Baroque Workshop

Faculty 2025

Lindsey Strand-Polyak

director and violin

A Pacific Northwest native, Lindsey Strand-Polyak lives a hyphenated life to go along with her hyphenated name: divided between viola and violin; living in Whidbey Island, WA and Santa Monica, CA. In California, she serves as Artistic Director of Los Angeles Baroque, Adjunct Professor of Baroque Violin at Claremont Graduate University, and is excited to be joining SFEMS as Director of the Baroque Workshop. In Washington, she performs as Principal Violist for Seattle Baroque Orchestra and tours regionally with the Salish Sea Early Music Festival. She has performed across the West in concert and festival appearances, including Musica Angelica, Baroque Music Montana, Bach Collegium San Diego, American Bach Soloists, Pacific MusicWorks, Baroque Festival Corona del Mar, Oregon Bach Festival, and fringe concerts of Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals. She holds a PhD/MM in Musicology and Violin performance from UCLA.

  • Dr. Strand-Polyak is also a passionate educator and arts advocate. In 2016, she co-founded the community baroque orchestra Los Angeles Baroque (LAB), and has grown the organization to include the flagship “Big Band” Baroque Orchestra, chamber music, and two Consort Clubs serving viol players (more info at losangelesbaroque.org). Previously, she restarted the UCLA Early Music Ensemble with Elisabeth LeGuin in 2010, and then served as its Associate Director. Guest talks and residencies have included Michigan State University, University of Southern California, University of Oregon, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, University of Richmond, Sacramento State University, Montana State University, University of the Pacific, and California State University-San Bernardino. In 2021-22, Dr. Strand-Polyak consulted with and designed workshops for Bitterroot Baroque in Hamilton, MT, and served as Artistic Advisor to Kensington Baroque Orchestra in San Diego. She serves on the Boards of Early Music Seattle as SBO Orchestra Liaison and Pacific Northwest Viols as Program Chair.

baroque cello, viola da gamba

Erik Andersen

  • Erik Andersen teaches and performs on baroque cello, viola da gamba, and modern cello. He performs on all sizes of viola da gamba, including pardessus de viole. His background in language pedagogy and historically informed performance inspire his search for expression and meaning in each musical work, which he relishes sharing with audiences. An avid teacher, Erik can be found teaching at home in San Francisco and at workshops in the Bay Area and around the country.

Aki Nishiguchi

recorder, oboe

  • Aki Nishiguchi, oboist, is an active performer and teacher in the Los Angeles area. She completed a Doctorate of Musical Arts in oboe performance at the University of Southern California where she studied with David Weiss, Joel Timm and Allen Vogel. Beyond her interest in standard solo and orchestra repertoire, she has devoted much of her study at USC to performing New Music and Early Music. She studied historical performing practice and historical wind instruments under the instruction of Adam Knight Gilbert, Rotem Gilbert and Paul Sherman. As an early wind player, she enjoys performing with baroque oboes, shawms, recorders and doucaines. She has performed with groups including Ciaramella, Musica Angelica, Bach Collegium San Diego, Harmonia Baroque Players, California Bach Society.

Cléa Galhano

recorder

  • Galhano has performed in the United States, Canada, South America and Europe as a chamber musician, collaborating with recorder player Marion Verbruggen, Jacques Ogg, Belladonna, Lanzelotte/Galhano Duo and Kingsbery Ensemble. As a featured soloist, Galhano has worked with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, Musical Offering and Lyra Baroque Orchestra.

    Among other important music festivals, Ms. Galhano has performed at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Tage Alter Music Festival in Germany and at Wigmore Hall in London, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall and Merkin Hall in New York and Palazzo Santa Croce in Rome, always receiving acclaimed reviews. Ms. Galhano was featured in 2006 in the Second International Recorder Congress in Leiden, Holland in 2007 and 2013 at the International Recorder Conference in Montréal and in 2012 at the ARS International Conference, Portland, Oregon.

    She gave her Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall debut in May 2010 and her second Weil Hall recital on December 2013 with the international Cuban guitarist Rene Izquierdo.

    Galhano studied in Brazil at Faculdade Santa Marcelina, the Royal Conservatory (The Hague), and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, earning a LASPAU, Fulbright Scholarship and support from the Dutch government. As an advocate of recorder music and educational initiatives, she served for six years on the national board of the American Recorder Society, and is the Music Director of the Recorder Orchestra of the Midwest. Ms. Galhano recently received the prestigious 2013 McKnight fellowship award, MSAB Cultural collaborative and MSAB Arts Initiative.

    Currently, she is a faculty member at Macalester College, Music Director of the Recorder Orchestra of the Midwest, and has being recently appointed Adjunct Lecturer in Music, Recorder at HPI, Jacobs School of Music, IU.

    Ms. Galhano has recordings available on Dorian, Ten Thousand Lakes and Eldorado label and she is the recipient of the National Arts Associate of Sigma Alpha Iota.

Rita Lilly

voice

  • Rita Lilly is familiar to audiences in oratorio, recital, and opera, but most notably for her performances of baroque and early music. Ms. Lilly is a native New Yorker who has appeared as a featured soloist with the American Boychoir, American Classical Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, among other organizations. Since coming to the Bay Area, Ms. Lilly has been a soloist with the Albany Consort, American Bach Soloists, AVE, Bay Choral Guild, Berkeley Early Music Festival, California Bach Society, Chora Nova, Magnificat Baroque Ensemble, Musicsources, S.F. Concert Chorale, S.F. Renaissance Voices, and other groups. Ms. Lilly is on the faculty of the SFEMS Baroque Summer Workshop as voice instructor and maintains an active vocal studio in her home in the Bay Area. Ms. Lilly is on the faculty as Choral Director at Mills College, served for five years as Music Director at St. Jerome Catholic Church in El Cerrito and is presently the Music Director of the Lafayette Christian Church in Lafayette, CA. Ms. Lilly is the vocal instructor and coach for the SFEMS Baroque Summer Workshop and Marin Baroque Workshop and maintains an active vocal studio in her home.

Anna Marsh

bassoon

  • Anna Marsh, baroque bassoon and recorder is a multi-instrumentalist fluent in Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and Modern styles. Originally from Tacoma, WA, Anna holds a doctorate of music in historical performance from Indiana University and has appeared worldwide with Opera Lafayette, Tempesta di Mare, Folger Consort, Musica Angelica, Tafelmusik, Washington Bach Consort and Atlanta Baroque among others. She has taught privately & at festivals at the Eastman School of Music, Los Angeles Music and Art School, Amherst Early Music, San Francisco Early Music Society & Western Double Reed Workshops. She also has been heard on dozens of recordings & on Performance Today, Harmonia, CBC radio & recorded for Chandos, Analekta, Centaur, Naxos, the Super Bowl, Avie, and Musica Omnia's Grammy nominated album, Handel's Israel in Egypt. www.annamarshmusic.com

    “I am excited to return to the SFEMS Baroque Workshop again for the people and merry music making! The friendships we make at the workshop are so dear. It has been a pleasure to be part of the baroque workshop team since 2011. “

Lars Johannesson

traverso

  • Lars Johannesson was born in a Swedish family and has lived in Liberia, Sweden, Holland and the San Francisco Bay Area. Lars studied music and flute playing at San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Tim Day. Here he was introduced to the baroque flute and performance practice by Stephen Schultz. Deciding to continue on this track, Lars spent the next two years studying baroque flute with Wilbert Hazelzet at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague in Holland.

    Upon returning to California, Lars settled in Santa Cruz where he has worked as a flutist and teacher over the last 30 years. Lars performs regularly with the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, Ensemble Monterey Chamber Orchestra, Santa Cruz Chamber Players, and New Music Works. As a baroque flutist, he currently plays with Carmel Bach Festival, California Bach Society, Musica Angelica, San Francisco Bach Choir, Bach Collegium San Diego, and various other period instrument groups.

    Having an interest in other musical genres, Lars has recorded for many folk music releases on the Gourd Music label, as well as for a number of other SF Bay Area artists. He can be found at the occasional 'seisun' jamming with the Santa Cruz Irish music crowd.

    “Telemann was great for flute players, not only in providing much well written music for the instrument, but also for publishing lessons in his period's performance practice of improvisation over simple melodies. I'm greatly looking forward to sharing this and exploring the repertoire with the students.”

Peter Sykes

harpsichord, continuo

  • Peter Sykes is Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Historical Performance Department at Boston University, where he teaches organ, harpsichord, clavichord, performance practice, and continuo realization, Music Director of First Church in Cambridge, and instructor of harpsichord in the Historical Performance Department of the Juilliard School in New York City. He performs extensively on the harpsichord, clavichord, and organ, including recent appearances in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Sao Paulo, and Leipzig, and has made ten solo recordings of organ repertoire including his acclaimed organ transcription of Holst’s “The Planets.” Newly released is a recording of the complete Bach harpsichord partitas on the Centaur label, and an all-Bach clavichord recording on the Raven label; soon to be released will be the complete Bach obbligato violin sonatas with Daniel Stepner. He also performs and records with Boston Baroque and Aston Magna. A founding board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society, he is the recipient of the Chadwick Medal (1978) and Outstanding Alumni Award (2005) from the New England Conservatory, the Erwin Bodky Prize (1993) from the Cambridge Society for Early Music, and the Distinguished Artist Award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation (2011). He is the newly elected President of the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies.

David Wilson

violin, viola

  • An avid chamber musician, David Wilson is a member of the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, Heartland Baroque, the Galax Quartet, and other ensembles. In recent years he has performed and recorded classical music of India and the Ottoman Empire with Lux Musica, contemporary music with Wyoming Baroque and the Galax Quartet, and 17th century chamber music with Heartland Baroque. He has taught baroque violin at Indiana University, where he earned the Doctor of Music degree in Early Music, and he holds degrees in violin from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. His interests outside of music include cosmology, zymurgy, and science fiction (and he would love to discover a science fiction novel about a homebrewing cosmologist). He is the author of Georg Muffat on Performance Practice, published by Indiana University Press, and of the article on Georg Muffat in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Historical Performance in Music.

    “I always look forward to the SFEMS Baroque Workshop. I’m inspired by the way the participants are supported by each other and by the faculty, and I think the near-unique quality of being open to players of all levels gives Baroque Workshop a wonderful energy. It’s an exciting week of honing old skills and developing new ones, and as a faculty member I feel I benefit from the process as much as the participants.”