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SAN FRANCISCO’S SIZZLING BAROQUE ENSEMBLE

MUSICA PACIFICA

ANNOUNCES NEWEST MEMBER, INGRID MATTHEWS

AND BIDS FAREWELL TO ELIZABETH BLUMENSTOCK

Elizabeth Blumenstock, left; Ingrid Matthews, right

San Francisco’s Musica Pacifica combines world-class musicianship with a spirited and communicative performing style and brings exuberant vitality to the intimate chamber music of the Baroque. Since 1990, the ensemble has featured the talents of Judith Linsenberg, recorder and Elizabeth Blumenstock, baroque violin. Charles Sherman, harpsichord, joined the ensemble in 1997, and Josh Lee, viola da gamba, joined in 2012.

Now after 27 years, this season marks a “changing of the guard,” as Ms. Blumenstock has announced her retirement from the ensemble. Ever ready to celebrate, Musica Pacifica is gearing up to fête Ms. Blumentock’s illustrious career with the ensemble and to welcome the widely acclaimedvenerable Ingrid Matthews as their new violinist.

Since winning first prize in the Irwin Bodky International Competition for Early Music in 1989, Ingrid Matthews has become well established as one of today's leading baroque violinists. She served as Music Director of the Seattle Baroque Orchestra from 1994 until 2013, earning widespread respect among musicians and audiences alike. Ingrid Matthews has long been established as one of the leading baroque violinists of her generation. She founded the Seattle Baroque Orchestra with Byron Schenkman in 1992, and served as Music Director until stepping down from that position in 2013. (See full bio below).

Elizabeth Blumenstockis a long-time concertmaster, soloist, and leader with the Bay Area's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and American Bach Soloists, concertmaster of the International Handel Festival Orchestra in Göttingen, Germany, and is Artistic Director of the Corona del Mar Baroque Music Festival. Her love of chamber music has involved her in several accomplished and interesting smaller ensembles including Musica Pacifica, Galax Quartet, Live Oak Baroque, Ensemble Mirable, and Voices of Music.

An enthusiastic teacher, Ms. Blumenstock teaches for the Juilliard Historical Performance program, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the American Bach Soloists' summer Festival and Academy, and the International Baroque Institute at Longy.Her discography includes some 100 CDs for such labels as harmonia mundi usa, Dorian/Sono Luminus, Koch, Naxos, Reference Recordings, and Virgin Veritas.

Baroque violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock is widely admired as a performer of interpretive eloquence and technical sparkle. A frequent soloist, concertmaster, and leader with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, the Santa Fe Pro Musica, and the Italian ensemble Il Complesso Barocco, she is also a member of several of California’s finest period instrument ensembles, including Musica Pacifica, Trio Galatea, the Arcadian Academy, and Trio Galanterie.

MUSICA PACIFICA SEASON HIGHLIGHTS CALENDAR:

•  Elizabeth Blumenstock’s final concert with Musica Pacifica will take place on Saturday, December 16th, 2017 on the Barefoot Chamber Concert series at the HillsideSwedenborgian Church, 1422 Navellier Street, El Cerrito, California, where they group will also have a champagne send-off (and welcome) for Ms. Blumenstock and a welcome for Ms. Matthews. This is the public’s last chance to experience live and in person the brilliant musical chemistry between Ms. Blumenstock and Ms. Linsenberg. barefootchamberconcerts.com/2017-2018-season/mp/

•  Ingrid Matthews will officially begin as Musica Pacifica’s permanent new permanent violinist on Sunday April 8, 2018 at Arizona Early Music:Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2331 E. Adams St., Tucson, Arizona. azearlymusic.org/pages/2017_2018_5_musica_pacifica

Other upcoming concerts including various members of Musica Pacifica are:

•  October 1, 2017: Dancing In The Isles at Early Music in Columbus (with David Greenberg, violin), Huntington Recital Hall, Capital University, 1 College and Main Columbus, Ohio earlymusicincolumbus.org/concerts/musicapacifica

•  October 15, 2017: Sprezzatura--Virtuosic Italian Sonatas of the Italian Baroque with Juditht Linsenberg, William Skeen, cello, and Katheirine Heater, harpsichord at the California Jazz Conservatory, 2087 Addison St, Berkeley, CA cjc.edu/concerts/

•  February 16, 2018: A la mode, A le monde - a potpourri of Medieval, Renaissance, traditional, and world music—performed on a panoply of bowed, blown, plucked andhit instruments. On the Barefoot series with Judith Linsenberg, Shira Kammen, Peter Maund, and Katherine Heater. HillsideSwedenborgian Church, 1422 Navellier Street, El Cerrito, California, barefootchamberconcerts.com/2017-2018-season/lkhm/

MORE ABOUT INGRID MATTHEWS AND MUSICA PACIFICA

Ingrid Matthews has appeared as soloist and/or concertmaster with numerous large ensembles including the New York Collegium, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Musica Angelica (LA), the Bach Sinfonia (Washington D.C), Ars Lyrica (Houston) and many others, and is active as a chamber musician with Musica Pacifica among many other groups. Her extensive discography includes a recording of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas which has been hailed as top recommendation for these works by both American Record Guide and Third Ear’s Classical Music Listening Companion. Matthews has taught at Indiana University, Oberlin College, and the University of Southern California and is currently on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. She is also active as a visual artist. ingridmatthews.com

Ingrid Matthews won first prize in the 1989 Erwin Bodky International Competition for Early Music, and since that time has performed extensively around the world with numerous period-instrument ensembles. She has served as concertmaster for orchestras such as the New York Collegium, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, and Musica Angelica (Los Angeles); and has appeared as a guest director and soloist with many others including the New York Collegium, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the Magnolia Baroque Festival Orchestra (Winston-Salem, NC), New Trinity Baroque (Atlanta), the Bach Sinfonia (Washington DC), Les Idees Heureuses (Montreal), the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, and the Victoria Symphony. For close to a decade she was first violinist of the ensemble La Luna, which specialized in 17th-century music, touring and recording to great critical acclaim.

Matthews' career as a chamber musician has taken her to such venues as the Frick Collection (New York), the Boston Early Music Festival, the Berkeley Festival, Netwoork voor Oude Muziek (the Netherlands), the Getty Center (LA), the Pittsburgh Renaissance and Baroque Society, Early Music Vancouver, Woodstock Concerts, the Cambridge Society for Early Music, the Newberry Library (Chicago), CBC-Toronto, the San Francisco Early Music Society and the Library of Congress, among many others.

Matthews has won international critical acclaim for a discography ranging from the earliest solo violin repertoire through the Sonatas and Partitas of J.S. Bach. The latter recording was named by Third Ear's Classical Music Listening Companion as "the finest complete set of these works," and the critic for American Record Guide writes "this superb recording is my top recommendation for this music… on either modern or period instruments."

Ingrid Matthews has served on the faculties of the University of Toronto, the University of Washington, Indiana University, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the International Baroque Institute at Longy, and Amherst Early Music; and has given master classes in baroque repertoire and style at numerous colleges and universities. She is currently on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. Ingrid Matthews is a graduate of Indiana University, where she studied with Josef Gingold and Stanley Ritchie.

A passionate life-long interest in the visual arts has led Ingrid to amass an eclectic training in various techniques, and her paintings have been shown in group and solo exhibitions in Seattle and elsewhere.

ingridmatthews.com

ABOUT MUSICA PACIFICA

Musica Pacifica has, since its founding in 1990, become widely recognized as one of America’s premier baroque ensembles, lauded for both the dazzling virtuosity and the warm expressiveness of its performances. They have been described by the press as "some of the finest baroque musicians in America" (American Record Guide) and "among the best in the world" (Alte Musik Aktuell). At home in the San Francisco Bay area, the artists perform with Philharmonia Baroque and American Bach Soloists, and appear with many other prominent early music ensembles nationally and abroad.

They have performed on some of the most prestigious concert series in the U.S., including the Boston Early Music Festival, Music Before 1800 and the Frick Collection (NY), the Getty Museum (Los Angeles), the Cleveland Art Museum, the Pittsburgh Renaissance and Baroque Society, the Seattle Early Music Guild, the Houston Early Music Society, and the Los Angeles County Museum, among many others. The ensemble has been featured at the Berkeley Early Music Festival three times, and their first appearance there was cited in Early Music (UK) as "perhaps the standout of the entire festival." They have performed at festivals in Germany and Austria and have been heard on German National radio as well as on National Public Radio’s "Performance Today" and "Harmonia"and on Minnesota Public Radio.

Musica Pacifica's nine CD releases on the Virgin Classics, Dorian, Solimar and Navona labels have won national and international awards, including the highest ratings in several CD magazines and being chosen as "CD of the Month" by the early music journal Alte Musik Aktuell (Regensburg). The prestigious Gramophone Magazine (UK), called Dancing in the Isles “one of the zestiest recordings of recent vintage.” Fire Beneath My Fingers, was touted as “one of the most exciting Baroque recordings I’ve heard” on Audiophile Audition. Their Telemann CD won Chamber Music America and WQXR's 2003 Record Award honoring the best chamber music recordings of the year, and their Mancini recording was cited as a "Noteworthy Disc" in the 2000 International Antonio Vivaldi Awards for Italian Early Music in Venice.

Online, Musica Pacifica may be heard on radio station kdfc.com1.fm, Last.fm, Celtic Radio, and Recorder-radio.com; and seen at youtube.com/MusicaPacificaSF.

musicapacifica.org | twitter: MusicaPacifica | Facebook: facebook.com/musicapacifica


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