Eloy Cortinez Recorder

Praised for his refinement, virtuosity, and unique timbre, Chilean recorder player Eloy Cortinez aims to create rich and vivid interpretations that bring to life the music of the past. His musical career has spanned Europe, North America, and South America, and one of his main focuses has been the research and performance of music that is not frequently heard but rightly deserves a place in the core recorder repertoire. To this end, he co-founded L’Invenzione, focusing on the Neapolitan Baroque repertoire and its influence and connections with the rest of Europe. He has performed regularly in the Ann Arbor Academy of Early Music series and has appeared in several Handel productions with Detroit Opera. He has also collaborated with ensembles such as Audivi, Publick Musick, and New York City’s Gotham Early Music Scene with Ensemble Laureate. In 2022, he returned to Costa Rica, touring the country with the celebrated Parisian ensemble Le Baroque Nomade and appearing as a soloist with the Grammy Award-winning Heredia Symphonic Orchestra. Eloy studied music and recorder performance at the Castella Conservatory in San José, Costa Rica, the Catholic University of Chile, and the Civica Scuola di Musica in Milan, Italy. Along the way, he was mentored by many distinguished teachers, including Pedro Memelsdorff and Dan Laurin, whose contrasting yet complementary musical perspectives helped shape his rich and versatile artistic voice.

Baroque Violin

Mary Riccardi

Mary Riccardi’s musical tastes were forged in her native city, Detroit, and refined in the concert halls of Europe where she spent the better part of two decades studying and performing. While there, she played and recorded with such renowned groups as La Capella Neapolitana, Il Complesso Barocco, Modo Antiquo and Barockorchester Bremen. Upon returning to North America, she co-founded l’Invenzione with its exploration of the musical repertoire of baroque Naples. As concertmaster of the Michigan Bach Collective, in collaboration with the vocal ensemble Audivi, Mary has helped bring historically informed performances to Midwest audiences, something she is very passionate about. She is a longtime member of New York’s Publick Musick, has appeared with groups such as Apollo’s Fire, Bourbon Baroque, Four Nations and Pegasus and has recorded with the Grammy Award-winning Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra. In addition to her performance activities on baroque violin, Mary enjoys teaching and coaching young string players and cultivates her varied musical interests through continuing projects with Detroit-based experimental composers.

Baroque Violin

Phoebe Gelzer-Govatos

modern and historical violinist, plays with a number of regional orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout southeast Michigan, including the Ann Arbor, Lansing, and Kalamazoo Symphonies, and holds the principal second violin chair in the Adrian Symphony. In the field of historically-informed performance, Ms. Gelzer-Govatos is a founding member of period instrument groups Ensemble Affect and l’Invenzione, and has performed with a number of others, including the Indianapolis and Atlanta Baroque Orchestras, Louisville’s Bourbon Baroque, Kalamazoo-based Early Music Michigan, and Tonos del Sur, which specializes in baroque music of Latin America. In addition to her life as a performer, she is a frequent guest artist and clinician with early music ensembles at the University of Michigan and Grand Valley State University, and has been invited to lead workshops and masterclasses in historical style and technique at Bowling Green State and Youngstown State universities. At home in Ann Arbor, Phoebe maintains a private violin and viola studio, coaches chamber music at the Rudolf Steiner High School, and likes to involve herself in creative endeavors of all kinds.

Baroque Cello

Debra Lonergan

has performed throughout North America as both a modern and baroque ‘cellist, maintaining a thriving teaching studio and playing the viola da gamba whenever she gets the chance. A longtime member of Michigan Opera Theatre, she also worked with Ann Arbor’s Ars Musica Baroque Orchestra – one of the first of its kind in North America when it began. Highlights include a twenty-city tour of all six Brandenburg Concertos and the Michigan MozartFest – a multi-day concert festival and international symposium focusing on Mozart’s piano concertos in collaboration with Ann Arbor’s University Musical Society. The project brought together contemporary scholarship, new research and period performances featuring ten renowned fortepianists, concertmaster Stanley Ritchie, conductor Roger Norrington and musicologist Neal Zaslaw. Other associations include Milwaukee’s Ensemble Musical Offering, Indy Baroque, Louisville’s Bourbon Baroque, Kalamazoo’s Early Music Michigan, Detroit’s Audivi, Toronto’s Scaramella and Early Music Alberta. Debra has enjoyed opportunities to play basso continuo for numerous soloists in recital, and she’s been a core member of period ensembles La Gente d’Orfeo, Anaphantasia and Voci dell’Anima. She founded the Michigan Bach Collective in 2016 to help foster historically informed local performances of larger works including Michigan’s first Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri, several cantatas of J.S. Bach, as well as the Easter Oratorio and b Minor Mass. She plays an antique English instrument from the Walmsley School with historical copies of bows by Stephen Marvin and Harry Davis.

Harpsichord and Organ

Julia Brown

Projecting “a warmly musical personality”, Julia Brown’s many recordings on Naxos hail her as an “unquestionably first-class artist and superb technician… exceptionally sensitive”. Her organ and harpsichord recordings of W. F. Bach, J. S. Bach, Buxtehude and Scheidemann have gained high critical acclaim. In demand as a historical keyboardist and collaborative artist, Julia’s performances include chamber music, orchestral repertoire, and continuo playing in addition to solo recitals. She has appeared in concert in North and South America and in Europe, having performed at the Oregon Bach Festival, Astoria Music Festival, Chico Bach Festival, American Guild of Organists Regional and National Conventions, Organ Historical Society Conventions, Latin American Organist Conventions, and National Public Radio. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Julia studied piano, harpsichord and organ in her native Brazil before receiving her MM and DMA from Northwestern University as a student of Wolfgang Rübsam. In addition to her position as Director of Music and Organist at Mayflower Congregational Church in Grand Rapids, Julia is accompanist for Calvin Alumni Choir and organist for the Grand Rapids Choir of Men and Boys. Julia performs under the auspices of Independent Concert Artists.

Baroque Violin and Viola

Boel Gidholm

A native of Sweden, violinist/violist Boel Gidholm has devoted herself to historical performance practice for over 20 years, performing throughout Europe and the US as a baroque violinist and violist. She lives in Rochester, NY, with her husband, Christopher Haritatos, with whom she co-directs Publick Musick, performing and presenting period-instrument concerts in the greater Rochester area. Holding degrees from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and the Akademie für Alte Musik in Bremen, Germany, she is on the faculty of the Eastman Community Music School where she teaches baroque violin and leads a period-instrument ensemble.