Biographies
Hallie Fishel, soprano, is one of North America’s leading interpreters of early music and is in demand as a coach and lecturer on performance practice and the place of music in early modern culture at universities and colleges across North America. Institutions at which she has recently performed and lectured include University of Toronto, York University, Lafayette College, University of Syracuse, City University of New York, Trent University, as well as the Bata Shoe Museum and the Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. As well as performing in historically informed concerts, she maintains a busy studio of vocal students studying everything from plainchant to opera to jazz.
John Edwards specializes in playing numerous historical plucked string instruments, from the medieval lute to the theorbo to the nineteenth century guitar. Though he plays continuo lutes with orchestras, Mr. Edwards has always had a love of song and is in high demand as an accompanist and coach. He is a Fellow of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at the University of Toronto and has given lectures and demonstrations throughout North America.
Special Guests
Sara-Anne Churchill, recipient of the 2007 Montreal Baroque Prize for her audaciousness and musicality, is an active chamber musician and soloist based in Toronto. Together with Ian Robertson, she forms an exciting harpsichord-fortepiano duo called Pluck ‘n’ Hammered, which performs late eighteenth century music for two keyboards. Along with cellist Kerri McGonigle, she also co-founded the baroque duo Suite & Psaltry. Sara has presented concerts at the Southeast Historical Keyboard Society Conclave, the London Early Music Festival, The University of Toronto Art Centre Series, TEMC’s Musically Speaking series, and the Concerts at Cronyn series. She has recently worked with I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble and the Classical Music Consort. One of the first graduates of the new Advanced Certificate in Performance-Baroque Option, jointly offered by the University of Toronto and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Sara-Anne holds a Master of Arts in Musicology from the University of Western Ontario. Sara-Anne is currently a candidate for the Doctorate of Musical Arts in Harpsichord Performance at the University of Toronto.
David Klausner is Professor in the Department of English and the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. He has written widely on Old and Middle English, Middle Welsh and especially, on medieval and Tudor drama. He has been a member of the Toronto Consort and is co-author of Singing Early Music, published by Indiana University Press.
Before starting life anew as a tenor, Bud Roach, tenor, enjoyed a successful career as an oboist. After earning a Master of Music degree from Yale University, he performed often with the orchestras of the National Ballet of Canada, the Canadian Opera Company, and Phantom of the Opera. From 1997 to 2004, he lived in the United States, holding positions with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, the Michigan Opera Theater, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2005 Bud was invited by Lydia Adams to join the Elmer Iseler Singers, and since that time he has sung with many of Toronto’s finest ensembles, including the Canadian Opera Company, Opera Atelier, The Toronto Consort and La Chapelle de Quebec. Solo work includes the Aradia Ensemble (with whom he has recorded Handel’s Israel in Egypt and Samuel Arnold’s Polly for the Naxos label), Soundstreams, the Toronto Continuo Collective, and Arcady. He performed the title role in Carissimi’s Jephte at the Jerusalem Early Music Workshop, and sang the role of Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflote in Fidenza, Italy.
Contemporary opera and music drama projects include the main role of “Trickster” in the Melissa Hui/Tomson Highway opera The Journey, the first opera written in the Cree language (Soundstreams Canada), the title role in workshop production of Savitri and Sam, a new collaboration between John Mills-Cockell and Ken Gass (Canadian Rep Theater), as well as a leading role in the new music theater piece Sound in Silence by Gwen Dobie (Out of the Box Productions).
Recent solo appearances include Bach’s Lutheran Mass in G major with the Elmer Iseler Singers, Schubert’s Mass in G major with the Iseler Singers and the Ottawa Choral Society, Messiah with Arcady, Handel’s Nisi Dominus and Dixit Dominus with the Toronto Chamber Choir, the Monteverdi Vespers with the Toronto Consort, and reprising the role of “Trickster” in The Journey on tour in Northern Ontario.
Baritone Neil Aronoff completed a Master’s Degree in Performance at McGill University in Montreal, performing in masterclasses with Gerald Finley, Martin Katz, Nicholas Goldschmidt and Richard Miller, and attended the International Summer Academy at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. His operatic performances include the roles of Leporello in Don Giovanni, Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro, Giorgio Germont in La Traviata, Friedrich Bhaer in Little Women, and the title rôle in Dominick Argento’s Christopher Sly. Neil is an active soloist with groups including the Aradia Ensemble, Opera in Concert, and Toronto Operetta Theatre.