SING WITH YOUR VIOL!

Conclave 2008 Features

• Special Programs
  • Beginning Viol
  • Seasoned Players
  • Consort Cooperative
• Mini-Concerts
• Student Concert
• Ad-hoc Playing
• John Pringle: Viol Care
• Early Music Shop of New England
• VdGSA Store
• Builders' Exhibits
• Live and Silent Auctions
• Town Meeting
• Young Players' Gathering
• Banquet and Entertainment
• Lecture by Christopher Hopkins "Growth & Form in Fantasias"
• Formal, public concert by Parthenia Wednesday, July 30 at 8:00 p.m., Town Hall, Peterborough, NH

Chartered in 1962, Franklin Pierce is a 4-year, coeducational university located on 1000 acres in the Monadnock area of southern New Hampshire. The campus perches on a level hilltop overlooking crystal clear (and swimmable!) Pearly Pond. Mount Monadnock can be seen in the distance. The campus is compact; all the buildings we will use are within 5 minutes of each other. Two of our dorms have suite arrangements, with living room areas for evening playing. Classes will be held both in the dorms and in nearby Marcucella Hall classroom building. Every room is equipped with an active phone jack (BYO phone) as well as internet accessibility. The Manchester, NH airport is the most convenient for those flying to Conclave. More specifics will be sent upon registration. Please note that in order to ensure a quality program, registration is limited to 180 students. If you are not sure about attending, we recommend that you sign up anyway, so as to assure yourself room and class space. You may cancel without penalty until June 15. The dorms this year have quite different features and prices. Please carefully read the dorm descriptions in the registration procedure and check the prices on the billing form before making your choice. Contact Kathy Schenley if you have questions.

Schedule of events
Events begin officially with registration from 2 until 5 pm Sunday, July 27. Early arrival on July 26 may be arranged. Our first meal is dinner Sunday evening, followed by orientation and welcoming get-together. Classes are Monday through Saturday. On Monday evening Christopher Hopkins will present his lecture, "Growth and Form in Fantasias: how analysis of composition guides shaping melodies and balancing the consort." On Tuesday evening, we will have our live auction. On Wednesday afternoon, classes end a bit early so that you may explore the area. Convenient box suppers may be ordered from the college. Spend your free time hiking Mount Monadnock, photographing covered bridges, antiquing, or in quiet contemplation at the Cathedral of the Pines. Go to Monadnock Travel for more information. Finish your sightseeing at the historic Town Hall in Peterborough in time for the Parthenia concert that same evening. On Friday evening we will celebrate with a banquet. Saturday evening finishes off the week with a student concert and farewell party. Check-out time is 11am, Sunday, August 3. A "welcome" letter containing many Conclave details, including travel, will be mailed out beginning in mid April. These details will also be posted here.

Housing
This year there are six possibilities for housing on campus:

• Single in Cheshire
• Double in Cheshire
• Single in Northwoods
• Double in Northwoods
• Single in freshman dorm
• Double in freshman dorm

For more details, get the whole story here.

Faculty bios:

Jack Ashworth, Director of the University of Louisville Early Music Ensemble since 1977, has been guest continuo player with groups including Trio Settecento, Fretwork, the Folger Consort, and the King's Noyse, as well as for solo artists including Wieland Kuijken, Margriet Tindemans, Marion Verbruggen, and Aldo Abreu. He has taught for for the VdGSA and Amherst Early Music, among many others, as well as serving on workshop faculties in England and Australia. Jack received the Binkley Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Collegium Director from Early Music America in 1999, and is Past President of the VdGSA.

Will Ayton, a professor of music at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, occasionally performs in various early music ensembles and composes for a variety of musical media (between bouts of grading papers).

Martha Bishop is Conclave Music Director; she performs with Atlanta Baroque Orchestra and New Trinity Baroque. Her didactic publications for gamba are used internationally, and her compositions are available through PRB Publications.

Tina Chancey is director of Hesperus, an early/traditional music ensemble that brings the past alive through collaborations between early music and film, theater, dance and world music. She recently started studying jazz improv (on the viol) in order to better understand its practice in renaissance Europe. Her new solo CD is "The Versatile Viol: Scottish and Irish Music."

Grace Feldman is the Chair of the String Department at the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, CT where she is Ensemble Coordinator, heads the Early Music Department and teaches gamba, recorder, violin and viola. She has performed with the New York Pro Musica Viol Consort, New York Trio Da Camera, the New England Consort of Viols and is a member of The Playford Consort. She is the author of The Golden Viol, Method for Bass Viola da Gamba, and has recently released two solo recordings on the treble viol: The Golden Viol and The Treble Sings.

Wendy Gillespie has performed all over the world with ensembles ranging from the English Concert to Ensemble Sequentia and has participated in more than 70 recordings. She has shared a Gramophone award, a French Grand Prix du Disque, and an Edison Award with various colleagues. As a member of the viol consorts Fretwork, Phantasm and Les Filles de Sainte-Colombe, Gillespie feels fortunate to be able to pursue her interest in the viola da gamba and its literature in depth. She serves as Department Chair of Early Music at Indiana University, where she has been on the faculty for more than 20 years.

Laury Guttiérrez, praised as a first-rate instrumentalist by the Boston Globe, holds degrees from Indiana University and Longy School of Music, and has also received fellowships and a scholarship from Boston University, where she did doctoral work in historical performance. She is the founder and director of La Donna Musicale, an internationally acclaimed ensemble that specializes in the performance of early music by women composers.

Janet Haas, known in Massachusetts as a teacher, a conductor, and a performer on early instruments, has taught in the Lexington Public Schools for 22 years, starting beginners, leading middle school ensembles, and directing the high school orchestras. In 2005, she was named Director of the Year by the MA ASTA. She performs regularly on the viola da gamba and violone and has recorded with the Boston Camerata on the Erato label.

Jane Hershey has performed on viol and violone around New England since she returned from her studies at The Hague with Wieland Kuyken. She is an active freelance player, and is a regular performer with Arcadia Players, Charivary and the Carthage Consort. In the past, she has performed with the Boston Camerata, in the Aston Magna Festival, Monadnock Music, Hesperus, and the Santa Fe Baroque Orchestra among others. She teaches viol at the Powers Music School, the Longy School of Music and has directed the Tufts Early Music Ensemble since 1995.

Christopher Hopkins' compositions have been performed at major international festivals with broadcasts over ABC, CBC, ORF, and NPR. His doctorate (composition) is from Cornell University, where his principal mentors were Karel Husa and John Hsu.

Julie Jeffrey has had a 32-year love affair with the viol and has developed a career on the instrument that has taken her all over the world, performing, recording, teaching. At home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ms. Jeffrey is a member of Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, is the creative mastermind of the acclaimed trio Wildcat Viols, and is half of the French Baroque duo Hallifax & Jeffrey. Devoted to promoting all aspects of her instrument, she is a co-founder and active member of the Viola da Gamba Society-Pacifica Chapter, and currently serves on the board of directors of the VdGSA.

Lisle Kulbach is co-founder (1978) and recording artist with the pioneering quartet Voice of the Turtle. She is a Bodky Award winner and a founding member and performer with Alexander's Feast. A singer and voice coach, Lisle performs and teaches multiple instruments: medieval and Middle Eastern strings–rebec, kamanja, violin, vielle, harp, baroque strings–violas da gamba and winds, recorders and double-reeds (shawms, krumhorns), and piano. Her workshop teaching experience includes VdGSA Conclaves, Pinewoods Early Music Week, Mountain Collegium and Brasstown Early Music Week.

Carol Lewis performs frequently as a soloist and has recorded with many well-known ensembles, including the Boston Camerata, Hesperion and Capriccio Stravagante. Recent performances include appearances with the Boston Camerata at the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, the Radio France Auditorium (Paris), and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. She enjoys teaching and has taught at New England Conservatory of Music and Amherst Early Music, as well as at Viola da Gamba Society-New England workshops.

Lawrence Lipnik has performed with many chamber and early music ensembles including the Waverly Consort and Anonymous 4, and is a founding member of the vocal Ensemble Lionheart and the viol consort Parthenia. He is currently a member of the NY Consort of Viols, and is a frequent musical collaborator with artist William Wegman. In addition to performing, his busy teaching schedule spans national and international workshops from the Benslow Music Trust, UK, Port Townsend, and the San Diego Music Festival to Pinewoods and Amherst Early Music, and he is currently Viol instructor at Wesleyan University. He has recorded for numerous labels including EMI, Angel, Nimbus, Virgin, Sony, Koch International and Cantaloupe.

Sarah Mead, who lives and works in the Boston area, is the 2007 winner of Early Music America's Binkley Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Collegium Director. She is Associate Professor at Brandeis, where she directs the Early Music Ensemble and is a frequent guest choral conductor. She is the author of the Renaissance Theory chapter in A Performer's Guide to the Renaissance, recently re-issued by Indiana University Press. She has taught at Tufts and Northeastern as well as at Trinity College of Music in London and is a regular guest lecturer at Longy School of Music in Cambridge. She is Program Director for Early Music Week at Pinewoods.

Rosamund Morley has performed on all the viols and their medieval ancestors with early music ensembles as diverse as Piffaro, Lionheart, ARTEK, The Boston Camerata, Sequentia, Les Arts Florissants and Aston Magna; she has toured worldwide with the Waverly Consort. As a member of Parthenia, she is responsible for developing creative programs incorporating both early and new music. Her teaching schedule includes workshops such as the Benslow Music Trust, UK, the Cammac Music Center in Quebec, Summerkeys in Maine and Amherst Early Music. She is the director of Viols West and teaches viol at Columbia University.

Joëlle Morton is a widely sought performer and teacher throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. In addition to numerous performing affiliations, she is artistic director for the Scaramella concert series in Toronto, where she also coordinates the Pastime With Good Company viola da gamba workshop series, teaches viola da gamba at the University of Toronto, and directs a viol consort as ensemble-in-residence at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene. Joëlle also planned and implemented the VdGSA's Consort Co-op program.

Patricia Ann Neely has appeared with many early music ensembles including Sequentia, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Glimmerglass and New York City Opera, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Rebel, and the New York Collegium, to name a few, and was a founding member of the viol consort Parthenia. She has recorded for Arabesque, Allegro, Musical Heritage, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Ex Cathedra, Classic Masters, Erato, Lyrichord, and Music Masters and is on the faculty of Mannes College and The Brearley School.

Laurie Rabut has served on the faculty of Conclave, Amherst Early Music, and Pinewoods. Currently she teaches strings and conducts the orchestra for Amherst, MA. Public Schools. In addition, she coaches the Baroque Ensemble for the Five College Early Music Program. She has performed with the Boston Camerata, Boston Baroque, American Classical Orchestra, Apollo Ensemble, Parthenia, Greenwood Consort, and the Cecilia Society. She current performs primarily with The Arcadia Players Baroque Orchestra on Baroque violin, viola and viola da gamba.

Alice Brin Renken taught viol and coached the viol consorts at Carleton College from 1976 to 1998. In addition to solo recitals, she has performed with the Carleton Pro Musica, Minstrelsy!, the Pythagorean Consort, Duo Marais, the New Baroque Ensemble, Bach Again, Running Late, Harmonia Baroque, and the Windsor Hills Consort. This year she had the pleasure of bringing her dissertation edition of Marin Marais's Alcione (1706) up to date for a production at the Vienna Odeon directed by Lorenz Duftschmid and Philipp Harnoncourt.

John Mark Rozendaal lives, works, and plays in New York City. He teaches the Viola da Gamba Dojo, a weekly class for viola da gamba players of all conditions, and performs with Trio Settecento and with the baroque ensemble Repast. In 2008 Centaur Records will release "Breaking the Ground," Rozendaal's recording of music from Christopher Simpson's The Division Viol and pieces from the Manchester Tablature.

Gail Ann Schroeder obtained the First Prize in 1983 and the Higher Diploma, with distinction, in 1986 at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Brussels. From 1988-2002 she taught viola da gamba as assistant to Wieland Kuijken, didactics of viola da gamba and was director of the viol consort at the Brussels Conservatory. She currently lives in North Carolina where she teaches privately and freelances on viola da gamba and lirone.

Phillip Serna, director of Ad Hoc Consorts at Conclave 2008, is a freelance viola da gamba performer and pedagogue in the Chicago area where he received his doctorate at Northwestern University.

Mary Springfels is the founding Director of the Newberry Consort from which she retired in 2007. She has performed with the New York Pro Musica, the Waverly Consort, Concert Royal, Sequentia, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, Musica Sacra, the Marlborough Festival, the NYC Opera, and Chicago Opera Theater. She was a Senior Lecturer at both the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, and is much in demand as a teacher and player in summer festivals throughout the US. She can be heard on over two dozen recordings, ten of which are critically acclaimed Newberry Consort projects.

Lisa Terry practices, performs and teaches in New York City. She is proudly a member of Parthenia, and she also performs with ARTEK, Dryden, and many other orchestras and ensembles as gambist and cellist.

Shanon Zusman is adjunct professor of violone and viola da gamba at the University of Southern California and Claremont Graduate University. He has performed with Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, Camerata Pacifica Baroque, Los Angeles Bach Society, Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, and the San Diego Bach Collegium. He has coached at Conclave and at Viols West.