Ars Lyrica Presents Houston Season Finale FROM BRANDENBURG TO ESTERHAZY

Ars Lyrica's 2018/19 season finale travels from Brandenburg to Esterházy, with Bach's two famous Brandenburg concertos and a concerto by Franz Joseph Haydn. The second "Brandenburg" concerto offers the set's oddest combination of soloists-recorder, oboe, violin, and trumpet-while the fourth is a stealth concerto, ostensibly for violin and two recorders, though the violinist leaves everyone in the dust. Baroque violinist Ingrid Matthews joins harpsichordist and artistic director Matthew Dirst at center stage, along with Paul Leenhouts (recorder), Kathryn Montoya (Baroque oboe), and Nathaniel Mayfield (natural trumpet).

Soloists: Paul Leenhouts, recorder; Kathryn Montoya, Baroque oboe; Nathaniel Mayfield, natural trumpet

For more information or to purchase tickets, http://www.arslyricahouston.org/san-giovanni-battista or call the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts Box Office at 713.315.2525. (Press 4 for Ars Lyrica Houston)

Ars Lyrica Houston, from Brandenburg to Esterházy, Sunday, May 19, 2019
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About the soloists:

Ingrid Matthews served as Music Director of Seattle Baroque Orchestra from its inception in 1994 until 2013, and is well established as one of today's most respected baroque violinists.? Since winning first prize in the prestigious Erwin Bodky International Competition for Early Music in 1989, she has performed extensively around the world, appearing as soloist, guest director or concertmaster with many of today's leading early music ensembles including the New York Collegium, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Musica Angelica (Los Angeles), Ars Lyrica (Houston), New Trinity Baroque (Atlanta), the Bach Sinfonia (Washington DC), and many others.? Among the most-recorded baroque violinists of her generation, Matthews has won international critical acclaim for a discography which ranges from the earliest solo violin repertoire through the great Sonatas and Partitas of J.S. Bach.? This recording was described as "the finest complete set of these works I have heard" by the reviewer for Third Ear's Classical Music Listening Companion. Ms. Matthews is on the faculty of the Cornish College of the Arts, and in 2011 and 2012 was engaged to lead Oberlin College's new Baroque Orchestra program.? She taught baroque violin at UCLA from 1998-2002, and has held teaching residencies at Indiana University, the University of Washington, the University of Toronto, and at many of the leading early music workshops. Matthews is a graduate of Indiana University, where she studied with Josef Gingold and Stanley Ritchie.

Kathryn Montoya teaches historical oboes and recorder at Oberlin Conservatory and the University of North Texas. She appears with a variety of orchestral and chamber music ensembles including the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Tafelmusik, the Wiener Akademie, and Apollo's Fire among others. Recent projects include performances and recording of Handel's Almira with the Boston Early Music Festival in Germany and concerts with the LA Philharmonic. Kathryn has been broadcast on NPR's Performance Today and can be heard on the Erato, Naxos, CPO, NCA, Analekta, and Dorian Sono Luminus labels. In her free time Kathryn can be found in Hereford, England working on a 18th century barn conversion with her partner, James.

Paul Leenhouts is director of Early Music Studies and the Baroque Orchestra at the University of North Texas. He holds a Soloist Diploma from the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, where he was on the faculty as professor for recorder and historical development from 1993 to 2010. A founding member of the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet from 1978 and from 2002 director of the contemporary music collective Blue Iguana, he is also composer, arranger and editor of numerous works for various chamber music ensembles. Mr. Leenhouts has recorded for Decca L'Oiseau-Lyre, Channel Classics, Vanguard, Lindoro and Berlin Classics. Two L'Oiseau-Lyre recordings received the prestigious Edison Award. In 1986, he initiated the Open Holland Recorder Festival Utrecht and from 1993 he has been director of the International Baroque Institute at Longy in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His special interest in renaissance consort repertoire led to the founding of The Royal Wind Music in 1997. In 2004 Mr. Leenhouts was elected president of the European Recorder Performers Society. As well as performing numerous concerts and coaching masterclasses within the early music field, he also regularly performs with contemporary and music theatre groups such as Musikfabrik, Nederlands Vocaal Laboratorium, ZT Hollandia and NT Gent. Mr. Leenhouts has given master classes, clinics and lectures at more than 200 conservatories and universities around the world. For his international activities as a musician, conductor and organizer, he received a UN Life-time Achievement Award in Hsin-Chu City, Taiwan in October 2017.

An Austin native, Nathaniel Mayfield attended 4 years at Interlochen Arts Academy before completing a joint program between Columbia University and The Juilliard School. Mr. Mayfield is the only trumpeter ever to have been named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts (Bill Clinton), and he was also awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Germany. He has won numerous solo competitions: The National Trumpet Competition, The International Trumpet Guild Solo Competition, and at the Aspen Music Festival. A Yamaha Young Performing Artist, he taught trumpet at Texas A&M (College Station, TX) and Concordia University, and served as Artistic Director of The Austin School for the Performing and Visual Arts. In addition to his performance schedule with numerous period instrument ensembles, Mr. Mayfield is the Founder and President of Mayfield Energy (Oil Exploration/Production), Executive Vice-President at Mayfield Dairy Queen, and recently completed an Executive MBA at the McCombs School of Business (UT Austin). Mr. Mayfield lives in Austin with his wife, Ulrike, and their three daughters Elizabeth, Charlotte and Rebecca.

Founded in 1998 by harpsichordist and conductor Matthew Dirst, Ars Lyrica Houston presents a diverse array of music from the 17th and 18th centuries on period instruments. Its local subscription series, according to the Houston Chronicle, "sets the agenda" for early music in Houston and it also appears regularly at major festivals and conferences, including the 2014 Berkeley Early Music Festival & Exhibition. Ars Lyrica's distinctive programming favors Baroque dramatic and chamber works, and its pioneering efforts have won international acclaim: the ensemble's world première recording of Johann Adolf Hasse's Marc' Antonio e Cleopatra, hailed by Early Music America as "a thrilling performance that glows in its quieter moments and sparkles with vitality," was nominated for a Grammy Award® for Best Opera 2011.

Ars Lyrica Founder & Artistic Director Matthew Dirst is the first American musician to win major international prizes in both organ and harpsichord, including the American Guild of Organists National Young Artist Competition (1990) and the Warsaw International Harpsichord Competition (1993). Widely admired for his stylish playing and conducting, the Dallas Morning News recently praised his "clear and evocative conducting" of Handel's Alexander's Feast, which "yielded a performance as irresistibly lively as it was stylish." Dirst's recordings with Ars Lyrica have earned a Grammy nomination and widespread critical acclaim. His degrees include a PhD in musicology from Stanford University and the prix de virtuosité in both organ and harpsichord from the Conservatoire National de Reuil-Malmaison, France, where he spent two years as a Fulbright scholar. Equally active as a scholar and as an organist, Dirst is Professor of Music at the Moores School of Music, University of Houston, and Organist at St Philip Presbyterian Church in Houston. He is the author of Engaging Bach: The Keyboard Legacy from Marpurg to Mendelssohn (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and the editor of Bach and the Organ (University of Illinois Press, 2016).

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