Juilliard BaroqueThe Juilliard School in New York has recently created Juilliard Historical Performance program, bringing together some of the most prominent period-instrument performers, scholars, and teachers in the world under the leadership of the violinist Monica Huggett.
The program provides a comprehensive course of study for exceptional graduate-level musicians who have a special interest in period-instrument performance. The curriculum concentrates on music from the High Baroque through the early Classical eras performed on period-appropriate instruments, fostering an informed, vital understanding of the many issues unique to period-instrument performance with the level of technical excellence and musical integrity for which Juilliard is renowned.
The faculty includes Phoebe Carrai, cello, Robert Mealy, violin and viola, Sandra Miller, traverso, Robert Nairn, double bass/violone, Cynthia Roberts, violin, Gonzalo Xavier Ruiz, oboe, Dominic Teresi, bassoon, and Kenneth Weiss, harpsichord.
Juilliard Baroque, comprised of these faculty members, and also students for its larger projects, is central to the program, performing a wide range of music on historically-accurate instruments many times per year, including one performance in Alice Tully Hall in New York. The ensemble's European concert début takes place at the Madrid National Auditorium in February 2010 with a performance of the complete Brandenburg Concertos.
Monica Huggett (violin, artistic director of Juilliard Historical Performance) is artistic director of the Portland (Oregon) Baroque Orchestra and the Irish Baroque Orchestra, based in Dublin. She co-founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, and founded the London-based ensemble, Sonnerie. Ms. Huggett has served as guest director for orchestras and ensembles in North America and Europe, including Arion in Montreal, Tafelmusik in Toronto, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Huggett has been professor of Baroque violin at the Hochschule für Künste, Bremen and the Koninklijke Conservatorium in The Hague. Recent prizes include the Vantaa Baroque Energy Prize (Finland), and Gramophone’s Best Baroque Instrumental Recording Award for Biber’s Violin Sonatas.
Phoebe Carrai (cello) performs with the Arcadian Chamber Players, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and Festspiel Orchestra Goettingen. She serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School and the Longy School of Music, and is director of the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Carrai studied at the New England Conservatory in Boston, and undertook post-graduate studies in historical performance practice with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. She spent over 10 years performing and teaching world wide with Musica Antiqua Köln. Ms. Carrai has recorded for Aetma, Deutsche Grammophon, Harmonia Mundi, Telarc, Decca and BMG.
One of America’s leading historical string players, Robert Mealy (violin & viola) has recorded over fifty CDs on most major labels. He is a frequent leader and soloist in New York, and has led the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra in three Grammy-nominated recordings and several festival seasons. A devoted chamber musician, he is a member of the 17th-century ensemble, Quicksilver, the Renaissance violin band, The King’s Noyse, and the medieval quartet, Fortune’s Wheel. He is professor of music at Yale University, where he directs a new postgraduate baroque ensemble. In 2004 Mr. Mealy received Early Music America’s Binkley Award for outstanding teaching at both Harvard and Yale.
Sandra Miller, traverso, performs and records with many well known period-instrument ensembles throughout the United States. As a founding member and associate director of the ensemble Concert Royal, she has toured throughout the United States, Canada, England, Germany, Brazil and Mexico. She has taught at the Purchase College Conservatory of Music, the Mannes College of Music, the City University of New York, the New England Conservatory, and Case Western Reserve University. Ms. Miller many awards in include first place in the Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Erwin Bodky Competition for Early Music, and a Solo Recitalist’s Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Robert Nairn (double bass/violone) has performed with many international period ensembles including the ORR, the Aulos Ensemble, the Handel and Haydn Society, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Washington Bach Consort, the English Baroque Soloists, Florilegium and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He has also performed with the London Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Bavarian Radio Symphony, the English Chamber Orchestra, and with most of the major orchestras in his native Australia. His teachers include Klaus Stoll, Tom Martin and Max McBride.
Cynthia Roberts, a leading Baroque violinist, serves as concertmaster of the New York Collegium, Apollo’s Fire, and Concert Royal. She has also appeared with Les Arts Florissants, Tafelmusik, the American Bach Soloists, and others, and regularly appears as a soloist and recitalist throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. In addition to serving on the faculty of The Juilliard School, Ms. Roberts teaches at the University of North Texas and the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. Her principal teachers were Joseph Silverstein, Josef Gingold and Stanley Ritchie.
Gonzalo Xavier Ruiz (oboe) has appeared both as principal oboist and concerto soloist with most of the leading period instrument groups in America. He has acted as principal oboist of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic and the New Century Chamber Orchestra. Ruiz is currently professor of oboe at Oberlin Conservatory’s Baroque Performance Institute and the University of North Texas. An expert in historical reedmaking techniques, several of his pieces are on permanent display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is active in the field of contemporary music and was awarded the 2000 ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming.
Dominic Teresi is principal bassoon of Tafelmusik, the Boston Early Music Festival, Carmel Bach and other leading ensembles. He is a featured soloist on Tafelmusik’s recording Concerti Virtuosi, nominated for a Juno award, and was recently a featured artist on CBC Radio. Mr. Teresi serves on the faculties of The Juilliard School and the University of Toronto and teaches at the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute. He holds an master’s degree and artists diploma in modern bassoon from Yale University, a medaille d’or from the Conservatoire National du Région in Bordeaux, and completed further studies at the University of Indiana – Bloomington.
Kenneth Weiss (harpsichord). In 2009-2010, Kenneth Weiss will perform solo recitals in France, Spain, Belguim and Canada, duo programs with the violinists Monica Huggett and Fabio Biondi in the US and France and will be a guest conductor for the English Concert, Concerto Copenhagen and the Orchestre de Rouen. He will direct Mozart's Marriage of Figaro at La Cité de la musique in Paris and Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea at the Bilbao and Oviedo Operas. Kenneth Weiss, a faculty member of Juilliard and the Paris conservatory will be a jury member of the Leipzig Bach competition in 2010.
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