Board of Directors

    Following is a list of Early Music America's Board of Directors for 2009-2010.

    President: Ron Cook


    		Ron Cook is engaged in the financial transaction practice of the law firm of Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP. He is also the director of The Early Interval, an early music ensemble based in Columbus, Ohio, which has performed throughout Ohio since 1977. He is a frequent speaker and writer on early music topics. He has taught recorder at workshops and as an adjunct instructor at the Conservatory of Music at Capital University, and he has appeared as a recorder soloist with a variety of ensembles. He has also performed extensively on historical harps, and has taught historical harp at and served as artistic director of the national Historical Harp Society Workshop. He is a past officer and trustee of The American Recorder Society and a past president of The Historical Harp Society. He has chaired the boards of a number of Columbus arts organizations, including the Greater Columbus Arts Council, the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra and the Friends of Early Music.

    Vice-President: Thomas Forrest Kelly

    		Thomas Forrest Kelly is a professor in the Music Department at Harvard University. He is a scholar of medieval music, and has been involved in early music as Director of the Historical Performance Program at the Oberlin Conservatory, as director of the Five College Early Music Program in Massachusetts, and as music director of the Castle Hill Festival. He is the author of First Nights: Five Music Premieres, and of First Nights at the Opera (Yale University Press.)

    Vice-President: Angela Mariani

     

    		Angela Mariani is host of Harmonia, WFIU's nationally-syndicated weekly early music radio program. She is also a member of the medieval ensemble Altramar, which has toured throughout the United States and Europe and has seven CDs on the Dorian label. A native of Massachusetts, Angela spent the 70s and most of the 80s as a freelance rock and folk musician; however, a growing passion for early music led her to Bloomington, Indiana in 1987 to study with Thomas Binkley. She completed a Master's degree from the Early Music Institute at Indiana University in 1990, and pursued postgraduate studies there for several years. She is now Visiting Professor of Music History and Literature at Texas Tech University, where she teaches various early music history courses, directs the Collegium, and teaches History of Rock and Roll (!). Angela is also actively involved with a range of traditional musics, as well as literature, yoga, and meditation. She lives in Lubbock, Texas with her husband, guitarist and musicologist Chris Smith.

    Secretary: Deborah Malamud

     

    		Deborah Malamud is the An-Bryce Professor of Law at New York University Law School, where she teaches and writes on labor and employment law and constitutional law, with an emphasis on issues of race and class. She served as a law clerk to two federal judges (the Hon. Louis H. Pollak and Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun), and practiced labor law on the union side (Bredhoff & Kaiser, Washington, D.C.) before turning to legal academia (University of Michigan and New York University Law Schools). As recently described in the pages of Early Music Magazine, Vol. 11 No. 4, Winter 2005 "My Ideal of Perfection: Amateurs Talk About Their Lives in Early Music," she is a life-long passionate amateur singer, and has performed with many early music groups, including Capella Nova, the University of Chicago Collegium, the Washington Bach Consort, and, most recently, the New York Continuo Collective. She is a frequent participant in early music workshops, most often the Madison Early Music Festival and the workshops of the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble.

    Assistant Secretary: Rebecca Baltzer


    		Rebecca A. Baltzer, PhD, is a professor of musicology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a specialist in medieval music, especially that of the Notre-Dame School and Ars Antiqua. She also has interests in the Delta blues tradition of her native Mississippi. She is a past recipient of the American Musicological Society's Alfred Einstein Award and is widely published, including articles in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. She edited Volume 5 of a seven-volume critical edition of the Magnus liber organi (Monaco, 1995), co-edited The Union of Words and Music in Medieval Poetry (Texas, 1991), and co-edited The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages (Oxford, 2000), which won an award from the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers. One of the founders of UT's Medieval Studies program, she also served for four years as an Associate Dean of the Graduate School.

    Treasurer: Jeffrey Barnett


    		Jeff Barnett is a partner and Chief Financial Officer of Dorsal Capital Management LLC, a San Francisco Bay Area money management firm. He is responsible for all aspects of the firm's business, including finance, human resources, technology, investor relations, and marketing. He has worked in the finance and investment industry for nearly 15 years. Earlier in his career, Mr. Barnett worked in alumni relations, fundraising and program development at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the University of Minnesota School of Music. Mr. Barnett is a graduate of Saint John's University (Minnesota) with a duel degree in music and political science and holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University. He is a professional lyric tenor and has performed with many early music and modern orchestras, including Apollo's Fire, American Bach Soloists, California Chamber Symphony, and an all-Bach recital with members of Philharmonia Baroque. He has also performed at Boston's Emmanuel Church, famous for its Bach cantata series and his coaches and teachers have included the acclaimed Bach evangelists Jeffrey Thomas and Frank Kelley. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of the New England Conservatory of Music and volunteers frequently for Stanford University.

    Asst. Treasurer and President-Elect: Robert Johnson


    		Robert Johnson is a partner in the Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney law firm, where he has practiced from the firm's Pittsburgh, PA office since graduating from the Harvard Law School in 1969. His law practice is tax-law focused on tax-exempt nonprofit organization law, and employee benefits and executive compensation law. He has been elected a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel, and the American Bar Foundation. Outside of work and family (wife Selina and two grown children), he loves watching NHL ice hockey and reading political opinion journals. However, his consuming love since a boy has been music, especially early music. He has been President of, and currently serves on the Boards of, both Chatham Baroque and Renaissance & Baroque in Pittsburgh, as well as on the Boards of the River City Brass Band Charitable Endowment and Friends of the Music Library (Treasurer), which supports the music collection at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Library.

     

    Members


    		 A native of Quebec, Marie-Hélène Bernard obtained her bachelor's degree in law (LL.B) from the University of Montréal and master's in arts administration from Concordia University (Montreal). She practiced corporate, tax, and intellectual property laws for six years in Canada and remains a member of the Quebec Bar. After completing orchestra management residencies with the New York Philharmonic, The Minnesota Orchestra and the Syracuse Symphony, Ms. Bernard served as Project Manager and Orchestra Manager of the Philadelphia Orchestra, as Orchestra Manager for the Cleveland Orchestra, and as President & CEO of the Canton (OH) Symphony Orchestra before joining the Handel and Haydn Society as Executive Director/CEO in 2007. Ms. Bernard plays the viola da gamba.


    		Robert Birman is currently Chief Executive Officer of the Louisville Orchestra. Mr. Birman was Executive Director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco and served for four years as General Manager of the Santa Barbara Symphony and General Manager of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston. He served as an arts administration fellow with the National Endowment for the Arts, the New World Symphony, and the Colorado Music Festival. Mr. Birman has been a member of the Board of Directors and is currently past President of the Board of the Association of California Symphony Orchestras. He has served on grants panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, and the Heinz Endowments and is a presenter and participant in programs of the American Symphony Orchestra League's Orchestra Leadership Academy. Mr. Birman is a percussionist and has a Bachelor of Music degree from Temple University and graduate training in arts administration from Drexel University in Philadelphia. He currently serves on the Advisory Board for Seattle Baroque Orchestra.


    		Christopher Bone is a semi-retired actuary and consultant specializing in employee benefits and retirement programs. Previously he was US Retirement Practice Leader for a large employee benefits consulting firm. A Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, he has served on the Society of Actuaries’ Board of Governors, the Board of the Employee Benefit Research Institute and other trade association and research organization boards. For the past 30 years he has been an amateur of early music and dance, focused most recently on shawms and other winds.

    Following a career as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Bernice Chen has spent the past 25 years in various capacities in association with the Boston Early Music Festival, and has served as President of the Board for the past 10 years. She attended the first Festival in Boston in 1981 as a volunteer selling posters in the lobby, and her involvement grew along with the field of Early Music.

    She has also been an active amateur musician studying the recorder, harpsichord, and viola da gamba as well as enthusiastic attendee for 28 years of the Amherst Early Music workshops.


    		Robert Cole received his MA in music from the University of Southern California School of Music where he studied conducting with Ingolf Dahl. He continued his studies with Richard Lert and Fritz Sweig in California, Leonard Bernstein and Leon Barzin at the Tanglewood Music Center, and Hans Swarowsky in Europe. He served as associate conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and has appeared as guest conductor with the Florida Philharmonic, the Sacramento Symphony, the Pasadena Symphony, the Hartford Ballet,and the Chatauqua Symphony. Cole was the executive director and music director of the Ballet Society of Los Angeles, and has conducted and produced both opera and musical theater in California and New York.  In recent years Cole has appeared as guest conductor with the State Ballet of Georgia and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival and the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre with the Perm Ballet at the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg.   Cole has conducted Mark Morris’s The Hard Nut at Sadler’s Wells in London, the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York and at Cal Performances in Berkeley. From 1986 to 2009, Cole was director of Cal Performances on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. He was also general director of the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, an international festival of early music he founded in June 1990. In 1995, Cole was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Government of France. In 2008, he was honored by Early Music America with the Howard Mayer Brown Award for lifetime achievement in Early Music.

     


    		Pablo Corá holds music degrees from Ithaca College and Indiana University. Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mr. Corá has sung both as a soloist and chamber musician in a wide variety of repertory ranging from early music and oratorio to twentieth century opera. He performs regularly with the Los Angeles Master Choral, L.A. Chamber Singers and Cappella, Musica Angelica, Camarata Pacifica Baroque and the Catacoustic Ensemble.

    Mr. Corá is a founding member of the Concord Ensemble, which won first prize in the EMA/Dorian Records Recording Competition. The group's debut recording, "The Victory of Santiago: Voices of Renaissance Spain" earned a five star distinction in Goldberg Magazine. He has recording credits with Dorian Recordings, Harmonia Mundi, RCM, Gothic, and several independent labels.


    		Susan Hellauer is a founding member of the vocal ensemble Anonymous 4, whose award-winning recordings of medieval, contemporary and traditional music have sold over a million and a half copies worldwide. She was born and raised in the beautiful Bronx, New York, where she rooted for the Yankees, and excelled at knock hockey. Susan earned a B.A. in music from Queens College as a trumpet player, but an increasing fascination with medieval and Renaissance vocal music led her to convert to singing, and to pursue degrees in musicology from Queens College and Columbia University. Susan handles Anonymous 4's medieval music research, teaches and directs the Collegium at Queens College, plays Baroque guitar, and is a volunteer EMT with the Nyack Community Ambulance Corps. She and Anonymous 4 colleague Marsha Genensky have also just launched "The Lost Girls" to explore traditional music of America and beyond. Stay tuned . . .


    		Valerie Horst received an M.F.A. in Historical Performance from Sarah Lawrence College (studies in musicology with Richard Taruskin). She served for 25 years as Director of Amherst Early Music, Inc., producers of the largest teaching festival of early music in the Western Hemisphere. She was a founding board member of Early Music America, and served as president. She was a longtime board member and vice president of the American Recorder Society, and recently celebrated her 20th anniversary as Music Director of its Miami chapter. She has been a member of the Historical Performance faculty at the Mannes College of Music since 1982. She is a former member of the Renaissance choir Cappella Nova, and toured as a recorder player with the New York Chamber Soloists. She is the recipient of the American Recorder Society's 2002 Distinguished Achievement Award, in recognition of her long career of service to early music.


    		David Klausner has been involved with early music since David Munrow first put a shawm in his hands in 1965.  He was a founding member of The Toronto Consort, and has taught workshops in Canada, the United States, England, and Austria.  Since retiring from the Consort in 1992, he has continued to play baroque and classical bassoon in the Toronto area.  A member of the Department of English and the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto since 1967, he co-edited Singing Early Music (1996) and has acted as pronunciation consultant for many early music groups.  He is presently researching the North Riding of Yorkshire for the series Records of Early English Drama, and is writing a history of civic music in England to the middle of the seventeenth century.  He has been member of the editorial advisory board for Early Music America since its beginning.


    		Alexandra MacCracken is the founder and director of Ensemble Gaudior, which is based in the Washington DC area and presents concerts of chamber music from the Baroque and Classical eras, using instruments from those periods or careful modern copies. She has performed as a baroque violinist with the Washington Bach Consort, Opera Lafayette, and Modern Musick, as well as with other period-instrument ensembles in Richmond, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and New York. After earning both bachelorπs and masterπs degrees in music from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Ms. MacCracken taught for several years at the University of Virginia, where she also played in the Piedmont Chamber Players, a faculty ensemble. Other highlights of her extensive experience as a chamber musician include membership in the Squareknot Quartet, whose repertoire ranged from the classics to innovative arrangements in popular, folk, and jazz styles; and more recently in the Virginia-based baroque groups La Stravaganza and Harmonia Nova. Ms. MacCracken currently freelances on modern as well as baroque violin and in addition occasionally finds time to play Renaissance consort music on the treble viol.


    		Michael McCraw is cited in the newest edition of "Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians" as one of the most important early bassoon players and pedagogues of our time. A pioneer in the field of baroque performance with original instruments, he began his career in New York City as a member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra . Mr. McCraw has played with such ensembles as Musica Antiqua Koeln, Concentus Musicus Wien, London Baroque, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, and Camerata Koeln. From 1991 through 2002, he was principal bassoonist of the Tafelmusik Orchestra. Mr. McCraw has taught at festivals and workshops all over the world and was a faculty member of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. His recordings number more than 140 and include a highly acclaimed CD of Vivaldi bassoon concerti with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra. Mr. McCraw serves as musical director of the baroque double reed workshop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He currently is the director of the Early Music Institute at Indiana University.


    		Sarah Mead lives and works in the Boston area and holds degrees in music and historical performance from Yale and Stanford Universities. The 2007 winner of Early Music America's Thomas Binkley Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Collegium Director, she is Associate Professor of the Practice at Brandeis University, where she directs the Early Music Ensemble and is a frequent guest choral conductor. She is the author of the Renaissance Theory chapter in A Performer's Guide to the Renaissance, recently re-issued by Indiana University Press. She has taught early music ensembles at Tufts and Northeastern Universities as well as at Trinity College of Music in London, and is regular guest lecturer at Longy School of Music in Cambridge. She was Program Director at Pinewoods Early Music Week from 1995-97, returning to that position in 2006.


    		Gene Murrow is active in both early music and the traditions of country dance. Currently the Executive Director of Gotham Early Music Scene in New York, he also teaches at numerous early music workshops, American Recorder Society chapter meetings, and is a past president of the American Recorder Society. He has a BA in music from Columbia University and studied oboe with Lois Wann at Juilliard. He is a former Program Director of Early Music Week at Pinewoods Camp.


    		Debra Nagy has been called a "musical polymath" (San Francisco Classical Voice) for her accomplished performances on early double reeds, recorders, and as a singer. One of the country's top baroque oboists, Debra frequently performs with baroque ensembles on both coasts, is the founder and director of Cleveland-based chamber ensemble Les Délices, and is a member of Ciaramella. She has also appeared as a guest multi-instrumentalist and singer with such groups as the Newberry Consort, Piffaro, Baroque Northwest, and Blue Heron Renaissance Choir. Debra has recorded for the Capstone, Bright Angel, Naxos, Hassler, Chandos, and ATMA labels and her live performances have been featured on CBC Radio Canada, Klara (Belgium), NPRs Performance Today, WQXR (New York City), WKSU Akron, WCLV Cleveland, and WGBH Boston. Debra currently teaches in the Early Music Department at Case Western Reserve University, where she directs the Collegium Musicum.

    		Charlotte Newman is serving her second stint on the EMA board.  She has served as board secretary as well as the board president from July 2004 to June 2007.  Charlotte holds an M.A. in music history and non-profit management from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and for ten years was administrator of the university's "Chapel, Court & Countryside" early music concert series. She is a member of the Case Early Music Singers, the vocal ensemble Nightingale, and the Cleveland band Uzizi, which combines rock with the Celtic and shape-note traditions.

    		Rachel Barton Pine is a violinist from Chicago. Considered a child prodigy at the violin, she started playing at the age of 3 and a half and performed at many renowned venues through her child and teen years. Currently she plays regularly with the Chicago Symphony and on her own, tours worldwide, and has an active recording career. Her musical interests extend well beyond classical to Baroque, folk, Celtic, rock and jazz. She plays with David Schrader and John Mark Rozendaal, and recently debuted on rebec and vielle in a performance with The Newberry Consort. Barton Pine started a foundation in 2001 to promote the study and appreciation of classical music, including string music by black composers. It prepares music curricula, loans high-quality instruments to deserving young musicians, and provides grants to cover incidental expenses of student and young professional musicians. Another program, Global HeartStrings, is dedicated to supporting aspiring classical musicians from developing countries. In 2006, after being nominated by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, Barton Pine received the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award for her work through the foundation.


    		Jordan Sramek is Founder/Artistic Director of The Rose Ensemble, a vocal group based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Since moving to the Twin Cities in 1994, he has been active as a musician, scholar, teacher and arts entrepreneur. Also in demand as coach and consultant, Jordan has led musical workshops and master-classes in universities across the U.S., and has advised arts groups, boards and administrators throughout the world. Through his work with The Rose Ensemble he has developed award-winning educational programs, which are enjoyed by thousands of young people each year. Jordan has received several awards, most notably a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship for Performing Musicians and a Jerome Foundation Travel/Study Grant. The Rose Ensemble is a four-time nominee for a Minnesota Music Award (Best Classical Artist) and in 2005 the group was named recipient of the Chorus America Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence.


    		Executive & Artistic Director Charles Q. Sullivan is currently in his ninth year at the helm of Early Music Now, the highly successful Milwaukee presenter of Medieval, Renaissance and early-Baroque programming. His background includes undergraduate and graduate degrees in music performance, teaching in public and private institutions from kindergarten through the graduate level, and extensive experience in the business world. His professional positions have included work in Minnesota, Ohio, and Massachusetts. From 1972 through 1982 and again in 1988, he formed and directed a semi-professional choral/instrumental ensemble that performed over 120 varied choral and orchestral concerts, solo and chamber recitals in the Milwaukee area and in neighboring states. He served as Executive Producer & Director of Liturgical Drama at St. John’s Cathedral in Milwaukee from 1985 through 1992, producing fully staged performances of The Play of Daniel and Nicholas Plays to large audiences and critical acclaim. Since joining Early Music Now as general manager in September 2001, he has led the organization to expanded programming and educational outreach, and to a prominent role in promoting early music activities throughout the region.


    Laurence B. Sutter been a member of one or more performing ensembles as an instrumental musician or vocalist for most of his life, including the 199th Army Band (The Governor’s Own), New York Army National Guard; Pro Arte Double Chorale; The Dessoff Choirs; Amor Artis Chamber Chorus and Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble. A graduate of NYU School of Law, he specializes in First Amendment and communications law at FriendFinder Networks, Inc. in New York City.


    		Lee Talner is Professor Emeritus of Radiology at University of California San Diego and University of Washington. He received his BA from Amherst College and MD from Yale University. In Seattle, he serves on the advisory boards of the UW World Series (piano, chamber music, dance and world music), Seattle Baroque Orchestra, and Early Music Guild and is deeply committed to these organizations’ outreach programs. He performed regularly on renaissance winds with the Guidonian Hand in the 1970s, and since 2000 has immersed himself in the ecstasy of viola da gamba through his studies with Margriet Tindemans and service on the board of the Viola da Gamba Society of America. He is a member of “A Curious Collection," an ensemble of voice, flute and 2 gambas that performs Scottish traditional music. He commutes monthly to San Diego to be with family.


    		Christopher Thorpe is a computer scientist, finance professional, and semiprofessional musician living in the Boston area. He presently directs Babel Research LLC, a boutique hedge fund in New York, and teaches a graduate seminar in computational finance at Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Prior to graduate school, Thorpe worked as a software engineer and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. In addition to his professional work, Thorpe is an active supporter of early music, particularly through the development of and ongoing support of EMA's Unicorn Prize. As a tenor/countertenor and occasional conductor, Christopher has performed with numerous early music ensembles and church choirs in the Boston and San Francisco areas, including the Church of the Advent, Grace Cathedral, and the Harvard Early Music Society. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science and Music from Harvard, and received the Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard in June 2008.

     

     

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