Stephen Stubbs was born in 1951 in Seattle, Washington, and has been engaged in music-making since early childhood.  Parallel interests in new and pre-romantic music led him to take a degree in composition at University, and to study the lute and harpsichord.  Further years of study in Holland and England preceded his professional début as lutenist at the Wigmore Hall, London, in 1976.  From 1980 to 2006 he lived in North Germany, and was the professor for lute and performance practices at the Hochschule für Künste, Bremen. He now lives in Seattle.

With his direction of Stefano Landi’s La Morte d’Orfeo at the 1987 Bruges festival, he began his career as opera director and simultaneously founded the ensemble Tragicomedia, which has since recorded over twenty cds and completed tours of Europe, North America, and Japan.  Stubbs has been invited to direct opera productions in most European countries, the U.S., Canada, and Scandinavia, including Monteverdi’s Orfeo at the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam in 2007. Since 1997, he has co-directed every biennial Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) opera; he was named permanent BEMF artistic co-director in 2003. The BEMF recording of Conradi’s Ariadne was nominated for a Grammy in 2006.

Stephen Stubbs created the ensemble Teatro Lirico in 1996. Their live recording of Antonio Sartorio’s Orfeo was awarded the Cini Prize for best opera recording of 1999. The group’s debut recording on the ECM label was a New York Times “pick of the year” for 2006.

Stubbs’s solo lute recordings include the music of J. S. Bach, Sylvius Leopold Weiss, David Kellner, and the Belgian lutenist Jaques St. Luc. With Baroque harpist Maxine Eilander he has recorded Sonate al Pizzico, released on ATMA in 2004. He has been with the Dowland Project since its inception on the ECM label, and played on all of the group’s recordings.

As guest conductor this season, he will lead projects with Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Solamente Naturali of Bratislava, the Holland Baroque Society, and a production of L’Incoronazione di Poppea in Seattle.

To cultivate the singers and players of the next generation, Mr. Stubbs founded  the Seattlle Academy of Baroque Opera. The summer workshop of this institute, called the Accademia d’Amore,  will hold its the tenth annual session this year, its third since relocating to Seattle.

Miloš Valent, violin, viola, attended the Academy of Music in Bratislava, studying violin under Professor Warchal. His interest in Baroque music led to joining the Baroque orchestra Musica Aeterna Bratislava, and he performed with them in many concerts, festivals, and CD recordings between 1982 and 1998, often as a featured concerto soloist. He first performed with Tragicomedia in 1993, and in 1997 became the concertmaster of the Baroque orchestra Teatro Lirico. He has also been a featured member of the ensembles Fiori Musicali (as concertmaster), Tiramisu, and Musica Florea, and has performed with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra since their Utrecht production of Cavalli’s Ercole Amante in 1999. Miloš Valent has taught Baroque violin and chamber mujsic at the Musik Hogskolan in Malmö, the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva, the Hochschule fur Künste in Bremen, and the Tynska skola in Prague. In 1995, he founded Solamente Naturali, which has released three recordings: Joseph Umstatt: Concerti, Vladimír Godár: Mater, and Tabulatura Miscellanea, a collection of seventeenth-century Slovak music.

Maxine Eilander has appeared as a continuo player and soloist with many ensembles including Teatro Lirico, Tragicomedia, Les Talens Lyriques, Tafelmusik, The Toronto Consort, Les Voix Humaines, The Sixteen, and Seattle Baroque. She has appeared around the world in productions of Monteverdi’s three.

There is an increasing list of recordings featuring her as a soloist - Handel’s harp concerto with Tafelmusik (‘A Baroque Feast’ Analekta, 2002), ‘Ay que si’ Spanish 17th century music with Les Voix Humaines (ATMA, 2002) , ‘Sonata al Pizzico’ a recording of Italian music for harp and baroque guitar with duo partner Stephen Stubbs (ATMA 2004), and ‘Teatro Lirico’ with Stephen Stubbs (ECM, 2006). Other recordings include the 2005 Grammy nominated Conradi’s ‘Ariadne’ for the Boston Early Music Festival (CPO, 2005). Maxine teaches harp at the Seattle Academy of Baroque Opera.

Maxine Eilander has appeared as a baroque harpist with many leading ensembles and festivals throughout Europe, Canada and the USA, including Tragicomedia, Teatro Lirico, Boston Early Music Festival, Tafelmusik, Les Talens Liriques. She has made many recordings, including Handel’s Harp concerto with Tafelmusik, Sonata al Pizzico (duos for harp and baroque guitar with Stephen Stubbs), and a recent recording with Teatro Lirico for ECM, which was a New York Times “pick of the year” in 2006. Maxine plays on a range of specialized early harps: the Italian arpa doppia, the Spanish cross-strung harp, the German ‘Davidsharfe’, the Welsh triple harp for which Handel wrote his harp concerto, and the classical single action pedal harp. Maxine teaches harp at the Accademia d’Amore in Seattle and is Managing Director of the Seattle Academy of Baroque Opera.

Listen to Folia Variations and Improvisations I

Read the Program and Program Notes