Fall 2024 - Texas Toot

Frances Blaker

Frances Blaker performs on recorders of all types and sizes with the Farallon Recorder Quartet and Tibia Recorder Duo. As a member of Ensemble Vermillian she explores, transcribes and performs chamber music of the 17th and 18th centuries. She has performed as soloist with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Vita Nova, and numerous other groups in the US, Denmark, England, France, Italy and the Netherlands.

Frances is conductor and music director of BABO (Bay Area Baroque Orchestra), a community orchestra for accomplished amateur players. As co-director of Tibia Adventures in Music, she organizes workshops for small groups of adult students in the US and abroad. She teaches private recorder lessons both in person and long distance via Skype and is a sought after instructor at workshops all around the US.

Ms. Blaker is the author of The Recorder Player’s Companion and the “Opening Measures” column in the American Recorder magazine, and a collaborator and performer on the Disc Continuo series of play-along recordings.

Her compositions have been published by PRB Productions and Lost in Time Press. Ms. Blaker can be heard on Ensemble Vermillian’s two-volume survey of German 17th century chamber music centering around Buxtehude’s opus 1, Stolen Jewels and Buried Treasure. The Farallon Recorder Quartet’s recordings include the works of Ludwig Senfl and newly released recording of music from England, From Albion’s Shores.

Jennifer Carpenter

Recorder

Recorder player and music historian Jennifer Carpenter’s love for early music and recorders began while earning her Bachelor of Music in clarinet performance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her pursuit of early music studies brought her to study at the University of North Texas where she received a Master of Music degree in musicology with an emphasis in early music performance and is ABD (all but dissertation) for her PhD in the same field from UNT.

As a recorder player, Jennifer performs regularly as a soloist in early music ensembles and baroque orchestras in both Texas and Colorado. She is a member of Parish House Baroque, Colorado Springs’ early music ensemble, and Vientos y Cuerdas, her Spanish-music-based chamber group with viola da gamba and historical plucked instruments. She frequently collaborates with other musicians along the Front Range to create dynamic concerts featuring both early and modern repertoire for her instrument.

Jennifer enjoys teaching as much as performing. In addition to teaching private lessons and coaching ensembles, both virtually and in person, Jennifer has been on the faculty of early music workshops all over the country. Her enthusiasm for working with amateur recorder players led her to serve on the Board of Directors of the American Recorder Society, whom she now serves as their Marketing Director. She was the music director of the Dallas Recorder Society from 2009-2014 and is the current music director of the Denver Recorder Society. She continues to mentor and coach ARS chapters across the country. Happily a resident of Colorado Springs, CO, she is enjoying being a part of the early music scene on the Front Range.

Carol Deihl

Viol

Carol Deihl discovered the viol at the Fall Toot’s beginning viol class many years ago, and was immediately smitten. She was a founding member of the Dallas Consort of Viols and the piano player for Martha’s Maggot English Country Dance Band before moving to the rather remote mountains of Ouray, Colorado with her reclusive husband and fellow viol player Kim Shrier.

Carol develops software to support her music habit. Carol also plays recorder, keyboards, and various other instruments, has an unused degree in physics, and thinks that most of the good music was composed before 1750.

Therese Honey

Harp

Therese Honey has been performing, studying, researching and teaching harp in the Houston area since 1968. She performs early music with the Texas Early Music Project and La Follia Austin Baroque and more, and performs Celtic music at the North Texas Irish Festival, Milwaukee Irish Festival, and more, in addition to nationally broadcast PBS Christmas Specials.

She has presented concerts and workshops throughout the United States and Canada. Ms. Honey has published several books of arrangements of Celtic and Early Music for Celtic harp, and has recorded 4 solo CDs.

Danny Johnson

Director, Voice

Award-winning director, international performer, and recording artist Daniel Johnson has been the artistic director of the Texas Early Music Project since its inception in 1987. Johnson has performed and toured both as a soloist and ensemble member in such groups as the New York Ensemble for Early Music, Sotto Voce (San Francisco), and Musa Iberica. He can be heard on various recordings for Koch International, Foné Records (Rome), Amherst Festival Productions, and the Texas Early Music Project label.

Johnson was the director of the UT Early Music Ensemble, one of the largest and most active in the U.S., from 1986-2003. In 1998, he was awarded Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award for university ensemble directors. He is also the recipient of the 1997 Quattelbaum Award at the College of Charleston. Johnson teaches master classes in performance practice and also serves on the faculty, staff, and the Executive Advisory Board of the Amherst Early Music Festival. He has been on the faculty of the Texas Toot since 1994.

Stephanie Noori

Viol

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.

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.

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.

Héctor Torres

Lute/theorbo

Dr. Héctor Alfonso Torres González was born in Puerto Rico, where he started his guitar studies at the Preparatory School of the Puerto Rico Music Conservatory. He worked on his bachelor’s degree at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus; his master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; and his doctorate in musical arts degree with a specialization in early music at the University of North Texas.

Héctor has concertized and taught throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, South America, Europe, and China, both as a soloist and ensemble musician. Distinguished by his versatility and sound, he frequently performs many styles of music, including early music, Latin music, and modern classical. As an early music performer, he regularly plays baroque guitar, theorbo, lute, and other period plucked instruments with different chamber groups and orchestras across the U.S, including the Texas Early Music Project, Austin Baroque Orchestra & Chorus, Ars Lyrica Houston, Lumedia Musicworks, La Follia, Mercury Chamber Orchestra, Fantasmi, Camerata del Sol, Red River Lyric Opera, Orchestra of New Spain, and his newly founded group Bambulaé Barrocá.

Currently Dr. Torres-González serves as an Associate Professor of Music at Tarrant County College – Trinity River Campus located in downtown Fort Worth, Texas.