After a thirty year career in Europe, musical director and lutenist Stephen Stubbs returned to his native Seattle in 2006. Since then he has established his new production company, Pacific Musicworks, and developed a busy calendar as a guest conductor specializing in baroque opera and oratorio.
With his direction of Stefano Landi’s La Morte d’Orfeo at the 1987 Bruges festival, he began his career as opera director and founded the ensemble Tragicomedia. Since 1997 Stephen has co-directed the bi-annual Boston Early Music Festival opera and is the permanent artistic co-director. BEMF’s recordings of Conradi’s Ariadne, Lully’s Thesee, and Psyché were nominated for Grammy awards in 2005, 2007, and 2009.
Stephen was born in Seattle, Washington, where he studied composition, piano and harpsichord at the University of Washington. In 1974 he moved to England to study lute with Robert Spencer and then to Amsterdam for further study with Toyohiko Satoh and soon became a mainstay of the burgeoning early-music movement there, working with Alan Curtis on Italian opera in Italy, William Christie on French opera in France and various ensembles in England and Germany particularly the Hilliard Ensemble.
With his return to Seattle in 2006 he formed the long-term goal of establishing a company devoted to the study and production of Baroque opera. His first venture in this direction was the creation of the Accademia de’Amore, an annual summer institute for the training of pre-professional singers and musicians in baroque style and stagecraft, now housed at the Cornish College of the Arts.
In 2008 he established Pacific MusicWorks. The company’s inaugural presentation was a revival of South African artist William Kentridge’s acclaimed multimedia marionette staging of Claudio Monteverdi’s penultimate opera The Return of Ulysses in a co-production with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. After a warmly received 2010 presentation of Monteverdi’s monumental Vespers of 1610 at Seattle’s St. James Cathedral, PMW presented a full subscription season, opening with a program based on the Song of Songs and ending with two triumphantly successful performances of Handel’s early masterpiece, The Triumph of Time (1707).
As a guest conductor Stubbs has led performances of Gluck’s Orfeo and Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto in Bilbao, Spain, and Monteverdi’s Orfeo at Amsterdam’s Netherlands Opera. Following his successful debut conducting the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in 2011, he was invited back in 2012 to conduct the Symphony’s performances of Messiah. He will also debut with the Edmonton Symphony in Messiah this season.
Stephen Stubbs is Senior Artist in Residence and member of the faculty of the School of Music at the University of Washington.
Mr Stubbs is represented by Schwalbe and Partners.
Karin Brookes, Executive Director
Armed with degrees in French, Music and Journalism, Karin has spent her career in music management and communications in the UK and the USA. In Philadelphia she worked for Temple University Public Radio, and as an editor and classical music critic. She has also managed the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and worked for Christopher Hogwood, founder of the Academy of Ancient Music.
Maxine Eilander has appeared as a baroque harpist with many leading ensembles and festivals throughout Europe, Canada and the USA. She has recorded Handel's Harp, released on ATMA in 2009, with all of Handel's obligato music written for the harp, including his famous harp concerto, which she has also recorded with Tafelmusik (A Baroque Feast, Analekta, 2002). The 2008 release of William Lawes' Harp Consorts on ATMA has already garnered much favorable press, including five stars from Goldberg Magazine. Since 2005 Maxine has managed the Accademia d’Amore baroque opera workshops in Seattle. She is the Director of Education for Pacific MusicWorks and is on the early music faculty at Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle.
Bruce Johnson (President) – Partner, Davis Wright Tremaine,
Bill McJohn (Treasurer) Software Engineer, Microsoft (retired)
James Savage (Vice-President)– Director of Music, St. James Cathedral
Don Thulean (Secretary)–Former conductor of Spokane Symphony
Joan Conlon – Director of Graduate Choral Research and Professor Emerita, University of Colorado, previously was a faculty member at the University of Washington and Conductor of Seattle’s Northwest Chamber Chorus (1971-1995). She authored Performing Monteverdi: A Conductor’s Guide (2001) and conceived, edited and contributed to Wisdom, Wit and Will: Women Choral Conductors On Their Art (2009). She now devotes her time to editing and guest conducting. Her recent research has focused on the portrayal of women in choral texts.
Robert A. Dahlstrom-{Scenic Designer} Based in Seattle Dahlstrom has designed many productions for major local theatre companies. His opera work is based at Seattle Opera where fourteen productions include FIDELIO, ARIADNE AUF NAXOS, TALES OF HOFFMANN, and THE MAGIC FLUTE. Other North American opera companies include Calgary, Cincinnati, Dallas, Edmonton, Montreal, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Washington National Opera, and Winnipeg. International opera includes Le Grand Theatre de Geneve;; Opera Decentralise, Neuchatel; and Royal Opera, Copenhagen.
Davis B. Fox -Davis has been active in non-profit management for 30 years. He is President and Principal Consultant of DB Fox Consulting, Inc., a Seattle-based consulting firm specializing in Development, Communications and Philanthropic services. Clients include social service, educational, cultural and religious organizations.Davis has held Executive Director positions with the Charter Oak Temple Cultural Center in Hartford, Connecticut and the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras. He has held development and marketing positions with Lifelong AIDS Alliance, Intiman Theatre, and Jewish Family Service of Seattle.
Mary Ann Hagan - Seattle Symphony Education Director (retired);former Executive Director, Washington Alliance for Arts Education;
Peter Kazaras-Director of Opera at UCLA, Director of Seattle Opera Young Artist Program
Richard Peaslee-has composed the scores for The Marat/Sade, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for Peter Brook and the Royal Shakespeare Company; Animal Farm for Sir Peter Hall and London’s National Theatre; The Garden of Earthly Delights (Obie Award) for coreographer Martha Clarke. His score for the Joseph Campbell television series, The Power of Myth, was nominated for an Emmy Award. He has also composed numerous concert works, several musicals and most recently, Ahab, An Oratorio based on Moby-Dick.
Nancy Zylstra-Adjunct Instructor- Voice and Early Music- Cornish College of the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts, 4Culture, Washington State Arts Commission, Wyman Youth Trust
The summer workshop dedicated to preparing singers for a career in baroque opera performance will return to Seattle in 2014. Founded in 1995 by Seattle native Stephen Stubbs, the Accademia has helped many singers and instrumentalists go on to successful careers in Baroque opera in Europe, the US, and Canada. Learn more...
