Schola Antiqua of Chicago
Michael Alan Anderson, Artistic Director
"...[their] musicality and sound are beyond question." Karen Cook, Early Music America
"...[their] musicality and sound are beyond question." Karen Cook, Early Music America
About
Schola Antiqua of Chicago is a professional vocal ensemble dedicated to the performance of music before the year 1600. An ensemble that executes the pre-modern repertory with “sensitivity and style” (Early Music America), Schola Antiqua takes pride in providing the highest standards of research, performance, and education involving many underserved repertories in the Western musical canon. Founded in 2000 under the artistic leadership of Professor Calvin M. Bower from the University of Notre Dame, the organization has received invitations to perform from the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, Chicago’s Newberry Library, the Morgan Library and Museum (New York City), the Chicago Cultural Center, the University of Chicago, the University of Notre Dame, the American Guild of Organists, and other institutions across the Midwest. In 2006-2007, Schola Antiqua was Artist-in-Residence at the University of Chicago. The ensemble is currently Artist-in-Residence of the Lumen Christi Institute.
Schola Antiqua won the 2012 Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society for outstanding contributions to historical performing practice. The ensemble has recorded music accompanying Theodore Karp’s Introduction to the Post-Tridentine Mass Proper, 1590-1890 (American Institute of Musicology, 2005) and Margot Fassler's Music in the Medieval West (W.W. Norton, 2013. In 2009, Schola Antiqua released its first independent CD, Long Joy, Brief Languor, which contains the only known recording of the Missa Quem malignus spiritus, one of the earliest “cyclic” masses known in Western music. The group’s second album West Meets East: Sacred Music from the Torino Codex features first recordings of music from an important fifteenth-century manuscript. In October 2011, Schola Antiqua released its third commercial CD entitled The Kings of Tharsis, which contains medieval and Renaissance music from the Feast of Epiphany. Again, much of this music has never been recorded. The ensemble’s commercial recordings, all issued on the Discantus label, have aired on the national broadcasts of With Heart and Voice, Harmonia, and Millennium of Music and have received reviews in Early Music America, Fanfare, the Journal of Plainsong and Medieval Music, and Notes (Music Library Association). Schola Antiqua of Chicago Foundation is a registered not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization.
About the Artistic Director
Michael Alan Anderson was named Artistic Director of Schola Antiqua of Chicago in 2008, following the retirement of its founding Artistic Director, Calvin M. Bower, a medieval musicologist and emeritus faculty member from the University of Notre Dame. Anderson is a founding member of the ensemble and currently serves on the musicology faculty of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, specializing in sacred music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. As a conductor, Anderson was the Assistant Director of the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel Choir from 2001-2005 and the University Chorus at the University of Chicago. He was the student conductor of the all-male Notre Dame Glee Club and has appeared with the ensemble as a guest conductor. Besides his performances with Schola Antiqua of Chicago, Anderson sang baritone with the Chicago Symphony Chorus for three concert seasons, under the batons of Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Krzysztof Penderecki, Zubin Mehta, Christoph Eschenbach, Mstislav Rostropovich, and others in venues from Orchestra Hall and the Ravinia Festival in Chicago to Carnegie Hall and the Berlin Philharmonic. In addition to numerous engagements as a professional church musician in Chicago, he has received invitations to sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Seraphic Fire (Miami), the St. Cecilia Consort (Chicago).
Anderson received his Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Music from the University of Chicago in 2008 and is author of the book St. Anne in Renaissance Music: Devotion and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2014). He studies a wide range of issues related to western liturgical music from the central Middle Ages through the early sixteenth century. Awards include the Noah Greenberg Award (American Musicological Society), the Deems Taylor Award (American Society for Composers, Authors, and Publishers), the Alvin H. Johnson American Musicological Society 50 Dissertation-Year Fellowship, the Provost's Multidisciplinary Award (University of Rochester), the Whiting Foundation Fellowship (University of Chicago), the Grace Frank Grant (Medieval Academy of America), and several travel and research grants. Anderson has presented work at numerous conferences and has published articles in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Early Music History, Early Music, Plainsong and Medieval Music, and Studi musicali. Since 2010, he has served as a member of the Editorial Board of the American Choral Review, the semiannual journal of the organization Chorus America. He is also on the Editorial Board for two textbooks published by W.W. Norton (The History of Western Music, 9th edition [ed. Burkholder] and Concise History of Western Music, 5th edition [ed. Hanning]).
About the Staff
Julie P. Bruba
ker has served as the Executive Director and Board Member of the Schola Antiqua since its inception in 2001. Ms. Brubaker has an impressive background in Non-Profit Leadership, currently serving as the Director of Information Technology at the George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film. She formerly worked as a non-profit management consultant at Deloitte & Touche as well as the Director of Information Technology at The Field Museum in Chicago. Ms. Brubaker was also the head of Brubaker Consulting, an executive technology and strategy consulting firm, serving the technology needs of Non-Profits, Museums, and Universities. Her impressive list of clients includes Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Field Museum, Memorial Art Gallery, the George Eastman House, and Seabreeze Park. Matthew C
harles Dean has served as Manager and Board Member of the Schola Antiqua of Chicago since 2005, after joining the ensemble in 2002. A founding member of Golosá Russian Choir, Dean toured and conducted ethnographic recordings in Germany and southern Siberia, performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and sung at the Ravinia Festival and University of Chicago Folk Festival. He has been a featured vocalist and early music instrumentalist with the Newberry Consort, St. Cecilia Consort, Chicago Choral Artists, Bella Voce, McKenna Ensemble, and at many Chicagoland parishes including St. John Cantius, St. Clement, St. Peter’s in the Loop, and First United Church of Oak Park. In 2008, he sang the title role of Carissimi’s Jephte at the Chicago Humanities Festival in partnership with the Oriana Singers. Dean is soloist-in-residence at the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, where his performances have ranged from the bass role of Jesus in the Bach St. John Passion to tenor soloist for Handel’s Messiah and the world premiere of Sven-David Sandström’s cantata, Wachet Auf (2009).
At the University of Chicago, his alma mater, Dean is Associate Director for Organization Research, with a special focus on arts initiatives. He has facilitated the University’s composer commissioning program, which has brought new choral works by William Bolcom, Marta Ptaszynska, and Sven-David Sandström to Rockefeller Chapel and its magnificently-restored E.M. Skinner pipe organ. Dean’s academic background is in anthropology and art history, with concentrations in the religious architecture of Spain and the Colonial New World, museum studies, and folklore. He serves as board member and advisor to Harran Productions Foundation dedicated to fostering interreligious dialogue and mutual understanding through explorations of sacred sound.
