the Artists

• .

Joanna Blendulf has performed as soloist and continuo player in leading period instrument ensembles throughout the United States. She holds performance degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Indiana University, where she was awarded the Performer’s Certificate for her accomplishments in historical performance. Joanna is currently performing and recording with the Cascade Consort, Catacoustic Consort, Wildcat Viols, Portland Viol Consort, the Portland Baroque Orchestra, Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, and the San Diego Bach Collegium. She teaches viola da gamba and Baroque cello privately and in workshops and masterclasses across the country, and is currently the featured viola da gamba soloist at the Oregon Bach Festival.

• .

Wendy Gillespie teaches early bowed strings, performance studies, and reading from early notation at Indiana University, Bloomington. She has played with many ensembles and has participated in more than eighty recordings for Linn, hmUSA, EMI, Virgin Classics, Channel Classics, Avie, and others. As a member of the viol consorts Fretwork and Phantasm, Gillespie has toured the globe performing concerts and appearing on radio and television. She is much in demand for workshops and seminars in early music performance in the United States and Europe. She is on the Executive Board of the Medieval Studies Institute at Indiana University, and is Past President of the Viola da Gamba Society of America.

• .

Sarah Mead teaches, performs, and proselytizes polyphony in the Boston area. The 2007 winner of the Thomas Binkley Award from Early Music America, she is Professor of the Practice of Music at Brandeis University, and has taught sixteenth-century theory and performance practice at the Longy School of Music. Her handbook on Renaissance Theory is used in historical music programs around the country. Overseas she has been a guest tutor at Trinity College of Music in London and the Easter Viol School in Australia. She serves on the Boards of the VdGSA and EMA, and is Conclave Music Director for the Viola da Gamba Society of America.

• .

Emily Walhout grew up playing the cello and piano, but it was not until college that she discovered her love for the viol. Cathy Meints gave her the best advice she’s ever gotten: “take up the viola da gamba.” She has played viol with La Luna, New York Collegium, the Boston Camerata, les Violons du Roy, Emmanuel Music, and Seattle Baroque, among others. As a chamber musician she has toured throughout North America and Europe. Current chamber ensembles include the Carthage Consort of Viols and Les Délices. The New York Times praised her Tombeau de Lully as “soulful and expressive.”