Ensemble al Verso

 

You’ll hear:

Love birds
Crazy Frogs
Children's songs
Nursery rhymes

Ensemble al Verso is a vocal trio that specializes in early and contemporary music. They perform sacred and secular music from 1200 to 1650 and compositions from the 20. and 21. century.

 

Soprano Amy Shimbo Doherty regularly performs with the Yale Collegium Musicum and the Yale Schola Cantorum as a chorus member and soloist. Highlights from this year's season include solo appearances in Handel's Laudate pueri with the Collegium Musicum and in Bach cantata BWV 93 (Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten) with the Schola Cantorum. She has also performed as a soloist with New Music New Haven, Opus 7 Vocal Ensemble in Seattle, and the Boston Cecilia. Her operatic experience includes the roles of Adonis in Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco's La púrpura de la rosa, Cupid in John Blow's Venus and Adonis, the Second Woman in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, and Nella in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi in various productions at the Amherst Early Music Festival, Yale, and Harvard.
Her teachers include Stephanie Gregory, Thomas Harper, and Marsha Vleck.

 

Ms. Shimbo received her A.B. in music from Harvard University, her M.A. in music theory from the University of Washington, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in music theory from Yale University.

 

Mezzo soprano and recorder player Anja Kollmuss is a native of Switzerland who has lived in Boston for 10 years. She performs regularly in the Boston area and Europe. She has studied early music at the Longy School of Music. She is a founding member of Heliotrope Consort, an early music trio that specializes in combining laterenaissance and baroque music with other art forms such as poetry and puppetry. In 2003, Helitrope performed an original puppet opera: "Le Mort de Monsieur Lambert." She is also a founding member Parliament of Fowles, a recorder quartett and of Quartetto Carmelo, a Swiss vocal ensemble that performs regularly since 1991. She currently studies recorders with John Tyson.

 

Anja holds a BA in Environmental Studies and Psychology from Harvard (where she met Amy in a hilarious puppet production of the Magic Flute) and an MA in Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University.

 

Matthew Wright is a native of Maryland. There, he attended the Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore, and studied classical guitar with Ray Chester and lute with Mark Cudek. Upon moving to Cambridge in 1999, Matt began concentrating on the lute, studying with Douglas Freundlich at The Longy School of Music, and subsequently receiving a MMus in Early Music. Matt is a founding member of Seven Times Salt, an early music chamber ensemble. He has performed as a solo lutenist and continuo player for various ensembles and soloists throughout the Eastern U.S. He is also former choir director of Church of the Incarnation, Cambridge, where he incorporated rare sacred works for lute and voice. To enhance the repertoire of lute and voice, Matt has arranged several works that transcend tradition. Also an accomplished electric bass player, he does freelance work in rock bands, as well as teaching the instrument. As a teacher of guitar, he currently has students at The Sparhawk School, Amesbury, and Indian Hill Music School, Littleton.