Featuring
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Sarah Darling
Viola
Described as “a tireless force of musical curiosity, skill, and enthusiasm” and “the one to up the ante” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), Sarah Darling enjoys a varied musical career, holding a variety of leading roles in A Far Cry, Musicians of the Old Post Road, Boston Baroque, Les Bostonades, Gut Reaction, and Antico Moderno, also performing with the Boston Early Music Festival, Emmanuel Music, Newton Baroque, Sarasa, and the Boston Ballet Orchestra.
Sarah studied at Harvard, Juilliard, Amsterdam, Freiburg, and New England Conservatory, working with James Dunham, Karen Tuttle, Wolfram Christ, Nobuko Imai, and Kim Kashkashian. She has recorded old and new music for Linn, Paladino, Azica, MSR, and Centaur, plus a solo album on Naxos and two Grammy-nominated CDs on Crier Records.
Sarah is active as a teacher and coach, on the faculty of the Longy School and serving as co-director of the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra. She regularly shares her thoughts on music at her blog, Listening Deliberately.
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Daniel Swenberg
Theorbo/Archlute
Daniel plays a wide variety of lutes and guitars: baroque, renaissance, classical/romantic – small, medium, and large. Chief among these is the theorbo – the long lute that you are either wondering about or overhearing your neighbor discuss. While based in New York, Daniel schleps instruments throughout North America and Europe to play with a wide range of ensembles: ARTEK, REBEL, The Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Jones & the Engines of Destruction, Ensemble Viscera, New York City Opera, Opera Atelier/Tafelmusik, The New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Catacoustic Ensemble, the Four Nations Ensemble, Apollo’s Fire, Handel & Hayden, The Green Mountain Project, Tenet, Skid Rococo, the Newberry Consort, with soprano Nell Snaidas, Lizzy & the Theorboys, Music of the Baroque, the Aspen Music festival opera, Staatstheatre Stuttgart, the Orchestra of St Lukes, and more. He has accompanied Renee Fleming and Kathleen Battle at Carnegie Hall. He is on faculty at Juilliard’s Historical Performance program. Daniel received awards from the Belgian American Educational Foundation (2000) for a study of 18th century chamber music for the lute, and a Fulbright Scholarship (1997) to study in Bremen, Germany at the Hochschule für Künste (studying with Stephen Stubbs and Andrew Lawrence King). He studied previously with Pat O’Brien at Mannes College of Music, receiving a Masters degree in Historical Performance (Lute). Prior to this life’s incarnation as a Lutenist, he studied classical guitar at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and musicology at Washington University (St. Louis). His programing integrates and emphasizes music with the history, sciences, economics, politics, and broader culture of its time.
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Eva Lymenstull
Cello
Los Angeles-based baroque cellist and violist da gamba Eva Lymenstull enjoys a diverse career that has taken her across North America and Europe as a soloist, chamber musician, continuo player and orchestral musician. She has performed recently as concerto soloist and principal cellist with the Lyra Baroque Orchestra, guest principal cellist of the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, and Musica Angelica, and has also appeared with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Voices of Music, Tesserae, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Holland Baroque Society. She has performed at the Carmel Bach Festival, the Utrecht, Boston, and Berkeley Fringe Festivals, and on the Gotham Early Music and Academy of Early Music series.
As winner of the 2017 Voices of Music Bach Competition, Ms. Lymenstull recorded Bach’s D minor cello suite for their online video archive. With performance and research interests ranging from the early Renaissance to the twentieth century, she particularly enjoys playing Classical and Romantic chamber music on historical instruments. Recent recordings can be heard on the Brilliant Classics and Violet Ear labels.
In addition to performing, Ms. Lymenstull teaches baroque cello and viola da gamba as a regular guest artist at the University of Michigan. She holds degrees from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague (Jaap ter Linden), Rice University (Desmond Hoebig) and University of Michigan (Richard Aaron), and a doctorate in historical performance practice from Case Western Reserve University.
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Joseph Tan
Violin
Based since 1997 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Joseph maintains an active performing and recording schedule as a member of ensembles such as the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Anima Eterna Brugge, Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco, Holland Baroque, and the Australian Classical and Romantic Orchestra (ARCO), working regularly with pioneers in the field of historical performance such as Ton Koopman, Jos van Immerseel, and Reinhard Goebel.
After receiving a Bachelor of Music degree in modern violin from the University of Texas at Austin, Joseph studied Baroque violin with Marilyn McDonald at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he earned a M.M. degree in 1997. From 1997-2001, he studied with Monica Huggett and Elizabeth Wallfisch at the Royal Conservatory, The Hague.
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Cynthia Keiko Black
Viola
Born in Dallas, Texas, violinist and violist Cynthia Keiko Black enjoys a varied musical life across the United State and at home in the Bay Area. She has played at the Carmel Bach Festival since 2016, and this season performed with Incantare, Cantata Collective, Ars Minerva, and the Seattle Bach Festival. She teaches Baroque violin at UC Berkeley, has a studio of young students at the Crowden School, and moonlights as a church organist and music librarian. Cynthia lives in Richmond, California where she makes her home with trumpet-playing and harpsichord-building husband Dominic Favia and their young daughter.
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Marika Holmqvist
Violin
During her over quarter-century career, baroque violinist, Marika Holmqvist has appeared as concertmaster for orchestras and opera companies on three continents, directed ensembles on both sides of the Atlantic, and served as artistic co-director for groups in the USA such as Sinfonia New York (NYC) and the Boston-based ensemble, Cambridge Concentus. Currently her leadership positions include Washington Bach Consort (DC), Reykjavik International Baroque Orchestra (Iceland), Spire Ensemble (KC), Zenith Ensemble (NH), Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Fort Wayne Bach Collegium (IN), and Philadelphia based MIRYAM, among others. Marika is a dedicated and passionate educator, and has served as coach and guest leader for baroque operas at Cornell, Harvard and Rutgers Universities, and given master-classes and lectures at institutions across Europe. Alongside her master’s degree in baroque violin performance from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in the Netherlands, she also graduated with a master’s in baroque violin pedagogy—the first such degree ever granted in Europe. She is a founding member of Philadelphia’s Franklin Quartet and her 30 recordings include the Grammy-nominated Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Trinity Wall Street Choir and Baroque Orchestra.
Marika is also a dedicated and passionate educator. She has served as coach and guest leader for baroque operas at Cornell, Harvard and Rutgers Universities, and given master-classes and lectures at institutions across Europe. Alongside her master’s degree in baroque violin performance from the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague in the Netherlands, she also graduated with a master’s in baroque violin pedagogy—the first such degree ever granted in Europe.
Her 20-odd recordings include the Grammy-nominated Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Trinity Wall Street Choir and Baroque Orchestra. Marika has a Finn’s love for the outdoors and when she is not performing or teaching, you will most likely find her cross country skiing, hiking, kayaking, or gravel or mountain biking.
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Michael Beattie
Keyboards, Organ, Harpsichord
Michael Beattie has received international attention as a conductor, keyboardist, and vocal coach specializing in the music of the Baroque period. Conducting engagements have included Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (Glimmerglass Opera); Handel’s Rinaldo, Rodelinda, and Riccardo Primo (Pittsburgh Opera); and Handel’s Teseo (Chicago Opera Theater). For Boston’s Emmanuel Music, he has conducted Handel’s Ariodante, the St. John Passion, the complete Bach Motets, and more than one hundred Bach cantatas.
A highly regarded keyboard player, Mr. Beattie has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, BachFest Leipzig, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, Les Violons du Roy, New World Symphony, and the Mark Morris Dance Group. He toured in the US and Europe with director Peter Sellars: as Assistant Conductor for the Mozart/Da Ponte cycle and as organist for staged Bach cantatas with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.
Beattie is currently Artistic Administrator and Principal Keyboardist of Emmanuel Music. He has recorded for KOCH International Classics and Nonesuch records.
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Estelí Gomez
Soprano
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 soundtrack of Lena Dunham’s 2022 film Catherine, Called Birdy, 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.
Highlights of the 2022-23 season include: performances with the NY Philharmonic and Roomful of Teeth in the new David Geffen Hall; recording a Spanish translation of Handel’s Messiah with Bach Collegium San Diego; the world premiere of chamber opera Dreams Have No Borders in Ashland, OR; solo appearances with A Far Cry, Madison Bach Musicians, Westminster Choir College, Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, and iSing Silicon Valley; teaching residencies at University of Oregon and Oregon Bach Festival; and concerts at Lincoln Center and the Baryshnikov Arts Center, with additional tours throughout Europe and Portugal, with Roomful of Teeth. Roomful’s third studio album, Rough Magic, will be released in early 2023.
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. She is also a proud member of Beyond Artists, a coalition of artists who donate a percentage of their concert fees to organizations they care about. She is currently donating to RAICES and the Texas Civil Rights Project.
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