Affiliates Program
The SFEMS Affiliate Program offers assistance to local and regional organizations that share the Society’s commitment to music for educational purposes, artistic excellence, a historically informed approach, and operation on a not-for-profit basis. In existence since 1980, the SFEMS Affiliate Program has helped numerous Bay Area early music organizations to succeed in their various missions. Many of our past and present affiliate organizations are small and community-based, but others, like Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, have gone on to greater visibility in the Bay Area and beyond.
New Esterházy Quartet
Participation in the SFEMS Affiliate Program is open to organizations that meet the Society’s eligibility requirements and that do not have federal 501(c)3 tax-exempt status.
Musica Pacifica
Donations to SFEMS affiliates are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Checks should be made to “SFEMS” with the name of the recipient affiliate on the “for” line. Online donations should include the affiliate’s name in the “Notes” field for correct attribution.
Jubilate Baroque Orchestra
For over 30 years, Jubilate Baroque Orchestra has been a fixture of the Bay Area early music scene. Originally known as Magnificat Baroque Orchestra, Jubilate was formed in 1989 to provide period instrument ensembles to accompany Bay Area choirs and other arts organizations. As of Spring 2023, Jubilate has become a program of the San Francisco Early Music Society, allowing it to continue serving the community for many years to come.
Affiliate Members
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Husband and wife team Jonathan Salzedo and Marion Rubinstein organize and direct the ensemble. The Albany Consort was based in London until 1981, when Jonathan left England, and is now based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Contact: Laura Rubinstein-Salzedo, Executive Director; Phone: 408-480-0182.
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For more information go to our website and add yourself to our all-important email list, or find us on Facebook and subscribe to the page. Contact: Peter Hallifax
Berkeley Baroque Strings
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We rehearse Monday evenings, 7:30-9:30, at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church in the Fellowship Hall, 2837 Claremont Blvd, Berkeley, under the leadership of Kati Kyme who conducts, instructs, coaches and inspires us in the essence of Baroque style, technique and elegant musicianship. Contact: Charlotte Gaylord
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Calextone members are currently working on a socially distant version of the following timely project and are gratefully accepting donations to help us complete it: Boccaccio’s Decameron – A Multimedia Presentation of the Ages. This program of music from 14th century Italy will be presented in the context of Boccaccio’s Decameron but in the voices of Christine de Pizan and the Ladies from City of Ladies (1405), Lady Reason, Lady Justice and Lady Rectitude.The concert includes texts and poems translated into English and projected illuminations from the manuscripts and related sources which encourage the audience to immerse themselves in the unfolding drama and engaging music.
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—Monthly playing meetings from September through June featuring a professional conductor, usually held on the first Friday of the month
—The opportunity to receive the music for practice ahead of time
—Monthly newsletter September through June
—At least two workshops a year, including a weekend in May at the Marin Headlands, featuring large-group, special-interest and low-intermediate sessions with 10 conductors. Viols and soft double reeds are also welcome.
—Recitals — Opportunities to perform before a supportive audience of chapter members
—Members directory
—Social events, including Twelfth Night Party and Summer Picnic
Most chapter meetings are held at Zion Lutheran Church, 5201 Park Blvd. in Oakland, 7:30 – 10:00 pm on the first Friday of the month. Contact: Susan Jaffe, President.
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Our name, “Gallimaufry,” is a 16th-century French word meaning mix or medley (referring usually to a stew or soup), and reflects the variety of music the group performs. Led by Ms. Kammen as Artistic Director, who also arranges and composes some of the music the ensemble performs, Gallimaufry consists of 20 or so singers from throughout the Bay Area, with experience ranging from skilled amateur to semi-professional. Gallimaufry primarily performs a cappella, but each concert also includes some accompanied pieces and some early or traditional instrumental music performed by Ms. Kammen and by guest artists as well.
Contact: Beth Summers, 3932 Reinhardt Drive, Oakland CA 94619; Telephone: 510-689-2770.
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Visit our website for more information.
The Handel Opera Project
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Contact: William Ludtke, 2601 Durant Ave. Berkeley, 94704
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Harmonia Felice has a flexible roster including voices and winds as well as strings and continuo instruments. In more recent years, Harmonia Felice is including dancers of several disciplines in performances and video recordings. Contact: Amy Brodo
John Prescott
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He also studied at Oxford University’s Worcester College. He has written extensively on the music of G. F. Handel and is completing his Doctoral Thesis on John Stanley, the 18th-century, blind organist, conductor, violinist and impresario. He has taught music courses at UC Berkeley and Music Theory at The Crowden School (Berkeley, CA), was the musicologist for the San Francisco Elderhostel Arts and Humanities Program, and is currently the resident pre-concert lecturer for Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (SF, CA).
Contact: John Prescott, 601 Van Ness Avenue, #523, San Francisco, CA 94
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Although Les Violettes performs a variety of baroque repertoire with great enjoyment, its members admit to a particular love of the music of Buxtehude and Purcell. Members of the group are Violet Grgich, harpsichord, Colin Shipman, viola da gamba, Corey Carleton, soprano, and David Wilson, violin.
Contact: Violet Grgich
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MPRO members also have the opportunity to rehearse and perform in small ensembles. MPRO has performed on public television stations KQED and KCSM, as well as at the Berkeley Early Music Festival, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, Mission San Jose, and the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. MPRO also sponsors an annual workshop, directed by a well-known recorder artist. Visit our website for information on upcoming concerts, workshops, and rehearsal dates. Contact: Kathrin Hoffnagle, President, MPRO Board of directors.
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They have performed on such prestigious concert series as The Frick Collection and Music Before 1800 (NY), the Getty Museum (LA), Tage Alter Musik (Regensburg), the Cleveland Art Museum, the LA County Museum, and the Berkeley Early Music Festival, among others. Musica Pacifica’s eight CD releases on the Virgin Classics, Dorian, and Solimar labels have won national and international awards, including Chamber Music America/WQXR’s 2003 Record Award, featured on NPR’s Harmonia, Performance Today, and Minnesota Public Radio, and being chosen as “CD of the Month” by the early music journal Alte Musik Aktuell (Regensburg). Judith Linsenberg, recorder; Ingrid Matthews, violin; Charles Sherman, harpsichord; Alexa Haynes-Pilon, cello/viola da gamba. Contact: Musica Pacifica, c/o Judith Linsenberg, 1379 Hampel St. # 2, Oakland, CA 94602. Telephone/fax: (510) 459-5958.
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Nash Baroque has performed in Music on the Hill, the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, and in several invitation concerts in New England. In July 2014, they performed a special program honoring the town of Guilford, Connecticut, for the 375th Anniversary Festival of its founding. The program, which was performed first at the Berkeley Festival Fringe 2014, featured the music of the British Isles and the early American colonies and was later featured on WSHU CT Public Radio’s program “First Fridays” with host Kate Remington as one of the most notable concerts of 2014. They have recently joined forces with Jennifer Meller and her historical dance troupe, San Francisco Renaissance Dancers, for collaborative projects in 2019, and 2020!
Contact: Nash Baroque, Vicki Melin, 262 Bella Vista Way, San Francisco, CA 94127. Telephone: 415-265-2675
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The quartet performs its series of concerts in Berkeley, San Francisco, and Palo Alto with additional appearances in New York, Ithaca, Los Angeles, Tucson, Menlo Park, and Carmel.
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Both ensembles are directed by Renee Fladen-Kamm and have been in residence in Berkeley at the University Lutheran Chapel since 2011. You may view our concert programs on our website.
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Contact: Kraig Williams, 1418 Shaffer Dr., San Jose CA 95132. Ph: (408) 923-8425.
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Our members range from low-intermediate to advanced players, all with a love of early music. Players of other early music instruments are also welcome. Our monthly meetings are directed by professional early music specialists. We encourage members to form small consorts or study groups, which meet in members’ homes, and we offer opportunities for those groups to perform. Our monthly newsletter, our website, and our blog keep members informed of early music workshops and concerts throughout Northern California.
Sacramento Recorder Society, c/o Doris Loughner, Telephone: 916-685-7967, visit our blog.
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Recorder players of all levels are welcome to play at our monthly meetings, held in person and on Zoom for long-distance participants, September through May on various Sundays each month from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. in the sanctuary of Christ Church Lutheran 1090 Quintara Street (at 20th Avenue), in San Francisco. A $15 playing fee per session may be applied to the $60 annual fee for chapter membership. Please check the Meeting Schedule page of our website for specific dates and the conductor lineup.
Contact President and Web Administrator Greta Haug-Hryciw and visit the SFRS website for more info.
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Co-Presidents: Anne Mahler and Ken Newton. Address: 1000 Kiely Blvd Apt 56, Santa Clara, CA 95051.
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The group's repertoire has expanded since its first performance at the Berkeley Early Music Festival in 2010. Its early music repertory now includes the florid chant of Hildegard von Bingen, early polyphony from the St. Martial de Limoges, and Las Huelgas manuscripts; songs of the troubadours and trouvères; and motets, formes fixes, and lais of Guillaume de Machaut. The ensemble's 2016 recording with multi-instrumentalist Shira Kammen, O Eterne Deus: Music of Hildegard von Bingen (Music & Arts) is acclaimed worldwide. The U.K.’s Choir & Organ hailed the CD as "the most convincing Hildegard disc yet from the USA”. A concert review in 2018, hailed an ensemble that "moves, breathes and sings as one, with a striking level of vocal artistry, unbelievable accuracy and precision, and...obvious delight" (San Francisco Classical Voice).
Vajra Voices expanded its ambit into new music in 2018 with the development and premiere of Theresa Wong’s improvisatory composition To Burst To Bloom, a collection of six songs setting the poems on inner alchemy of the 12th Century Chinese Taoist Immortal, Sun Bu’er. After months of collaborative rehearsals between composer and ensemble, the full work was premiered in January, 2019 at "The Eve of the March," a Vajra Voices-produced concert at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, held the night before the 2019 national Women's March. The event featured Vajra Voices, the Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble, and composer/instrumentalists Shira Kammen and Theresa Wong, performing medieval and new works celebrating the divine feminine aspects of spirituality.
Vajra Voices has partnered with numerous Bay Area organizations to present creative, collaborative, and meaningful performances, including Garrett-Moulton Productions, the Oakland Ballet, the San Francisco Early Music Society, the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
Vajra Voices is sincerely grateful for the support we’ve received over the years from:
The San Francisco Early Music Society
The California Arts Council
The InterMusic San Francisco Musical Grant Program (MGP)
And, our generous individual contributors.
www.vajravoices.com
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Early Music America magazine called their debut concert at the 2004 Berkeley Early Music Festival a “wonderful offering . . . beautifully played.”
In 2010 Wildcat Viols, at the invitation of Artistic Director George Benjamin, performed the complete 3- and 4-part Fantazias of Henry Purcell at the Ojai Music Festival, receiving lavish audience and critical praise:
“Articulated fluently…with impeccable intonation” (The Classical Review);
“The expert period instrument group produces a focused ensemble sound…and delivered the music in all its intricately designed, soothing glory” (Santa Barbara News Press);
“A balm… endlessly absorbing” (The London Financial Times); “Spellbinding…fantastic.” (WQXR, the Classical Music Station of NYC).
Wildcat Violsʼ recording of the complete four-part Fantazias of Henry Purcell, the complete viol sonatas of Giovanni Legrenzi and selected Consorts of Four Parts by Matthew Locke (released in 2018) has been enthusiastically received:
“This is an outstanding disc, the playing responsive and expressive at all times . . . a recording crying out to be eagerly revisited. . . . It would be good to hear more from this exciting ensemble.” (The Viol, British Viola da Gamba Society);
“The sound they make . . . is not just incredibly powerful, itʼs beautifully blended, truly concerted, like the best chamber music . . . topflight music-making.” (The San Francisco Classical Voice).
Contact: Elisabeth Reed, 4336 Townsend Avenue, Oakland, CA 94602; Ph: 510-866-3964