Musical Delicacies

◄◄◄  Laila Cathleen Neuman started her studies in the Netherlands with Christa Pfeiler and Susanna Waleson, before studying with Margaret Hayward at the G. Verdi conservatory in Milan, where she completed her bachelors cum laude. After this she studied with Breda Zakotnik and Barbara Bonney at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, where she obtained her master’s degree in Lied and Oratorio with honors. She participated in masterclasses with Dalton Baldwin, Max van Egmond, Johannette Zomer, Trevor Pinnock, and Angelika Kirschlager.

She has taken a special interest in baroque music, baroque dance and the art of historic gesture, for which she has been working with Margit Legler en Reinhold Kubik. She sang her debut as Second woman in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and sang the leading role in Il Parnaso Confuso by Gluck, in Salzburg, Vienna, Aarhus and Kopenhagen. Recent international activities include collaboration with Ensemble Esprit, Ensemble La Silva, Het Philadelphus Ensemble (members of the Concertgebouw Orchestra), Convivio d’Arte and with Jan Čižmář (theorbo and lute) in the Netherlands, Austria, Germany and Italy.

Laila teaches historical gesture at this year’s Sastamala Gregoriana summer course (FI).

www.lcneuman.com

◄◄◄  Native of Ireland, Maria Cleary holds degrees from Dublin, London (Trinity College), Den Haag and Bruxelles. She studied harp with Susanna Mildonian and Andrew Lawrence-King. As soloist she was prize winner at Utrecht Early Music Competition (1997), Nippon International Harp Competition (1996), Dutch National Harp Competition (1997). She participated at the International Harp Competitions in Israel, Geneve, Bruxelles and Madrid.

As an orchestral player she has worked as Principal Harpist in the Koninklijk Concertgebouw Orkest Amsterdam and further held the position of Harpist at the RTE Concert Orchestra Ireland and worked in numerous orchestras in The Netherlands and Germany. Maria was the harpist of MusikFabrik Köln, a contemporary music ensemble for five years and also worked with Remix Ensemble Porto and Ensemble Prometheus Belgium. She has premiered more than 30 new pieces for ensemble. As soloist she has premiered pieces by T. Hosakawa (Darmstadt Festival 2002), D. Dennehy, J. Friedlin, R. Ayres, R. Sims, F. Devresse.

Specialising in Historical Harps, Maria owns an original classical harp from 1780, arpa doppia, arpa de dos ordenes and medieval harps. She has developed a chromatic medieval harp where she plays repertoire from the 13th to the 15th century, e.g. on recordings with Tetraktys. In 2006, she performed Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp with Portland Baroque Orchestra and Arion Ensemble Montreal to great acclaim. She has performed with most Baroque ensembles throughout Europe. Maria performs regularly with Davide Monti under the name Arparla, a violin/harp duo specialising in the repertoire from the 17th century to the 19th century.

Maria has been guest teacher at the Koninklijk Conservatorium The Hague, Guildhall School of Music London and holds a teaching post at the Conservatory of Music in Padua.

www.arparla.it

◄◄◄  After his Primary Degree from the Conservatory in Parma, Davide Monti specialised in Early Music with numerous professors (E. Gatti, E. Parizzi, S. Richie, M. Huggett). Davide’s playing has evolved thanks to collaboration with great musicians of our time: from Ton Koopman to Alberto Rasi, Vittorio Ghielmi to Michael Radulescu, Marcello Scandelli to Roberta Invernizzi, Gemma Bertagnolli to Stefano Veggetti, Stefano Montanari to Sergio Vartolo.

As leader of many ensembles he is known for his energy and charisma, creating a special sound in an orchestra. He has been leader of numerous orchestras including The European Baroque Orchestra (EUBO), Il Tempio Armonico, Athestis e Accademia de li Musici, Il Complesso Barocco, Cordia, Teatro Armonico. He is noted for his work with small chamber groups and chamber orchestras including Accademia Strumentale Italiana, Ensemble il Falcone, le Parlement de Musique and Arparla with the harpist Maria Christina Cleary, — encounters that are precious moments for research and experimentation.

This formed the idea of the score being a canvas, every performance and interpretation is different. Supporting this philosophy, he focuses on the Art of improvising; as in Early Music performing practise the experience of improvising is paralleled to other branches of “cultured” Art (jazz, theatre, traditional music, dance).

Davide has given Masterclasses in Japan, lectured at Makerere University and in Kampala, and at Summer Courses in Italy. He performed as Soloist with the Orchestra of the Arena in Verona. He has recorded for many record labels: Agorà, Bongiovanni, Brilliant, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Dynamics, Naive, Opus 111, ORF, Radio Svizzera Italiana, Sonica, Stradivarius and Tactus. He performs throughout the world (America, Africa, Europe, Japan) and received great acclaim in Argentina and Brazil as director and soloist.

www.arparla.it

◄◄◄  Marc Hervieux studied the recorder in the class of Jean-François Alizon at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg where he obtained a gold medal and a Chamber Music prize at unanimity (1992). This was followed with a specialization course with Patrick Blanc dealing with contemporary recorder repertoire. He obtained the specialization diploma with honors (1997). In addition, Marc started studying song, baroque oboe and traverso and was able to work with Hugo Reyne, Marcos Volontario, Jean-Pierre Pinet and Gilles de Talhouet. He created in 1996 the baroque music ensemble Le Masque with which he performs in France and abroad in a wide variety of programs. In 2005 he created the Academy of Baroque Music in Neuwiller-Lès-Saverne. Since 1991, he teaches recorder at the School of Music of Sélestat and the Conservatoire de Musique de Mulhouse.

www.le-masque.com

◄◄◄  Jan Kvapil studied recorder with P. Holtslag at the Royal Academy of Music in London and with C. van Heerden at Linz Conservatory, graduating as Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music (London, 2001). In 2011 he completed his doctoral studies at Palacký University in Olomouc, earning the academic degree Ph.D. He has performed with renowned local and international ensembles, recorded for radio, television and music publishing, currently he performs most frequently in a duo with the lutenist J. Čižmár.

His interests centre on teaching activities. He founded the First Weekend School for playing the recorder in Prague, and the Olomouc Weekend School for playing recorder, which focus on the continued education of music school teachers. Under his leadership there have been seminars at many places in the Czech Republic to supplement the education of pedagogs. He is the artistic director of the Summer School of Early Music in Prachatice, where leading Czech and international names play and teach. He also publishes printed music and translates scholary literature. He teaches recorder at the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava; in the years 2006–2012 he worked in the Department of Music Pedagogy at Palacký University in Olomouc, and in 2014 he started to teach at the Academy of Ancient Music at Masaryk University in Brno.

www.jankvapil.com

◄◄◄  Marta Kratochvílová studied flute at the Conservatory in Pardubice and then at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno. In 2000 began her studies in France at the Conservatoire National de Région de Strasbourg, where she specialized in baroque and renaissance flute with Jean-François Alizon and Nancy Hadden, and chamber music with Martin Gester and Patrick Blanc. She has participated in masterclasses and workshops by prominent figures such as Paul McCreesh, Barthold Kuijken, Jan Latham-Koenig and Sir Neville Marriner. In France she played baroque and renaissance flute extensively in the ensembles Le Parlement de Musique Strasbourg, Bohemia duo and NotaBene. She also performed renaissance workshops (Ferrara, Munich, Stuttgart, Basel) with a consort of traverso players from Strasbourg.

Since 2010 she lives in the Czech Republic while performing regularly throughout Europe. In chamber and solo projects she cooperates closely with artists such as Jan Čižmář, Karel Fleischlinger, Joel Frederiksen, Martin Jakubíček, Petr Kolař, Ján Krigovský, Marcin Świątkiewicz, Marc Vonau and Petr Wagner. She is also leader of the renaissance flute consort Tourdion.

As a teacher with many years of experience she is invited to presentations and masterclasses throughout Europe; she teaches also privately baroque and renaissance traverso playing and interpretation.

◄◄◄  Jan Čižmář is a versatile performer focusing on historical plucked instruments. He performs regularly in Europe, Asia and the USA with ensembles such as Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Capella Cracoviensis, and under conductors such as Frans Brüggen, Christopher Hogwood, Giovanni Antonini, Yannick Nézet–Séguin and Christina Pluhar. He appears also as soloist with of baroque and renaissance repertoire.

After graduation in guitar and musicology in his native Brno he studied at the Royal College of Music in London, where he began playing the lute in the class of Jakob Lindberg. He continued his studies at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with the teachers Nigel North, Joachim Held, Mike Fentross and Christina Pluhar.

He was the founder and editor of the Czech guitar magazine Kytara and contributes regularly to other musical periodicals. He is also intensely involved with publishing and research activities in the field of early music.

Jan Čižmář taught lute and related instruments at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice in Poland; currently he is teaching at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts (JAMU) in Brno and at the Academy of Ancient Music at Masaryk University in Brno. He regularly gives courses and masterclasses in Europe and overseas.

www.jancizmar.com