Exsultemus

Shannon Canavin, General Director
Eric Rice, Music Director

Exsultemus draws on the large pool of talented singers and instrumentalists in the Greater Boston area, all of whom are active in performing early music from a historical performance perspective.  Our talented musicians perform regularly with the leading ensembles both locally and nationally, including the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, the Boston Early Music Festival, Blue Heron Renaissance Choir, Boston Secession, Apollo’s Fire – the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, Opera Boston, and the Choir of the Church of the Advent.

Joyce Alper has played Baroque oboe with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Cecilia, Cambridge Bach Ensemble, Early Music New York, Musicians of Old Post Road, Early Music St. Louis, Fanfare Consort, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, New Trinity Baroque, Collegium Musicum Bach (Mexico City), Dallas Bach Society, and the Texas Baroque Ensemble. She has taught Baroque oboe at the University of North Texas and has given lectures, masterclasses, and workshops at the National Music School of the University of Mexico, Boston Conservatory, Louisiana State University, University of Houston, Texas Tech University, and the Texas Early Music Festival.

Bass Cameron Beauchamp is a member of Blue Heron, Exsultemus, Cut Circle, Schola Cantorum, Boston Secession, and the choir of the Church of the Advent. He also sings with Austin’s Conspirare, Miami’s Seraphic Fire, Atlanta’s New Trinity Baroque, and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. He received his musical training from the University of North Texas, where he doubled in voice and jazz trombone. While at UNT, Cameron won a prestigious Downbeat award with one of the university’s world famous jazz ensembles. Mr. Beauchamp has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Edition Lilac, Pro Organo, Klavier, and GIA. He has also performed for BBC Radio, WGBH Boston, and WRR Classical Radio of Dallas. With Conspirare he will perform on a future television project for PBS.

Karen Burciaga earned a MM in Early Music Performance from the Longy School of Music, where she studied Baroque violin with Dana Maiben and viol with Jane Hershey. She has performed with The King’s Noyse, Newport Baroque, Arcadia Players, and other period ensembles, and has appeared at the Bloomington and Amherst Early Music Festivals and the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe Series. Karen is a founding member of Seven Times Salt, a consort specializing in sixteenth-century English music and ballads.

Admired for her pure, radiant tone, soprano Shannon Canavin has concertized throughout New England and the East Coast with ensembles including Apollo’s Fire, Newport Baroque, Arcadia Players, the Choir of the Church of the Advent, and the Connecticut Early Music Festival. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from New England Conservatory in voice and theory and a Master’s degree from Case Western Reserve University in Early Music Performance Practices. An avid student and proponent of historically-informed period performance, Shannon has worked with such esteemed artists as Paul O’Dette, Kenneth Slowik, Ellen Hargis, Julianne Baird, Howard Crook, Judith Malafronte, and Jennifer Lane; she currently studies voice with Pamela Dellal. Shannon is the Marketing Coordinator and Visa Specialist at the Boston Early Music Festival and director of Artist Visa Services LLC.

Baritone Brian Church has sung with many diverse organizations in a variety of musical genres, including the Fromm Players at Harvard, Callithumpian Consort, Vox Consort, Boston Secession, MIT Chorus, Cantata Singers’ Chamber Series, and Chrysalis Opera. Mr. Church is currently the bass section leader and a frequent soloist with the Cantata Singers and section leader and occasional conductor with the Choir at King’s Chapel. In addition to his classical work, Mr. Church plays bass and sings with the avant-noise punk group Tristan Da Cunha, which recently celebrated their 5th anniversary by playing their 100th show. Mr. Church received his Master’s in voice from New England Conservatory where he studied with Susan Clickner.

Audrey Cienniwa, cello, has appeared as recitalist on diverse concert series, including Les nuits musicales de Corps (France), the White Mountain Bach Festival, and King’s Chapel (Boston). Her playing was described by the Boston Musical Intelligencer as “an exquisite effect.” Her two CD recordings—the Bach viola da gamba sonatas (on the Whaling City Sound label) and “O’Sullivan Meets O’Farrell Vol. II” (with Paul Cienniwa, harpsichord, and Grammy Award-winning uilleann piper Jerry O’Sullivan)—will be released this year. As an ensemble player, Audrey plays regularly with Newport Baroque and Exsultemus. She teaches at Providence College and the Music School of the Rhode Island Philharmonic.

Violinist Tatiana Daubek, from Pound Ridge, New York, received her Bachelor of Music from the University of North Texas and her Master of Music from Boston University. Tatiana’s principal teachers/mentors have included Julia Bushkova, Cynthia Roberts, Dana Mazurkevich, and Elizabeth Blumenstock. As a free-lance artist, Tatiana plays with various period ensembles including Boston Baroque, Concert Royal, the Orchestra of New Spain, Musica Maris, La Riche and Co., L’Academie, and is working on promoting Cambridge Concentus, an upcoming period ensemble comprised of instrumentalists and singers based in the Boston area.

Violist Karina Fox holds degrees from New England Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her early music studies began at Oberlin Conservatory with Marilyn McDonald, Miho Hashizume, and David Breitman and continued with the Apollo’s Fire Apprentice Program and Case Western Reserve University Baroque Orchestra in Cleveland. Karina is currently principal violist with Apollo’s Fire, principal second violin with Tempesta di Mare, assistant-principal violist of the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra, and has played with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra and American Opera Theater, among others. As a modern player, she serves as principal violist of the Gardner Museum Chamber Orchestra, and has held substitute positions with the Boston Symphony and National Symphony.

Mezzo-soprano Mary Gerbi is a versatile soloist and chamber musician, regularly performing repertoire ranging from chant to new music premieres. Recent solo performances include Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien with the Providence Singers, Biber’s Requiem with Crescendo Chorus and Period Orchestra, and Bach’s Johannes Passion with Williamstown Early Music. In December she toured internationally with the medieval ensemble Liber unUsualis, and she is a founding member and manager of the Renaissance octet Cut Circle. As an ensemble singer, Mary performs with Boston Secession, Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Choir of the Church of the Advent. She serves on the voice faculty of the Berkshire Choral Festival.

Bradford Gleim, baritone, will make perform this season in Haydn’s Mass in the Time of War with the Bermuda Festival, Der Freischütz with Opera Boston, and the title role of Le nozze di Figaro with Enterprise Opera. Previous credits include Dover Beach with the Borromeo String Quartet, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Germont in La Traviata, Silvio in Pagliacci, Reverend Winemiller in Lee Hoiby’s Summer and Smoke, Apollo in Cavalli’s L’Egisto, Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus, Marco in Gianni Schicchi, and Publio in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito. Bradford studied at the Longy School of Music and the New England Conservatory.

Elizabeth Hardy holds a Master’s degree in Early Bassoons from the Indiana University Early Music Institute, where she studied with Michael McCraw. She also studied with George Sakakeeny at the Oberlin Conservatory. She has performed at the Boston Fringe and Bloomington Early Music Festivals, and with the New York State Baroque Orchestra, Newton Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Boston Cecilia Society. She participated in the 2007 International Young Artists Presentation in Antwerp, Belgium, as a member of the ensemble New Harmonie Winds.

Hungarian concert organist Bálint Karosi is the 1st Prize winner of the XVI International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig, Germany. He studied organ, clarinet, and improvisation at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Conservatoire Superieure de Genève, and Oberlin Conservatory, earning two Master’s Degrees, two “Prix de Virtuosité” and both an Artist Diploma and a Master of Music in Historical Performance. As the Organist and Director of Music at the First Lutheran Church in Boston, Bálint leads an international concert series and regular performances of Bach cantatas. He is an active chamber musician regularly playing clarinet and harpsichord in various orchestras and chamber ensembles in the Boston area.

Tenor Owen McIntosh is currently finishing his graduate studies at New England Conservatory of Music. He has sung leads roles in the NEC Opera productions, L’Egisto, COLE, and Perkins Opera Scenes. Owen is member of several Boston area vocal chamber ensembles including Boston Secession, Copley singers, Exsultemus, and Old South Church. In February, Owen gave a Jordan Hall performance of Britten’s Serenade for Tenor and Horn with “piercing clarity.” This summer Owen will be joining the International Bach Accademie ‘s Festival Ensemble Stuttgart for his third year. In Celebration of Handel’s 250th anniversary they will be singing The Messiah as well as a commissioned NEW Messiah by Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström.

Countertenor Martin Near has appeared as guest soloist with Boston Cecilia in Bach’s Mass in B Minor, and also with Crescendo, Vox Triniti, NotaRiotous, and Fromm Players at Harvard. His ensemble singing includes Blue Heron Renaissance Choir and Exsultemus. Mr. Near served as composer and music director of the one act opera Six Characters in Search of an Opera for Project ARIA (AIDS Response by Independent Artists). Martin is producing a recording of music by Josquin des Prez and Marbrianus de Orto with the vocal ensemble Cut Circle, for release later this year. Future projects include taking the role of David in Saul by G. F. Handel with the Harvard University Choir and Baroque Orchestra.

Sarah Paysnick, flute, is a native of Massachusetts and is currently working toward a Graduate Performance Diploma in Early Music at the Longy School of Music with Professor Na’ama Lion. She has performed in and around Boston with the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra—twice as concerto soloist—and with Cambridge Concentus. She also holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and Ithaca College.

Tenor Stefan Reed received his Bachelor of Arts in music from George Mason University, during which he was awarded the Best Overall Performer Award at the National Association of Teachers of Singing Regional Competition held in South Carolina. He went on to complete his Master of Music degree in vocal performance at the New England Conservatory. During his graduate studies he spent two summers in fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Festival. Based in Boston, Stefan is an active soloist performing with many organizations throughout the country. Recent solo engagements include Mozart’s C Minor Mass with the Back Bay Chorale as well as Bach’s St. John Passion and Zadock in Handel’s Solomon both with the Marsh Chapel Choir and Collegium.

Gonzalo X. Ruiz is one of the world’s leading historical oboe soloists. He serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School and Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute, and performs as principal oboist with orchestras such as Philharmonia Baroque, The English Concert, Sonnerie, Wiener Akademie, and the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra.

Eric Rice is an active scholar, performer, and advocate of early music. He serves as Assistant Professor of Music History and Director of the Collegium Musicum at the University of Connecticut, Storrs; as music director and tenor in Exsultemus; and as artistic director of the Connecticut Early Music Festival. Having studied musicology and Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Columbia University, he specializes in liturgical music’s intersections with architecture, politics, and secular music. Exsultemus has performed his liturgical reconstructions to great acclaim in the U.S., Belgium, and Germany, and his solo performances of plainchant were hailed as “expertly rendered” by Goldberg Magazine.

Aaron Russo began his study as a countertenor while a student at Phillips Academy Andover, where he is still a regular guest soloist. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music from Dartmouth College studying under Louis Burkot, and a Master’s Degree in vocal performance from the University of Massachusetts under William Hite, where he received the Bezanson Graduate Voice Performance Award. Aaron studied in London at the Royal College of Music under Margaret Cable, and in Wellesley with Sally Sanford. In addition to singing early music, Aaron is a multi-instrumentalist with a diverse solo performance background in 19th-century art song, blues, jazz, and folk/rock. He currently lives in New Hampshire where he directs music and worship services at Sturtevant Chapel in Keene.

Lauded as a “fine baroque stylist,” soprano Teresa Wakim enjoys an internationally successful career as soloist in opera and oratorio. She has been praised by such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Goldberg Magazine, and the Miami Herald. She is featured on two Grammy-nominated recordings with the Boston Early Music Festival: Thésée and Psyché. Her 2008-09 season includes solo appearances in Purcell’s Dioclesian with the Handel and Haydn Society, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in Miami with Seraphic Fire, Boccherini’s Stabat Mater in Louisville with Bourbon Baroque, Mozart’s C Minor Mass at Symphony Hall with the Boston University Symphony Orchestra, and Diane in Charpentier’s Actéon at the Boston Early Music Festival.

A native of Newton, MA, tenor Jason Wang is an alumnus of the Historical Performance Department and Opera Programs at Boston University. Jason has performed with Opera Boston, Boston Baroque, the Schola Cantorum of Boston, Emmanuel Music, and this past summer sang the role of Don Ramiro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola with Opera del West. Jason’s primary teachers include Frank Kelley and Judith Kellock and his recent engagements have included performances with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Mark Morris Dance Group. Jason currently teaches middle school instrumental music in the Natick Public Schools system.