Seattle Area
Early Music Performers
As a service to local early music performers, the Early Music Guild is
providing this list of Seattle-area professional and semi-professional musicians
who have performed in programs supported by the Guild through its Concert Assistance and Professional Affiliate Programs.
Table of Contents -- Strings
Click on the name of the performer to see a detailed description, or scroll
down to view all descriptions.
- Thomas Berghan, lute
- Meg Brennand, violoncello
- Elizabeth Brown, lute, renaissance guitar &
archlute
- Charles Coldwell, vielle
- August Denhard, lute, theorbo, Baroque guitar
- Maxine Eilander, early harp
- Ronn Fullerton, viola da gamba & violin
- Olga Gussow-Hauptman, violin
- Shulamit Kleinerman, violin
- Courtney Kuroda, violin
- John Lenti, lute
- Bill McJohn, harp
- Mary Manning, violin and viola
- Ingrid Matthews, violin
- Sandra Schwarz, violin
- Margriet Tindemans, viola da gamba, viola and
vielle
- Laurel Wells, violin and viola
- Nathan Whittaker, violoncello
- Alicia Yang, violin
- Kim Zabelle, violin
 Tom Berghan, lute
Thomas Berghan is a lutenist specializing in music of the French Baroque. In
addition to performing the solo lute repertoire of the French Baroque, he often
accompanies baroque dance specialists Gloria Giordano and Deda Cristina Colonna.
Tom is a founding member of "Language of the
gods," established in the fall of 1996 to promote the research and performance
of historical dance and dance music from the renaissance and baroque periods.
Click
 to visit Tom's WWW page for more information about his upcoming
performances, tours, and video productions, and to hear some recordings of his
performances.
Contact:
Thomas Berghan
15507 11th Avenue NE
Seattle, WA 98155
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 Meg Brennand, violoncello
Meg is an active performer on both period and modern 'cello. As a baroque
cellist and member of the Seattle Baroque, the Tomasini and
Papageno String Quartets, and the Classical Consort, she has performed on the
Belle Arte, Gallery Concerts, Mostly Nordic, Second City, and Allegro concert
series. She has also appeared with the Portland and Pacific Baroque Orchestras.
As a modern cellist, she serves on the faculty of Seattle Pacific University,
freelances extensively in the Seattle area, and is a member of the Pacific
Northwest Ballet Orchestra. Highlights of recent seasons include a chamber music
concert with renowned violinist Stanley Ritchie and an on-stage appearance in
the touring production of Cabaret at the Paramount Theatre. A graduate of the
Eastman School of Music, she has recorded for Centaur, NPR, CBC Radio, and
Wildboar records.
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 Elizabeth Brown, lute, renaissance guitar & archlute
Elizabeth Brown is
head of the Guitar and Lute program at Pacific Lutheran University and is active
throughout the Pacific Northwest as a solo and ensemble performer. Known for her
musically passionate performances, she has given solo recitals and performed
concertos throughout the West Coast from Vancouver to Southern California, and
has been a featured soloist for the Seattle Bach Choir, Fresno Pacific
University's Musica Pacifica Baroque, the Northwest Chamber Chorus and St.
Mark's Cathedral Associates. An enthusiastic advocate for the guitar and lute,
Ms. Brown has given numerous outreach performances at schools, senior centers,
and community centers for the Seattle Classic Guitar Society and the Early Music
Guild. Also active as a chamber musician, Ms. Brown is a member of
Baroque Northwest, and has
appeared with ArtsWest, Seattle ProMusica and the City Cantábile Choir. Ms.
Brown is a founding member of the early music group Le Nuove Musiche,
which has released the recording Dolce Desio: The Birth of the Baroque in
Italy, France and England. She has been featured on Channel 9's "KCTS
Connects" program, and is a frequent guest on Classic King FM in Seattle. Ms.
Brown graduated cum laude from the University of Washington with Bachelor of
Arts and Music degrees in Guitar and Lute Performance under the direction of
Steven Novacek. She has also had additional studies with lutenists Paul O'Dette,
Pat O'Brien, Ray Nurse and Ronn McFarlane, as well as guitarists David Russell,
Paul Galbraith and Eliot Fisk. Ms. Brown's first solo recording, La Folía de
España: Dances for Guitar, features works for baroque, 19th century and
modern guitars, and was released in March 2005 on the Rosewood Recordings label.
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Charles Coldwell, vielle
Charles has performed on vielle as a member of ensembles in New England,
Chicago and Seattle. He also performs on renaissance and baroque recorders and
renaissance winds.
Click
to view the fuller description of his background as given in the section on Seattle Area Early Music Performers -- Winds.
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 August
Denhard, lute, theorbo, Baroque guitar
Gus is an active performer on lute, theorbo and Baroque guitar, and has
performed regularly with the Baroque trio Liaison and the string ensemble Naked
Fifth. Both ensembles were selected as finalists in the 2000 Early Music
America/ Dorian Recording Competition and are featured on a CD entitled Early
Music Live 2000. A doctoral candidate in early music performance practice at the
Early Music Institute of the Indiana University School of Music, Gus has studied
lute with Thomas Binkley, Paul O'Dette, Lyle Nordstrom and Nigel North. He is
currently completing his dissertation on lute accompaniment in the secular songs
of Henry Purcell. Mr. Denhard also servers as Executive Director of the Early Music Guild.
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 Maxine
Eilander, early harp
Maxine Eilander was born in Deventer, Holland, and grew up in South Africa.
There she earned her Bachelor of Music on the classical harp at the University
of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1992. Her special interest in early music
led her to further study at the Hochschule für Kunste in Bremen, Germany. She
completed her post graduate diploma in early harps and continuo practice there
in 1997. Since then she has appeared as a continuo player and soloist with many
ensembles including Teatro Lirico, Tragicomedia, Les Talens Lyriques, Tafelmusik,
The Toronto Consort, Les Voix Humaines, The Sixteen,
Seattle Baroque, La Stagione Franfurt and Mala Punica. She has appeared around the world in
productions of Monteverdi’s three operas (L’Orfeo, L’Incoronazione di Poppea and
Il Ritorno d’Ulisse): Vancouver, Toronto, New York, Amsterdam, Stuttgart,
Hamburg, etc.
Maxine plays on a range of specialised early harps: the Italian arpa doppia,
the Spanish cross-strung harp, the German ‘Davidsharfe’, the Welsh triple harp
for which Handel wrote his harp concerto, and the classical single action pedal
harp. There is an increasing list of recordings featuring her as a soloist -
Handel’s harp concerto with Tafelmusik (A Baroque Feast, Analekta, 2002),
Ay que
si, Spanish 17th century music with Les Voix Humaines (ATMA, 2002), Sonata al Pizzico, a new recording of Italian music for harp and baroque guitar with duo
partner Stephen Stubbs (ATMA 2004), and a recording with Teatro Lirico to be
released on the ECM label in 2004. Other recordings include: Scarlatti’s
oratorio Hagar and Ishmael, with Seattle Baroque (Centaur, 2003), and
Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine, with Tragicomedia (ATMA, 2002). Maxine
is the managing director of the
Seattle Academy of Baroque Opera.
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 Ronn Fullerton, viola da gamba & baroque
violin
Ronn is an active performer and teacher in Western Washington. He performs
regularly with the Tacoma Symphony and the FulIerton String Quartet,
which he co-founded in 1992. In addition, he is a founding member of Le Nuove Musiche, a group devoted to
performing songs and instrumental music from the Medieval, Renaissance and
Baroque eras, and plays vielle with the Medieval group
Contrafacta. He
performs regularly with the
Baroque Northwest, and he has performed in concert with Margriet
Tindemans and Mary Springfels. Ronn studied viola da gamba with Margriet Tindemans and baroque violin with Ingrid Matthews. He has also participated in masterclasses
with Jordi Savall and David Douglas.
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 Olga
Gussow-Hauptman, violin
Olga has been in the Seattle area since the summer of 1999. Prior
to that she lived in New York City and was performing with such groups as NYS
Baroque, Concert Royal, ARTEK, Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy,
Philadelphia Classical Orchestra, Brandywine Baroque (DE), and American Bach
Soloists. She performed Monteverdi with The Ensemble for Early Music’s Grande
Bande in Hong Kong, on ARTEK’s critically acclaimed recording of Orfeo, with the
Miami Grand Opera’s production of Poppea, and in Seattle the Early Music Guild's
production of Combattimento di Tancredi et Clorinda and Ballo delle
Ingrate. She also perform in the Early Music Guild's 2005 production
of John Blow's Venus and Adonis. Since moving here Ms. Gussow has
performed with Seattle Baroque Orchestra,
Portland Baroque Orchestra, and Pacific Baroque Orchestra (Vancouver, BC). She
also took part in the all-day Bach and Schubert festivals at at Town Hall,
Seattle, organized by husband Fred Hauptman.
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 Shulamit
Kleinerman, violin
Shula plays Renaissance violin, dances, writes about music, and teaches
arts and cultural education. While majoring in music and English at UC Berkeley,
she received a fellowship to study historical violin performance with Monica
Huggett in London, where Shula played with the Linden Baroque Orchestra and
Charivari Agréable. In Seattle, she performs with Seattle Early Dance and Blood,
Love, and Rhetoric. Shula enjoys teaching preschool, and she offers enrichment
projects at other schools and classes for older children in history and the
arts. Her articles on music history and performance appear in the Early
Music America Magazine. Shula offers workshops throughout the year in
historical arts for school-age children (see her website
www.shulamitk.net for more information.
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 Courtney
Kuroda, violin
Courtney received her Master's degree from the Early Music Institute at
Indiana University where she studied Baroque violin with Stanley Ritchie. Her
interest in early music developed while attending the University of California,
Santa Barbara as a student of musicology. She currently resides in the Seattle
area and is an active performer of Baroque music with
Seattle Baroque Orchestra and
Ensemble Amarelli and has recently
collaborated with Baroque Northwest, Seattle Early Dance and Ensemble Mirable.
Ms. Kuroda has also performed throughout the U.S. with a variety of period
chamber ensembles and orchestras, including Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, LA
Baroque, Ars Antigua in Chicago, and Opera Lafayette in Washington D.C., as well
as performing at the Bloomington Early Music Festival and Boston Early Music
Festival. She has recorded on the Naxos label with Opera Lafayette on their CD
of Antonio Sacchini's opera Oedipe à Colone.
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 John
Lenti, lute
John Lenti has appeared as a solo recitalist and chamber musician
on lute, theorbo and guitar throughout the eastern United States, at the
Bloomington and Boston Early Music Festivals, and at the Magnolia Baroque
Festival in Winston-Salem, NC. Following undergraduate study of classical guitar
at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Mr. Lenti held a variety of teaching
posts and performed both in recital as a guitarist and lutenist, and as a member
of the Whistlepig Old-Time String Band in concerts, hootenannies and festivals
throughout western North Carolina. Following a season of dividing time equally
between the various instruments and genres, Mr. Lenti made a definitive
transition to the lute in 2001, moving to London towards the end of that year
for regular lute study with Jacob Heringman and Elizabeth Kenny, returning to
the United States in 2002 for study with Nigel North at Indiana University.
Other significant musical help and inspiration has come from Ricardo Cobo, Ronn
McFarlane and Patrick O’Brien. In Seattle, John co-founded
Dulces Exuviae with soprano
Linda Tsatsanis, and he has performed
with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra
and in the Early Music Guild's production of "Capriole's Caper" as part of its
Early Music Discovery series.
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Bill McJohn, harp
Bill has studied medieval music with Margriet Tindemans
and historical harp with Cheryl Ann Fulton. He has performed in Seattle with the
medieval ensembles Contrafacta, Musica Humana and Peregrine, and in Chicago and Kalamazoo
with the American Medieval Players. He has also taught Gregorian chant for the Northwest Center for Early Music Studies and
the Archdiocese of Seattle.
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Mary Manning, violin and viola
A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Mary currently performs on
Baroque violin and viola as a member of the Seattle Baroque, the Portland Baroque
Orchestra, and the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in Vancouver, B.C. She has also
performed with Smithsonian Chamber Players and the Brandenburg Collegium. During
the summer of 1994 she played modern violin at the Carmel Bach Festival in
California.
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Ingrid Matthews, violin
 Ingrid
performs on Baroque and classical violin, and is the Music Director of the Seattle Baroque. A founding member of both La Luna and Zephyrus, Ms. Matthews
is a frequent guest concertmaster of Los Angeles based Musica Angelica and has
performed with Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, American Bach
Soloists, the Newbury Consort and Joshua Rifkin's Bach Ensemble, in addition to
making frequent duo appearances with Byron Schenkman. Ms. Matthews has been featured by this country's most
prominent early music presenters, and has participated in the early music
festivals of Boston, Berkeley, Stuttgart, Utrecht, and Bruges, the London Proms
and the Mostly Mozart Festival of New York. In Seattle, she has
appeared frequently on the Gallery
Concerts series with the Classical Consort and the Gallery Baroque Players.
Matthews won first prize in the prestigious Erwin
Bodky International Competition for Early Music in 1989, and has been "one
of the lights on early music's international circuit" (San Francisco
Chronicle) She has taught baroque violin and chamber music at Indian
Conservatory, the University of Toronto and Clayton State College (Atlanta) and
is currently on the faculty of the University of Southern California, Los
Angeles. A graduate of Indiana University, where she studied with Josef Gingold
and Stanley Ritchie, Matthews has recorded for Sony Classical, harmonia mundi
USA, Focus, Skylark and Wildboar.
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Sandra Schwarz, violin
Born in Mexico City, Sandra came to study violin performance at Oberlin
College Conservatory of Music in 1964. Since 1984 she has been performing as a
baroque violinist. She is concertmaster of the Portland Baroque Orchestra, and
is a member of the Seattle Baroque
and San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and American Bach Soloists.
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 Margriet Tindemans, viola-da-gamba, vielle,
viola
Ms.Tindemans has performed, recorded, and taught early music
on four continents. A 2005 Grammy Nominee, she was named "Best asset to
Seattle's Classical Music scene" in the Seattle Weekly's 2004 "Best of Seattle"
issue. She has been called a rare combination of charismatic performing and
inspiring teaching, a scholar with a profound knowledge of music, poetry and art
of the Middle Ages - a national treasure. Tindemans was a founding member of the
German ensemble Sequentia and the Huelgas Ensemble of Belgium. As a player of
early stringed instruments, such as medieval fiddle, rebec, and harp, she
performs and records with Medieval Strings. On viola da gamba she performs as a
soloist, and performs with the Seattle
Baroque Orchestra and the Gallery Baroque
Players, and is a frequently invited guest with the Folger Consort of
Washington DC, the Newberry Consort of Chicago and other leading early music
ensembles in North America and Europe. This season (2007) she will play viol in
the Seattle Opera's production of Giulio Cesare. Next fall she will
participate in productions of Monteverdi's Poppea and Orfeo with
the Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam. She directs the
Medieval Women's Choir of
Seattle. In addition to maintaining a busy private studio she is a much sought
after director and teacher at many workshops, including the
Port Townsend Early
Music Workshop, the Pacific Northwest Viols Workshop, the Medieval Workshop
for the Seattle Early Music Guild, the Accademia d'Amore, Viols West, and the
Seattle Academy of Baroque Opera.
Ms. Tindemans works closely with the
Northwest Puppet Center, for whom she has arranged and directed The
Dragon of Wantley and The Magic Flute. This coming April (2007) she
will direct Francesca Caccini's La Liberazione di Ruggiero.
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 Laurel Wells, violin and viola
A native of Chicago, Laurel Wells received her Master’s degree in both violin
and viola from Indiana University. She was a violinist with the Chicago Lyric
Opera for 20 years. Ms. Wells was introduced to early stringed instruments in
1983 while playing chamber music in a festival here in Seattle. Inspired by her
experiences, she went on to join two early music groups in Chicago—City Musik
and Orpheus Band—and studied at the Vancouver Early Music Festival with Monica
Huggett. Since settling in Seattle, she has played with the
Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Portland
Baroque and Pacific Baroque Orchestras, along with performing in events
sponsored by the Gallery Concert Series. She has been Principal Viola of the
Northwest Chamber Orchestra, and is a violinist with Pacific Northwest Ballet.
She plays often with Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera.
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 Nathan
Whittaker, 'cello
Nathan Whittaker, cello, received his first cello at age eight and pursued
study at the Georgia Academy of Music where he won the Alice B. Williams Award.
In 1995, he was awarded the Woodward Scholarship at the Taft School where he
studied cello with acclaimed performer and teacher, Peter Wiley. He graduated
Cum Laude and was the recipient of the P.T.Young Music Award. He has studied and
performed at the Brevard Music Center, Interlochen Music Festival, and the
Killington Music Festival. In 2003, Mr. Whittaker graduated Cum Laude from
Indiana University with a Bachelor of Music Degree in Cello Performance and
received a Masters Degree in Cello Performance from Indiana University the
following year. His private instructors have included Helga Winold, Tsuyoshi
Tsutsumi, Stanley Ritchie, Shelley Taylor and Robert Marsh. For five seasons, he
has performed in the Bloomington Early Music Festival and was twice appointed
cellist at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria.
Currently, Mr. Whittaker is enjoying a career of teaching and performing. For
the past several years, Mr. Whittaker has served on the faculty at the Indiana
University String academy, the principle cellist of the Columbus Indiana
Philharmonic and associate principle cellist with the Terra Haute Symphony
Orchestra, the primary lecturer for the “Behind the Scenes” program, and
established a successful private studio in central Indiana. In addition to his
activity as a modern cellist, Mr. Whittaker is a recognized baroque cellist and
has performed both as a soloist and a continuo cellist with such recognized
performers as Stanley Ritchie, Alison Edberg, and Rachel Barton Pine. Recently,
he performed four concerts at the Bloomington Early Music Festival with such
groups as The Atwater Consort, The Meridian Vocal Consort, and the Bath Street
Studio. Now based in Seattle, Mr. Whittaker is pursuing a doctoral degree in
cello performance with Toby Saks at the University of Washington, teaches at the
Chopin Academy of Issaquah, and is a
member of the Seattle Baroque Orchestra.
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 Alicia Yang, violin
Chinese-American violinist Alicia Yang leads an active and varied
concert career. As a baroque violinist Ms. Yang has appeared in concert with
Seattle Baroque Orchestra, the
Smithsonian Chamber Players, Washington Bach Consort, The Violins of Lafayette,
Brandywine Baroque, and at the Boston Early Music Festival. Each summer she
joins the Carmel Bach Festival under the direction of Bruno Weil. On the modern
violin, Ms. Yang has been a featured soloist with the Baltimore Chamber
Orchestra in a “Mostly Mozart” program, and with the Ottumwa Symphony,
performing the Brahms Violin Concerto. Chamber music appearances include
collaborations with her husband, cellist Amos Yang; the Maia Quartet; and
pianist Melvin Chen. A former member of the Oregon Symphony, Ms. Yang now plays
frequently with the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera. She is a graduate of the
Oberlin and New England Conservatories, where she studied with Marilyn McDonald
and James Buswell. Ms. Yang is a recipient of the Knight Foundation
Creative Empowerment Grant, and can be heard on the Opus One label.
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Kim Zabelle, violin
Kim brings to her performances both a solid
background in medieval and renaissance improvisation and a command of the violin
repertoire from Biber to Boulez. Currently a member of the Seattle Baroque and the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, Ms. Zabelle has
performed internationally at festivals such as Tanglewood, Salzburg, Victoria
and Vancouver and has been featured in broadcasts on NPR, Performance Today, and
CBC Radio. She received her musical training at the Universities of Michigan and
Washington and at Indiana University. Her teachers have included Carnilla Wicks,
Steven Staryk and Stanley Ritchie. She maintains an active teaching studio both
in Seattle and on Bainbridge Island and has also taught at
Marrowstone-in-theCity, the Music Center of the Northwest, the Northwest Center for Early Music Studies, and
as Artist-in-Residence at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She has
recorded for CBC Radio, Geffen, Focus & Wildboar records.
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This listing is provided as a service by the Early Music Guild of Seattle.
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