden of Delights, and Music for Joan the Mad.
He is in great demand on the Canadian musical scene as an accomplished performer of the lute and the theorbo. He gives more than sixty concerts per season with the country's most renowned early music ensembles and orchestras. Sylvain has performed and recorded with many soloists including Emma Kirkby, James Bowman, David Daniels, Magdalena Kozena, Daniel Taylor, Karina Gauvin, Suzie LeBlanc, Vivica Genaux, Matthew White, Christine Brandes, Jennifer Lane, Agnès Melon, Meredith Hall, Charles Daniels, Anne Azéma, and Patrizia Bovi.
He has played under the direction of well-known conductors and performed in concert halls as prestigious as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Paris Salle Galveau and New York’s Lincoln Center. He has accompanied famous viol player Jordi Savall in a series of four recitals devoted to Marin Marais. He has taken part in more than forty recordings, several of which have received prizes and honorary awards. He has received several grants from the Quebec Council of Arts and Letters, as well as from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Sylvain Bergeron teaches the lute, baroque guitar and continuo at McGill University and Université de Montréal. He was recently invited to represent Canada at the ninth Festival des Cordes Pincées (Plucked Strings) in Rabat, Morocco.

A native of Victoria, Marc Destrubé is equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician, concertmaster or director/conductor of orchestras and divides his time between performances of the standard repertoire, particularly music of the 20th century, on modern instruments, and performing baroque and classical music on period instruments.

He has appeared as soloist and guest director with symphony orchestras in Victoria, Windsor and Halifax as well as with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Lyra Baroque and Portland Baroque Orchestra, and he led the Belgian ensemble Anima Eterna in acclaimed recordings of the complete Mozart Piano Concerti with Jos van Immerseel. A founding member of the Tafelmusik Orchestra, he has appeared with many of the leading period-instrument orchestras in North America and Europe including as guest concertmaster of the Academy of Ancient Music and of the Hanover Band.

He is first violinist with the Axelrod String Quartet, quartet-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., where the quartet plays on the museum’s exceptional collection of Stradivari and Amati instruments. He has also performed and recorded with L’Archibudelli (Vera Beths, Jurgen Küssmaul, Anner Bijlsma) and is a member of the Turning Point Ensemble in Vancouver specializing in 20th century music and new music.

As a concertmaster he has played under Sir Simon Rattle, Kent Nagano, Helmuth Rilling, Christopher Hogwood, Philippe Herreweghe, Gustav Leonhardt and Frans Brüggen. He is co-concertmaster of Brüggen’s Orchestra of the 18th Century with whom he has toured the major concert halls and festivals of Europe, North America, Japan and Australia, and most recently directing the orchestra for two concerts at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. He was concertmaster of the CBC Radio Orchestra from 1996 to 2002, and of the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra.

He was artistic director of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra from its founding in 1991 until 2007, and was responsible for commissioning works for the orchestra from a number of Vancouver-based composers, as well as instigating other innovative projects such as a program of French baroque and First Nations dance and music. He has also directed several Modern Baroque Opera productions, including the premiere of Peter Hannan’s 120 Songs for the Marquis de Sade .

A highly-respected teacher, he gives annual classes at international academies in Mateus (Portugal) and Vancouver. He has also been an invited teacher at the Paris, Moscow and Utrecht Conservatoires and at Indiana University and the Macphail School, and has presented children’s concerts at the Cité de la Musique (Paris).

His recording of Haydn Violin Concertos on the ATMA label has been praised by the Strad Magazine (London) for the “stylish solo playing..., individual yet unselfconscious” and by Whole Note Magazine (Toronto) for its “bold and daring solo playing”. He has also recorded for Sony, EMI, Teldec, Channel Classics, Hänssler, Globe and CBC Records as well as being broadcast regularly on the CBC.

He lives in West Vancouver with his wife and two children.

British-Columbia-born and New York-based baritone Tyler Duncan enjoys international renown for bringing consummate musicianship, vocal beauty and interpretive insight to recital, concert and–increasingly–operatic literature.  In spring 2010 he debuts at the American Spoleto Festival in the role of Friendly in the 18th-century ballad opera Flora.  He has sung Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Princeton Festival; roles in Lully’s Armide with Houston’s Mercury Baroque; Purcell’s The Faerie Queen with Early Music Vancouver; Papageno in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte in Rotterdam and Utrecht; the title role of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro on a Swiss tour with the Munich Chamber Orchestra under Christoph Poppen; and the High Priest in the Richard-Strauss adaptation of Mozart’s Idomeneo conducted by Ion Marin at the Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.  Forthcoming on the CPO label is his Boston Early Music Festival recording of the title role of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis.

An excellent oratorio singer performing a remarkable range of repertoire, Mr. Duncan’s concerts include Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with the Québec and Winnipeg Symphonies; Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten with the Calgary Philharmonic;  Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Munich, Berlin, Stuttgart and Frankfurt with the Philharmonie der Nationen under Justus Frantz; Händel’s Messiah with the Toronto Symphony, San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque and Portland Baroque; Händel’s La Resurrezione at Germany’s Halle Händel Festival and the Vancouver Early Music Festival; Brahms’ Requiem at Festival Vancouver; Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Montreal Symphony/Kent Nagano and the Dresdner Kreuzchor;  Bach’s Ich habe genug and Weihnachtsoratorium with Toronto’s Tafelmusik and Symphony Nova Scotia; Vaughan-Williams’ Five Mystical Songs in Vancouver (Berkshire Choral Festival) and Carnegie Hall with Kent Tritle and the Oratorio Society of New York.   He has sung the title role of Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Munich, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius at Canada’s Elora Festival; and made an extensive North American tour of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers with Tragicomedia and Concerto Palatino.  Awaiting release on the ATMA label are recordings of works by Purcell, and Carissimi’s oratorio Jepthe with Les Voix Baroque.

Tyler Duncan’s considerable gifts in the realm of art song have earned him prizes from the Naumburg, Wigmore Hall (London) and ARD (Munich) Competitions.  Frequently accompanied by pianist Erika Switzer, he has given acclaimed recitals in New York, Boston, Paris and Montreal, as well as throughout Canada, Germany, Sweden, France and South Africa.   He was also winner of the 2008 New York Oratorio Society Competition, 2007 Prix International Pro Musicis Award and the Bernard Diamant Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts.   He holds music degrees from the University of British Columbia; Germany’s Hochschule für Musik (Augsburg) and Hochschule für Musik und Theater (Munich), Edith Wiens and Helmut Deutsch among his teachers.  He is a founding member on the faculty of the Vancouver International Song Institute.
[APRIL 2010]

Soprano Ellen Hargis is one of America’s premier early music singers, specializing in repertoire ranging from ballads to opera and oratorio. She has performed with many of the foremost period music conductors of the world including Andrew Parrott, Gustav Leonhardt, Paul Goodwin, Monica Huggett, Jane Glover, Simon Preston, Daniel Harding, Paul Hillier, Harry Bicket, Craig Smith and Jeffrey Thomas. She has performed with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Virginia Symphony, Washington Choral Arts Society, Long Beach Opera, CBC Radio Orchestra, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Teatro Lirico, Tragicomedia, New York Collegium, The Mozartean Players, Fretwork, Emmanuel Music and the Mark Morris Dance Group, and has become regular performer with Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, the American Bach Soloists, Seattle Baroque and the Portland Baroque Orchestra. She has appeared at many of the world’s leading festivals including the Adelaide Festival (Australia), Utrecht Festival (Holland), Resonanzen Festival (Vienna), the Vancouuver Early Music Festival, Festival Vancouver. Tanglewood, the Berkeley Festival and New Music America Festival. She has been featured in successive seasons of the Boston Early Music Festival where she has sung Aeglé in Lully’s Thésée, the title role in Luigi Rossi's L'Orfeo, Queen Pasiphae in Conradi’s Ariadne and Irina in Johann Mattheson’s 1710 opera, Boris Goudenow. Lully’s Thésée and Conradi’s Ariadne were recorded for CPO and were nominated respectively for 2007 and 2006 Grammys.  
Recent engagements include a performance and recording of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Oberlin Baroque Ensemble, which will be released later this year on the Smithsonian label. She was heard in the Boston Early Music Festival with Tragicomedia singing Steffani, and with The Newberry Consort in a concert of Elizabethan music. This seasons highlights include recitals with Paul O’Dette in Malmö for the Sweden Early Music Festival and for Peak Performances in New Jersey, a concert in New York with Parthenia, Rameau cantatas with Jacques Ogg and Lyra in the Twin Cities, and French cantatas with Debra Nagy and les Délices in Cleveland. Ellen Hargis has a longstanding musical partnership with the great lutenist Paul O’Dette with whom she records and tours regularly. They have performed together throughout the United States, Canada, Austria, France Spain, Russia and Asia. Two recordings on the Noyse Productions label: The Power Of Love and A Christmas Album, have been met with critical acclaim. She is also featured on a dozen Harmonia Mundi recordings including a critically acclaimed solo recital disc of music by Jacopo Peri, and in Arvo Pärt's Berlin Mass with Theatre of Voices. She appears on a recording of Handel solo cantatas with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra on Wild Boar, the premiere recording of the Bonporti motets for soprano on Dorian, and several recordings for BMG Classics, Vanguard Classics, Virgin Classics, Erato, Dorian Classics and Berlin Classics. Her recording of Tristan et Iseult with The Boston Camerata was winner of the Grand Prix du Disque.
Ellen Hargis teaches voice at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and is Artist-in-Residence with the Newberry Consort at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. She teaches at Early Music Vancouver’s annual Vancouver Baroque Vocal Programme “The Compleat Singer” each summer.

Wilbert Hazelzet has dedicated himself since 1970 exclusively to the baroque flauto traverso. He studied the ancient instrumental techniques and the performance of the music from the 18th century according to contemporary treatises about flute playing and singing. Considered by many as the world’s leading baroque flute player, in 1978 he became a member of Musica Antiqua Köln, and with this world-famous ensemble he appeared in Japan, India, China, the USA, Canada, and all over Europe, from Finland to Portugal and from Ireland to Russia.

He now forms permanent duos with harpsichordist Jacques Ogg and with lutenist Konrad Junghänel. He is the first flautist of Ton Koopman’s Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, has appeared for numerous radio and TV stations across the world and has recorded for several companies such as DGG, Erato, Harmonia Mundi, and, in recent years, Glossa. Wilbert Hazelzet is a Professor at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.

Michael Jarvis has been acclaimed as one of Canada’s finest harpsichordists, fortepianists and continuo players. He has performed with many of Canada’s leading orchestras and chamber ensembles, was a guest conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, and was for 15 years Artistic Director of the Southern Ontario period instrument ensemble ‘The Baroque Players’. In addition to performing across Canada, he has performed as soloist and continuo player throughout the USA, England, Italy and Bermuda. He has accompanied or conducted many of Canada’s finest singers from Maureen Forrester to Russell Braun and is in demand across the country as a continuo player on both harpsichord and fortepiano. He is regularly featured as soloist or continuo player at many Canadian music festivals, including The Elora Festival, the Guelph Spring Festival, The Grand River Baroque Festival, The Festival of the Sound, and Music at Westben. Michael has been recorded on the Hungaroton, ATMA, Naxos, Solitudes and Avalon CD labels, and has many times broadcast nationally and regionally for the CBC, as well as across the U.S. on NPR. His performing editions of 17th and 18th century choral and organ music are published by GIA, Chicago. Michael has taught fortepiano at the University of British Columbia and harpsichord, continuo, and baroque vocal ornamentation at the University of Toronto. He has also taught harpsichord performance at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario and at Havergal College, Toronto. He was co-host and performer (with soprano Carolyn Sinclair) on the national 13-part television series on 19th-century music ‘Come into the Parlour’ broadcast on Bravo and Vision TV. He has just returned from performing with Bernard Labadie and Les Violons du Roy (Palais Montcalm, Quebec City; Eglise St-Jean-Baptiste, Montreal; Carnegie Hall, New York City; The Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles) on their 25th Anniversary North American tour.
[APRIL 2010]

Suzie LeBlanc was born in New-Brunswick of Acadian heritage. Critically acclaimed by the international press for her luminous presence, vocal magic and impeccable phrasing, she enjoys performing a wide range of musical styles from the Renaissance and Baroque periods to French Mélodies, German Lieder and Acadian traditional songs.

In 2008, she made her debut in the film world as the lead character in the feature film Lost song, directed by Rodrigue Jean. The film won the City TV’s Best Canadian Feature Film Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, Best Acadian picture at FIFA (Moncton) and was chosen as one of the Top Ten films of the year in Canada. Before this, she had starred in the music documentaries More than a thousand kisses and Suzie LeBlanc and a man named Quantz, both for Prometheus Productions, and more recently in Suzie LeBlanc: A musical quest, directed by Donald Winkler. Her passion and research into Acadian traditional music has resulted in two recordings: La Mer Jolie and Tout passe, released on the ATMA label.

Her 2008/2009 season saw the release of a Messiaen recording, Chants de terre de de ciel, with Robert Kortgaard, Laura Andriani and Lawrence Wiliford, as well as Humori with Les Voix Baroques (both on the label ATMA). In concert, she performed recitals of Mozart and French art song with Robert Kortgaard, Purcell’s Dido with Theatre of Early Music, The Faerie Queene, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with the Calgary Symphony, Palazzo Romano with La Nef, Graupner with Les Idées Heureuses, The St-Matthew Passion with the Madrid Symphony and returned to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Jonathan Miller’s version of Bach’s St-Matthew Passion.

In the coming season (2009/2010) she performs Japanese songs with the Montreal Symphony and Kent Nagano, Handel and Haydn Society, the Mendelssohn Choir, the Toronto Consort, Symphony Nova Scotia, the Theatre of Early Music, Les voix Humaines, Ensemble Caprice and Tafelmusik as well as with Yannick Nézet-Seguin in Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben and with Mark Simons (clarinet) and Robert Kortgaard (piano) in an eclectic programme featuring Schubert, Brahms, Parker and some Acadian repertoire. With Robert Kortgaard, she will aslo perform at the Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival in St-Johns, Newfoundland, and in Barrie, Ontario with James Campbell and Louis-Philippe Marsolais.

Her discography of over 50 cds includes Mozart Lieder with Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Die Zauberflöte (Pamina) with La Petite Bande and Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri with Les Voix Baroques, awarded the Best Early Music cd for 2007 by the Opus awards in Montreal. Recordings to be released in 2009/2010 include Caldara’s La conversione di Clodoveo with Le Nouvel Opera, and Carissimi oratorios with Les Voix Baroques, both directed by Alexander Weimann.

In May 2008, Suzie LeBlanc was awarded an honorary doctorate from King’s College University in Halifax and she receives one on May 25th, 2009 from Mount Allison University, N.B.

She is one of the artistic directors of Le nouvel Opéra, an organisation committed to the performance and education of Early Opera (resident ensemble of the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal from September 2009) and also teaches baroque singing at the Faculty of Music of the University of Montreal.

As one of the first specialists in baroque music, Jaap ter Linden’s career reads like a directory of the great names of period performance practice. He witnessed the very beginnings of many of the oldest and finest baroque ensembles as co-founder of Musica da Camera and principal cellist of Musica Antiqua Köln, The English Concert and The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. From these auspicious beginnings, he has moved further into the spotlight, either playing solo concerts and intimate ensemble repertoire with the world’s finest interpreters (pianists Ronald Brautigam and David Breitman, violinists Andrew Manze, Elizabeth Wallfisch and John Holloway, and harpsichordists Richard Egarr and Lars Ulrik Mortensen) or at the helm of an orchestra as conductor.

Founder and director of the Mozart Akademie (with which he has recorded the complete Mozart symphonies) and regular guest director and soloist of the Arion Ensemble (Canada), he has led many period instrument orchestras – such as the San Francisco Philharmonia Baroque, Portland Baroque and Amsterdam Bachsoloists – and has lent his expertise to modern ensembles such as the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and the Arnhem Symphony Orchestra.

His extensive discography as player and conductor boasts a highly acclaimed recording of the Bach Cello Suites (Harmonia Mundi), award-winning recordings of the Bach Gamba Suites (Editor’s Choice, Gramophone) and the Violin Sonatas of Rebel and Bach with Andrew Manze and Richard Egarr (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik), and a recording as conductor of Oboe Concertos of J.S. Bach and sons with Pauline Oostenrijk and Nieuw Sinfonietta Amsterdam nominated for the Edison Prize.
Jaap ter Linden is also an invaluable teacher and orchestral leader at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and the Amsterdam Conservatory, and gives regular masterclasses throughout Europe.

Natalie Mackie studied cello at the Conservatoire de Musique (Québec), followed by a degree from the School of Music, University of British Columbia. While at UBC, she began playing viola da gamba and later pursued further studies at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague.

Natalie has played with many ensembles in Canada and the U.S., including New World Consort, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Seattle and Portland Baroque Orchestras, Les Voix Humaines, Les Voix Baroques, the Burney Ensemble, Seattle’s Baroque Northwest and others. She has toured throughout Canada, the U.S. and Europe, playing in cities such as New York, Boston, San Francisco, at London’s Wigmore Hall, Paris, Cologne, Strasbourg, Utrecht and Bologna, among others, and has recorded for Radio France, German Radio, BBC, CBC, and NPR.

She plays violone, viola da gamba, and occasionally baroque cello, in Pacific Baroque Orchestra, and is also a member of the 17th-century string band “La Cetra”, Les Coucous Bénévoles, and Early Music Vancouver’s Bach Cantata Project Players, and frequently appears at the Vancouver Early Music Festival and at MusicFest Vancouver.

Recently she performed with Théàtre de l’Arbre Perché in their production of Molière’s “Sganarelle, or the Imaginary Cuckold” and will continue to be involved in their future productions from the French classical theatre repertoire.

Natalie has a passionate and abiding interest in new music and performs newly commissioned works both as a soloist and with the ensembles of which she is a member. With a deep interest in multi-disciplinary learning, she has also completed a Masters of Graduate Liberal Studies at Simon Fraser University and continues to organize and participate in conferences as a member of the Graduate Liberal Studies Alumni committee.
[APRIL 2010]

Shannon Mercer’s voice has been described as luminous and her acting witty and feisty - Shannon Mercer has been hailed as "one of Canada's most pomising young sopranos" and a "Leader of Tomorrow (Maclean's)".

Her upcoming 2009-2010 season begins in Ottawa where she reprises her “achingly beautiful” Pamina in Opera Lyra’s The Magic Flute. October sees Shannon at London’s famed Royal Albert Hall for a performance and BBC live-televised broadcast of Eric Idle’s highly popular Not the Messiah. Highlights of her concert calendar include Carnegie Hall in New York for Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Les Violons du Roy, Roy Thomson Hall with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for Handel’s Messiah and the Mozart Festival, and in Houston, Texas with Mercury Baroque and Les Voix Baroques.

Shannon's award-winning discography includes several releases on the Analekta label: the 2009 JUNO Award recipient Gloria!: Vivaldi’s Angels, the JUNO nominated Bach and the Liturgical Year, Mondonville, and English Fancy. Her much-lauded French debut in the title role of Marin Marais's Sémélé is available on Glossa, and she also starred in Alexina Louie's Gemini-nominated comic opera Burnt Toast, now on DVD. Her next CD for Analekta features early Italian and will be released in 2010.

With her latest release, Wales ~ The Land of Song with the Skye Consort (Analekta), Shannon recalls her Welsh roots, the culture that cultivated her passion for music through her father, an immigrant to Canada. One of Shannon’s first musical milestones came at the age of 15, when she performed at the prestigious Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in Wales, returning to Canada with the silver cup in hand and as a proud ambassador of Welsh music!

An alumnus of San Francisco Opera’s prestigious Merola Opera Summer Program, Shannon began her operatic career as a member of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio Program. She has since gone on to perform major roles with the COC (Sesto in Sartorio’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto, a Madrigalist in Henze’s Venus and Adonis, Xenia in Boris Godunov, Oscar in Un ballo in maschera and Elvira in L’italiana in Algeri), l'Opéra du Québec, Opera Lyra Ottawa (Nanetta in Falstaff, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia special school performance), Opera Ontario, Opera Atelier (Médée) and the Toronto Operetta Theatre. In July 2006 Shannon made her London debut under the auspices of the ROH Covent Garden in The Midnight Court with Toronto's Queen of Puddings Music Theatre.

Performing musician, instrument maker and researcher in historical music, Ray Nurse was a founding member of Early Music Vancouver, The New World Consort, the Vancouver Chamber Choir and Pacific Baroque Orchestra. He has performed throughout North America, Europe and Asia, and appeared on many broadcasts and recordings. His research has led him to museums and libraries around the world, and he is in constant demand as a teacher at workshops.

He originally studied voice and musicology at the Dept. of Music at UBC and attended UBC’s Opera Workshop, which led to work in Stage Management with Vancouver Opera Association. In 1972 he won the Vancouver Met auditions, subsequently performing as soloist and chorus member with the Vancouver Opera and appearing as a soloist with Edmonton Opera, The Arts Club Theatre, Vancouver New Music, Opera in the Schools and most of the choirs in Vancouver. During the 1970s he took a break to pursue other interests, studying lute with Dianna Poulton in London and Eugen Dombois in Basel, and lute-making with Ian Harwood in Ely, Cambridgeshire. Since then he has concentrated on early music performance and research, with special interest in early singing and opera, directing The New World Consort (1982-1989) and singing with The Vancouver Chamber Choir (between 1970 and 2000 for 15 seasons). In 2001 he founded La Cetra, an ensemble which specializes in seventeenth-century music. He has co-ordinated notable productions of Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo”, “1610 Vespers” and "L'Incoronazione di Poppea" for Festival Vancouver 2000-2003 , and "L'Orfeo" again for Edmonton's "Festival of Ideas" in 2008.

He currently coaches Early Music Ensembles and teaches lute at U.B.C., directs the Baroque Vocal Programme in the Vancouver Early Music Programme, is professionally active as a lutenist, accompanist, continuo player and singer, and continues to build instruments for selected customers.

Jacques Ogg is a performer and recording artist on both harpsichord and fortepiano, as well as a conductor. He teaches at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. He was born in Maastricht (The Netherlands) and studied harpsichord in the city of his birth with Anneke Uittenbosch. In 1970 he went to study with Gustav Leonhardt at the Amsterdam Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1974.

Jacques Ogg’s current activities include solo recitals on harpsichord or on fortepiano, concerts with flautist Wilbert Hazelzet as a duo as well as in a trio-formation either with viola da gamba player Jaap ter Linden or with cellist Christiaan Norde. He is a member of the Orchestra of the 18th Century and has performed regularly with Concerto Palatino. He is frequently invited to conduct masterclasses and summer courses, among others in Juiz de Fora (Brazil) and Buenos Aires, in Mateus (Portugal), Salamanca (Spain) as well as in Cracow (Poland), Prague and Budapest. He was invited as a juror in competitions such as “Bach Wettbewerb” (Leipzig) and “Prague Spring”. Jacques Ogg is artistic director of the Lyra Baroque Orchestra in Minneapolis/Saint Paul.

Annalisa Pappano (viola da gamba & lirone) is the founder and artistic director of the Catacoustic Consort. She studied at Indiana University’s Early Music Institute and at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Her playing has been described by critics as “mercurial and enchanting” and “with a sound that is lighter than air with the airy luster of gilding on the mirrors of a rococo drawing room.” She has performed throughout Belgium, England, Ireland, Colombia, Canada, and the U.S. and has appeared on nationally syndicated radio and has played at the Berkeley and Vancouver Early Music Festivals and the Ojai Music Festival. Pappano is a member of the Oberlin Consort of Viols and Atalante (England) and has performed with numerous other ensembles including the Houston Grand Opera, the Cleveland Opera, the Portland Opera, the Portland Baroque Orchestra, Les Voix Baroques, Opera Atelier, the Toronto Consort, the Concord Ensemble, Cappella Artemisia (Bologna), Wildcat Viols, and Consortium Carissimi. She has taught at Viola da Gamba Society of America national conclaves, the Viola da Gamba Society Pacific Northwest and Northeast chapters, the San Diego Early Music Workshop, ViolsWest, the Madison Early Music Workshop, and has been a guest lecturer at numerous universities. Pappano led the Catacoustic Consort to win the grand prize in the Naxos / Early Music America Live Recording Competition and recorded a program of Italian laments on the Naxos label. Pappano teaches viola da gamba at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music.

Elissa Poole traded in her silver flute for a copy of an 18th-century single-keyed wooden flute in the late 70s and never looked back, regretting only the absence of new music for her adopted instrument. This she has attempted to correct, with the aid of a circle of composers and close friends whose musical inclinations—almost always of an experimental nature—found inspiration in the sonorities of early instruments. In traditional repertoire, the French Baroque has been a special passion, along with the wacky virtuoso writing of the Berlin school. In 1985 Elissa moved to Toronto, where she performed regularly with the Tafelmusik Orchestra, and the small ensemble, Les Coucous Bénévoles, which harpsichordist Colin Tilney founded in 1985, and which she directed from 1987. That group changed its face many times over the course of the years, while maintaining a focus on both contemporary and historical repertoire, and its activity is represented on half a dozen discs for almost as many labels. Elissa now lives on Salt Spring Island and teaches at the University of Victoria. 
[APRIL 2010]

Sumner Thompson is one of today's most sought-after young baritones. His appearances on the operatic stage include roles in productions from Boston to Copenhagen, including the Boston Eearly Music Festival's productions of Johann Georg Conradi's Ariadne (2003) and Lully's Psyché (2007) and several Eurpoean tours with Contemporary Opera Denmark as Orfeo in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo. He has performed across North America as a soloist with Concerto Palatino, Tafelmusik, Apollo's Fire, Les Boréades de Montréal, Les Voix Baroques, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, the King's Noyse, Mercury Baroque, and the symphonies of Charlotte, Memphis, and Phoenix.

Highlight's of Mr. Thompson's 2008-09 season include Bach's St. Matthew Passion with Tafelmusik, Buxtehude's Membra Jesu nostri with Les Voix Baroques and Houston's Mercury Baroque, Mozart's Requiem at St. Thomas Church in New York City, a tour of Japan with Joshua Rifkin and Cambridge Concentus, and a return to the Carmel Bach Festival. in Copenhagen, Uberto in La Serva Padrona with Apollo's Fire, The Traveller in Britten's Curlew River with the Britten-Pears School in Nagaoka, Japan, and at the Aldeburgh Festival in the UK, Schaunard in La Bohéme with the Granite State Opera, and the count in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro with the Commonwealth Opera. He has also appeared with Boston Baroque (as Pallante in Handel's Agrippina), the Boston Early Music Festival ( Boston's Florestan Recital Project, Pittsburgh's Bach and Baroque, Early Music Vancouver, Apollo's Fire (as Pilate in a staged version of Bach's St. Matthew Passion), Emory Chamber Music in Atlanta, the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (in Britten's Cantata Misericordium), the Masterwork Chorus (in Handel's Messiah at Carnegie Hall), the National Symphony and the Choral Arts Society of Washington at the Kennedy Center (in Finzi's In terra pax), the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum (in Brahms' Ein Deutches Requiem), Camerata Pacifica (as La Discorde in Charpentier's Les Arts Florissants), Paul Hillier in Bloomington, Indiana (in Bach's St. John Passion and St. Matthew Passion, and NYS Baroque in Ithaca, NY, (as Zebul in Handel's Jephtha).

A noted recitalist, Mr. Thompson has performed in Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Regensburg, and at London's famed Wigmore Hall with the late Leonard Hokanson, Alison d'Amato, and Tobias Hartlieb. As a favorite in top tier early music circles, he has appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival in concert with the King's Noyse ande as the satir in Conradi's Ariadne, as well as in concerts with the Festival Baroque Orchestra and Concerto Palatino. He has also appeared at guest artist at the San Francisco, Regensburg, and Bloomington Early Music Festivals.

Among his many awards and distinctions, Mr. Thompson is the winner of the 1995 Atlanta Pro-Mozart Society Competition, the Willi Apel Scholarship at Indiana University in 1997, and the 1999 Indiana University Early Music Institute Concerto Competition, for which he was the only singer to ever be accorded this honor. In 2003, Mr. Thompson placed as a semi-finalist in the prestigious Wigmore Hall International Song Competition. He was also twice a semi-finalist in the New York Oratorio Society Competition.

Sumner Thompson records for the harmonia mundi usa, Dorian and Arsis labels.

Consistently singled out for her “perfect baroque voice” (Seattle Times), young Russian-American soprano Yulia Van Doren has established herself as a rising star of the new generation of baroque specialists. A major highlight of her 2010-2011 season includes being a featured artist at the Cartagena International Music Festival, Colombia, where she will appear in nationally televised performances of Bach’s Mass in B Minor with soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Orchestra Sinfonia of London, as well as Bach’s Coffee Cantata with the Brentano String Quartet.

This season she also returns to the Portland Baroque Orchestra, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, St. Thomas Men and Boy’s Choir, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, Vancouver Early Music Festival, and sings two major roles with the Boston Early Music Festival: Belinda in Dido and Aeneas, and Manto in Steffani’s Niobe, the Boston Early Music Festival’s centrepiece opera starring French countertenor Phillipe Jarrousky. A 2009 winner of Astral Artists’ National Auditions, she will be presented in recital on Astral’s Philadelphia concert series. Ms. Van Doren made her European debut in 2010 singing the Hungarian premiere of Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Other recent debuts include Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Asheville Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Carnegie Hall, Colorado Music Festival, and multiple tours with Mark Morris Dance Group’s Dido and Aeneas, including recent performances in Moscow’s Golden Mask Festival. The only singer to win top prizes in all four North American Bach vocal competitions, Yulia will record her debut solo disc with the American Bach Soloists in the spring of 2011.

Les Voix Baroques is an ensemble specializing in vocal works from the Renaissance and Baroque in formats ranging from traditional concerts to fully staged operatic productions. Past collaborations include Bach's St. John and St. Matthew Passion with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Bach Cantatas with Ensemble Les Boreades, a German tour of Antonio Caldara's Oratorio Il Conversione di Clodoveo with IConfidenti Berlin and a 2007 Juno Nominated and Opus award winning Atma recording of Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri with Les Voix Humaines and conductor Alexander Weimann. Les Voix Baroques have appeared in concert at the Boston Early Music Festival,for  Early Music Vancouver, Houston's Mercury Baroque, Montreal Baroque, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, Sackville Early Music Festival, Domaine Forget, the Elora Festival and in two Opus Award winning concerts produced by CBC for their McGill Concert Series. Upcoming highlights include collaborations with the Portland Baroque Orchestra under Monica Huggett for a US tour of Bach's St.John Passion, concerts and a recording of the St.John Passion with Ensemble Arion for the Montreal Bach Festival, a  6 concert tour of Nova Scotia for Music Royal and a 4 concert tour of Colombia.
[APRIL 2010]

Alexander Weimann, who in 2009 became the music director with Vancouver’s Pacific Baroque Orchestra, is one of the most sought-after ensemble directors, soloists, and chamber music partners of his generation. He has traveled the world as a member of the ensemble Tragicomedia; as a frequent guest of ensembles such as Les Boréades, Cantus Cölln, Freiburger Barockorchester, Tafelmusik, and the Gesualdo Consort; and as musical director of Les Voix Baroques and Le Nouvel Opéra.

During the 2008 season he led the Portland Baroque Orchestra in Handel's Messiah, conducted the Pacific Baroque Orchestra on a tour of Canada and the USA, and performed Bach's Harpsichord Concertos as soloist with Les Violons du Roy. Both the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra regularly invite him to play as soloist.

After working as an assistant conductor at the Amsterdam, Basel, and Hamburg opera houses, he directed his own productions of Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona with the Freiburger Barockorchester; Pepusch's Beggar's Opera at the Palace Theatre in Gotha; Handel's Orlando Furioso at the Teamtheater in Munich; Telemann's Passion oratorio Seliges Erwägen at the Europäischen Wochen (European weeks) festival at Passau; the parody opera Capriole d' Amore at the 2004 Händelfestspielen in Halle; Caldara's Clodoveo (in 2005) and the multipart opera event Mozart à Milano (in 2006), both of which were Canadian-German co-productions mounted at festivals in Montreal and Vancouver, and at the Sanssouci Palace Theatre in Berlin; and, for the Vancouver Early Music Festival, Handel's Resurrection (in 2007), and Rameau's Pygmalion (in 2008).

Weimann can be heard on some 100 CDs and, frequently, on the radio in many countries. He made his North American recording debut with the ensemble Tragicomedia on the CD Capritio (Harmonia Mundi USA), and won worldwide acclaim from both the public and critics for his 2001 release of Handel's Gloria (on the Canadian label Atma Classique).
Volume 1 of his recordings of the complete keyboard works by Alessandro Scarlatti appeared in May 2005. Critics around the world unanimously praised it, and in the following year it was nominated for an Opus prize as the best Canadian early-music recording. Volumes 2 and 3 of the complete Scarlatti works will be released shortly. In 2007, his recording of Buxtehude's Membra Jesu with the Montreal-based ensemble Les Voix Baroques won an Opus prize, and was nominated for a Juno Classic Award. In 2007 he directed Caldara's oratorio Clodoveo, and both conducted and performed as fortepiano soloist with the German ensemble Echo du Danube in the first recording of concertos by Wagenseil. In 2008 he added to his solo outings by recording Bach's Clavierübung II. He also released a CD of Handel oratorios with the celebrated soprano Karina Gauvin.

Weimann was born in 1965 in Munich, where he studied the organ, church music, musicology (his M.A. thesis was on Bach's recitatives), theatre, mediæval Latin, and jazz piano. He was supported by the Bavarian Radio Council, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and a Cusanuswerk grant for the highly talented. In addition to his studies, he has attended numerous master classes in harpsichord and historical performance. To ground himself further in the roots of western music, he became intensively involved, over the course of several years, with Gregorian chant. In 1997, his group Le Nuove Musiche won first prize at the Premio Bonporti music competition in Rovereto. From 1990 to 1995, Weimann taught music theory, improvisation, and jazz at the Munich Musikhochschule. Since 1998, he has been giving master classes in harpsichord and historical performance practice at institutions such as Lunds University in Malmö and the Bremen Musikhochschule, and also at North American universities such as Berkeley (University of California), Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, McGill in Montreal, and Mount Allison in New Brunswick. Since 2007 he has been conducted the opera production at the Amherst Early Music Festival. For several years, he has been teaching early music performance practice to voice and instrumental students at the Université de Montréal, as well as conducting the Baroque opera that is produced there once every two years (the 2007 production was of Monteverdi's Poppea). Singers of note, such as those with the Atélier Lyrique Montréal and other opera studios, seek his services as a vocal coach.

Recently, Alexander Weimann has returned to jazz; he has played piano on several CDs, and in a video clip for CBC Showcase. After some years in Berlin, he now spends as much time as possible with his family — which so far includes two children as well as several pets — in his adopted home, Montreal, and is active in both his kitchen and his garden.

Matthew White was born in 1973 and began singing as a treble with St. Matthew’s Men and Boys Choir in Ottawa, Canada. Operatic engagements include work with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Glyndebourne Touring Opera, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Cleveland Opera, Opera Atelier, and Pacific Opera Victoria.

On the concert stage he has worked with groups including Bach Collegium Japan (Masaaki Suzuki), Collegium Vocale Ghent (Phillipe Herrewheghe, Marcus Creed, H.C Rademann), Le Concert Spirituel (Hervé Niquet), Nederlands BachVereniging (Jos van Veldhoven), Arsys Bourgogne (Pierre Cao), Tafelmusik (Jeanne Lamon, Yvars Taurins), Les Violons du Roy (Bernard Labadie), Ensemble Arion (Monica Huggett), Concerto Palatino (Bruce Dickey), the New York Collegium (Andrew Parrott), Le Parlement de Musique (Martin Gester), Oregon Bach Festival (Helmuth Rilling, John Nelson), Carmel Bach Festival (Bruno Weil), Capella Brugensis (Patrick Peire), New Zealand Chamber Orchestra (Brian Law), Ottawa's Thirteen Strings (Jean François Rivest), Israel Camerata, Aradia Ensemble, Toronto Symphony, the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, Calgary Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, Quebec Symphony and Oregon Symphony. He has also appeared as soloist at the Vancouver, Boston, Brugges. Ambronay, Regensburg, Stift Melk, Utrecht and Lameque Early Music Festivals. A recipent of a major Canada Council Grant for emerging artists and an Adams Vocal Fellowship at the Carmel Bach Festival, Matthew is the administrative and programming director for Montreal’s Les Voix Baroques.

Both a Grammy and Juno Award nominee, he has over 30 recordings to his name for labels including Analekta, Atma, Chanel Classics, CBC records, CPO, ASV, BIS, Naxos, Glossa, and Harmonia Mundi. His 2004 recording entitled “Elegia”  won the Cannes Classical Music Award at Midem for best new solo early music recording. Recently released recordings include two sets of Bach Cantatas with Phillipe Herrewheghe and Collegium Vocale Gent (Harmonia Mundi), the B-minor Mass with Netherlands Bach Society (Channel Classics), Vivaldi Gloria with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (CBC records), Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri with Les Voix Humaines and Les Voix Baroques and Carissimi’s Jephthe for Atma Classique.

Recent and upcoming projects include Handel's Amadigi with Boston Baroque, Messiah with the Hessischer Rundfunk orchestra and Le Concert D'Astree in Frankfurt under Emmanuelle Haim, a tour/recording of Bach's St.Matthew Passion with the Netherlands Bach Society, Handel's Israel and Egypt with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Steffani's “Niobe” with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra and numerous concerts across North America with Les Voix Baroques.
[APRIL 2010]

Mezzo-Soprano Debi Wong is a recent graduate from the Yale School of Music, where she specialized in Early Music, Artsong and Oratorio. Praised for her effective performances, Ms. Wong enjoys working as both a chamber singer and concert soloist.

Highlights of her 2009 – 2010 season include Bach’s Singet dem Herrn and Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott with Masaaki Suzuki; Haydn’s Salve Regina with Nicholas McGegan, The St. John Passion with Bruce Pullan in his final season conducting the Vancouver Bach Choir; Bach’s B Minor Mass with Simon Carrington and part II of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Helmuth Rilling at the Oregon Bach Festival; she also appeared in the 2009 Vancouver Early Music Festival production of Purcell's The Faerie Queene.

Next season, Debi will be making her debut in early opera with Stephen Stubbs and a production of Monteverdi’s Il Ballo delle Ingrate.
Debi was born and raised in Vancouver BC and is thrilled to be joining Early Music Vancouver for their 2010 festival.
[APRIL 2010]