Heidi Powell, baroque violin, Sylvia Schwartz, baroque violin, John Ross, baroque flute, Daniel Pyle, harpsichord
Members of the Baroque Orchestra of Maine to play the Midday Concert @ 1:00 at Ellsworth Community Music Institute on April 24th.
ELLSWORTH - Ellsworth Community Music Institute (ECMI) offers its next Midday Concert @ 1:00 on Friday, April 24th, with members of the Baroque Orchestra of Maine: Heidi Powell, baroque violin, Sylvia Schwartz, baroque violin, John Ross, baroque flute, Daniel Pyle, harpsichord.
The concert will be held at the Moore Community Center Theater, 125 State Street, in Ellsworth, Maine. The series is sponsored by Ellsworth Community Music Institute (ECMI) with funding assistance from the City of Ellsworth and supported in part by a grant from the Onion Foundation. Admission is free to the public.
Artistic Director Heidi Powell is a baroque violin specialist and has appeared as soloist with the New York Collegium, Rebel, Tafelmusik, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Early Music New York, New York State Baroque, Santa Fe Pro Musica and the Washington Bach Consort and served as concertmaster for Early Music New York, Washington Bach Consort and San Francisco Bach Choir. She has performed throughout North America and Europe, playing in Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, Symphony Hall, the Kennedy Center, Versailles, France and many others. Her performances have appeared on NPR ‘Performance Today’, The CBS National Evening News & ‘60 Minutes’ and on the soundtrack for the Disney Movie ‘Casanova’.
She holds a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from Indiana University, an Artist Diploma in Baroque Violin from Oberlin Conservatory with further studies at the Darius Milhaud Conservatoire d’Aix-en-Provence, France. Heidi's prize-winning performance in the American Bach Soloists International Bach Violin Competition was heralded by the New York Times as 'supremely confident and powerful'. She was also a finalist in the York, England Chamber Music Festival Competition and the Concorso Internazionale Antonio Vivaldi in Turino, Italy.
Heidi recently performed a solo violin recital of Bach and Biber at St. Malachy’s Church in NYC, presented by Gotham Early Music New York, Midtown Concerts, which was live streamed and can be seen at gemsny.org. Heidi has taught violin and chamber music at Oberlin Conservatory, Kneisel Hall and George Stevens Academy. She is a Suzuki violin teaching specialist and teaches privately in the Downeast Maine area as well as at Ellsworth Community Music Institute.
Heidi is Music Director at the Bar Harbor Congregational Church and Founder & Artistic director of BOOM, the Baroque Orchestra of Maine, a non-profit organization seeking to educate rural Maine audiences about historical baroque performance practice.
Fascinated and deeply inspired by the relationship between music, movement, and dance, violinist and Dalcrozian-in-training Sylvia Schwartz is a passionate chamber musician in both modern and historical performance practices. A native of Boston, MA, Sylvia performs currently with Guts Baroque Duo, L’Esprit Baroque, Los Angeles Baroque, and Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra. She has also played with UCLA Early Music Ensemble, Eudaimonia, A Purposeful Period Band, Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, Amherst Baroque Academy Opera & Festival Orchestras, the folk/baroque band Lizzie and the Flakjackets, and the prog/alt rock bands The Mood Swings and The Fixtures. As a chamber and orchestral musician she has performed across the United States and Europe, including Shostakovich Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the major halls of Boston. She has performed recitals extensively in the Boston area. She has also been a member of the Harvard Summer Chorus, Chorus pro Musica, and The Masterworks Chorale, and sees in her students as well as herself the great benefit singing has for string players.
Sylvia is equally passionate about bringing music to life as a performer and nurturing creative expression and empowerment in her music students. She uses a combination of Suzuki approaches, improvisation, Dalcroze-inspired eurythmics, and Alexander Technique-inspired movement awareness to simultaneously develop fluent musicality, joy in making music, a solid instrumental technique, and musicianship (including reading and theory). A former sufferer of tendonitis, she has a particular interest in addressing and preventing performance injuries, in both beginning and experienced players.
Sylvia earned a Master of Music in Violin Performance from the Longy School of Music, where she studied with Laura Bossert and coached extensively with Dana Maiben, Na’ama Lion, Vivian Montgomery, and Ryan Turner. She is also a certified Suzuki Violin Teacher through Book 3. Sylvia teaches privately, in person and online, and at the Vienna Music Institute. She has also taught at the Josiah Quincy Orchestra Program, Music 101, and the Winchester Community Music School, where she was also Administrative Director of the WCMS Summer Chamber Music Festival. She was thrilled to be Interim Orchestra Director in the fall semester of 2018 at Woodbridge High School, a Grammy Signature School, where teacher, students, and families alike enjoyed exploring baroque performance practice as part of the curriculum.
Flutist John Ross is an accomplished soloist, educator, chamber musician, and orchestral performer. He currently serves on the faculty and administration of the Portland Conservatory of Music in Maine. He is also an Artist Teacher at the University of Southern Maine Osher School of Music. Prior to his appointment at PCM and USM, he served as Assistant Professor of Music at Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri, and was on the music faculty of West Virginia State University. At WVSU, he developed a chamber music program and worked with the Ilia Musin International Academy of Advanced Conducting to develop the Charleston Chamber Orchestra, a group in residence at the institution. He has also taught on the faculty of the Music for the Sake of Music summer program in Green Bay, Wisconsin and the Sparrow Music Camp in High Springs, Florida, and has taught for the Florida State University Summer Music Camps.
A versatile performer, Dr. Ross has given performances throughout the United States, Canada, Central America, and central Europe, and in such venues as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. and the Lucerna Great Hall in Prague, Czech Republic. He is currently the flutist with Wild Prairie Winds, a professional wind quintet, and performs regularly in Baroque chamber ensembles throughout New England. He has also been principal flute of the Italian-American Opera Festival Orchestra (CA), the Charleston Chamber Orchestra (WV), and Taneycomo Festival Orchestra (MO). He has performed with the Topeka Symphony, the Muncie Symphony, the Tallahassee Symphony, and the Charleston Light Opera Guild, and has been a featured soloist with the WVSU Wind Ensemble, the Florida State University Symphonic Band, the orchestra of Music for the Sake of Music, and the Butler Philharmonic Orchestra in Hamilton, OH. His flute ensemble Silver Lining Flutes toured around Costa Rica in Spring 2017, performing and giving masterclasses as part of the Promising Artists of the 21st Century series. His folk trios, Cuttin' Bracken and Rakish Ramblers, have performed throughout northern Florida, including multiple performances at the Florida Folk Festival in White Springs, Florida.
An advocate for new compositions, Dr. Ross has performed on new music concerts and recitals at West Virginia University, Marshall University, the University of Mary Washington, Ball State University, Jacksonville University, and Florida State University, including two national conferences for the Society of Composers, Inc. He is a commissioning member of the Flute New Music Consortium, an organization dedicated to the advancement of the flute repertoire. Dr. Ross was chosen as a winner of the National Flute Association Convention Performers Competition, performing newly-published compositions at the 2015 NFA Convention in Washington, D.C. He has made guest artist appearances with harpist Dr. Jaclyn Wappel at Ball State University, Earlham College, James Madison University, and throughout southern Virginia, performing works based on musical traditions of countries throughout Asia.
Dr. Ross is a graduate of West Virginia University, Ball State, and Florida State University. His primary teachers include Joyce Catalfano, Thomas Godfrey, Francesca Arnone, Mihoko Watanabe, and Eva Amsler. He pursued additional studies with Mary Kay Fink, Liisa Ruoho, Jim Walker, Jan Gippo, Sarah Jackson, and Leone Buyse, and has participated in masterclasses given by Christina Smith, Elizabeth Buck, Jennifer Connor, Jean Ferrandis, Amy Likar, Catherine Ransom Karoly, Elise Shope Henry, Kathryn Lukas, and Carol Wincenc. Dr. Ross is also training to become a certified body mapping educator, studying body mapping with Amy Likar, Liisa Ruoho, David Nesmith, Rena Urso-Trapani, Kelly Mollnow Wilson, and Andrée Martin.
Dr. Daniel S. Pyle directs the Acadia Choral Society and Harmonie Universelle, a Baroque ensemble that has recorded and toured in the US and Europe. In 2018, he conducted Handel’s Messiah for the Blue Hill Bach Festival. He has performed with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra and the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. He has served on the faculties of the University of Kansas, Louisiana State University, and Clayton State University where he taught organ, harpsichord, and music history. He also taught Master classes in Atlanta and the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK. He is the organist and Music Director for St. Saviour’s Episcopal Church in Bar Harbor. Dr. Pyle has forty-five years of experience as a church musician in Episcopal, Lutheran, and Methodist congregations, and has been an instructor in church music at the Candler School of Theology. He holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Music from the University of Alabama and a Doctorate from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. He has also trained at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam and with Kenneth Gilbert at the Accademia Musical Chigiana.
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