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Elizabeth Miller and Friends:

The Poetry of Early Music

through the Ages

THIS EVENT HAS OCCURRED 
Sunday, February 12 at 5 PM   MAP IT  |  REMINDER

FREE EVENT

Featuring players from the acclaimed Orchestra of St Luke's, Baroque violinist Elizabeth Miller and her early music band performs a program of medieval and baroque repertoire, including works by J.S. Bach, Orlando di Lasso, and Josquin Desprez, and a piece from 1921 by Frank Martin with medieval characteristics.

Performers
Elizabeth Miller, Baroque violin and viola
Mary Westbrook-Geha, mezzo-soprano
Louise Schulman, Baroque viola and viola
Daire FitzGerald, cello and continuo

Program
ANONYMOUS The Dark is my Delight
ELWAY BEVIN Browning
LUDWIG SENFL Ach, Elslein
JUAN DEL ENCINA Pues que jamas
ANONYMOUS Pase l agua
J.S. BACH Sonata VI in G Major
FRANK MARTIN Quattre Sonnets
ANONYMOUS La Primavera
GRIMACE A Larme, A Larme
F. ANDRIEU Armes, Amours
ORLANDO DI LASSO Mon Coeur se recconande a vous
JOSQUIN DESPREZ La Bernardina
PATRICK MANDO Like as the Day

About the Performers
Recognized by The Strad for her "super fiddling," Elizabeth Miller regularly performs with the New York Scandia Symphony (Principal Second Violin) and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. She is also a founding member of the New York Scandia Quartet, which is dedicated to presenting the folkloric and often poetic music of the Scandinavian countries, and a former member of of the Strathmere Ensemble, ensemble in residence at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. Miller has been a frequent performer at Rutgers University, where she taught applied music for many years. She studied violin at Indiana University with the late Professor Emeritus, Josef Gingold, where she received her Bachelors and Masters in Violin Performance. As a chamber musician, she frequently brings ensembles to perform at the Dana Library and Paul Robeson Art Gallery at Rutgers University.  Guest performances have been with the Da Capo Chamber Music Players, Bordeaux Quartet, West End Chamber Players. She is the creator of the Nicolo Musical Ensembles and the Hudson Heights String Academy, based in the Washington Heights, which brings classical music to the younger population of this community.

Louise Schulman has been an active performer and musical leader in New York and internationally since 1970. She is a founding member and principal viola of the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. She has been on the performing and coaching staff of the Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center since 1975, and has recently been chosen as the player representative on the board of directors. Schulman has nearly 100 recordings to her credit, including Telemann and Vivaldi concerti for both viola and viola d’amore, and such chamber works as Schuber’s Cello Quintet, Hindemith’s Octet, Beethoven’s Septet and Eyeglass Duo, Mozart’s Divertimenti, and  many others. Her recording of Interviews for viola and piano by Eleanor Cory is on CRI Records. Baroque groups include Ensemble Breve, Long Island baroque Ensemble, Folger Consort, Waverly Consort, Clarion Concerts, Philomel, Bacchinalia, and the New England Bach Festival. She is also a member of the Strathmere Ensemble and Armstrong Chamber Concerts.

Louise Schulman has been an active performer and musical leader in New York and internationally since 1970. She is a founding member and principal viola of the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and Orchestra of St. Luke’s, performing in virtually all of the group's acclaimed concerts and recordings. Ms. Schulman also has a major affinity for early music, performing on a variety of stringed instruments including baroque viola and violin, vielle, cittern, viola d'amore and viols. Some of the groups she has performed and recorded with include the Waverly Consort, Philomel, Long Island Baroque Ensemble, Folger Consort, Breve, Clarion Concerts, New England Bach Festival, Ensemble for Early Music, the Alba Consort and Bacchinalia. Schulman has nearly 100 recordings to her credit, including Telemann and Vivaldi concerti for both viola and viola d’amore, and such chamber works as Schuber’s Cello Quintet, Hindemith’s Octet, Beethoven’s Septet and Eyeglass Duo, Mozart’s Divertimenti, and many others. In the field of contemporary music, Ms. Schulman has also made her mark. Since 1975 she has been on the performing and coaching staff of the Composers Conference, performing and recording numerous chamber works of gifted young composers, and is now the staff representative on the conference board of directors. Her recording of "Interviews" for viola and piano by Eleanor Cory is on CRI records. Ms. Schulman gives frequent duo recitals with guitarist Bill Zito. Their CD, "An Italian in Vienna," duos by Mauro Giuliani [1781-1829] is scheduled for immediate world-wide release on the Dorian Sono Luminus label.  Ms. Schulman also gives frequent solo recitals with piano, and concerto appearances. She also performs with the Strathmere Ensemble and Armstrong Chamber Concerts. Her viola is by Zanetto da Montechiaro, ca. 1530. 

Mary Westbrook-Geha has established herself as one of the most highly sought after mezzo-sopranos internationally, as a featured soloist with orchestra, in opera, chamber music, and as a solo recitalist.  Her vast and varied concert repertoire extends from the well loved masterpieces, Verdi’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis, the Bach passions, and Masses by Mozart, Haydn, and Schubert, to lesser known, contemporary and world premiere works such as Victor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Dallapiccola’s Parole di San Paolo and Goethe-Lieder, and John Harbison’s Recordare.  She has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Television and Radio Orchestra of Belgrade, the Belgian National Opera, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan, and at the Tanglewood, Caramoor, and Marlboro Festivals.  A personal favorite of the American choreographer, Mark Morris, she has collaborated in many of his Dance Group’s productions.   Her operatic repertoire includes Penelope in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’ulisse in patria, Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, (which she has performed in the internationally acclaimed staging by Peter Sellars, released by Decca/London on videocassette and laser disc),   Eboli in Verdi’s Don Carlo, Prince Orlofsky in Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, and Klytemnestra in Richard Strauss’s Elektra.  She appears frequently with the New England Bach Festival under the direction of Blanche Honegger Moyse and has sung regularly in the weekly series of Bach cantatas at Emmanuel Church in Boston, the world’s only Bach cantata cycle performed in the context of the church service as originally intended by the composer.  In addition, she has performed and taught with the Bach Aria Group at their summer institute at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She has recorded for Koch International, MusicMasters, Arabesque, Sony Classical, Denon Centaur.

Daire FitzGerald was born in Ireland and educated in England and Switzerland under the guidance of Yehudi Menuhin and Mstislav Rostropovich, before enrolling at New York’s Juilliard School. While a student in New York, she was the first recipient of the Martin E. Segal Award, which was presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. FitzGerald has toured throughout Europe, Asia, and North America as soloist and chamber musician. As a soloist, she has worked with all of the major Irish orchestras, Warsaw Sinfonia, Halle Orchestra, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, and the Central Beijing Orchestra of China. FitzGerald’s chamber music collaborators include Yehudi Menuhin, André Previn, Vladimir Felsmann, Gerald Ranck, John Browning, and Lukas Foss. She is a member of the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and has performed with many other chamber music institutions in the metropolitan area, including Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New Jersey Chamber Music Society, and Barge Music. She has appeared as a chamber musician as part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performancers series and, with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, on PBS’s Live from Lincoln Center.” FitzGerald is a co-founder of the Strathmere Ensemble and is music director of the Bridge Theatre Company in Washington Heights. She has recorded for Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca London, Music Masters, CRI, and Nonesuch, among others.