Jennifer
Ellis’ international solo career has included appearances with the period
instrument groups American Bach Soloists, New York Collegium, Magnificat,
Portland Baroque Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Seattle Baroque Orchestra,
Opera Lafayette, El Mundo, Apollo’s Fire, Musica Angelica, Solamente (Budapest,
Hungary), Ensemble Tourbillon (Prague, Czech Republic), and Musica Aeterna
(Bratislava, Slovakia). Opera highlights include leading roles in Handel’s
Acis and Galatea, Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Pergolesi’s
La Serva Padrona, Duron’s zarzuela El Salir Amor del Mundo, and
Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. In addition Jennifer has sung with the
Mark Morris Dance Group, the Charlotte Symphony and the Berkeley Symphony. She has
been heard in many concert series and at many festivals including Houston Early
Music, Music before 1800, Carmel Bach, and the Boston and Berkeley Early Music
Festivals. Ms Ellis has recorded the works of Cozzolani with Magnificat for Musica
Omnia, Carissimi motets for Hungaroton and the Monteverdi Vespers for Eclectra.
She was awarded first prize at the Berkeley Piano Club Voice Competition, first
runner-up at the 2000 Bethlehem Bach Voice Competition, the Adam’s Fellowship
at the Carmel Bach Festival and performed at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo,
Japan with Nicholas McGegan. A graduate of the University of Michigan and the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Jennifer recently moved to New York City.
Nicolas White’s all Bach recording, The Amsterdam Bach, released
on the Pro Organo label was hailed by The American Organist magazine to
offer “renditions distinguished by their musicality and polish…
exhilarating performances.” The New York Times recently praised
White and his forces for “a passionate rendering of Monteverdi’s
Vespers of the Blessed Virgin (1610)”. Nicholas White has been Organist
and Choirmaster of St. Michael’s Church and Artistic Director of St.
Michael’s Music and Arts since 1998. He oversees an active music department
of five choirs, in addition to leading the music each week for liturgies, and
planning the annual concert series for the church. White was born in London,
England, and received his early musical training as a treble chorister. He held
his first organist and choirmaster position at the age of fifteen, going on to
become organ scholar of Clare College, Cambridge, from 1986-1989. There he was
active as an organist, singer, conductor and accompanist, touring with various
groups in all parts of Europe and the United States. Since coming to the U.S. in
1989, White has held various positions in church, college and school environments.
From 1994-1998 he was Assistant Organist and Choirmaster of Washington National
Cathedral in Washington, D. C., where in addition to playing for over 250 services
a year, he worked with the choirs, assisting with the training of the young
choristers on a daily basis. He toured the U.S.A. with the choir, as well as
making frequent recordings and radio and television broadcasts. From 1995-1998
he was Keyboard Artist for the Cathedral Choral Society, and he held the position
of Music Director and Conductor of the Woodley Ensemble, one of Washington’s
premiere chamber choirs, from 1997-2000. White’s interest in ensemble
singing prompted him to create the Tiffany Consort, a vocal ensemble which
specializes in singing choral music “one-voice-to-a-part.” The
ensemble has presented concerts of music by Bach, Brahms, Britten, Byrd,
Monteverdi, Palestrina, Scarlatti, Schütz and others, and has just released
its first CD entitled O Magnum Mysterium. White is also an active and
critically acclaimed composer, with music published by Hinshaw , Trinitas,
Augsburg Fortress and Oxford. His large-scale work for solo soprano, chorus,
organ, brass and percussion – Magnificat – was premiered at the
National Cathedral in 1997, and recent commissions include a work written for the
annual choral tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which was premiered in
January 2002 at The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, an organ duet for the
Chenault Organ Duo, and commissions by All Saints’ Episcopal Church,
Atlanta, Ga., and St. Francis’ Church, Potomac, Md.
Soprano Dominique Surh frequently
performs in New York City as a soloist and ensemble member. While pursuing
a Ph.D. at the University of Virginia, Ms. Surh began to perform regularly
as a singer and instrumentalist with UVa’s Collegium and has a number
of solo credits with Zephyrus, Charlottesville’s early music ensemble.
In recent years, she has appeared in Carissimi’s Jephte, Couperin’s
Leçons de Tenebres, Purcell’s Ode for the Birthday of Queen Mary,
Bach’s B Minor Mass, and Bach’s Magnificat. In 1996, Ms. Surh was
awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Rome, Italy, where she lived for three years and
performed frequently with groups such as L’Homme Armé
and Pro Musica Firenze in Florence as well as with Roman
groups such as Centro Italiano di Musica Antica, and Comoedia Harmonica.
Ms. Surh earned a Ph.D. in 2000 in the History of Art and specializes in early
Italian Renaissance and Dutch Baroque painting. In 2001, Ms. Surh moved to New
York City and has sung with various groups including Vox Vocal Ensemble,
Tiffany Consort, and Pomerium. Currently, Ms. Surh is a soloist
with Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity.
Carlene Stober, a graduate of the Eastman
School of Music, is continuo cellist for Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity (New York
City), and is a member of Empire Viols. As a baroque cellist and gambist, she has
performed as a guest with the Connecticut Early Music Festival, Early Music New
York, Cecilia’s Circle, Concert Royal, Parthenia, Prairie Home Companion
and was featured musician in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of
Pericles at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. She was formerly with Musica
Dolce (Arizona) and the Utah Shakespearean Festival. On modern cello, she served
as principal cellist of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and performed throughout the
U.S. as a member of the Delphi String Quartet. In recent seasons, Ms. Stober
performed in the orchestra of the Lake George Opera Festival.