About "Echoing Air"

"Echoing Air" is a new dynamic ensemble specializing in the repertoire of the English Baroque, with an emphasis on chamber works featuring countertenor voices with baroque ensemble. The ensemble is comprised of talented performers 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 London.

"Echoing Air" Program Offerings

 

"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, featuring Samuel Pepys and other contemporary figures. The script features the various aspects of Purcell's life and output, including church music, theater music, and instrumental music. This program could be interactive in nature featuring a choir, and might conclude with Purcell catches involving audience participation.

"Hark How The Songsters"

The art of baroque chamber music is explored, featuring duets by Henry Purcell for countertenors and recorders, including "Sound the Trumpet," from Come Ye Sons of Art. Solo works of Pelham Humphrey, Daniel Purcell, and Henry Laws are also presented. The program features the poignant Elegy on the Death of Queen Mary, and the Ode On the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell by Dr. John Blow.

"Tis Love That Has Warmed Us"

The timeless and universal aspects of love are explored in this program. Through poetry, love letters, and song, the listener will experience the power of love's mystery and fulfillment.

 

Meet The Performers

 

Biographies

Jeffrey Collier (recorder) received his Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he performed with the Emory Early Music Consort. Now a resident of Indianapolis, he 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.

Thomas Gerber (harpsichord) Thomas Gerber is a founding member of--and harpsichordist in--two period instruments Baroque groups: the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, in residence at the Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center at the University of Indianapolis, and the chamber music group Ensemble Voltaire, which is ensemble-in-residence at Trinity Episcopal Church, Indianapolis. Both organizations present annual local 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 College, 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 music history. Mr. Gerber is harpsichordist of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra as well as of the liturgical early music ensemble Musik Ekklesia. 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, and Catalpa Classics labels. After receiving music degrees from Hillsdale College and Ball State University, Mr. Gerber went on to earn a Master of Music degree in harpsichord and early music performance practice from Indiana University. His harpsichord teachers have included Fernando Valenti, Anthony Newman, and Elisabeth Wright.

Christine Kyprianides (viola da gamba) 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, etc.; 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, among others. Kyprianides is a member of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra and Ensemble Voltaire. She continues to perform in Europe and is active as a scholar.

Nathan Medley (countertenor) (headshot) has enjoyed a plethora of exciting performance opportunities. His opera credits include the roles of Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Dema in Cavalli's L'Egisto, and Ottone in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea. As Ottone, Medley won praise from Clevelend critics for an interpretation "sung with baroque perfection." Mr. Medley has worked under the direction of Stephen Stubbs, La Scala's Umberto Finazzi, Sally Stunkel, Jonathon Field, Webb Wiggins, and Danielle Patelli. In addition to the standard baroque concert repertoire, Mr. Medley frequently commissions and performs modern works in an effort to broaden public awareness of the countertenor voice type. In 2008, Medley became a Presser Scholar and began a study of pedagogical approaches to the countertenor voice type and 20th-century countertenor repertoire. He has appeared in master classes with Marilyn Horne, Emma Kirkby, and Ellen Hargis, and in 2009 will receive a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin Conservatory in voice and historical performance.

Steven Rickards (countertenor) has received international acclaim as one of America's finest countertenors. He recently took part in the premiere of John Adams's oratorio El Niño at the Châtelet Opera in Paris. Subsequent performances of the work have featuresd 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). Rickards has appeared internationally with Joshua Rifkin and the Bach Ensemble, as well as with The American Bach Soloists, Chanticleer, Ensemble Voltaire, the Gabrieli Consort, Chicago?s Music of the Baroque, the New London Consort, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, the Santa Fe Opera, and the symphony orchestras of Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and St. Louis, and Tokyo. He has sung at Carnegie Hall with the Oratorio Society of New York, in France as a soloist with The Festival Singers under the direction of Robert Shaw, and with Paul Hillier and the Theatre of Voices. Rickards was the was the soloist in the American premiere performance of Michael Nyman's Self-Laudatory Hymn of Inanna and Her Omnipotence at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. 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 currently lives in Indianapolis where he teaches singing at Butler University and the University of Indianapolis. He sings regularly with The Choir of Men and Boys at Christ Church Cathedral. He received his doctorate from Florida State University.

David Sinden (harpsichord, organ) is the Assistant Organist and Choirmaster of Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he accompanies four choral ensembles and directs the Christ Church Singers. He can be heard with the Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys twice weekly on WICR, 88.7 FM, Indianapolis. At the 2007 national convention of the Organ Historical Society he "provided masterful accompaniment for the choir -- shading the crevices, plumbing the depths, and exalting the peaks," according to the international organ journal The Diapason. Sinden holds a Master of Music degree from Indiana University, where he studied organ with Larry Smith, and a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College, where he studied organ with David Boe and harpsichord with Lisa Crawford. While a student at Oberlin, Sinden was the organist and choirmaster for college Vespers and hosted the Friday Night Organ Pump, a midnight organ recital held monthly. Sinden has performed in master classes throughout North America for such noted musicians as Gerre Hancock, Paul Manz, Mitzi Meyerson, Bruce Neswick, William Porter, and Giles Swayne.

Anne Timberlake (recorder) holds degrees in recorder performance from Oberlin Conservatory, where she studied with Alison Melville, and Indiana University, where she studied with Eva Legene and won the 2007 Early Music Institute Concerto Competition. She has received awards from Oberlin Conservatory, the American Recorder Society, and the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts. Recently, she was awarded a Fulbright Grant to study consort music and contemporary recorder repertoire in Belgium. Ms. Timberlake is active as a player and teacher, and has appeared across the United States performing repertoire from Bach to 21st-century premieres to Celtic tunes.

 

Booking Information:

For Concert and Masterclass availability, please contact:

Steven Rickards

123 E. Westfield Blvd.

Indianapolis, IN 46220

(317)251-4311

echoingair@stevenrickards.com

www.stevenrickards.com