Faculty 2024

Joanna Blendulf

Viol

Joanna Blendulf is professor of music in baroque cello/viola da gamba at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Blendulf has performed and recorded with leading period-instrument ensembles throughout the United States and abroad. She is currently co-principal cellist and principal viola da gamba player of the Portland Baroque Orchestra. She has also performed as principal cellist of Pacific MusicWorks, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra, and the New York Collegium. She was a principal cellist of the New World Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas and has performed with other modern orchestras, including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Nashville Chamber Orchestra.

Blendulf is an avid chamber musician, performing regularly on major concert series and appearing on numerous recordings with her groups, including the Ensemble Electra, Ensemble Mirable, Music of the Spheres, Nota Bene Viol Consort, and Wildcat Viols. She appears as a frequent guest viol player with the Catacoustic Consort and Parthenia, and has collaborated with acclaimed artists such as Monica Huggett, Stephen Stubbs, Matthias Maute, Bruce Dickey, and Joan Jeanrenaud. Blendulf’s world-premiere recording of the complete cello sonatas of Jean Zewalt Triemer with Ensemble Mirable was released in 2004.

Blendulf’s festival engagements have included performances at Tage Alter Musik Regenburg, Musica Antigua en Villa de Leyva in Colombia, the Bloomington, Boston, and Berkeley early music festivals, and the Ojai Music Festival, as well as the Carmel and Oregon Bach Festivals. She is also sought after as a teacher and chamber music coach and has served as a classroom and private instructor at the University of Oregon and the Berwick Academy. As an active member of the Viola da gamba Society of America, she teaches regularly at viol workshops such as the annual Conclave, Viols West, and Young Players Weekend, and has served as a national Circuit Rider teacher.

She holds performance degrees with honors from the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Jacobs School of Music, where she earned a Performer’s Certificate for her accomplishments in early music performance.

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Kelly Brzozowski

Folk Music, Harp

Kelly Brzozowski holds a BMUS and a Masters Diploma in Harp Performance and Musicology from the University of North Wales. She has taught and performed throughout Europe and the U.S. Kelly lives in Atlanta where she has maintained a large teaching studio for more than twenty years and performs both classical and Celtic music. When she is not performing, teaching, or traveling, she is homeschooling her son. You will often find her designing and conducting experiments. Is it science or is it food?!?

Kelly Brzozowski’s website

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Rosalind Buda

Folk Music, Pennywhistle, Pipes

Rosalind Buda is a versatile and diverse performer and educator, playing and teaching music from Scottish smallpipes and Highland bagpipes to classical bassoon. Rosalind is passionate about teaching musicians of all ages, and her years of experience in both classical and folk music give her a unique perspective and a multi-faceted, holistic approach to learning. Rosalind firmly believes that everyone can develop their own style, expand technique through new approaches, and find their greatest enjoyment in music-making at any stage in their learning. Rosalind brings her musically encouraging approach to her private students, college students, and to workshops around the country.

As a performer, Rosalind freelances and tours regularly with the Celtic/Appalachian pipe and harp duo, The Reel Sisters, on smallpipes, whistles, and vocals. The Reel Sisters have toured from New Mexico to New York and revel in sharing traditional tunes and stories. In addition to her duo, Rosalind performs regularly as a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and reader with various ensembles including Houston-based Istanpitta Early Music Ensemble as well other bagpipe-centric bands. As a bassoonist, Rosalind is an avid performer of chamber music and orchestral music in the Southeast. Rosalind received her MM in bassoon performance from New England Conservatory.

Rosalind Buda‘s website

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Al Cofrin

Medieval, Renaissance, Renaissance reeds, Renaissance winds

Al Cofrin earned a BA in Jazz Theory & Composition at the University of Texas in the early 1980s. He became interested in medieval music when a professor pointed out that both jazz and medieval monophonic music utilize similar improvisational skills. He continued graduate music studies and worked on a thesis project of medieval monophonic songs and dances resulting in the 1995 publication of pre-15th century transcriptions and a collection of Renaissance dance music. The publication of his work led to the desire to perform the music he had worked with for so long. Istanpitta was born in 1994 and continues to play for concert venues and universities across the country. He has been on faculty for several Early Music related workshops including the Texas Early Music Workshop and San Francisco Early Music Workshop.

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Wendy Gillespie

Viol

As a child, Wendy Gillespie heard the New York Pro Musica in concert and was inexplicably attracted to polyphony long before she learned a word for it. She was already a string player, so the viol was the obvious instrument to pursue. Applying only to places that had viola da gamba teachers (there were four in 1968), Wendy was drawn to Wellesley College, Boston, and the world of early music performance well before anyone started muttering about authenticity. Ironically, her first professional gig was as the New York Pro Musica’s last viola da gamba player. 1974 found her a self-employed viola da gamba/vielle/viola player in New York City playing ars subtilior music with the Elizabethan Enterprise (don’t ask…), 13th-18th century music with Ensemble for Early Music and Waverly Consort, baroque music with Badinage, even sackbut in the aptly named ensemble The B Team. She was on the board of Music Before 1800 at its inception.

In the ensuing decades, she has performed on five continents, most often as a founding member of  the viol consort Fretwork and long-time member of the ensemble Phantasm, but also as a bass viol soloist, and not least as a happy continuo player. More recently, Gillespie has been specializing in renaissance viols and early repertory with the consort Nota Bene and appearing regularly with The Barefoot Allstars of California and the not yet discovered trio Lyra Waye. Wendy received Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award in 2011 and the Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award in 2012. She is Past President of the Viola da Gamba Society, honored with a lifetime membership in 2023. In 2017, after 32 years on the faculty of Indiana University, Bloomington IN, Gillespie graduated to  Professor Emerita. Since then she has been on a journey to learn more about life, the universe, and everything.

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Phil Hollar

Hurdy gurdy, Recorder, Renaissance winds

Phil Hollar teaches recorder in Hickory, North Carolina. He is a frequent faculty member at workshops including Mountain Collegium Early Music and Folk Music Workshop, the Atlanta Early Music Alliance Mid-Winter Workshop, and the Triangle Recorder Society Spring Early Music Workshop. Phil has extensive experience leading American Recorder Society chapter playing sessions and has been invited to lead sessions nationwide. He currently serves as a board member for the American Recorder Society where he chairs the Play the Recorder Day Task Force. Phil holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Phil Hollar’s website

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Joan Kimball

Recorder, Renaissance reeds

Joan Kimball is the former artistic co-director and a founding member of Piffaro, The
Renaissance Band. She has concertized with the ensemble throughout the U.S., Europe, and
South America and has performed with many of the leading early music artists and
ensembles in this country. With Piffaro she has recorded for Newport Classics, Deutsche
Grammophon Archiv Produktion, Dorian Recordings and PARMA/Navona, and in
addition can be heard on the Vanguard, Eudora and Vox Amadeus labels.

Widely known in the early music community as a teacher of recorder, early double reeds and
bagpipes, she has been on faculty at early music festivals and workshops across the country,
including The Madison Early Music Festival, The Early Double Reed & Sackbut Workshop,
Amherst Early Music, The San Francisco Early Music Recorder and Med/Ren workshops,
The Texas Toot, and Hidden Valley Early Music Workshop.

Joan has intimate knowledge and experience with early double reeds, playing both shawm
and dulcian, as well as capped reeds and bagpipes. She has far too many of the latter in
various sizes, pitches and volumes in her studio, and is committed to keeping them all in
good working order! She makes her own reeds for all her instruments and supplies them as
well for reed players across the country. One of her specialties is refurbishing whole sets of
krumhorns, replacing the old plastic reeds with more authentic cane ones. In addition, she
collaborates with instrument maker Joel Robinson on the construction of Medieval and
Renaissance bagpipes.

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Holly Maurer

Viol

Holly received a BA from St. Lawrence University in music and religion and the MM from The New England Conservatory in performance practice of early music where she studied with Grace Feldman. Since coming to Charlotte in 1993, Holly has been a member of Carolina Pro Musica performing throughout the Southeast including concerts at Wingate, Sweetbriar College of Virginia, Davidson College and Gardner Webb. The group performs on their own series in Charlotte and has been featured on concert series in Asheville, Columbia, Lincolnton and Belmont where Carolina Pro Musica is a resident artist ensemble at Belmont Abbey College. In 2005 the ensemble presented concerts in and around London, England and in 2009 performed at the Boston Early Music Ensemble. In addition to concerts with Carolina Pro Musica, Holly performed regularly with Carolina Baroque of Salisbury and has been a guest artist with several groups in the area. Holly has recently retired from The music faculty of Central Piedmont Community College where she taught the Early Music Ensemble and Baroque Performance class.

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Jody Miller, Director

Capped reeds, Recorder, Renaissance winds

Jody is director of Lauda Musicam of Atlanta and teaches private recorder lessons in the Atlanta area.  Previously, he has served on the faculty of the Atlanta Early Music Alliance Mid-Winter Workshop and has taught recorder workshops throughout the country.  Miller performs most frequently with Amethyst Baroque Ensemble, but  he is also a member of contemporary music duo Eighty-Eight & Eight with Lisle Kulbach and Ritornello Baroque Ensemble.  Miller often collaborates with modern instrumentalists when performing his favorite works—contemporary chamber music for recorder.  He works closely with composer Timothy Broege and has premiered several of his compositions.  More recently, Miller performed the premier of Martha Bishop’s Dark Moods–Breakaway for recorder and percussion and Gregory Hamilton’s Ave Maria Variations for unaccompanied recorder.   Jody has performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, New Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Cincinnati Opera, and the Victoria Bach Festival. Jody has served as Director of Mountain Collegium since 2011.

Jody Miller’s website

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Emily O’Brien

Recorder

Emily O’Brien is a native of Washington, DC where she played recorder from a young age. She studied recorder and french horn at Boston University, and recorder and Baroque flute at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe, Germany. She performs in recorder ensembles and historical chamber music, as well as English Country Dance bands. As a teacher, she works with private students and ensembles in the Boston area as well as teaching at various summer workshop such as CDSS’s Early Music Week at Pinewoods and Amherst Early Music Festival. Emily’s solo album, “Fantasies for a Modern Recorder” explores the variety and possibilities over four centuries of repertoire offered by the Helder Harmonic Tenor recorder. In her spare time, she enjoys long distance cycling.

Emily O’Brien’s website

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Will Peebles

Capped reeds, Sacred harp, Voice

Will Peebles has taught courses in bassoon, music theory, music history, and world music at Western Carolina University since 1992, and served as Director of the School of Music from 2005-2014. In 1999, he established Western’s Low Tech Ensemble, which now performs on Balinese, Javanese, and Sundanese gamelan.  Will’s musical interests include shape-note singing, historical bassoons, and performance on Renaissance instruments such as the krummhorn, kortholt, and rackett.

Will Peebles’s website

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Pat Petersen

Recorder, Renaissance winds

Pat holds an MFA in Early Music Performance from Sarah Lawrence College.  A Director Emerita of Amherst Early Music, she is a regular faculty member at that and many other weekend and week-long workshops.  Her vocal group Fortuna recorded on the Titanic label; she also conducted the Amherst Festival Choir on a recording of the music of Heinrich Isaac.  She performs on recorder and other early winds, and has appeared with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra.  She has coached early music ensembles at Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  An ARS certified teacher, she teaches recorder, early music, and English country dance in North Carolina and at workshops around the country, and has a passion for playing from facsimiles of early 15th-century music.  In her other musical life, she loves to harmonize on traditional tunes, and plays a mean banjo-uke.  Pat is currently working with a group of musicians and dancers to develop a retirement community for dancers, musicians, artists, and other like-minded people.

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Gwyn Roberts

Flute, Recorder

Gwyn Roberts is one of America’s foremost performers on recorder and baroque flute, praised by Gramophone for her “sparkling technique, compelling musicianship, and all-around excellence.”  She is also co-founder and -director of Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra Tempesta di Mare, hailed by the Miami Herald as “the model of a top-notch period orchestra.”  Now in the 15th season of its Philadelphia Concert Series, Tempesta di Mare tours from Oregon to Prague, recently released its 10th CD on the British label Chandos, and reaches audiences in 56 countries around the world with broadcasts of live performances.

Roberts’ soloist engagements include Portland Baroque Orchestra, Recitar Cantando of Tokyo, Washington Bach Consort and the Kennedy Center. In addition to Chandos, she has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Dorian, Sony Classics, Vox, PolyGram, PGM, and Radio France. Her latest solo recordings include the Fasch Recorder Concerto in F, Bach’s Concerto in G after BWV 530, and Sonatas by Francesco Mancini.  She enjoys collaborating with living composers, recently recording James Primosch’s Sacred Songs and Meditations with the 21st Century Consort for Albany Records.

Roberts studied recorder and baroque flute at Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands with Marion Verbruggen, Leo Meilink and Marten Root. She loves teaching, with recent masterclasses at the Curtis Institute of Music, Hartt School of Music, and Oregon Bach Festival.  She is Professor of Recorder and Baroque Flute at the Peabody Conservatory, Director of Early Music Ensembles at the University of Pennsylvania, and directs the Virtuoso Recorder Program at the Amherst Early Music Festival.

Gwyn Roberts’s website

Tempesta di Mare’s website

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Erik Schmalz

Renaissance brass

Erik Schmalz received degrees in trombone performance from Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, but discovered early music and period instruments shortly thereafter and was hooked. With a current historic instrumentarium ranging from a 14th century straight trumpet copy to original romantic era trombones, he has been a historic trombone specialist and performer for more than fifteen years. As a member of Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, and Dark Horse Consort; a regular performer with large ensembles such as Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Handel and Haydn Society, Tafelmusik, Trinity Baroque Orchestra; and an active freelancer, Erik can be heard on many stages and on numerous recordings. His musical and instrumental versatility also led him to be cast as one of the seven instrumentalists in the Globe Theatre’s Tony nominated production of Shakespeare on Broadway. Erik currently resides in Collinsville, CT.

Erik Schmalz’s website

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Gail Schroeder, Assistant Director

Viol

Gail Ann Schroeder studied viola da gamba at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels with Wieland Kuijken, obtaining her First Prize and Higher Diploma, with distinction. She subsequently taught viola da gamba, pedagogy and directed the viol consort at the Brussels Conservatory from 1988 to 2002.

Gail has had an extensive career as soloist and as chamber musician, concertizing and recording with various ensembles such as the Huelgas Ensemble, Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, Ricercar Consort, Currende Consort, Capilla Flamenca, and Catacoustic Consort. She has performed in many of the European Festivals including Holland Festival Oude Muziek in Utrecht, Resonanzen, Innsbrucker Festwochen, Les Académies Musicales de Saintes, Festival van Vlaanderen, Festival de Wallonie and Internationale Festtage Alter Music Stuttgart.

Since returning to the USA in 2006, Gail has been in demand as a teacher and ensemble coach at workshops for the Viola da Gamba Society of America, the Amherst Early Music Festival, Madison Early Music Festival, Music on the Mountain, Retreat to Advance and Mountain Collegium, where she is assistant director and head of the viol program. Currently living in North Carolina, she teaches privately and is artistic director of Asheville Baroque Concerts.

Gail Ann Schroeder’s website

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Chrissy Spencer

Viol

Chrissy Spencer, viola da gamba, is a founding member of the vocal ensemble Uncommon Practice and the Baranduin Baroque Ensemble in Vancouver, BC, and has performed in Atlanta with Ritornello and New Trinity Baroque. She helps organize regional and national early music workshops, including the Mountain Collegium weeklong summer workshop and Music on the Mountain, a weekend viol workshop. She is the Vice President, and incoming President, of the Viola da Gamba Society of America. Chrissy lives in Atlanta, GA, where she is on the Biological Sciences faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology, advocates for alternative transportation, and raises chickens in the city.

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Anne Timberlake

Recorder

Anne Timberlake has appeared across the United States performing repertoire from Bach to twenty-first-century premieres.  She holds degrees in recorder performance from Oberlin Conservatory and Indiana University, Critics have described her playing as “dazzling” (Chicago Classical Review) and “preternaturally persuasive” (The Ann Arbor Observer). A Fulbright grantee, Anne won Early Music America’s 2011 Naxos Recording Competition with her ensemble Wayward Sisters.  Anne enjoys teaching as well as playing, and is a regular instructor at workshops coast to coast.

Anne Timberlake’s website

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Barbara Weiss

Harpsichord, Recorder

A versatile and engaging musician, Barbara Weiss’ diverse musical experiences range from recording and performing ancient classical Cambodian music to directing a baroque opera company to chairing a university’s early music program.  She started out as a clarinet and piano player and learned recorder in high school. She studied recorder and shawm at Indiana University, where she had opportunities to perform Brandenburg concertos and the Telemann suite – what fun! In addition to being the director of Recorder Society chapters in Michigan and Minneapolis, she has been on the faculty of both the Oberlin Conservatory and the Peabody Institute.  She has taught at summer workshops such as the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, the Madison Early Music Festival, Mountain Collegium, and Indiana University’s Recorder Academy.  She currently lives in Asheville, NC, where she performs with Muses Delight, Pan Harmonia, and the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra. Her collaborations include Belladonna, the Newberry Consort, Quicksilver, Chatham Baroque, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, the King’s Noyse, Apollo’s Fire, the Chicago Opera Theater, Ensemble Vermillion and Piffaro. Shes has recorded with the Dorian, Flying Fish and Harmonia Mundi labels. She is currently selling recordings of her accompaniments to Baroque solo pieces for treble instruments. Luckily for her, she is the director of western North Carolina’s first melodica band, Next Road Over, and, sometimes, cursing technology, is teaching harpsichord long distance at Swarthmore College.

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