Texas Toot - Texas Toot

Stephanie Noori

Stephanie Raby Noori was first inspired by authentic historical performance as a girl living in England. During her undergrad years at the University of North Texas, she was presented with the unique opportunity to study the field, and it was there that she learned about the viola da gamba.

Her studies as a baroque violinist with Cynthia Roberts and as gambist with Patricia Nordstrom and Allen Whear had such an impact that she went on to complete a Master’s in Early Music at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Throughout her time there she was privileged to study with Stanley Ritchie (violin) and Wendy Gillespie (viol), among others.

Currently Ms. Noori is an active violinist, violist, and gamba player performing with such groups as Mountainside Baroque, La Follia Austin Baroque, Texas Early Music Project, and Queen City Musicians, as well as a founding member of Les Touches Viol Consort.

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Susan Richter

Administrator

In the early music world, Susan Richter’s primary instruments are recorders and Renaissance double reeds: shawms and dulcians. Susan also enjoys singing in various church and early music groups. She has been a performing member of Texas Early Music Project (TEMP), St. David’s (Episcopal Church, Austin) Compline Choir, and the Austin Baroque Orchestra, and teaches adult beginning recorder at Austin’s Lifetime Learning Institute.

Susan is on the board of TEMP, was a Board member of the ARS 2008-2012, is a music leader at Central Presbyterian Church in Austin, and is Administrator of the Texas Toot early music workshops. She enjoys tending her wild Hill Country yard, feeding and watching birds, and occasionally playing penny whistle duets with her husband, Win Bent. Susan is now happily retired from gainful IT employment.

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Glen Shannon

Recorder

Glen Shannon is a composer and recorder enthusiast living in El Cerrito, CA where he is a member of the East Bay (CA) Recorder Society and Co-Director of the Barbary Coast Recorder Orchestra. His compositions have won prizes in contests since 1997, sponsored by the Chicago and Washington, DC Recorder Societies, and the ARS/Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet. Tom Beets and Joris Van Goethem of the former Flanders Recorder Quartet have commissioned works from him, most recently the Bass-Contrabass duet “Slingshot” featured on their award-winning first CD as the duo FR2.

Glen publishes his music under his own name at www.glenshannonmusic.com, and has also had works published by Moeck Verlag, PRB Productions, Loux Music Publishing Company, Peacock Press, the ARS, and the European recorder magazines Recorder in the UK, Windkanal in Germany, and Blokfluitist in the Netherlands. Performances of some of his works can be found on YouTube at www.youtube.com/@glenshannon.

Glen is active in the American Recorder Society as editor of the quarterly Members’ Library Editions, a series introducing new recorder music to the worldwide membership, and is the editor and producer of the annual ARS Play-the-Recorder-Month piece that appears with the Winter edition of the American Recorder magazine. In October 2021 Glen received the ARS Presidential Special Honor Award, recognizing a person who has had a significant positive impact on the recorder community in North America.

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Frank Shirley

Recorder

Dr. Frank Shirley holds a Master of Music degree in musicology from the University of Texas, where as a Ph.D. in mathematics he teaches courses in math for non-math majors. He has performed in early music ensembles in Ithaca NY, Dallas, and Austin, and has taught for several years at the Fall and Summer Toots. He has studied recorder in workshops with Saskia Coolen, Reine-Marie Verhagen, and Aldo Abreu. In addition, Dr. Shirley has performed as a bass chorister in the UT Early Music Ensemble, the Austin Civic Chorus, the Victoria Bach Festival, and the Dallas area Renaissance Polyphony Weekend.

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Mary Springfels

Viol

For most of her adult life, Mary Springfels had devoted herself to the performance and teaching of early music repertoires. She earned her stripes performing with many influential pioneering ensembles, including the New York Pro Musica, the Elizabethan Enterprise, concert Royal, and the Waverly consort.

For 20 years she directed the innovative Newberry Consort, and can be heard on dozens of recordings. In 2006, Mary moved to the mountains of New Mexico, where she is active in the formation of an intentional community called the Wit’s End Coop. She continues to teach and perform extensively. Most recently, she has taught at the San Francisco Early Music Society, The Viola da Gamba Society of America, Amherst Early Music, and the Pinewoods Early Music Week.

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Jenifer Thyssen

Voice

After studying voice with Ms. Gilda Cruz-Romo at the University of Texas in Austin, Jenifer Thyssen has turned her focus to early music, continuing her vocal study with Ms. Sylvia Gallo of Austin and stylistic coaching with Mr. Daniel Johnson, director and founder of Texas Early Music Project (TEMP). Jenifer has had the privilege of studying under such notables as Julianne Baird, Jennifer Lane, Howard Crook, and Drew Minter, leading to her particular interest and specialization in music of the Baroque period.

Jenifer was honored with an award for Best Female Classical Singer by the Austin American-Statesman’s Austin Critics Table Awards 2003. Her popularity among concert-goers has afforded her a considerable reputation for thrilling and beautiful performances, earning her many opportunities to perform throughout Texas.

Jenifer has had the privilege of singing with some of the top early-music performers in the nation: Laurie Young-Stevens, violin, Saskia Coolen and Frances Blaker, recorder, Tom Zajac, multi-instrumentalist and Stanley Ritchie, violin. Jenifer also had the privilege of performing the Texas debut of the recently “rediscovered” Handel Gloria with Laurie-Young Stevens, concertmistress, who performed in the world debut of the piece.

You may hear her on The Bonny Broom and Other Scottish Ballads, Texas Early Music Project’s first recording, and various other concert recordings of TEMP productions. Jenifer resides in Austin, TX.

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Héctor Torres

Lute/theorbo

As an active early music performer, Héctor Alfonso Torres González regularly plays baroque guitar, theorbo, lute, and other period plucked instruments with chamber groups across the U.S., including the Texas Early Music Project, Austin Baroque Orchestra, Lumedia Musicworks, Orchestra of New Spain, La Follia Austin Baroque, Ensemble Fantasmi, and others.

Recently, he finished his Doctorate in Musical Arts in classical guitar performance with a related field in Early Music at the University of North Texas. While at UNT, he served as Teaching Fellow of classical guitar and Teaching Assistant for the UNT Baroque Orchestra, and was a frequent soloist playing works like Antonio Vivaldi’s Lute Concerto in D major RV 93. He was selected as one of Early Music America’s 2021 Emerging Artists.

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Brent Wissick

Viol

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 early music performing groups throughout the US and internationally. He has recorded for the Centaur, Albany, Koch, Radio Bremen, Bard and Dux labels as well as in the soundtrack for the Touchstone film “Casanova”. He served as president of the Viola da Gamba Society of America from 2000 through 2004 and chaired its international Pan-Pacific Gamba Gathering in Hawaii during the summer of 2007.

Wissick’s 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.

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Who We Are

WhoWeAre

The Texas Toot is a Texas-based non-profit devoted to early music education and performance, presenting two workshops each year. The Fall Texas Toot is a short weekend workshop with instruction in recorders, viols, early reeds, harp, lute, voice, and more. The Summer Texas Toot offers a one-week program of classes at all levels, focusing on Renaissance and Baroque music, but with offerings for Medieval and 21st century enthusiasts as well. Expert instructors in recorder, viol, early reeds, lute, harp, and voice will tend to young professionals, seasoned amateurs, and eager beginners with equal care.

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Author name: Texas Toot