Presented by the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild
and the North Carolina Museum of Art
Belinda Swanson, Baroque Violin; Stephanie Vial, Baroque Cello; Elaine Funaro, Harpsichord; with Rick Motylinski, lute; Alfred E. Sturgis, Countertenor; Carol Ingbretsen, Mezzo Soprano; Roby Daniels, Tenor
DATE: Sunday, 21 September 2003, 3:00 PM
SITE: NC Museum of Art Map
2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh
TICKETS: $10 General Public; $8 NCMA Members & Students.
INFORMATION & TICKET SALES
- NCMA Box Office (919) 715-5923
- Raleigh Chamber Music Guild (919) 821-2030
PROGRAM MUSIC FROM THE BAROQUE ERA
Belinda Swanson moved to North Carolina six years ago from the Washington D.C. area where she performed as an orchestral and opera musician for almost 20 years. She has a Master of Music degree from the Catholic University School of Music where she studied with Robert Gerle. She currently specializes in performances on both Modern and Baroque Violin. Ms. Swanson is Violinist and Musical Director of the Seraphim Chamber Players, an ensemble founded in the Washington D.C. area in 1992. In 1999, Seraphim relocated to North Carolina and now includes performances on period instruments as the Early Music ensemble, Seraphim Musica.
As a chamber musician Ms. Swanson has appeared on many concert series in the Triangle area including the Sights and Sounds on Sundays series at the NC Museum of Art and Duke Chapel. She presently performs with the North Carolina Symphony, the Carolina Ballet, and the Opera Company of North Carolina. She has performed and been a member of the National Gallery Orchestra, the Baltimore Opera, the Washington Concert Opera, and the Harrisburg Symphony.
Ms. Swanson was the recipient of a 1999-2000 Regional Artists Grant, from United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County, to study French Baroque Music in Boston. Ms. Swanson plays a 1729 Pier Lorenzo Vangelisti Italian violin for her performances of early music.
Stephanie Vial specializes in the performance of music on both period and modern instruments. She holds an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University; a Master's Degree from Indiana University and a DMA in Eighteenth-Century Performance Practice from Cornell University. She is currently writing a book on the subject of musical punctuation, the eighteenth-century analogy between punctuation in language and the concept of musical phrasing, for publication with the University of Rochester Press' Eastman Studies in Music.
A frequent lecturer and recitalist, Ms. Vial has presented papers to the American Musicological Society and America's Shrine to Music Museum. She has performed with such groups as the Apollo Ensemble, ArcoVoce, Washington Bach Consort, Publick Musick, and Les Violons du Roy. She has recorded for the Dorian, Naxos, and Centaur labels as well as CBC radio.
Ms. Vial has performed with many groups in the Triangle area including Ensemble Courant and the Mallarme Chamber Players. She has appeared on the Sights and Sounds on Sundays series at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Duke Early Music Series and at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities. She is the director of the Collegium Musicum Instrumental Ensemble and a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
She resides in Durham with her ``string theorist (not cello-strings!)'' husband, Paul Aspinwall, and their newborn daughter, Charlotte.
Elaine Funaro has appeared throughout the United States and Europe as a harpsichord soloist and chamber musician, in programs ranging from performances on period instruments to concerts of contemporary works. Ms. Funaro also is an effective advocate of performances of women's music and of indigenous musical forms.
Born in New York City and an alumna of the National Music Camp at Interlochen, MI, Ms. Funaro holds a Bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a Master's from the New England Conservatory .She also has studied at the Conservatorio Cherubini in Florence, Italy, and the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. Her teachers have included Gustav Leonhardt, Ton Koopman, John Gibbons and Lisa Crawford.
For twelve years, Ms. Funaro produced the "Music in the Museum" concerts at the Duke University Museum of Art, a series in which she included harpsichord music from Africa and Latin America. She was awarded an Emerging Artist grant by the Durham Arts Council for a "Music for Women" recital. A past president of the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society and a judge for the Alienor Harpsichord Composition Competition, Ms. Funaro's recent performances have included appearances at the Berkley Early Music Festival, the Breckenridge Music Festival, Amsterdam Harpsichord Week, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Amherst Early Music Festival, the Smithsonian Institution, Merkin Hall in New York, and Spivey Hall in Atlanta.
Ms. Funaro has released many CD's of her work as a baroque and modern harpsichordist.
Rick Motylinski is a native of Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Oberlin Conservatory in 1974 with a Bachelor of Music degree. He is the Principal Percussionist with the North Carolina Symphony of which he has been a member since 1974. He is married to NC Symphony Principal Oboist Melanie Wilsden. Motylinski began studying lute in 1985 and was the Director of the Raleigh Consort from 1979-1987.
Alfred E. Sturgis began his musical career over 20 years ago as a singer. Early in his career he performed a number of roles in musical theatre, opera, and oratorio, in addition to touring and recording in Southern France with the Robert Shaw Festival Singers. Over the past decade, however, the focus for Sturgis has shifted to the other side of the baton, as he has become a highly sought after conductor in a variety of musical arenas.
Sturgis serves as Principal Conductor of the Carolina Ballet, Music Director for the North Carolina Master Chorale, and was recently appointed Music Director of the Tar River Philharmonic. Sturgis has also served as Guest Conductor for the North Carolina Symphony, Raleigh Civic Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony, Carolina Chamber Symphony, and National Opera Company. He has conducted orchestral and opera performances in France, Bulgaria, and China.
In recognition of his dynamic leadership of the Master Chorale, Sturgis was awarded a 1996 Raleigh Medal of Arts. In 1998, the Chorale (then known as the Raleigh Oratorio Society) was selected to perform at the Southern Division Convention of the American Choral Director's Association. Noted for his energetic, positive teaching style, Sturgis is in great demand as a conductor/clinician for music education workshops and festivals including All-State and Honors Choirs. Dr. Sturgis holds degrees from the University of South Florida and the University of Illinois in Voice Performance, Music Education, and Conducting.
Carol Ingbretsen, Mezzo Soprano
A native of Raleigh, Ms. Ingbretsen graduated from N.B. Broughton High School and attended East Carolina University where she received a Bachelor of Music degree in 1989. Since graduating from college, she has sung in various musical performances. These days, she focuses primarily on jazz and classical music. Recently she had the opportunity to sing solos and choruses for the Carolina Ballet's annual production of Handel's Messiah and their production of Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales. Ms. Ingbretsen is a member of the North Carolina Master Chorale's 22-voice professional chamber choir and can be heard singing jazz in the area.
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