Soloists
Margriet Tindemans
Margriet Tindemans has performed, recorded, and taught early music on four continents. A 2005 Grammy Nominee, she was named "Best asset to Seattle's classical music scene" in the Seattle Weekly's 2004 "Best of Seattle" issue. She has been called a rare combination of charismatic performing and inspiring teaching, a scholar with a profound knowledge of music, poetry and art of the Middle Ages - "a national treasure". As a player of early stringed instruments, from the medieval fiddle and rebec to baroque viola and viola da gamba, she performs and records with Medieval Strings, Seattle Baroque Orchestra and the Pacific Operaworks. Margriet is a frequently invited guest with the Folger Consort, the Newberry Consort, and other leading early music ensembles. She has performed with both the Seattle Opera and the National Dutch Opera in Amsterdam. In addition to maintaining a busy private studio she is a much sought after director and teacher at many workshops, including the Port Townsend Early Music Workshop, the Pacific Northwest Viols Workshop, the Accademia d'Amore, Viols West, and the Seattle Academy of Opera. Margriet works closely with the Northwest Puppet Center, for whom she has arranged and directed several operas, including The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni, and Francesca Caccini's La Liberazione di Ruggiero. She is a faculty member at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.
Vicki Boeckman, Recorder
Vicki Boeckman has performed as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States and Europe. From 1981 to 2004 Vicki lived in Denmark, where she taught at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. Since settling in Seattle in 2004, she has been a soloist with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra and the Philharmonia Northwest Orchestra and is a returning guest with the Gallery Concerts Series, The Northwest Girl Choir, and the Medieval Women's Choir. She is actively involved in the Seattle Recorder Society and is the Music Director for the newly formed Portland Recorder Society. Vicki appears on the choir's second CD 'Laude Novella'.
Shira Kammen, Strings
Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Shira Kammen has spent well over half her life exploring the worlds of early and traditional music. A member for many years of the early music Ensembles Alcatraz, Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, she has also worked with Sequentia, Hesperion XX, the Boston Camerata, and the Balkan group Kitka. She is the founder of Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to performance on river rafting trips. Shira has performed and taught in North and Central America, Europe, Israel, Morocco, and Japan, and on the Colorado, Rogue and Klamath Rivers. She happily collaborated with singer/storyteller John Fleagle for fifteen years, and performs now with several groups: a medieval ensemble, Fortune's Wheel; a new music group, Ephemeros; an eclectic ethnic band, Panacea; a Renaissance violin band, The King's Noyse; and in many theatrical and dance productions. Shira is featured on the choir's first CD 'River of Red'.
Amanda Jane Kelley
Amanda Jane Kelley has performed a wide variety of early music throughout the Pacific Northwest. In 2008, she sang Heloise in the concert "Heloise and Abelard" with the Medieval Women's Choir, and braved the snow to perform the Messiah at Town Hall in Seattle. She performed the role of Anima in the Seattle Academy of Baroque Opera's staged production of "Il Rappresentatione di Anima et Corpo" by Emilio Cavalieri and the role of Venus in the Early Music Guild's staged production of the opera "Venus and Adonis" by John Blow; she has appeared with the Rose Ensemble and the Lyra Consort in Minneapolis-St. Paul; and is a frequent soloist with Trinity Consort in Portland. Amanda was a musician in the popular "Greenshow" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. After being heard on an album of shakuhachi flute music, she was invited to sing in Tokyo, Japan.
Bill McJohn, Harp
Bill McJohn studied early harps with Cheryl Ann Fulton and medieval music with Margriet Tindemans. He is co-director of the chant ensemble Peregrine, the medieval ensemble Contrafacta, and the Seattle Continuo Ensemble, and performs with the Angelorum Harp Choir and the Medieval Women's Choir.
Sally Mitchell
Sally Mitchell has performed as soloist and ensemble player throughout the Northwest. She taught recorder, Medieval, and Renaissance music at Music Center of the Northwest for nineteen years, and has taught at workshops in Oregon and throughout Washington. She was co-founder (with Margriet Tindemans) of the Northwest Center for Early Music Studies and was a founding member of the Medieval Women's Choir, with which she sang for ten years.
Laurie Monahan
Laurie Monahan, mezzo-soprano, is known for her spirited performances of early and contemporary music. Ms. Monahan is well-known as co-founder of Ensemble Project Ars Nova (P.A.N.) She appears on over twenty recordings. For the past twelve years she has directed and sung in the Boston-based ensemble of women's voices, Tapestry, which made its concert debut with Steve Reich's Tehellim at Jordan Hall in Boston, in a performance deemed "a knockout" by the Boston Globe. Tapestry has made six recordings, including "Song of Songs: Come into My Garden" and "Faces of a Woman". Upcoming performances with Tapestry in the 2009-2010 season include a program for the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg, Germany, and the debut of the "American Dreams" program for the Library of Congress in Washington DC and the Frick Museum in New York City. Laurie is on the faculty at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA.
Peggy Monroe
Peggy Monroe specializes in historical percussion instruments. She has taught and performed across the USA, and in Canada, England, Spain, and Germany. She has written scripts for musical dramas performed by the Medieval Women's Choir and the Early Music Guild, and her many school appearances earned her Early Music America's Bringing History Alive award in 2004. Peggy is the only non-singing member of the Medieval Women's Choir and is featured on the choir's CDs 'River of Red' and 'Laude Novella'.
Marian Seibert, Soloist
A long-time member of the Medieval Women's Choir, soprano Marian Seibert is a soloist with the Trinity Consort and the Early Music Guild's Continuo Ensemble. She has performed with many local ensembles and organizations, including the Tudor Choir, St. Mark's Cathedral, the Esoterics, Northwest Baroque, the Early Music Guild, St. James Cathedral, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Gallery Concerts, Seattle Opera, Northwest Puppet Center, Seattle Experimental Opera, and the Seattle Academy of Opera. She is a featured soloist on the Medieval Women's Choir's second CD, Laude Novella.
Stacey Sunde, Soloist
Mezzo soprano Stacey Sunde has appeared as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Pro Musica, The Medieval Women's Choir, Choral Arts, and Choir of the Sound. She is featured on the Medieval Women's Choir's second CD 'Laude Novella'. A cantor at St. James Cathedral, she is also a member of the Cathedral's professional ensemble, Cathedral Cantorei. She works frequently as a recording artist for movie soundtracks, video games and commercials. Stacey is also a music educator, teaching at St. Catherine School and conducting two choirs in the St. James Cathedral's renowned Youth Music Program.
Karen P. Thomas
Karen P. Thomas, composer and conductor, is the Artistic Director and Conductor of Seattle Pro Musica. With Seattle Pro Musica she has produced six critically-acclaimed CD recordings, and has received the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence and the ASCAP-Chorus America Award. Her compositions are performed internationally, by groups such as The Hilliard Ensemble, and are hailed as "...superb work of the utmost sensitivity and beauty." Her conducting has received critical praise for its "integrity and high purpose...delivered with taste and impeccable musicianship..." and she has been lauded for her "charismatic...magnetic podium presence." Karen is a recipient of awards and grants from the NEA, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and ASCAP, among others. Her commissions include works for the International Grand Jubilee 2000 in Rome, the American Guild of Organists, and the Goodwill Arts Festival. After performing 'Lux lucis' in 2004, the Medieval Women's Choir in 2009 commissioned Karen to write a work for its concert in the Song of Songs Festival.