BLEMF 2019 | ENSEMBLES

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​Aperi Animam ​​
​APERI ANIMAM’s repertoire spans from Gregorian chant to Baroque anthems but focuses in primarily on sacred music from the Renaissance, mainly that of the Tudor masters, Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. They have been praised for their attention to ensemble precision as well as innovative programming, which often comments on the human experience. Artistic director Daniel Koplitz encourages a collaborative approach to consort-singing. The ensemble rehearses as chamber musicians with each member contributing artistically to the work at hand. While there is careful attention to historical performance practice, APERI ANIMAM approaches early music performance with experimentation and intimacy, and they aim to stretch the boundaries of traditional choral concerts.

​The Brandenburg Project 
The Brandenburg Project is a unique chamber ensemble for highly motivated developing musicians who have a passion for Bach and his contemporaries. This period ensemble will explore in depth baroque playing techniques and develop the teamwork, communication and problem solving skills needed to succeed as a chamber musician. 

Byron Schenkman 
BYRON SCHENKMAN believes in the power of music to bring people together for healing and joy. By the time Byron went to their first music camp at the age of eleven, they knew that playing chamber music would be an important part of their life’s work. They have since been a founding member of several ensembles, including the Seattle Baroque Orchestra which they codirected until 2013. They currently direct the chamber music series Byron Schenkman & Friends at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall. In addition to performing live on piano, harpsichord, and fortepiano, Byron can be heard on more than forty CDs, including recordings on historical instruments from the National Music Museum, Vermillion, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. A recipient of the Erwin Bodky Award from the Cambridge Society for Early Music "for outstanding achievement in the field of early music," Byron was voted “Best Classical Instrumentalist” by the readers of Seattle Weekly, and their piano playing has been described in The New York Times as "sparkling," "elegant," and "insightful." Byron is graduate of the New England Conservatory and received their Master’s Degree and a Performer’s Certificate in harpsichord from Indiana University, where they were a student of Elisabeth Wright. www.byronschenkman.com
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Joyce Chen, harpsichord 
A native of Taiwan, Dr. Joyce Chen is a recipient of the 2018 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts. As an active keyboard player, Joyce has a busy performing schedule in the Greater Philadelphia and New York areas. She is Minister of Music at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Glenside, PA,and is a co-founder of an all-female period instrument ensemble, Muse Camerata. She has been a guest artist and lecture at the University of Delaware as well as Delaware State University. As a solo harpsichordist, Joyce has been gaining recognition both nationally and internationally. From 2015-2016, Joyce performed extensively with Brandywine Baroqueon the regular concert series as well as Harpsichord Heavenat the Flint Collection of Antique Keyboard Instruments. In March 2016, Joyce was one of the six finalists at the Eighth International Jurow Harpsichord Competition in Oberlin. In 2018, Joyce made her international debut at the Musica Antiqua Festival and Harpsichord Competition in Bruges, Belgium as well as the International Normandy Baroque Music Competition in Rouen, France. Joyce holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Harpsichord Performance from Stony Brook University. Her primary harpsichord teachers
include Davitt Moroney, Charlene Brendler, and Arthur Haas. Joyce is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Historical Musicology at Princeton University, wheresheis alsoagraduate student director of Early MusicPrinceton.

Las Aves ​
Las Aves is an emerging ensemble dedicated to historically informed-performance of Medieval, Renaissance and early Baroque repertoire from Europe and its New World colonies. Replicating Músicos de Cámera y Chiesa, musicians of the Spanish court and church who both sang and played instruments, the ensemble hopes audiences find sincerity and passion in its historically informed performances. 

All members hold graduate degrees in early music or historical performance from acclaimed music schools across the United States. Each member brings his or her own research and performance interests to the ensemble which allows Las Aves to present thoughtful and well studied programs with a deep knowledge of accurate historical pronunciations, performance practices, and the use of historical instruments. Las Aves is based in Bloomington, Indiana.

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Latin American Ensemble - La Púrpura de la rosa 
Sponsored by the Latin American Music Center in the Jacobs School of Music, the LAE is dedicated to the performance of Latin American repertoire. The ensemble explores original Latin American genres and their corresponding performance practices through arranging and performing pieces from both the popular and classical repertoire. This year the Latin American Ensemble will explore the intersection of European classical music with the colonization of the New World. Vocal and instrumental repertoire will be chosen from both European composers working in the New World, and native composers, from the 17th through 19th centuries. The ensemble will be presenting a staged performance of La
​Pú​rpura de la rosa, the first known opera to be composed and performing in the New World. 

​Vincent Lauzer, recorder ​
Révélation Radio-Canada 2013-2014 and Breakthrough Artist of the Year (2012 Opus Awards), recorder player Vincent Lauzer graduated from McGill University where he studied with Matthias Maute. He is the artistic director of the Lamèque International Baroque Music Festival in New-Brunswick. In October2018, his most recent recording of Vivaldi's concertos with Arion Baroque Orchestra was awarded a Diapason d'Orby the famous French magazine Diapason. Winner of several prizes in national and international competitions, he has been awarded the Fernand Lindsay Career Award, a scholarship given to a young promising Canadian musician for the development of an international career. Vincent received the Béatrice-Kennedy-Bourbeau Award at the Prix d’Europe 2015. In 2012, he won the First Prize at the Stepping Stone of the Canadian Music Competition and the Career Development Award from the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto.In 2009, he was awarded the First Prize and the Audience Appreciation Prize in the Montreal International Recorder Competition. Vincent is a member of Flûte Alors! and Les Songes, two ensembles with whom he has toured Eastern Canada with Jeunesses Musicales Canada. Vincent regularly performs as a soloist with Arion Baroque Orchestra, La Bande
Montréal Baroque, I Musici, the Pacific Baroque Orchestra (Vancouver) and Les Violons du Roy.He has played in various series and festivals in Canada and in the United States as well as in Mexico, France, Germany, Spain and Belgium.

McGill University Baroque Ensemble
McGill University has offered one of the most active and diverse programs Historical Performance in North America for over 40 years, providing professional training for students wishing to launch a career in Early Music. McGill Early Music performance
opportunities include an annual staged production of an early opera (works have ranged from Peri to Handel and Rameau); a Baroque Orchestra using period instruments which
participates in the opera and, in its own productions, concentrates on orchestral
repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries; the vocal chamber ensemble Cappella Antica,
which focuses on Renaissance and early Baroque repertoire, often in conjunction with
consorts of viols, recorders and brass; and some 15 to 20 early chamber music ensembles
each semester. Chamber ensembles have been an integral part of the Early Music programme at McGill since its inception. They perform repertoire ranging from a cappella Josquin motets, to Haydn string quartets on period instruments. Some of these ensembles
have gone on to work together professionally, and many of their members perform with the Arion Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Caprice, le Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Les Boréades, Les Voix Baroques and other early music groups in Montreal, across Canada, and internationally.

​Nigel North, lute
Born in London, England, Nigel North has been Professor of Lute at the Early Music Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington (USA) since 1999. Previous positions included The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London (1976-1996), Hochschule der Künste, Berlin (1993-1999) and the Royal Conservatory, Den Haag, (2006-2009). Initially inspired at
the age of seven by the early 60's instrumental pop group "The Shadows", Nigel studied
classical music through the violin and guitar, eventually discovering his real path in life, the lute, when he was 15. Basically self-taught on the lute, he has been playing and teaching for nearly 50 years. After hearing one of Nigel’s Bach recitals in London, Julian Bream
recalled in 2002 “I remember going to a remarkable recital, one which I wish I had the ability to give: it was one of Nigel North’s Bach recitals, and I was bowled over by how masterful and how musical it was. A real musical experience, something you don’t always get from guitar and lute players and which, in general, is pretty rare.” Recordings include a
four CD boxed set “Bach on the Lute” (Linn Records), four CDs of the lute music of John
Dowland (Naxos), and a new ongoing series of music by Sylvius Weiss (BGS) and Francesco da Milano (BGS).

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​Oberlin Baroque ​
The concert program’s performances will be drawn from either Oberlin’s Baroque Ensemble program–small, coached ensembles that perform once or twice per semester–or from the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra. Some of the instrumentalists are majors in Oberlin’s Historical Performance program; others are taking secondary lessons on a historical instrument. Oberlin’s Historical Performance Department is one of the oldest in the nation, having given degrees in Historical Instruments for almost 50 years.

​Peabody Renaissance Ensemble ​
The Peabody Renaissance Chamber Ensemble is a select group of Historical
Performance students from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. The ensemble was founded by Mark Cudek in 1988 and began touring in 1996 in Rome, Italy, and has performed in several U.S. venues, including Baltimore’s Artscape Festival, Boston Early Music Festival, Early Music Hawaii, Indianapolis Early Music Festival, and the Kennedy Center. Internationally, the ensemble has additionally performed in Tokyo; toured Taiwan twice, including a command performance for the First Lady at the National Concert Hall in Taipei; and given numerous programs for the 2016 and 2019 Conciertos de la Villa de Santo Domingo Festival, in the Dominican Republic. The ensemble’s mission is twofold: to provide numerous and varied performance opportunities to HP students and to bring early music to a wider audience through community engagement and accessible programming. 2018-2019 outreach events included performances at the Walters Art Museum, the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Edenwald Retirement Community, and the Music Connects series at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

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​Rezonance Baroque Ensemble
Active since 2012, Rezonance Baroque Ensemble is one of the most exciting new groups on Toronto’s classical music scene. Unafraid of improvisation and experimenting with new concert formats, Rezonance are on their way to becoming some of the foremost early music interpreters in chamber music in Toronto, and are already known for giving great performances in ways that resonate with today’s audiences. Inspired by history and informed by the present, Rezonance leads audiences through the discovery of under-appreciated and unusual works, and new ways of hearing the classics.

​USC Collegium Workshop ​
USC has two official early music ensembles. The Thornton Baroque Sinfonia is an ensemble of period instruments and voices specializing in music from the late 16th through the mid-18th centuries. Classified as one of the official “large ensembles” of the Thornton Music School, the Baroque Sinfonia consists of approximately ten graduate students majoring in early music, at least as many graduate students of modern instruments and voice minoring in early music, and a small but growing number of undergraduate students, all performing four different programs each year. Members also perform in the USC Collegium Workshop in two annual concerts devoted to Medieval and Renaissance music. Both ensembles have performed in festivals in California and in the Berkeley and Boston Early Music Festivals as winners of the Early Music America Collegium Grant and YPF Competitions. Its performances have been heard over National Public Radio, and its
members, past and present, perform, research, and teach around the world. Their recording of British broadside ballads D’ye Hear the News, commissioned by the Yale University Press, can be heard online at iTunes U. The ensemble was founded in 1986 by James Tayler, and is currently led by early music program director Adam Knight Gilbert.