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Newberry Consort Member Bios
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David DouglassDavid Douglass was selected as Musician-in-Residence and Director of the Newberry Consort following Mary Springfels's retirement as Director after the 2006-07 season. In addition to his work with the Newberry Consort, David Douglass (early violins) is the founder and director of the King's Noyse, a Renaissance violin band, and frequently performs with such ensembles as the Musicians of Swanne Alley, the Harp Consort, the Parley of Instruments, the Toronto Consort, and the Folger Consort. His playing has been praised by the New York Times for its "eloquence" and "expressive virtuosity." Through his ground-breaking work in the field of the early violin he has developed a historical technique that produces "a distinctively 'Renaissance' sound and style for the violin." (Fanfare Magazine) Mr. Douglass has been Artist Faculty at the Aston Magna Academy, teaches at many summer early music institutes and workshops, and is a frequent lecturer on early violin technique and repertoire. He has recorded a number of CDs for the harmonia mundi usa, Virgin, Erato, Berlin Classics, and Auvidis/Astrée labels. Ellen HargisEllen Hargis, soprano, acclaimed "a national musical treasure" by Continuo, has a career specialty in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music, ranging from ballads to opera and oratorio. She brings her "infinitely expressive soprano" (New York Newsday) to concerts with the King's Noyse, Theatre of Voices, and the Cambridge Bach Ensemble and to recitals with lutenist Paul O'Dette. Other appearances include guest performances with such leading ensembles as the Harp Consort, Fretwork, the Newberry Consort, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Portland Baroque Orchestra, the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Teatro Lirico, Long Beach Opera, the Folger Consort, Tragicomedia, the Freiburger Baroque Orchestra, and Vox Feminae, the Sequentia women's ensemble. She has performed recently at the Adelaide Festival in Australia, the Berkeley Festival, the Utrecht Festival in Holland, the New Music America Festival, the Resonanzen Festival (Vienna), and the Boston Early Music Festival, where she sang the title role in Luigi Rossi's L'Orfeo. Recent operatic highlights include singing the title role in Sartorio's Orfeo at festivals in Bremen and Dresden, and the role of Iole in Cavalli's Ercole Amante in Utrecht. This season, Ms. Hargis will make her debut appearance with The New York Collegium under the baton of Gustav Leonhardt, and will return to join the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra to perform Haydn's Seven Last Words . Other highlights include a performance of the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 in Holland with Tragicomedia and Concerto Palatino, a recital of Mozart lieder with the Mozartean Players in Houston, a recital tour of the midwest and east coast with Paul O'Dette, and a concert of Elizabethan music in London with the Newberry Consort. A rapidly growing discography embraces repertoire from medieval to baroque. Upcoming recordings include a solo disc of Jacopo Peri with Paul O'Dette and Andrew Lawrence-King, the role of Adonis in the Harp Consort's production of Torrejon's La Purpura de la Rosa, the title role in Sartorio's Orfeo with Teatro Lirico, and Arvo Pärt's Berlin Mass with Theatre of Voices. Recent releases include the premiere recording of the Bonporti motets for soprano (Dorian Records), Rosenmüller, Le Jardin de Mélodies, and The Queen's Delight with the King's Noyse (harmonia mundi usa), Shining Light, Saints, and the Ordo Virtutem with Sequentia (BMG Classics), and Handel solo cantatas for soprano with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra (Wild Boar). Other releases include The King's Delight, Canzonetta, and Stravaganze with the King's Noyse, Exquisite Consorts and Musick's Hand-Maid with the Harp Consort, Joyne Hands: Music of Thomas Morley with the Musicians of Swanne Alley, and several recordings with the Boston Camerata, including Tristan et Iseult, winner of the Grand Prix du Disque. Ellen Hargis has recently been appointed to teach voice at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and is on the faculty of many summer courses in early music, including the Amherst Early Music Festival, the Lute Society of America Seminars, and the Vancouver Baroque Programme, for which she is also co-director. Drew MinterRegarded as one of the world's finest countertenors, Drew Minter grew up as a boy treble in the Washington Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys. He continued his education with a B.S. in Music and Languages from Indiana University and a Diploma in Lieder and Oratario from the Academy of Music in Vienna. Minter has appeared in leading roles with the opera companies of Brussels, Toulouse, Boston, Washington, Santa Fe, Wolf Trap, Glimmerglass, and Nice, among others.A recognized specialist in the works of Handel, he performed frequently at the Handel festivals of Göttingen, Halle, Karlsruhe, Maryland. He has sung with many of the world's leading baroque orchestras, including Les Arts Florissants, the Handel and Haydn Society, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Freiburger Barockorchester, and as a guest at festivals such as Tanglewood, Regensburg, BAM's Next Wave, Edinburgh, Spoleto, and Boston Early Music; other orchestra credits include the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Minter is a founding member of the Newberry Consort and sings and plays early harps regularly with My Lord Chamberlain's Consort, ARTEK, and the Folger Consort. His group TREFOIL performs music of the 14th century from original notation. Mr. Minter has made over 50 recordings on Harmonia Mundi, Decca/London, Newport Classics, Hungaroton and others. He appears in two films: as Tolomeo in Peter Sellars's Giulio Cesare, and as the Devil in In the Symphony of the World; a Portrait of Hildegard of Bingen. He writes regularly for Opera News. Drew Minter is also a lauded stage director. He began as director of the operas at the Göttingen Händel Festival for five years, directing period baroque productions. Since then he has directed productions in many styles for the Opéra de Marseilles, Caramoor, the Boston Early Music Festival, Lake George Opera, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Boston's Opera Aperta, Monadnock Music, the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes School of Music, Boston University's Opera Institute, Amherst Early Music, the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, the Five Colleges in Northampton, and Cleveland's Apollo's Fire. In addition to numerous workshops in the vocal and dramatic performance of baroque music, Mr. Minter teaches voice at Vassar College, where he also directs the Vassar Opera Workshop and conducts the Vassar Madrigal Singers. He has taught frequently at the Amherst Early Music Institute. Highlights of the past summer included recitals with Lorraine Hunt and Peter Serkin at Ravinia; a recital with string orchestra of alto cantatas at the Connecticut Early Music Festival; and the production and direction of The Marriages of Mozart, a fully staged gala evening of Minter's translations of the Mozart/Da Ponte operas at Monadnock Music with winners of the Metropolitan Opera Council auditions.
Mary SpringfelsMary Springfels (viola da gamba) has been Musician-in-Residence at the the Newberry Library since 1982 and is the founder of the Newberry Consort. A veteran of the early music movement in America, she has performed and recorded extensively with such ensembles as the New York Pro Musica, the Waverly Consort, Concert Royal, Sequentia, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, Musica Sacra, the Marlborough Festival, the New York City Opera, and Chicago Opera Theater, where she also serves as an artistic advisor. In Chicago, Ms. Springfels is a Senior Lecturer at both the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, and is much in demand as a teacher and player in summer festivals throughout the US, among them the San Francisco, Madison, and Amherst Early Music Festivals, and the Conclave of the Viola da Gamba Society of America. In 2004 she delivered the keynote address to the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition for Early Music America. She can be heard on over two dozen recordings, ten of which are critically acclaimed Newberry Consort projects, including Puzzles and Perfect Beauty: Italian Music at the End of the Middle Ages, released this year by Noyse Productions.
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