The Farallon Recorder Quartet gives inspiring performances of a vast and va… Read Full Bio ↴The Farallon Recorder Quartet gives inspiring performances of a vast and varied repertoire extending across time and genre. Bach and Gershwin, Ockeghem and Serock. Farallon's debut CD, a collection of sacred and secular works by the 16th century composer Ludwig Senfl, was released in 2005. The Farallon Recorder Quartet performs on numerous types of recorder from Medieval to modern, from sopranino to contrabass, from 6 inches to 6 feet tall. While devoting much of their concert programs to Renaissance and Baroque music, Farallon Recorder Quartet is also active in performing 20th and 21st century music, both well established works, and newly composed pieces, some of which have been written for the ensemble.

Members of Farallon: Letitia Berlin, Louise Carslake, Annette Bauer, Frances Blaker.

ANNETTE BAUER, a native of Germany, studied medieval and renaissance music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, specializing on recorder techniques with Conrad Steinmann (2001). She holds an MA in music from UC Santa Cruz (2004), and has been a student at the Ali Akbar College of Music in California since 1998, where she studies North Indian classical music on sarode, a stringed instrument. As a recorder player, Annette regularly performs with Istanpitta medieval music ensemble, and has appeared at the Santa Cruz Baroque and the Carmel Bach Festivals, as well as with Texas Early Music Project, Chamber Music San Francisco, the Catacoustic Consort, and the California Bach Society. She has served on the recorder faculty for several of the San Francisco Early Music Society summer workshops, as well as for the Texas Fall Toot, and the San Francisco Orff Certification Course. Annette currently also teaches music at a K-8 school in Oakland, CA, and regularly conducts recorder workshops and classes in medieval notation in the San Francisco Bay Area. She plays Brazilian percussion with Bateria Lucha, and is the co-founder of Magic Carpet, a duo dedicated to the art of improvisation.

LETITIA BERLIN teaches privately and at workshops around the country, including the Amherst Early Music Festival, the Oregon Coast Recorder Society Winds and Waves workshop, and the Port Townsend early music workshop. She directs the Hidden Valley Early Music Elderhostel (Carmel Valley, CA) and is the Director of the San Francisco Early Music Society' Music Discovery Workshop for children. Tish performs with the Farallon Recorder Quartet, the recorder duo Tibia, and Wild Rose, an ensemble dedicated to the performance of early classical and folk music. She has performed with the San Francisco Symphony, the Carmel Bach Festival and the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. Recordings include Motets, Lieder, and Instrumental Works of Ludwig Senfl with the Farallon Recorder Quartet, and Ladino love songs with Yatan Atan on the New Albion label. Tish was awarded the Recorder Residency at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in 2003 and 2006. She received a master's degree in early music performance practices from Case Western Reserve University and a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has studied recorder with Marion Verbruggen, Paul Leenhouts, Frances Blaker, and Sabine Evers. She currently serves as the President of the American Recorder Society.

FRANCES BLAKER received her Music Pedagogical and Performance degrees in recorder from the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen where she studied with Eva Legêne. She also studied with Marion Verbruggen in the Netherlands. Frances has performed as a soloist and with various ensembles in the United States, Denmark, England and the Netherlands. She is a member of Farallon Recorder Quartet and the Tibia Recorder Duo and of Ensemble Vermillian. She teaches privately and at workshops throughout the United States and is an assistant director of the Amherst Early Music Festival, Inc. and a recent board member of the American Recorder Society. Frances is the author of The Recorder Player's Companion and the "Opening Measures" column in the American Recorder, and a collaborator and performer on the Disc Continuo series of recordings. She was awarded month-long residencies focusing on music composition at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Otis, Oregon in April 2003 and 2006. Her compositions have been published by PRB Productions and Lost in Time Press.
She has recorded works by Ludwig Senfl with the Farallon Recorder Quartet, and two CDs of 17th century German chamber music centering around Buxtehude with Ensemble Vermillian – volume I: Stolen Jewels, and volume 2: Saphire and Topaz.

LOUISE CARSLAKE has performed throughout her native country of Great Britain, as well as in Holland, Ireland, Poland, New Zealand and the U.S.A. She has recorded for Meridian Records, London, Intrada and Centaur and can be heard on the second DiscContinuo recording. Her festival appearances include the Lufthansa Baroque Festival, York Early Music Festival, Berkeley Festival, Monadnock Festival, Krakow Festival and the Kilkenny Festival. She is a member of Music’s Recreation and also plays with Magnificat. In addition to her performing activities, Louise teaches on the faculty at Mills College, and was the assistant director of the San Francisco Early Music Society Medieval and Renaissance workshop from 2002-2008. A graduate of Trinity College of Music, London, Louise also studied baroque flute with Wilbert Hazelzet in the Netherlands, and performance practice with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.

For more info on the Farallon Recorder Quartet, please see their official web site at http://www.farallonrecorderquartet.com.