Mockingbird Early Music Ensemble

Learn more about the recorder at:  www.americanrecorder.org

Learn more about the viola da gamba at:  www.vdgsa.org

Learn about the vibrant world of early music at: Early Music America

Biosketches

The core group members are Irene Kaufmann, Susan Marchant,  Warren Steel, and Ronald Vernon.  Guest artists participate occasionally.

Irene Kaufmann, a native of Uruguay, South America, played flute with the National Uruguayan Symphony from 1990 to 2001.  She was also a member of the Grupo Barroco and the Orquesta Barroca de Montevideo.  Ms. Kaufmann has studied with Prof. Raul Botella, Ricardo Kanji and Steven Rosenberg.  She graduated Suma Cum Laude from the University of Mississippi (MM) and has a Masters of Music from the University of Texas at Austin.

Susan Marchant  majored in music education at the University of New Hampshire and has studied recorder with Frans Brueggen, Frances Blaker, and Han Tol and viola da gamba with Martha Bishop, Alison Crum, John Mark Rozendaal and Brent Wissick.  She has performed early music at numerous festivals, concert series, and on radio and television with the Harwood Ensemble in Chicago, IL and PanHarmonium in Birmingham, AL.  

Warren Steel is retired Professor of music at the University of Mississippi, where he taught music history, organ, and harpsichord.  He was co-director of the Mississippi Early Music Ensemble, which he founded in 1983 as a chamber ensemble.  He holds degrees from Harvard and Michigan; he studied organ with John Fesperman and harpsichord with James Weaver and Edward Parmentier.  His books and other writings document early American psalmody and its survival in the Sacred Harp singing tradition.

Ronald Vernon is retired associate dean, College of Liberal Arts, and professor of music at the University of Mississippi.  He conducted the Lafayette-Oxford-University Orchestra and has performed as singer and instrumentalist with the Mississippi Early Music Ensemble.  From 1986 to 1996 he served as chair of the Department of Music.  His Bachelor of Music degree is from Louisiana Tech University, and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree is from The University of Texas.  He is Music Director of the Germantown (TN) Symphony Orchestra.  He has studied recorder with Frances Blaker and Marion Verbruggen and medieval music performance practice with Robert Mealy.