Viola da Gamba Society of America

As a D.M.A. student in historical performance practice at Case Western Reserve University, I am very fortunate to have constant contact with a stellar faculty including Julie Adrijeski, Ross Duffin, Debra Nagy, Peter Bennet, and David Rotherberg. At the same time I have been fortunate to have the department pay for lessons with Rob Nairin on Viennese violone, as well as with Cathy Meints on viola da gamba. Additionally, I intend to find time to begin taking occasional lessons with Jolle Morton on G violone beginning this January. At Case Western I divide my time between performing chamber music, including being an active member in two viol consorts and numerous chamber groups, playing double bass in the baroque orchestra, and academic pursuits. As a performer I have recently featured as the G violone player for Early Music Americas Boston Early Music Festival Young Performers Festival Ensemble, as well as being a recent recipient of an EMA scholarship to work with Sarah Cunningham at last summers International Baroque Institute at Longy. This January I intend to attend the Amherst weekend workshop in Philadelphia and in February I hope to attend the Viola Da Gamba Society of Americas Young Players Weekend. I have recently applied with Ensemble Nachtigall, a chamber group I formed at Case Western, to perform in a masterclass at Carnegie Hall with members of LArpeggiata, and also intend to apply in the coming weeks to perform at a masterclass at the Library of Congress with Paolo Pandolfo. My research interests have always blurred the line between academic pursuits and pragmatic musicology that is directly linked to some sort of performance. This is the area of musicology that excites mewhen results can be realized in a tangible performance that effects our understanding of the performance practices of past eras. I came to Case Western with an interest in the eighteenth century, particularly Baroque and Viennese Classical performance practices. However, perhaps at the influence of being around the fantastic faculty, my interests have also recently expanded to cover Medieval and Renaissance performance practices. Besides my work with the Viennese violone and its repertoire, which is ongoing, I have begun two large projects this semester, both connected by my recent interest in the Renaissances tendency to subject various instruments to the consort treatment. The first is a large research project, working closely with luthier John Pringle who has been extraordinarily supportive and interested in my projects, to recreate a consort of rebecs. We have first developed plans for a bass rebec, which I hope will be completed in the next few months. I have the ultimate goal to found a rebec consort in Cleveland, Ohio, once we have completed a usable reconstruction of all of the instruments. The second project, which has become a more time-consuming project, involves research into the early French viol consort. We know that viols existed in France from the time of Francis I, although no viols of this early type which had five strings and were tuned in fourths throughout survive. The goal of this research project will be the reconstruction, through examining treatises, iconography, as well as a the construction of extant Italian viols of a similar time-period, of a consort of four of these early French viols. These viols, pictured by Jambe de Fer, reprinted by Mersenne, and found in many other iconographical sources, were probably much larger than what we think of as the standard English viol consort, and have been virtually off the radar of researchers. I have been working with Ray Nurse and Herb Meyers, who have both been supportive and offered countless email exchanges pointing out many areas that need further research and guiding me to resources I have overlooked. Early next year I intend to put together an ensemble of some up-and-coming young professionals with an interest in the project, create a website outlining the research, and begin applying for grants as well as start a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to have the instruments reconstructed. John Pringle once again has expressed an enormous amount of interest and support in the project and has offered to make these first experimental viols at a great discount. If money can be raised for a reconstruction of the instruments, the intent would be to plan a concert tour with the ensemble, and possibly make a recording.