Artist Bios
Early Music Latin America Festival: Guest Artists and Faculty
Workshop Faculty and Concert Artists
Loren Ludwig studied viola da gamba at Oberlin Conservatory and holds a PhD in Critical and Comparative Studies in Music from the University of Virginia. As a viol player, Loren performs widely as a soloist and chamber musician. He is a co-founder of critically acclaimed ensembles LeStrange Viols, the 17th century string band, ACRONYM, and Science Ficta. As a scholar of early modern musical culture, Loren researches what he terms polyphonic intimacy, the idea that music in the Western tradition is constructed to foster social relationships among its performers and listeners. A few current research/performance projects include the modern premiere recording with Science Ficta of viola da gamba quartets by Ottorino Respighi and Henri Casadesus composed for the Société des Instruments Anciens (now out on New Focus Recordings), a recording of the madrigal fantasias by John Coprario with LeStrange Viols (expected fall, 2023), and ongoing research on the use of the viol in the diverse musical cultures of New Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Loren has served as musicology faculty at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, Grinnell College, and the New Zealand School of Music. Loren teaches chamber music and performance practice at residencies and festivals across four continents. .
A versatile multi-instrumentalist, Dan Meyers is a flexible and engaging performer of both classical and folk music; his credits range from premieres of contemporary chamber music, to headlining a concert series in honor of Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival, to playing Renaissance instruments on Broadway for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre Company. He is a founding member of the early music/folk crossover group Seven Times Salt, and in recent seasons he has performed with the Folger Consort, The Newberry Consort, Hesperus, The Henry Purcell Society of Boston, Early Music New York, Amherst Early Music, The 21st Century Consort, In Stile Moderno, and the Cambridge Revels, making concert and theatrical appearances in NYC, Washington DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Memphis, Santa Fe, at the Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont, and at the "La Luna e i Calanchi" festival in Basilicata (Italy). He enjoys playing traditional Irish music with the bands Ulster Landing and Ishna, as well as eclectic fusion from around the Mediterranean with the US/Italy-based group Zafarán; he also played winds and percussion for over a decade with the award-winning Italian folk music group Newpoli. As an educator, he has taught for the Five Colleges Early Music Program, at Tufts University, for the Pinewoods Early Music Week, and at music festivals around the Northeast.
John Mark Rozendaal, viola da gamba, specializes in teaching and performing stringed instrument music from the Baroque and Renaissance eras. As founding Artistic Director of Chicago Baroque Ensemble, he performed and led seven seasons of subscription concerts, educational programs, radio broadcasts, and recordings for the Cedille and Centaur labels. Mr. Rozendaal served as principal violoncellist of The City Musick and Basically Bach, and has performed both solo and continuo roles with many period instrument ensembles, including the Newberry Consort, Orpheus Band, and the King's Noyse, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, the Catacoustic Consort, Philomel, Parthenia, The New York Consort of Viols, Empire Viols and the Kansas City Chorale. He is a member of Brandywine Baroque as well as Trio Settecento with violinist Rachel Barton Pine and harpsichordist David Schrader, and the consort, LeStrange Viols.
Mary Springfels is a veteran of the American Early Music Movement and has been given Lifelong Achievement awards by Early Music America and The Viola da Gamba Society of America. She is a native of Los Angeles, but moved to New York at the age of 21 to join the New York Pro Musica as their viola da gambist.
From that time on, Mary has been an active participant in prominent early music ensembles, including the Waverly Concert, Concert Royal, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, The Folger Consort (Washington, DC), Ars Lyrica Houston, and the Texas Early Music Project (Austin). Mary directed the Newberry Consort in Chicago for 20 years, during which time the group made a number of critically- acclaimed recordings. She has also been a continuo player for the Chicago Opera Theater, Central City Opera, and the New York City Opera. Currently, she is a co- director of Severall Friends, an early music ensemble based in Santa Fe. Mary and James Keller have collaborated on a lecture course, Orpheus in Music, for Renesan, and Mary has also spoken on The Medieval Tristan for the Santa Fe Opera Guild.
Zoe Tall Weiss is an Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music. Both a musicologist and performer, she believes passionately in music’s ability to forge human connections which she explores in both her scholarly and performance work. An active performer on the viola da gamba, Zoe is a founding member of LeStrange Viols and Science Ficta, and has performed with the Oberlin Consort of Viols, the Smithsonian Consort of Viols, the Folger Consort, and ACRONYM. Zoe has taught viol at workshops for the Amherst Early Music Festival and the Viola da Gamba Society of America and served on the Board of Directors for the VdGSA as well as serving as an editor for the Journal of the VdGSA. Her recordings with LeStrange Viols and ACRONYM can be heard on the New Focus label.
Concert Artists
Praised for her "clear, bright voice" (New York Times) and "artistry that belies her young years” (Kansas City Metropolis), soprano Estelí Gomez is quickly gaining recognition as a stylish interpreter of early and contemporary repertoires. In January 2014 she was awarded a Grammy with contemporary octet Roomful of Teeth, for best chamber music/small ensemble performance; in November 2011 she received first prize in the Canticum Gaudium International Early Music Vocal Competition in Poznan, Poland.
Estelí can be heard on the Seattle Symphony’s 2017 recording of Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3, on the first track of Silkroad Ensemble's Grammy-winning 2016 album Sing Me Home, and on Roomful of Teeth's self-titled debut album, for which composer Caroline Shaw's Partita was awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize. She is also featured on the soundtrack of the Lena Dunham film Catherine, Called Birdy (2022), the Netflix show Dark, Beyoncé's Homecoming, Kanye West's documentary Jeen-Yuhs, the trailer for the film TÁR, and as soprano soloist in Nico Muhly's "How Little You Are" with Conspirare, among others. Originally from Watsonville, California, Estelí received her Bachelor of Arts with honors in music from Yale College, and Master of Music from McGill University, studying with Sanford Sylvan. Estelí is thrilled to be teaching at Lawrence University as assistant professor of voice, in addition to continuing her work as a performer.
Based out of New York City, Dr. Jason Priset is a regular soloist and performer in the United States and abroad. Jason has appeared in concert and as a soloist for: Bach Vespers, the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, Early Music New York, Florida Grand Opera, Great Music in a Great Space, Loft Opera, Long Island Baroque Ensemble, and the Riverside Symphony to name a few. This includes appearances in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, Scottish Rite Temple in Miami, FL, and L’Auditori and Museo de la Música in Barcelona, Spain. Jason holds a Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) from Stony Brook University and a post graduate degree from Escola Superior de Música de Cataluña (ESMUC) in Barcelona, Spain. Jason specializes in a variety of lutes, guitars, and other related instruments and, aside from an active performance career, is currently the Director for the Lute Society of America Summer Festivals and serves on the faculty at Montclair State University.
Pre-Concert Lecture
