Ensemble Halcyon Concert

Ensemble Halcyon performs a concert of early music in conjunction with their full-day workshop. Ensemble Halcyon features Christine Rua and Sarah Cantor on recorders, Jane Hershey on viola da gamba, and Ernie Drown on harpsichord.

Join us after the concert for a reception.

 

Christine Rua graduated magna cum laude with a B.M. from the Crane School of Music at Potsdam, NY with a teaching degree and a focus in oboe. She has recently completed a 10 year tour with Cirque du Soleil’s show Varekai, having performed over 3000 shows all over the World in 25 countries, from Sydney to Seoul, Rio to Russia as well as the Royal Albert Hall in London. While with Cirque she played a wide range of instruments including recorders, flutes, oboe, clarinet, shawms, bombards, bagpipes, percussion and as a vocalist. Before Cirque she lived in the Boston area and was involved in the world of Early Music. She was inspired by the teachings and approach to sound of Marleen Montgomery, director of The Quadrivium, an ensemble who performed Early Music in innovative and creative ways and she also studied recorder with Marion Verbruggen and with Owen Watkins. Chris is a multi-instrumentalist, playing recorders, historical flutes, reeds, bagpipes and percussion as well as singing. She has performed, recorded and toured with such ensembles as The Quadrivium, Libana, The Christmas Revels in Cambridge, Washington, Philadelphia and Hanover, NH, Early Music New York, Piffaro, Ex Umbris and with Anne Azema of the Boston Camerata.

After studies at the Longy School of Music and The Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Jane Hershey has spent her professional life in New England.  She toured and recorded in the US and Europe with the Boston Camerata, and has performed with many ensembles and festivals such as Emmanuel Music, Boston Baroque, Hesperus, the Aston Magna Festival, Monadnock Music, Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra and the Amherst Early Music Festival.  As both gambist and violone player, she performed for many seasons with Arcadia Players of western Massachusetts.  With Laura Jeppesen, she was a frequent performer in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts early music series and in many collaborations with trio Charivary.  With the Carthage Consort, she performed in the American Repertory Theater’s production of Marlow’s ‘Dido, Queen of Carthage,’ and in many other venues, including the Cambridge Society for Early Music series.  She can be heard in recent recordings of chamber music of Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre with Frances Fitch, and works of Samuel Capricornus with the consort ‘Long & Away.’  In the past few seasons with Arcadia Viols, she played at the Folger Shakespeare Library,  ‘Music before 1800,’ at Tufts and Clark Universities, and Amherst and Smith Colleges.  Ms. Hershey is currently on faculty of the Powers Music School, the graduate program in Historical Performance at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, and director of the Tufts University Early Music Ensemble. 

Sarah Cantor is a recorder virtuoso specializing in the interpretation of contemporary and early music. She holds degrees in early music and Spanish from The Indiana University Early Music Institute and the Royal Conservatory in Holland, where she studied with Marion Verbruggen. Her many appearances as recorder soloist include concerto concerts and recordings for The Berkshire Bach Society; with violinists Eugeine Drucker and Ani Kavafian; Boston Cecilia with soprano Lisa Saffer; The Gloria Dei Contores choir; and Sarasa with violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock, and Soprano Emily van Evera. She has played under the direction of Ton Koopman, Stanley Ritchie, and Kenneth Cooper. She has given solo recitals for The Boston Early Music Festival, The Boston Recorder Society, The Massachusetts Council of the Arts, The King’s Chapel Recital Series, Marlboro college, Sing-Sing prison, The Almity School in Arrezo, Italy, and The National Theater of Limon, Costa Rica. She is also an active chamber musician and is a founding member of the following ensembles that frequently perform live on New England public radio stations: The Hague Baroque Ensemble, The Artemis Trio, The Brookline Early Music Ensemble, Saltarello, Sarasa, Newton Baroque and La Sylva. Sarah also performs with La Donna Musicale and Eudaimonia.

Ernie Drown grew up in central Vermont, and has beeen the music director at the Church of Christ at Dartmouth and First Congregational Church of Lebanon. He studied organ with Lenora McCroskey and John Ferris and harpsichord with John Gibbons. He teaches piano and organ privately and collects and repairs antique fountain pens when not at the piano bench.