• Home
• Concert Schedule
• About Us
• Musicians
• Board and Staff
• Audio and Video
• Photos
• Contact

Join our email list:

Musicians

Murray Somerville, Artistic Director
Harpsichordist, organist, conductor, born in London, grew up in Rhodesia. Student of Bach conductor Karl Richter, studied at Oxford (Organ Scholar of New College under Sir David Lumsden) and in New York; doctorate from New England Conservatory in Boston. Formerly Founding Conductor of Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, Music Director of Winter Park Bach Festival in Florida. Has conducted Nashville Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, Florida Symphony, City of Oxford Orchestra. Collaborated with Christopher Hogwood, Joel Cohen, William Christie, Robert Mealy; recorded for ASV, Centaur, Gothic, Raven, Koch. Watch a performance of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor on the Flentrop organ at Harvard University's Adolphus Busch Hall.

Violin

Rebecca Cole is a member of the Nashville Symphony. She performed at the Oregon Bach Festival for 18 years, and was Principal Second Violin at the Peter Britt Festival for 12 years. This past summer, she attended the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, where she studied with Tafelmusik Concertmaster Jeanne Lamon, and also participated in the Vancouver Early Music Programme, working with Marc Destrube, Jacques Oggs, and Jap ter Linden.

Alison Gooding

Laura Ross has been a member of the Nashville Symphony since 1984 and was previously a member of the Toledo Symphony. Laura is the Nashville Symphony union steward, serves on the executive board of Local 257 and is secretary of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM).

Andrea Dawson has performed extensively in Mexico and the United States. She received graduate degrees from Eastman and undergraduate from Oberlin. After teaching at the University of Texas Pan-American for five years, she is now on the music faculty at Middle Tennessee State University.

Tammy King

Donna Stallings is currently a freelance violinist in the Nashville area; she was previously Assistant Principal Second of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. She holds degrees from Illinois State University and Rice University, studied with Paul Kantor at the University of Michigan, and has attended Aspen, Tanglewood (TMC), GRAZ, and the Carmel Bach Festival. Concurrent with her music career she is pursuing an M.S. in Information Science from University of Tennessee.

Viola

Sarah Cote was a member of the San Antonio Symphony for 18 years and moved from there to Nashville; she teaches at Belmont and MTSU.  She studied Baroque violin and viola with Marilyn MacDonald and Simon Standage.

Clare Yang joined the Nashville Symphony in 1995. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, she grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, and holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University.

Continuo

Christopher Stenstrom received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1995 from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studied cello with Andor Toth, Jr. and Vagram Saradjian. While at Oberlin he also studied viola da gamba, harpsichord, baroque cello, and biochemistry. After spending numerous summers working in the laboratory, he turned toward music. In 1998, he received a Master of Music degree from Bowling Green State University, where he was a member of the Graduate String Quartet and studied with Dr. Alan Smith. Since then he has played with the Colorado Music Festival and the Shreveport Symphony. He joined the Nashville Symphony in 1999, is a founding member of the chamber group Alias, and an instructor in viola da gamba at Vanderbilt University.

Kevin Lay, viola da gamba

Keith Nicholas holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a Master of Music degree from Florida State University. He joined the Nashville Symphony in 1999 and currently teaches cello as adjunct faculty member at Austin Peay State University and Belmont University.

Francis Perry has appeared with Belle Meade Baroque since 2006, shortly after he moved to Nashville from the New York metropolitan area. He has performed on both lute and guitar at The Boston Early Music Festival. His article "A Recipe For Learning A New Piece of Music" was published in a recent issue of SOUNDBOARD magazine.

Glen Wanner, bass

Music City Baroque Chamber Chorus

The Music City Baroque Chamber Chorus, which made its debut singing Bach’s Motet No. 3, "Jesu, meine Freude" at the March 2009 Blair School of Music concert, is a group of stylistically aware choral musicians from the Nashville area. Manager is soprano Rebecca Davis, who teaches at Harpeth Hall School, and was previously a member of the Washington Bach Consort under J. Reilly Lewis. Laurel Fisher, Rachel Anderson, Michelle Cox, Mareike Sattler and Alex Favazza are all current members of St. George’s Choir; Nicole Naumann sings with the Nashville Symphony Chorus. Tenor Will Griffin is Chairman of the Board of Music City Baroque, and Classical Music Director of WPLN.

Stanley Warren, tenor, studied at Eastman School of Music as a student of Jan DeGaetani, and in England with Sir Peter Pears. A noted exponent of Baroque vocal literature, he is Associate Professor of Voice and Coordinator of Vocal Studies at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. John Sevier, bass, holds degrees from Indiana State University and Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He has appeared with the St. Louis Symphony under Leonard Slatkin, as well as the Nashville Symphony and Nashville Opera; for ten years he was bass section leader at St. George’s Church.

The group repeated the Bach motet for "Bachanalia" at Christ Church Cathedral at the end of March 2009; an audience member wrote "[re:] the motet setting of "Jesu, meine Freude" as presented by Belle Meade Baroque … I believe audiences in Leipzig at either St. Thomaskirche or St. Nikolaikirche at a minimum would be stunned to hear these superb artists."

Copyright 2010 | Music City Baroque | www.musiccitybaroque.org