Burning River Baroque-The Other Side of the Story

Malina Rauschenfels – Voice & Baroque Violin/Cello

Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Malina Rauschenfels performs extensively as both a chamber musician and soloist, with a strong emphasis on early and very contemporary music. Praised by the Boston Musical Intelligencer as “spellbinding” and for her “powerful clarion tones and crisp articulation,” she has also been commended by Cleveland Classical for her “exceptional vocal range, strong acting abilities, gripping theatricality, and commanding gestures, both musical and physical.” Malina is co-director and a founding member of Burning River Baroque, where she sings and plays baroque cello and violin. She is also artistic director of hūmAnómali, a collaboratively structured music ensemble that incorporates “extra-musical affairs” inspired by dance, gesture, and theatricality into its historically informed performances of music from antiquity to the present.

Equally comfortable with early music and new music, she has recorded with The Newberry Consort, Duo Mignarda, Quire Cleveland, Marble Sanctuary Choir, and Toby Twining Music. She performs regularly with El Fuego, North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, and Trinity Chamber Singers. Recently awarded the Waterloo Region Contemporary Music Sessions’ “Contemporary Performance Prize” for performing two pieces for singing cellist, she will be returning to WRCMS this year as a performance mentor and guest artist. This year she was given the opportunity to perform as soprano soloist for the Mexican and US premieres of Luis Ruelas Romo’s Ja’k’áax, adapted from the Mayan poem by acclaimed Mexican writer Wildernain Villegas Carrillo. She recently sang as well for the premier of Alexis Bacon’s Three Songs from The Sheltering Sky, inspired by the Paul Bowles novel of the same name.

In Malina’s 12-year NYC incarnation, she participated in many adventures: among others, she performed a work for cellist with two bows by György Kurtág with Alarm Will Sound, debuted as a dancing violinist in an international dance festival with Jody Oberfelder Projects, and premiered her upside-down flute duet at the Bang on a Can Festival.

While completing her Master’s in Cello Performance at Juilliard, Malina performed Davidovsky’s Divertimento for Cello and Orchestra with the Juilliard Orchestra under Reinbert de Leeuw and also played a solo recital in Carnegie’s Weill Hall. She majored in Composition and Cello at Eastman School of Music. As well as performing extensively across the United States and abroad, Malina currently teaches violin, viola, cello, flute, piano and voice in her home in Cleveland Heights, and recently released her first solo CD, In D – Solo Cello Through the Ages. Further information can be found at her website, www.malinarauschenfels.com

Paula Maust – Harpsichord & Organ

Praised as “a refined and elegant performer” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), harpsichordist and organist Paula Maust performs extensively across the United

States as a soloist and chamber musician. Her diverse musical career focuses on historical performance practice and combines her distinct interests in performance, pedagogy, and scholarship. Paula is a co-director of Burning River Baroque and a founding member and co-director of Musica Spira. She is dedicated to edgy concert programming that connects baroque music to current social issues. Recent programs include “The Women Who Took the Stage,” “Suppressed Voices: Music of the Banished,” and “Shattering the Glass Ceiling: Women Who Defied the Odds.” An active chamber musician and collaborator, she has also recently performed with the Washington Bach Consort, Modern Musick, the Virginia Symphony, the Baltimore Baroque Band, and the B’More Bach Ensemble. Paula will attend the American Bach Soloists Academy this summer, and she has previously worked as an accompanist at both the Amherst Early Music Festival and the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. Recent solo engagements have been on the Baltimore Bach Marathon, the Pilgrim Church concert series, playing in masterclasses at the Flint Collection, and concerti with the Baltimore Baroque Band.

As an educator, Paula is committed to showing students the ways that the theoretical concepts learned in the classroom are directly applicable to performance and vice versa. She has been a faculty member at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County since 2016 where she teaches harpsichord, organ, music theory, keyboard skills, and music history courses. This fall, she will also be the interim director of UMBC’s Collegium Musicum, the university’s early music ensemble. In the past, Paula taught music theory courses at Towson University and was a music theory and ear training graduate assistant at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

Paula is the recipient of the Dean’s DMA fellowship at Peabody, where she is currently completing doctoral studies in harpsichord. She earned Master of Music degrees in harpsichord and organ from Peabody and the Cleveland Institute of Music, respectively. She completed her Bachelor of Music degree in church music at Valparaiso University, where she graduated summa cum laude and was an associate scholar in the interdisciplinary honors college. Her teachers have included Adam Pearl, Webb Wiggins, Todd Wilson, and Loraine Brugh. More info can be found: www.paulamaust.com

Sarah Lynn, baroque flute

Hailed by the Cleveland Classical as an upcoming artist with “musical prowess,” Sarah Lynn is a baroque flutist who devotes her time to the historical performance practice of Baroque and Renaissance music. A resident of Baltimore, Maryland, Lynn has performed with groups in the region, such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Mountainside Baroque, Peabody Consort, Baltimore Baroque Band, and Peabody Renaissance Ensemble.

Before moving to Baltimore, Lynn lived in Oberlin, Ohio, where she performed as a soloist with Apollo’s Fire; The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, The Case Western Reserve University Baroque Orchestra, The Maple City Chamber Orchestra, and The Trinity Cathedral Orchestra. Her robust musical instruction began in high school, when she became the recipient of the Young Artist Scholarship at Oberlin.

Every June, Lynn teaches at the Mountainside Baroque Academy, which provides middle and high school students with the background that will enable them to understand how and why Baroque music was originally performed, and its relevance in the 21st century. As well as playing the baroque flute, Lynn also plays baroque and renaissance recorders, the renaissance flute, and sings predominantly renaissance repertoire.

Glenna Curren, baroque cello

Cellist and baroque cellist Glenna Curren has performed across the United States and five European countries as a recitalist, orchestral musician and continuo player. A native and current resident of Rochester, NY, she has been featured with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, at the Rochester Early Music Festival, and live on Public Radio.

Glenna’s performance practice interests have taken her from the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries; currently, she explores lesser-known works of the Renaissance with her small chamber ensemble, Ogni Sorti, and is a founding member of Upstate New York’s only Classical period orchestra, Ensemble Perihipsous, currently in its first season. Other recent projects include a series of performances of early romantic works for cello and fortepiano, Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites, and extensive works of Michael Praetorius. As soprano, Glenna also performs with Rochester’s critically acclaimed performance practice vocal ensemble, the Christ Church Schola Cantorum.

A passionate teacher, Glenna maintains a large private studio and serves on the faculty of St. Peter’s Community Arts Academy. She has earned degrees in performance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Eastman School of Music.