Prospectus
Prospectus
Prospectus
FEATURED SOLO ARTISTS FOR JANUARY 6TH CONCERT
Soprano Ellen Hargis is a specialist in baroque music and a leading voice teacher and lecturer on historical performance practice. She has been a guest lecturer on historical performance, baroque gesture and movement, rhetoric, and opera at Harvard, Yale, the Juilliard School of Music, the Oberlin Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music, and the Moscow Conservatory, among others. As a soprano, Ms. Hargis has appeared with many renowned conductors, including Andrew Parrott, Gustav Leonhardt, Paul Goodwin, Jane Glover, and Nicolas Kraemer. She has performed worldwide in recital with her duo partner, lutenist Paul O'Dette, and has sung with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, and the Mark Morris Dance Group. Ms. Hargis is also known as a stage director specializing in historical opera and has a long-standing collaboration with the Boston Early Music Festival, where serves as Assistant Stage Director and the translator of many libretti for their main stage productions.
A prolific recording artist, she has a discography of more than 50 recordings embracing repertoire from medieval to contemporary music and boasting the Grand Prix du Disque, the Choc du Monde, and two Grammy nominations for best opera recording. Ellen Hargis teaches voice for the Graduate Program in Historical Performance at Case Western University. She served as Artistic Co-Director of Chicago’s Newberry Consort from 2008 to 2022, and is a 2022 recipient of the Howard Mayer Brown Award for Lifetime Achievement in Early Music.
Charles Metz studied piano at Penn State University, beginning his harpsichord studies through private lessons with the legendary Igor Kipnis. In the process of earning a Ph.D.in Historical Performance Practice at Washington University in Saint Louis, he studied with Trevor Pinnock. Charles has performed across the country with concerts in Chicago, Saratoga, Bennington, Louisville, and Liberty (Missouri) in their Baroque music JEMS Fest. He has performed solo recitals at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Oberlin Conservatory. With the Chamber Music Society of St. Louis, he was the featured keyboard soloist in Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto under Conductor Nicholas McGegan. He has appeared with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Ars Antigua Chicago and the Newberry Consort of Chicago. He did performances including master classes at University of Michigan and at Penn State University. As an early keyboard specialist, he is currently performing on his historic Italian virginal, harpsichords and fortepianos. He released a CD with Navona Records “William Tisdale: Music for Virginal” in February 2021. He recently has given lecture/recitals in Hunter, (New York) and at Cornell on "Muzio Clementi: The man, his music and his piano.” He has been asked to present a recital for the Westfield Keyboard
Conference at the Sigal Museum in Greenville in the spring of 2023. Dr. Metz also obtained a doctorate in Optometry and worked for 20 years in his own private practice before retiring. In addition to his performing activity, he serves on the Board of Directors of Chamber Music Society of St. Louis and The Newberry Consort.