This preview has been provided by the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild.
The Magnolia Baroque Festival is a biannual celebration of some of the most beloved music of all time. The festival, which takes place in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is a unique opportunity to experience a remarkable series of concerts by gifted musicians from all over the world. The power and beauty of the music, combined with the world-class talent of the performers, sets this festival apart. Not just for Baroque aficionados, the Magnolia Baroque Festival will charm, move, amaze, and even at times amuse, its audience.
Tenor Glenn Siebert has appeared with many of the world’s most acclaimed orchestras, opera companies and festivals including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Flanders Philharmonic, Hamburgische Staatsoper, San Francisco, Washington, Santa Fe operas and Ravinia, Blossom, Tangelwood Oviedo festivals.
His interest in baroque music has led to performance with such original instrument ensembles as Philharmonia Baroque, Boston Baroque, Chicago’s Music of the Baroque and Anima Eterna in Brussels. Mr. Siebert’s recordings include Mendelssohn’s Paulus with the Royal Scottish Orchestra, Schubert’s Mass in E flat with the Atlanta Symphony and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with Anima Eterna.
He is a graduate of Indiana University and has been on the faculty of North Carolina School of the Arts since 1991.
Timothy Olsen teaches a joint studio of high school, undergraduate and graduate organ majors as the Kenan Professor of Organ at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and Associate Professor of Organ at Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC. He is also the organist at First Baptist Church in Winston-Salem.
Dr. Olsen frequently presents masterclasses and workshops for universities, churches, and chapters of the American Guild of Organists. He was a featured recitalist and presenter at both the 2011 Region IV AGO Convention in Greensboro, NC, and the 2011 Region VII AGO Convention in Oklahoma City, OK, as well as at the 2009 Region VII AGO Convention in Albuquerque, NM. Upcoming recitals include performances at Furman University (Greenville, SC), Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, WA), and First Congregational Church of Columbus, OH (organ duo program) among others.
Dr. Olsen has performed solo organ recitals at venues in 23 states including Slee Hall (University of Buffalo, NY), Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (Portland, OR), Christ Church Cathedral (Lexington, KY), Broadway Baptist Church (Fort Worth, TX), Pasadena Presbyterian Church, and St. Thomas Church (New York, NY) among many others. Dr. Olsen has been featured as soloist with orchestras, and performs collaboratively in organ/trumpet recitals with UNCSA artist-faculty colleague, Judith Saxton; organ duo recitals with Nicole Keller; and as organist for major choral works including Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem and Messe “Cum Jubilo,” and Théodore Dubois’s The Seven Last Words of Christ.
Dr. Olsen is the first-prize winner of the 2002 National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance sponsored by the American Guild of Organists. He has recorded a compact disc on the NAXOS label, and has been featured multiple times on Minnesota Public Radio’s Pipedreams.
A native of Frost, Minnesota, Dr. Olsen began his study of the organ at the age of 13 with Sandra Krumholz of Fairmont, MN, and went on to further study with Peter Nygaard at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree in 1997. Dr. Olsen continued his study as a student of David Higgs at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music Degrees in Organ Performance and Literature as well as a Master of Arts Degree in Music Theory Pedagogy. During his tenure at the Eastman School of Music, Dr. Olsen served as Professor Higgs’s teaching assistant, a teaching assistant in the theory department, and as a faculty member of the Eastman Community Education Division. He was for four years the Wanda L. Bass Chair of Organ at Oklahoma City University, and also has served on the faculty of Ithaca College, and as sabbatical replacement at Binghamton University and Cornell University.
Brent Wissick is the Zachary Taylor Smith Distinguished Term Professor in the Department of Music at UNC-CH, where he has taught cello, viola da gamba and chamber music since 1982. A member of Ensemble Chanterelle and principal cellist of the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, he is also a frequent guest with American Bach Soloists, Folger Consort, Boston Early Music Festival, Concert Royal, Dallas Bach Society, Vancouver Early Music Festival and Collegio di Musica Sacra in Poland. With these ensembles has recorded for the Centaur, Albany, Koch, Radio Bremen, Bard and Dux labels as well as in the soundtrack for the Touchstone film “Casanova”. His online video article titled “The Cello Music of Bononcini” can be viewed in the peer-reviewed Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music” and several of his teaching videos are posted on the website of the Viola da Gamba Society of America. He served as president of that society from 2000 through 2004 and chaired its international Pan-Pacific Gamba Gathering in Hawaii during the summer of 2007.
In addition to teaching cello at UNC, he directs its Cello Choir, Viol Consortand Baroque Ensemble, also teaching classes in Historical Performance Practices and String Methods for Music Education Students; as well as team-teaching a First-Year Seminar in the Physics of Music with Laurie McNeil, chair of the Physics Department. He also serves as mentor of the Kenan Music Scholars and is chair of the String Area.
His current research and performance interests include the cello music of Benjamin Britten, Chopin’s Cello Music on period instruments and French Gamba Music. A graduate of the Crane School of Music at Potsdam College in NY and of Penn State (MM cello, 1978), he also studied with John Hsu at Cornell University and was an NEH Fellow at Harvard in the 1993 Beethoven Quartet Seminar. He has taught at the College of St Scholastica in Minnesota (1978-82), Chautauqua Institution and the 1997 Aston Magna Academy at Yale; and has presented lectures, master classes and recitals at schools, colleges and workshops throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Anne Timberlake has appeared across the United States performing repertoire from Bach to twenty-first-century premieres to Celtic tunes. She holds degrees in recorder performance from Oberlin Conservatory, where she studied with Alison Melville, and Indiana University, where she studied with Eva Legene and won the 2007 Early Music Institute Concerto Competition. Critics have praised her “fine technique and stylishness,” “unexpectedly rich lyricism” (Letter V), and “dazzling playing” (Chicago Classical Review).
Anne has received awards from the American Recorder Society and the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, and was awarded a Fulbright Grant to study recorder performance in Belgium. With Musik Ekklesia, Anne has recorded for the Sono Luminus label.
Anne is a founding member of the ensemble Wayward Sisters, specializing in music of the early baroque. In 2011, Wayward Sisters won Early Music America’s Naxos Recording Competition. In addition, The Newberry Consort presented Wayward Sisters as Emerging Artists during the 2010-2011 concert season.
Anne enjoys teaching as well as playing. In addition to maintaining a private studio, Anne has coached through Indiana University’s Pre-College Recorder Program, the Virginia Baroque Performance Institute, Mountain Collegium, Catacoustic Consort’s community recorder program, and for numerous American Recorder Society chapters.
