Beautiful Baroque:Music for Weddings
and Special Moments
From the producers of Harmonia: a collection of timeless baroque wedding music, also great for other ceremonies and special occasions.
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This collection of classical wedding music is available from CD Baby and individual tracks are available for download from iTunes.
L’AURA
L’AURA was founded in 2002 by harpsichordist Bernardo Gordillo while studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London). The ensemble, originally a trio that focused on Italian Baroque improvisation, gained initial recognition the following year as a Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award finalist.
Bernard has since expanded the ensemble and its scope of interpretation to include a number of unjustly neglected composers of the Baroque era.
Performances have taken the ensemble from the intimate rooms of London’s Handel House Museum to a number of chamber music series throughout the midwestern and southern United States.
More recently, L’AURA was awarded a first and special prize in the 2006 Indiana University Jacobs School of Music’s Latin American Music Center competition for its performance of 16th- and 17th-century repertoire from Spain, Italy, and Latin America.
The name L’AURA (Italian for “The Wind”), was inspired by the title of Juan Hidalgo’s opera Celos aun del aire matan (“Jealousy, even from the air, kills”). It is of ancient belief that the wind was a powerful carrier of emotion.
Members of L'AURA
Christopher Freeze (tenor) was a Choral Scholar in the choir of King’s College while an undergraduate at Cambridge University. His first operatic performance was in the title role of La Clemenza di Tito, which was followed by Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi and Rodolfo in La Bohème.
From 2003. Mr. Freeze continued his vocal studies with Costanza Cuccaro at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana. At I.U., he reprised the role of Rodolfo and sang the title role of Peter Grimes under the tutelage of Colin Graham.
In 2005 Mr. Freeze was a member of the Apprentice Artist program at Santa Fe Opera, and Indianapolis performances have included the St. John Passion and the Messiah for Christ Church Cathedral, and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers for the Indianapolis Festival Orchestra and Chorus.
Born in Hong Kong, Teddie Hwang takes her musical inspiration from songs of turtledoves and blackbirds. Fascinated by the timbre and the unique qualities of the traverso, she bases her flute-playing on a purely vocal style.
She obtained her master's degree at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag, Netherlands, where she studied with Wilbert Hazelzet and to whom she is grateful for being her mentor. Currently living in Boston, she performs regularly with her ensemble Le Mercure in Europe.
Allison Edberg is a member of Olde Friends, Ensemble Galilei, ViVaCe, Ensemble Voltaire, the Mirabel Classical Quartet, and is concertmaster of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. She was a recipient of the Willi Apel Scholarship in baroque violin at Indiana University where she studied with Stanley Ritchie. With him she appeared in recital at Chicago's Quigley Chapel in 2002.
The Chicago Sun TImes called her performance of the Telemann Eb Fantasie "impeccable, with unerring intonation and an austere beauty". She has collaborated in recent years with Apollo's Fire, the Washington Bach Consort, La Monica, and Early Music Southwest, and is frequently featured at the Bloomington Early Music Festival. Ms. Edberg has toured nationally and has recorded for the Electra and Centaur CD labels.
Martha Perry, baroque violin, whose playing has been called "…ideally realized…taut and loaded with nuance" by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has a developing national career. She performs with many period instrument ensembles including the Indianapolis and Atlanta Baroque Orchestras, Washington Bach Consort, Dallas Bach Society, and Foundling Baroque Orchestra.
Having appeared in productions with The National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, at Wolftrap, for the Magnolia, St. Louis, and Bloomington Early Music Festivals, and in Italy's 2003 Musica nel Chiostro, Martha also performs regularly with Quince, Ensemble Voltaire, The Comic Intermezzo, Musika Ekklesia, Mirabel, and on Chicago’s Ars Antigua early music series.
Martha has been heard in a live international broadcast on Chicago's WFMT radio, on the early music program "Harmonia," and on N.P.R.'s "Performance Today," and has recorded for Edition Lilac, Musica Omnia, Naxos, and Concordia Records. Ms. Perry completed her Master of Music in Early Music Performance at Indiana University, where she was a student of Stanley Ritchie. While at I.U., she served as Ritchie's graduate assistant for the baroque orchestra. Martha has attended early music workshops and performed on master classes in the U.S., Canada, England, and Austria, and served as the Interim Executive Director for the 2005 Bloomington Early Music Festival.
Andrew Fouts performs regularly with American Bach Soloists, Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, the Napa Valley Symphony, American Opera Theater, Passamezzo Moderno, the San Francisco Bach Choir and the five part string band, Quince. He has appeared with Philharmonia Baroque, El Mundo, Ensemble Galilei and the National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra. Performances at festivals and series have included Chamber Music Sedona, the Arizona Early Music Society, Redwood Arts Council, Columbia University's Miller Theatre, the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival and Aston Magna. This past summer Mr. Fouts served as a principal violin for the Bloomington Early Music Festival's performance of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo and recorded with the festival orchestra for Indiana University Press.
Mr. Fouts' formal violin instruction began at the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Charles Castleman and Mitchell Stern. At Eastman he performed in the early music collegium with Paul O'Dette and was active with the contemporary music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, with whom he recorded Steve Reich's The Desert Music for Cantaloupe Records.
Andrew is currently finishing a Performer Diploma from the Early Music Institute at Indiana University Bloomington as a student of Stanley Ritchie. In 2008 he looks forward to his first performances with the New York State Baroque Orchestra and to his first season as the new violinist with Pittsburgh's acclaimed early music ensemble, Chatham Baroque.
Nathan Whittaker, baroque cello, received his first cello at age eight and pursued study at the Georgia Academy of Music where he won the Alice B. Williams Award. In 1995, he was awarded the Woodward Scholarship at the Taft School where he studied cello with acclaimed performer and teacher, Peter Wiley. He graduated Cum Laude and was the recipient of the P.T.Young Music Award. He has studied and performed at the Brevard Music Center, Interlochen Music Festival, and the Killington Music Festival.
In 2003, Mr. Whittaker graduated Cum Laude from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Music Degree in Cello Performance and received a Masters Degree in Cello Performance from Indiana University the following year. His private instructors have included Helga Winold, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Stanley Ritchie, Shelley Taylor and Robert Marsh. For five seasons, he has performed in the Bloomington Early Music Festival and was twice appointed cellist at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria.
Currently, Mr. Whittaker is enjoying a career of teaching and performing. For the past several years, Mr. Whittaker has served on the faculty at the Indiana University String academy, the principal cellist of the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic and associate principal cellist with the Terra Haute Symphony Orchestra, the primary lecturer for the "Behind the Scenes" program, and established a successful private studio in central Indiana. In addition to his activity as a modern cellist, Mr. Whittaker is a recognized baroque cellist and has performed both as a soloist and a continuo cellist with such recognized performers as Stanley Ritchie, Alison Edberg, and Rachel Barton Pine.
Recently, he performed four concerts at the Bloomington Early Music Festival with such groups as The Atwater Consort, The Meridian Vocal Consort, and the Bath Street Studio. Now based in Seattle, Mr. Whittaker is pursuing a doctoral degree in cello performance with Toby Saks at the University of Washington, establishing a private teaching studio, and is a member of the Seattle Baroque Orchestra.
Bernard Gordillo (director), a native of Managua, holds degrees from Centenary College of Louisiana, the Early Music Institute at the Indiana University Jacobs School Music, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London). He has performed on harpsichord and chamber organ throughout the United States, Western Europe and Israel. He has appeared on a number of platforms including the Innsbruck International Festival of Early Music, Aldeburgh Festival, Cheltenham International Festival of Music, Stoke Newington Early Music Festival, Bloomington Early Music Festival, and the Royaumont Saison Musicale.
Bernard has accompanied in numerous masterclasses most notably at the at the Handel House Museum in London, the Innsbruck Summer Academy as accompanist-in-residence, and the Britten-Pears School where he was a Young Artist. Recent experiences have included staff positions in basso continuo with the Choral Department and, briefly, the Early Music Institute at Indiana University. He has also been a long-term accompanist with the Pre-College Recorder Program of the same university.
He has been a past finalist in the Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award for his group L'AURA, as well as a past holder of a Corporation of London scholarship for basso continuo accompaniment. He has collaborated and worked under some of the most respected period musicians of our time, including Richard Egarr, Catherine Macintosh, and Bruce Dickey, among others.
When not performing, Bernard is the writer for Harmonia, a nationally-syndicated radio program dedicated to presenting early music in a new light. As well, he produces and is the voice of the Harmonia Early Music Podcast.