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Choir, Orchestra, and Soloists

Greta Claringbould (Soprano), Maartje Sevenster (Alto)

Richard Butler (Tenor), Andrew Fysh (Bass)

Orchestra led by Leanne Bear

Directed by Andrew Koll

Sopranos

Keren Dalzell

Georgia Elith

Vanessa Hooley

Jade McFaul

Gabriel Pender

Alison Robertson

Catherine Schmitz

Altos

Susanah Bishop

Peter Campbell

Annette Carter

Hilary Howes

Jaki Kane

Robyn Mellor

Eva Schroeder

Tenors

Jim Bowring

George Brenan

Thomas Liu

Michael McPhillips

Ian Mills

James Porteous

Tristan Struve

 

Basses

Nick Bulleid

Frank den Hartog

Kuangda He

Nick Horn

Jonathan Lee

Oliver Raymond

Luke Willard

Violins

Leanne Bear

Timothy Wickham

Claire Phillips

Michelle Higgs

Lauren Davis

 

Viola

Iska Sampson

Lucy Carrigy-Ryan

Violoncello

Clara Teniswood

Olivia Thorne

Double Bass

David Flynn

Organ Continuo

Joshua Ryan

 

Baroque Oboes

Aaron Reichelt

Andrew Angus

Hamish Spicer

Baroque Flute

Jennifer Brian

Baroque Bassoon

Matthew Ventura

Baroque Trumpet /

Horn

Simon Wolnizer

Andrew Koll, Musical Director of the Canberra Bach Ensemble

ANDREW KOLL

Musical Director, Conductor

 

Andrew Koll was a Performance Teaching Fellow at the School of Music, ANU in Canberra Australia. He is a specialist in aural training, harmony and counterpoint, the science of just intonation, and the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

 

Andrew first formed the CANBERRA BACH ENSEMBLE in 1999....

Leanne Bear, Leader of the Orchestra

LEANNE BEAR

Leader of the Orchestra

 

Composer and violinist Leanne Bear (BMUS, Qld) travelled around Europe with violin and suitcase, improvising and busking, and learning from acclaimed pedagogues Simon Fischer and David Takeno, having won the Gertrude Langer prize in Brisbane; and given broadcasts and touring for Qld Arts Council with her Piano Trio ‘Icarus’....

Greta Claringbould, Soprano

GRETA CLARINGBOULD

Soprano

 

Canberra based, Greta Claringbould is a Baroque Soprano at freelance, with extensive performance experience as a soprano soloist of principally baroque oratorio and cantata.

Greta holds a Bachelor of Music with Honours in Viola Performance, an AMusA in voice,  and an ATCL in Violin Performance.  Currently Greta is  Principal Soprano of ensemble Adhoc Baroque,  Head of Choirs at Canberra Girls Grammar School, where she directs the school's choral program from kinder through year twelve, teaches voice and  directs the Bella Voce, Cantantes and Coro da Camera choirs.  Greta is a former professional orchestral violist, leader of the Violas in the New Zealand National Youth Orchestra, chorister with the Wellington Cathedral Choir and Director of the iconic Canberra Children's Choir.  

Greta has advanced vocal aptitude and passion for Baroque music and has developed an extensive specialist repertoire in baroque oratorio and cantata.  Her vocal timbre combines purity and clarity combined with warmth and richness. Greta's fluent execution of florid baroque runs is renown. She frequently performs as soprano soloist with various Canberra choirs and ensembles.

2016 Sydney Morning Herald Review " Soprano Greta Claringbould​ has a neat elegance in her delivery, skilfully executing ornaments and articulating every note of each run."
 
In 2016, Greta along with alto Maartje Sevenster and harpsichord/continuo player Peter Young collectively formed the Trio Adhoc Baroque which regularly performs esoteric sacred and secular Baroque chamber works, including the 2017 Antipodean premier of Brunetti's 1764 Stabat Mater.   In October 2018 Adhoc Baroque will debut at the Canonwindra Baroque Festival.

Maartje Sevenster, Alto

MAARTJE SEVENSTER

Alto

 

Maartje Sevenster discovered serious singing with teacher Susan Ellis when living in Canberra in the late 1990s. Since then, she pursued singing at a high level in the Netherlands, studying part-time with Roberta Alexander, Frans Huyts and Connie de Jongh and participating in master classes with the likes of Evelyn Tubb, Kelvin Grout, Carolyn Watkinsson, Lucienne Bouwman and Richard Jackson.  While obtaining a BMus, she sang in professional choirs with renowned conductors such as Yakov Kreizberg, Roy Goodman, Jaap van Zweden, Marc Soustrot and Reinbert de Leeuw. Opera roles include Third Lady in The Magic Flute (Mozart) and La Badessa in Suor Angelica (Puccini).


Recently, Maartje was alto soloist in Copland's In the beginning (“narrated with considerable power by mezzo-soprano Maartje Sevenster” CityNews), Janacek's Dairy of one who vanished, J.S.Bach's Easter Oratorio and Magnificat, J.C.Bach's Lamento, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and Vivaldi's Nisi Dominus, in performances in the Canberra region. She performed the premieres of David Cassat's Die Hand, for mezzo-soprano, viola,  cello, flute and clarinet, and Judith Clingan's In this Fateful Hour in December 2013, and was part of the community oratorio Passion for Peace by Canberra composer Glenda Cloughley. As one of the narrators, “the crystal-clear articulation of Sevenster progressed the narrative elements” (CityNews). In 2016, she sang with the Song Company in Rossini's Petite Messe Solenelle, conducted by Roland Peelman.


Maartje founded the new ensemble Adhoc Baroque with Greta Claringbould and Peter Young. She is a member of Coro Canberra and works with coaches Louise Page and Dianna Nixon. She conducts a small community choir in the village of Gundaroo. Next to performing, Maartje has an ongoing interest in the acoustics of the vocal tract. The active control of resonances and the role of so-called formant theory in vocal training were the central topics of her bachelor thesis. She participated in the Estill Voice Training System level one and two courses in 2015. (Photo © Lindi Heap)

Greta and Maartje
Richard Butler.jpg

RICHARD BUTLER

Tenor

 

A 2013 Gramophone award-winning artist as principal soloist for the Gabrieli Consort (A New Venetian Coronation, 1595 ), English tenor Richard Butler lives in Sydney.

 

Richard made his debut with WASO, MSO and ASO in 2014 singing Handel's Messiah. Richard was also soloist for the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra's 25th anniversary series and Monteverdi's Orfeo, performed in the Canberra International Festival singing various Bach cantatas and Handel's Israel in Egypt and was evangelist and aria soloist in Bach's St John Passion at St James', Sydney with the Australian Haydn Ensemble.

 

At UWA, Richard was the tenor soloist in Britten's War Requiem.  He also sang the role of Pilate in Pärt's Passio for Carl Crossin and the Adelaide Chamber Singers as well as for Song Company in Sydney and was Evangelist in Bach's St Matthew Passion at Elder Hall, Adelaide. Recently Richard sang Messiah for Trinity College, Melbourne at MRC, Handel's Judas Maccabaeus and Monteverdi Vespers at St George's Cathedral, Perth, St John Passion for WASO, St Matthew Passion for TSO and Britten St Nicolas for Brett Weymark and Sydney Chamber Choir. 

 

Richard also performed with the Gabrieli Consort at the Met in New York. Next year Richard will be returning to WASO and MSO singing Handel and Bach and will be Evangelist in the first ever performance of St John Passion in Bogotá, Colombia with Dr Carlos Alvarado. Richard is a founding member of Bach Akademie Australia and Principal Lay Clerk at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney. 

 

Andrew Fysh, Bass

ANDREW FYSH

Bass

Originally from Hobart, where he began his singing career over forty years ago as a treble at St David’s Cathedral, Andrew has considerable experience as both chorister and soloist throughout Australia. Church music has featured throughout Andrew’s career: in 2004¬–06, while living in London, he sang with the Choir of the London Oratory, England’s pre-eminent Catholic church choir, and on return to Australia he joined the Choir of St James’ Church, Sydney. Now resident in Canberra, he regularly augments St James’ Choir and the Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney.

In Canberra, Andrew is a founding member of the Clarion vocal quartet with Tobias Cole, performing monthly at the National Portrait Gallery, and sings with Coro. Coro's program of Renaissance polyphony, 'Music by Numbers', which Andrew devised and co-directed, was named by the Canberra Times as one of the top five concerts of 2015.

Andrew’s particular interest lies in Renaissance and Baroque music, nurtured through fourteen years as a permanent member of Melbourne’s acclaimed Ensemble Gombert, directed by John O’Donnell, with whom he has toured Europe (2004, 2006, 2015) and North America (2009).

Andrew has been engaged as a guest artist with the The Song Company on multiple occasions, most recently at the 2014 Canberra International Music Festival as bass soloist in Bach Cantata No.130 and Mozart Requiem. Among three Song Company recordings in which Andrew appears, the 1996 world-premiere release of Schütz Der Schwanengesang, performed one voice to a part and recorded in the Sydney Opera House concert hall, received Soundscapes magazine’s ‘Editor's Choice’ award.

Andrew is a founding member of the Bach Akademie Australia, directed by Madeleine Easton, which launched to critical acclaim last year at sold-out performances in Sydney and at the Canberra International Music Festival. In this year’s Festival, Andrew appeared in BAA’s return performance of ‘Bach on Sunday’ and Handel Israel in Egypt, and in a performance of scenes from Monteverdi Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria.

Other solo engagements have included Bach St John Passion (St Mary’s Cathedral and St James’ Church, Sydney), Mozart Requiem (Festival of Voices, Hobart, and St James’ Church, Sydney), Berlioz L’enfance du Christ (Llewellyn Choir, Canberra) and Canberra Choral Society's performances of Messiah (2015), Schütz Weihnachtshistorie (2016), and Bach St Matthew Passion (2018). Andrew joins CCS again next month as bass soloist in Mozart Requiem and Haydn Nelson Mass under the direction of Graham Abbott.

Andrew was bass soloist for the Canberra Bach Ensemble’s 2016–17 cantata series, culminating in two performances of the solo cantata Ich habe genug (Cantata No.82). He is very pleased to be invited to add another four cantatas to his repertoire, as he pursues his ambitious quest to perform all of Bach’s cantatas (or, at least, as many as possible!).

Richard and Andrew
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