B i o g r a p h i e s
Hailed as “a fine, flexible ensemble” by The New York Times, Ensemble Origo is an early music organization founded in 2011 and directed by Connecticut-based musicologist and conductor Eric Rice. Its aim is to present vibrant performances of early music (from the Middle Ages through the baroque) that reflect the context in which the repertory was originally produced and heard; “Origo” is Latin for “earliest beginning,” “lineage,” or “origin.” The ensemble draws on a roster of professional musicians from Connecticut, Boston, and New York. Its debut recording, released on the Naxos label in January 2021, is “Orlande de Lassus – Le nozze in Baviera: Music for the 1568 Wedding of Wilhelm V of Bavaria and Renate of Lorraine." It includes Lasso’s moresche — settings of texts uttered in Neapolitan dialect by enslaved Africans from the Bornu Empire. Another recording still in post-production is "Master of the Notes – Martin Luther's Josquin" a reconstruction of a Luther's Deutsche Messe as it might have been performed in his orbit ca. 1530, which grew out of a concert program commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017. A third recording project in post-production is “The Last Imperial Coronation – Music for the 1530 Coronation of Charles V in Bologna”; a collaboration with the Greenhouse Studios at the University of Connecticut on a multi-modal virtual reality presentation of the same event.
Artists for Fall 2024 Concerts of Un sarao de la Chacona
MICHAEL BARRETT, tenor, is a Boston-based conductor, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and teacher. He serves as music director of The Boston Cecilia. Barrett is also an Assistant Professor at the Berklee College of Music, where he teaches courses in conducting and European music history, and until recently served as Interim Director of the Five College Early Music Program. Michael has performed with many professional early music ensembles, including Blue Heron, the Boston Camerata, the Huelgas Ensemble, Vox Luminis, the Handel & Haydn Society, Nederlandse Bachvereniging (Netherlands Bach Society), Seven Times Salt, Schola Cantorum of Boston, Ensemble Origo, and Nota Bene, and can be heard on the harmonia mundi, Blue Heron, Coro, Naxos, and Toccata Classics record labels. He holds degrees in music (AB, Harvard University), voice (First Phase Diploma, Royal Conservatory in The Hague, The Netherlands), and choral conducting (MM, Indiana University; DMA, Boston University).
Maine native JENNIFER BATES enjoys a multifaceted career in the opera, concert, and recital worlds. Recent engagements include the role of Pepik in the New York Philharmonic production of Janeček’s The Cunning Little Vixen and Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg with the American Symphony Orchestra. She was the featured soloist at the Bach Vespers Cantata Series in New York for ten years. Her European engagements have included Elgar’s The Kingdom with Leonard Slatkin in the prestigious Three Choirs Festival; Haydn’s Creation with Robert Tear at the Dartington International Summer Festival; and Fauré’s Requiem with Sir David Willcocks at Royal Albert Hall. As a recitalist, she has toured Great Britain and Europe extensively and was presented at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C. Jennifer was a Chamber Music Fellow at the Aspen Festival and a Scholar at the Steans Institute for Singers at the Ravinia Festival, and is on the faculty of Colby College.
CATHERINE HEDBERG, mezzo-soprano, is a concert soloist and ensemble musician concentrating in early and new music. Recent performances include songs by Nadia Boulanger at Brandeis University, a South Korean tour of Korean art song with the American Soloists Ensemble of National Chorus of Korea, Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) (Tyshawn Sorey) with Trinity Wall Street, A Point on a Slow Curve (Dana Lyn) at Joe’s Pub, and Cilice (Lewis Nielson) with Wavefield Ensemble. She performs regularly with the Handel & Haydn Society, with whom she has appeared as a soloist in works including J.S. Bach’s B Minor Mass, Magnificat, and cantatas, and in a concert of Dowland songs with lutenist Catherine Liddell. She has been a frequent collaborator with the chamber ensemble, Musicians of the Old Post Road, and appears on the ensemble’s recording of Christmas music from 18th-century Central and South America. Catherine is based in New York City and Maine.
DANIEL S. LEE, violin, thrives in the intersection of the arts and spirituality. His work involves redefining the roles of sacred and secular music with regard to their intention, function, and venue. Praised by The New York Times as “soulful” and “ravishing,” he performs as a period violinist and leader with various ensembles throughout the United States and Europe, including his own, the Sebastians. He currently serves as the concertmaster for the Providence Baroque Orchestra (RI) and the resident baroque orchestra at the Washington National Cathedral (DC). He performs on various historical instruments and fosters ongoing collaborative research with luthier Karl Dennis (Warren, RI) and bowmaker David Hawthorne (Waltham, MA). When not traveling and performing, he splits his time between Willard, MO, where he pastors a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation, and New Haven, CT, where he teaches early music at the Yale School of Music. Born in Chicago and raised in Seoul (South Korea) and in New York City, Daniel is equally (un)fluent in Korean and in English. He identifies himself as ethnically a New Yorker. He enjoys learning different languages and cultures, and is a student of various ancient languages.
A versatile multi-instrumentalist, DAN MEYERS is an enthusiastic performer of both classical and folk music; his credits range from contemporary chamber music, to the Newport Folk Festival, to playing Renaissance instruments on Broadway for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre Company. He is a founding member of the early music/folk crossover group Seven Times Salt, and in recent seasons he has performed with the The Folger Consort, The Newberry Consort, Hesperus, The Henry PurcellSociety of Boston, Early Music New York, Amherst Early Music, The 21st Century Consort, and In Stile Moderno. He enjoys playing traditional Irish music with the bands Ulster Landing and Ishna, and eclectic fusion from around the Mediterranean with the US/Italy-based group Zafarán. He has taught historical wind instruments for the Five Colleges Early Music Program in Massachusetts, at Tufts University, and at workshops around the US. Dan holds a Master of Music degree from the Longy School of Music.
SARAH MEAD is a sought-after teacher of viol and Renaissance performance practice who has performed throughout the U.S. and overseas as far afield as New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Brazil, and the UK. In this country she has performed with ARTEK, Tenet, Emmanuel Music, the Handel & Haydn Society, Pegasus Baroque, Schola Cantorum, and Ensemble Origo. She has served as Music Director of the annual Conclave of the Viola da Gamba Society of America and plans to return to that role in 2025. Her performing editions of historical and original works for viols have been published by PRB Productions, and she edits a quadrennial publication of little-known works for viols for the VdGSA. In 2007, she received the Thomas Binkley Award from Early Music America for outstanding achievement in performance and scholarship for her work with the Early Music Ensembles at Brandeis University, from which she recently retired as Professor of the Practice of Music. Mead is a founding member and musical director of the viol consort Nota Bene, whose recording Pietro Vinci: Quattordeci Sonetti Spirituali was released by Toccata Classics (London) in 2020.
Colombia native CAMILA PARIAS, soprano, is a frequent soloist with the Boston Camerata. Parias, whose tone has been praised for its strength and clarity, also collaborates with ensembles such as La Donna Musicale, Skylark Ensemble, and Handel & Haydn Society. Her international appearances include performances in Europe of Borrowed Light with the Boston Camerata. She can be heard on Camerata’s most recent CDs, Free America! and A Medieval Christmas – Hodie Christus Natus Est. Upcoming engagements include concerts with Pegasus, Upper Valley Baroque, and a performance at the Houston Early Music Festival. In addition, she will sing Belinda in Dido and Aeneas with the Camerata, a role she has previously performed. Camila is particularly interested in early music of Spain and the New World. She recently introduced Cantos y Suspiros, an ongoing collaboration with harp and Baroque guitar/theorbo which celebrates seventeenth-century Spanish secular songs. In Bogota, she recorded selections of archival manuscripts belonging to that city’s Cathedral. She holds a B.M. in Vocal Performance from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá and a M.M. in Historical Performance from the Longy School of Music of Bard College.
Musicologist and conductor ERIC RICE is Professor of Music at the University of Connecticut, where he teaches music history and directs the Collegium Musicum. He is the 2019 recipient of Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award for excellence in performance and scholarship by the director of a university early music ensemble. He also directs Ensemble Origo, praised by the Boston Musical Intelligencer as “aesthetically…top-notch” with “immaculate execution”; and by The New York Times as “a fine, flexible ensemble,” presenting concerts and making recordings reflecting the context in which early repertory was originally heard. He was previously Artistic Director of the Connecticut Early Music Festival and music director of the Boston-based ensemble Exsultemus. His scholarly focus is medieval and Renaissance liturgy and its relationship to architecture, politics, and secular music, and also representations of non-Western cultures in Western music. His books are Music and Ritual at Charlemagne’s Marienkirche in Aachen and Young Choristers, 650-1700 (co-edited with Susan Boynton), the first scholarly volume dedicated to the history of professional child singers. His articles have appeared in numerous journals, and he has received fellowships to pursue archival research in Germany and France. Raised in Brooklyn, New York, Rice discovered early music at Bowdoin College. After four years as a schooner captain at the South Street Seaport Museum, he earned a PhD in Musicology and a Certificate in Medieval and Renaissance studies from Columbia University. He taught at Brandeis University for two years before joining UConn’s faculty in 2003.
Praised for his “breezy baritone” (Bachtrack), JARED SWOPE is a sought-after soloist and chorister specializing in early music, oratorio, and contemporary classical music. His recent solo performances include Bach’s Actus Tragicus with Three Notch’d Road, Mass in B Minor with Yale Schola Cantorum, Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs at St. Thomas More Darien, and his Carnegie Hall debut in Jeff Beal’s The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari with Fourth Wall Ensemble. Jared often collaborates with top ensembles, including True Concord Voices & Orchestra, Fourth Wall Ensemble, Handel & Haydn Society, and Oregon Bach Festival Chorus. He holds a Master’s in Early Music from Yale, a Master’s in Sacred Music from Notre Dame, and dual bachelor’s degrees in Music Education and Performance from Missouri State University. For more information, visit jaredswope.com.
HIDEKI YAMAYA is a performer of lutes, early guitars, and early mandolins based in Connecticut, USA. Born in Tokyo, Japan, he spent most of his career on the West Coast before settling in New England, where he is a freelance performer and teacher. He has a B.A. in Music and an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from University of California, Santa Cruz, where he studied with Robert Strizich, and an M.F.A. in Guitar and Lute Performance from University of California, Irvine, where he studied with John Schneiderman. He also studied with James Tyler at University of Southern California and with Paul Beier at Accademia Internazionale della Musica in Milan, Italy. In demand both as a soloist and as a continuo/chamber player, Yamaya has performed with and for Portland Baroque Orchestra, Portland Opera, Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Los Angeles Opera, Oregon Bach Festival, Astoria Music Festival, Folger Consort, Connecticut Early Music Festival, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. He is also recognized as an effective communicator and teacher, and has given masterclasses and workshops at Yale University, University of California, Santa Cruz, Montana State University, Oregon State University, and Aquilon Music Festival. A prolific recording artist, Yamaya’s playing could be heard on Profil, hänssler CLASSIC, and Mediolanum labels. His recordings have received glowing reviews from Early Music America, Classical Guitar Magazine, and the Guitar Foundation of America.