Watch the webcast! This event will be streamed live at the time of the event.

A conservatory faculty recital performed by Catharina Meints, viola da gamba and Mark Edwards, harpsichord.

Music for Viola da Gamba

Georg Phillip Telemann (1681-1767)

Assisted by Charles Reed and Alex Baker, viola da gamba

Fantasie No. 9 in C Major

Presto

Grave

Allegro

Sonata in A Minor

Largo

Allegro

Soave

Allegro

Fantasie No. 6 in G Major

Scherzando

Dolce

Spirituoso

Sonata in E Minor

Cantabile

Allegro

Recitativo – Arioso

Vivace

-----

During her distinguished career as a performer, Catharina Meints has played and recorded on five instruments, including bass and treble viols, modern and baroque cello, and pardessus de viole. After completing a cello performance degree at the Eastman School of Music, she became assistant principal with the Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, she met her future husband and collaborator, oboist and viol enthusiast James Caldwell. It was the beginning of a 40-year partnership during which Meints and Caldwell became leaders in a revival of the viol. They spent their first summers in Europe studying the instrument together with August Wenzinger, the Swiss virtuoso and viola da gamba pioneer.

In 1971, they moved to northern Ohio where Caldwell was appointed professor of oboe at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and Meints joined the Cleveland Orchestra. That year, they also established the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute to help build a new generation of players, now approaching its 45th summer.

Meints’ career on early instruments has included playing bass viol in the Oberlin Baroque Ensemble and with the Cleveland Baroque Soloists. As their collection of antique viols grew, Caldwell and Meints formed and recorded with the Oberlin Consort of Viols in which she plays treble viol exclusively.

Meints retired from a 35-year career with the Cleveland Orchestra in 2006. She continues teaching as associate professor of viola da gamba, Baroque cello, and cello at Oberlin Conservatory, and now plays frequently with Apollo’s Fire as well as in solo and chamber music concerts. In 2012, she authored a book, The Caldwell Collection of Viols: A Life Together in the Pursuit of Beauty, a catalogue and memoir of the large and important collection of antique viols that she and Caldwell collected during their lives together.

---

First-prize winner at the 2012 Musica Antique Bruges International Harpsichord Competition, Mark Edwards has presented solo recitals at numerous major festivals and series, among them the Utrecht Early Music Festival, Bozar, and the Montreal Baroque Festival and Clavecin en concert. He has performed concertos with prominent ensembles including Il Gardellino, Neobarock, and Ensemble Caprice, and he has played chamber music with Il Pomo d’Oro, Les Boréades de Montréal, and Flûtes Alors! His debut solo CD, Orpheus Descending, is due for release in 2016.

“Mark Edwards brings the listener to new and unpredictable regions, using all the resources of his instrument...of his virtuosity and of his imagination,” La Libre Belgique wrote in 2012.

A native of Canada, Edwards earned a bachelor of music with highest distinction from the Eastman School of Music, followed by graduate degrees from McGill University and the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. He is a PhD candidate at Leiden University and the Orpheus Instituut, Ghent, where his studies focus on the intersection of memory, improvisation, and the concept of musical work. His teachers have included Robert Hill, William Porter, Hank Knox, and David Higgs.