www.EchoingAir.org

1 Contents

Performer Biographies 3 Testimonials 6

Representative Programs / Booking Information 7

Echoing Air, Inc. features the voices of countertenors together with early instruments with a special emphasis on music of late 17th Century England. Performances include an expanded palate of other European chamber works of the period as well as contemporary music written for countertenor and historical instruments.

The ensemble is comprised of talented performers and educators who have worked with leading proponents of early music including the Bach Ensemble, Ensemble Galilei, Musica Antiqua Köln, Ensemble Voltaire, and Chanticleer, and have performed in venues such as the Boston Early Music Festival and the Proms in .

As educators our goal is to facilitate the appreciation and understanding of early and contemporary music through presentation of engaging and accessible programs geared toward audiences of all ages, from pre-school to adult learners.

Christ Church, Bradenton, FL South Miami Senior High School, Miami, FL March 12, 2016 March 7-8, 2016

2 Performer Biographies

Steven Rickards, countertenor, is the founder of Echoing Air. He has received international acclaim as one of America’s finest countertenors. Performing credits include Joshua Rifkin’s Bach Ensemble, the American Bach Soloists, Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices, Chanticleer, the Gabrieli Consort, Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, Handel and Haydn Society, the New London Consort, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, the Santa Fe Opera, and numerous domestic and international symphony orchestras. He was a winner of the countertenor prize from the Oratorio Society of New York and the ‘s-Hertogenbosch International Vocal competitions. Rickards was vocal soloist in the American premiere of Michael Nyman’s Self-Laudatory Hymn of Inanna and Her Omnipotence at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and was featured in the premiere of John Adams’s oratorio El Niño at the Châtelet Opera in Paris. He has since performed El Niño with the Adelaide Symphony, the BBC Philharmonic, the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, the Tokyo Symphony, and the Malmo Opera (Sweden). He has recorded for Chanticleer, Decca, Dorian, Four Winds, Gothic, Harmonia Mundi, Koch, Newport Classics, Smithsonian, and Teldec. Rickards can also be heard on the Naxos label where, with lutenist Dorothy Linell, he recorded two solo albums of the songs of John Dowland and Thomas Campion. Rickards received his BME and MM from Indiana University, where he now serves on the faculty of the Historical Performance Institute at the Jacobs School of Music. With a Fulbright and Rotary Grant, he studied at the Guildhall School of Music in London. He received his doctorate from Florida State University. His compendium Twentieth-Century Countertenor Repertoire is an invaluable tool for aspiring young singers as well as teachers. He currently lives in Indianapolis where he teaches singing at Indiana University’s Historical Performance Institute, Butler University, Marian University, and the University of Indianapolis.

Christine Kyprianides was for many years a leading Baroque cellist and gambist in Germany, performing internationally with Huelgas Ensemble, Musica Antiqua Köln, Das Kleine Konzert, Diapente Consort, Collegium Carthusianum, Accademia Filarmonica Köln, Les Arts Florissants, Ganassi-Consort, Les Adieux, and the La Roche and Finchcocks String Quartets. Kyprianides has also been a long-time collaborator of fortepianist Richard Burnett in England. Her recording credits include over 70 albums for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Sony, Harmonia Mundi, RCA, Capriccio, Virgin Classics, Globe, and other labels as well as radio and television productions for the major German radios, Deutsche Welle, Radio Netherlands, Radio France, and many more. Kyprianides holds degrees in performance from the Peabody and New England Conservatories and the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and was awarded the Gregor Piatigorsky Cello Prize at Tanglewood. More recently, she received the Doctor of Music degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she teaches Baroque cello. She has also held faculty positions at the Lemmens Institute (University of Louvain), the Musikhochschule of Cologne, and the Dresden Academy of Early Music and has given seminars in historical performance practice at the Catholic University of Santiago de Chile, the Conservatory of Music in Buenos Aires, the Conservatory of Church Music in Halle/Saale, the Early Music Summer Seminar in Wallonia, and elsewhere. Kyprianides is a member of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra and Ensemble Voltaire. She continues to perform in Europe and is active as a scholar. Her research interests as a musicologist include the social and cultural history of music, particularly that of Victorian Britain.

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Thomas Gerber is a founding member of–and harpsichordist in–two period instruments Baroque groups: the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Barthold Kuijken, artistic director; and the chamber music group Ensemble Voltaire. Both organizations present annual concert series. The Baroque Orchestra plays throughout Indiana, and Ensemble Voltaire has toured the United States and Canada since 1988. Mr. Gerber is assistant professor of music and humanities at Marian University, Indianapolis, and also serves on the faculties of the University of Indianapolis, where he teaches music history and coaches the student Baroque ensemble, and Butler University, where he teaches harpsichord. Gerber is harpsichordist of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (for "Messiah" performances), the Ann Arbor-based 17th-century-music chamber quintet Anaphantasia, the liturgical early music ensemble Musik Ekklesia, and the chamber group Echoing Air. He has appeared at the Early Music Festival of St. Louis and the Bloomington Early Music Festival, as well as with other period-instrument early-music groups, such as Catacoustic Consort, the Callipygian Players, Pills to Purge Melancholy, Ars Antigua Chicago, and Haydn-by-the-Lake. He can be heard on the Dorian, Concordia, Indie Barock, and Catalpa Classics labels. After receiving music degrees from Hillsdale College and Ball State University, Gerber went on to earn a Master of Music degree in harpsichord from Indiana University. His harpsichord teachers have included Fernando Valenti, Anthony Newman, and Elisabeth Wright.

Countertenor Nathan Medley has emerged in recent years as one of the leading younger-generation countertenors, with notable success internationally in concert and opera. Since graduating from Oberlin Conservatory, he has sung at some of the major stages of the world including the English National Opera and Barbican Centre in London, La Salle Pleyel in Paris, Palais de Musique in Strasbourg, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Avery Fisher Hall in New York, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Recent performances have brought him to the Boston Early Music Festival (Ottone in Monteverdi’s L'incoronazione di Poppea), the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago's Ravinia Festival, Lucerne Festival, Opera Omaha, Pacific MusicWorks, Mercury Baroque, Seraphic Fire, Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Cincinnati Collegium, Miami Bach Society, and Dayton Bach Society. Medley made his professional debut in 2012 in John Adams’ The Gospel According to the other Mary with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, which was recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. He returned to Los Angeles in 2013 for Peter Sellars’ staging of the same work, which then toured to Switzerland and New York City. Under the baton of John Adams in 2015, he performed Olga Neuwirth’s staged song/play, Hommage á Klaus Nomi. He made his English National Opera debut in 2014 in Adams’ The Gospel According to the other Mary, also staged by Peter Sellars. Other opera credits include Ottone in Handel’s Agrippina (Opera Omaha), Speranza in Monteverdi’s Orfeo (Boston Early Music Festival), Athamus in Semele (Pacific MusicWorks, Seattle), Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night's Dream, Dema in Cavalli's L'Egisto, Le Peinture in Charpentier's Les Arts Florissants, Acteon in Charpentier's Acteon, and Ottone in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, where critics in Cleveland praised him for an interpretation "sung with baroque perfection.”

In May 2016 he premieres a new piece by John Harbison for countertenor and gamba consort in Chicago with Second City Musick. The 2016-17 season brings debuts with the San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony (in St. Louis and at Carnegie Hall), London Symphony Orchestra, and return appearance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and in 2017-18, his debut with the New York Philharmonic.

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Jeffrey Collier received his Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he performed with the Emory Early Music Consort. He is a founding member of Echoing Air and has performed on baroque flute and recorder with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra and Ensemble Voltaire. He studied baroque flute with Barbara Kallaur and has participated in many intensive workshops and masterclasses with such artists as Christopher Krueger, Michael Lynn, Eva Legene, Janet See, and Stephen Preston. Collier has performed with ensembles throughout the Midwest and Southern United States, including the Tallahassee Bach Parley, the Miami Bach Society, the Baroque Artists of Champaign-Urbana (BACH), Nashville’s Belle Meade Baroque, Winston-Salem’s Piedmont Chamber Singers, and Ensemble Capriole in Williamsburg. Reviews have praised his “pure and focused playing”. Collier can be heard on the Four Winds label.

C. Keith Collins plays curtal (dulcian), baroque and classical bassoon, shawm, recorder, and harp. He is faculty at the IU Jacobs School of Music’s Historical Performance Institute and at the University of North Texas. He has performed with many period orchestras and chamber ensembles, including Apollo's Fire, Folger Consort, Tafelmusik, San Diego Bach Collegium, North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, Echoing Air, and Grammy-nominated Musik Ekklesia. He is a founding member of the award-winning shawm and curtal band Ensemble Lipzodes, which specializes in the music of colonial Latin America. Collins studied at Berry College (B.Mus., B.S.) and Indiana University (M.M., D.M.). His D.M. is the first doctorate ever awarded in historical bassoon performance. He is the former music specialist at Conner Prairie Living History Museum. When not making reeds or music, Collins enjoys serving on the board of the Indiana Raptor Center, a non-profit hospital for injured and orphaned birds of prey. His duties include owl wrangling, vet trips, and presenting raptors to the public in educational talks.

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Testimonials “Many, many thanks for a truly wonderful program Saturday night. The multiple standing ovations were the clearest demonstration of how appreciative the entire audience was!”

Richard Benedum, Organist-Choirmaster, Christ Church, Bradenton, FL

“They immediately proceeded to “wow” the audience with their incredible talent and musical authenticity. Their personalities shined through as they entertained and educated us all.”

Dianna Campbell, Director of Choral Activities Seminole State College, Sanford, FL

“Many bravos to [Steven Rickards] and Nathan Medley for presenting yourselves with great expressiveness both facially and musically. [Their] voices also are a great complement to the countertenor revival—voices so very pleasant and “natural”– not “hooty” and forced, as I have so often heard in others.”

Dr. Daniel Reuning, Artistic Director, Bach Collegium, Fort Wayne, IN

“’Hark, How the Songsters’ was full of life and joy, and your entire ensemble sparkled with exuberance. [Steven Rickards] and Nathan Medley were superb both separately and together. The recorders and continuo players complemented the voices and one another so well....”

Dr. John Jost, Professor of Music Bradley University, Peoria, IL

“[Echoing Air’s] two hours with our students was, without question, the most positive and productive master class I have experienced in my 28 years at UF.”

Ronald Burrichter, Professor of Music, University of Florida, Gainesville

“The singers of the University of Miami Collegium Musicum loved the collaboration. Countertenors are not commonplace; [Steven Rickards] and Nathan Medley are a wonderful pair of artists who inspired our young singers with [their] skill, musicianship, and style. This was an ideal educational experience for these collegiate and high school students.”

Donald Oglesby, Professor, University of Miami Frost School of Music Artistic Director, Miami Bach Society

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Representative Programs

“Hark How the Songsters” This concert features Nathan Medley and Steven Rickards performing countertenor solos and duets with additional instrumental chamber music provided by Echoing Air.

“Music’s Dwelling” Through intertwining countertenor melodies and fiery period instrumental performances the audience is guided through liturgical, chamber, courtly and operatic literature, highlighting the spaces where music found life and the impact of these places on these baroque and renaissance masterpieces.

“England Then and Now” Echoing Air explores and juxtaposes early repertoire and Twentieth and Twenty first- Century compositions composed for countertenor and early instruments. This program of vibrant British baroque and accessible English repertoire assures us that our historical instruments are alive and thriving as John Gardner and Geoffrey Burgon find their place next to and .

“The Able John Abell: Scottish Countertenors, Harping, and Exile” By exploring the varied career of Scottish singer, composer, presenter, and countertenor John Abell, Echoing Air presents vocal and instrumental music of Baroque Scotland, England, and Ireland. For this program the ensemble adds the rarely-heard wire-strung Gaelic harp, which was popular in England and continental Europe.

“An Evening with Mr. Henry Purcell” The life and times of England's most illustrious 17th Century composer, Henry Purcell, is presented in an historical perspective through readings and song. The script features the various aspects of Purcell's life and output, including chamber music and music for the church, the court, and the theatre. This program could be interactive in nature featuring a choir, and might conclude with Purcell catches involving audience participation.

Booking and Performance Information

John Gingrich Management, Inc. Steven Rickards: P.O. Box 1515, New York, NY 10023 123 E. Westfield Blvd, Indianapolis, IN 46220 T: (212) 799-5080 Fax: (212) 874-7652 T: (317) 252-4311 C: (317) 414-8374 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

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