Programme 11 November 2011

Musica Donum Dei perform music from Monteverdi to Mozart, and are known for their unusual and accessible programmes. They often use readings, dramatisations and visual images alongside the music to evoke the spirit of the age in lively and imaginative ways.

Diane Terry (baroque violin, baroque viola and viola d'amore; orchestral manager)
A music graduate of Nottingham University, Diane Terry studied the baroque violin with Simon Standage at the Royal Academy of Music. She records and plays regularly with leading period instrumental ensembles including Collegium Musicum 90, the St James Baroque Players, the Academy of Ancient Music and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She is principal violinist of the Baker Collection, Midland Baroque and Hertfordshire Classical Orchestra. She is Visiting Lecturer in baroque violin and viola studies at Birmingham Conservatoire.

Wendy Hancock (baroque flute, recorders; artistic director)
Wendy Hancock is a music graduate of Exeter University, who gained an MA in the Interpretation and Editing of Renaissance and Baroque Music at Nottingham University, and continued her research into 17th-century English music for an M.Phil. For ten years she was editor of Chelys, the journal of the Viola da Gamba Society. In Nottingham she founded the Holme Pierrepont Opera Trust for the performance of Baroque opera on period instruments. She now performs widely, writes and edits, and also teaches part-time for Nottingham University, and on the International Recorder Summer School at Mechelen. She has recently recorded two CDs of Elizabethan music for The Gift of Music label (playing Renaissance flute, recorder and treble viol), and two with Musica Donum Dei (playing recorder, tenor viol and Baroque flute): Ring a Ring A Roses, and For the Love of Shakespeare. She also plays with the trio Galliarda. Wendy plays recorders by Anthony Arnold

Michael Sanderson (baritone voice and baroque violin)
Michael Sanderson graduated in music from Nottingham University in 1986. After three years singing as a lay-clerk at St. George’s Chapel Windsor, he sang as a soloist with the baroque opera company Opera Restor’d. He performed with the company at the Edinburgh, Leeds and Utrecht Early Music Festivals, and recorded the CD of Lampe’s opera Pyramus and Thisbe. Michael now performs with several chamber groups specialising in the early music repertoire, which include Musica Donum Dei and Cafe Mozart. Michael has recorded as a soloist on CD with both these groups, and also with the baroque guitarist Ian Gammie. He combines his singing career with the part-time post of Head of Student Music at Brunel University. His series of song recitals there have included German Lieder as well as programmes of French, American and English song. Next year will be the 25^th anniversary of the formation of his folk-rock ceilidh band “The Dusty Bees”, whose performances now number over 600.

Michael Overbury (harpsichord and organ)
Michael Overbury won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he read music. Since graduating he has been Assistant Organist at New College, Oxford, and Deputy Organist and Choirmaster at the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Albans. After winning first prize in the 1982 Manchester International Organ Competition he has appeared twice as soloist at the Royal Festival Hall, London, and has continued to play with numerous choirs and orchestras, including Sinfonia Viva, Orchestra of St John's, Smith Square and Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra, and has featured on several recordings including three solo discs. He is Director of Music at Worksop Priory, Nottinghamshire, and the Director of Music of the Nottingham Boys Choir.

Julia Black (early violin, viola, viola d'amore) was born in Amersham and studied violin/baroque violin at the Royal College of Music with Maria Lidka, Kenneth Piper, John Ludlow and Catherine Mackintosh. Subsequently she moved to the Koninklijke Conservatorium in The Hague to continue her historical performance practice studies on early strings with Lucy van Dael, Sigiswald Kuijken and others. She has performed, broadcast and made recordings with a variety of ensembles here and all over Europe including the Gabrieli Consort and Players, Collegium Musicum 90, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Early Opera Company, The Hanover Band, La Nuova Musica, Florilegium, Irish Baroque Orchestra and Fiori Musicali Bremen. She is a principal player for MDD, Ensemble Serse and other small chamber music ensembles, and regularly performs as soloist on violin, viola and viola da more. Now living in Biggleswade, she combines performing with family life, teaching and community music work and is known locally as a performer on modern violin/viola, piano and double bass. She gives masterclasses and lecture recitals on various subjects ranging from historically-informed performance practice to the electric violin - her latest project is a show illustrating the curious history of stringed instruments and the performers thereof. In her spare time she can be found on the allotment or making wine.