Soprano Elysha Massatt resides in Berkeley and has studied voice with Renee Fladen-Kamm there since 2007. She has sung with the vocal ensemble Resmiranda/Opera non Troppo, directed by Renee Fladen-Kamm, since 2007, and with L’Esprit Baroque since its inception in 2012. A full list of concerts performed may be found atwww.operanontroppo.com. She gained specific experience interpreting medieval and renaissance polyphony while singing with Magdala in Oxford, England for two years from 2003-2005.
Sarah Vay Kerns is a flutist teaching and freelancing in the San Francisco Bay Area. She plays a Von Huene replica of a Hotteterre baroque flute, an original 18th century flute made by Richard Potter, and Mollenhauer recorders. Her love of modern music has led her to solo repertoire and collaborations in experimental music and electronics. Sarah Vay received her Bachelor of Music from Utah State University studying with Leslie Timmons, and a Master of Music from Brigham Young University, with April Clayton. Spending a year with Jill Felber in Santa Barbara, she fell in love with California, making it home. Later studies with Robert Dick expanded the depth of her reach into modern music. She played piccolo with Corona Symphony and was a member of the Orange County Wind Symphony from 2010 to 2015. She has toured with the BYU Wind Symphony to Scandinavia, and played with various chamber groups. Sarah Vay won 1st place in the San Diego Flute Guild Artist Gold Competition 2014. She was also the 2nd place winner at the San Francisco Flute Festival in 2012. Her love of flutes extends to world instruments like the shakuhachi, dizi, and others.
Fascinated and deeply inspired by the relationship between music, movement, and dance, violinist and Dalcrozian-in-training Sylvia Schwartz is a passionate chamber musician in both modern and historical performance practices. A native of Boston, Sylvia has performed with L’Esprit Baroque, Eudaimonia, Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, Harvard Early Music Society, New Bedford Symphony, New England Classical Singers, Eudaimonia, Lizzie and the Flakjackets, and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras throughout California and New England, in Ontario, Estonia, Latvia, and at Shostakovich Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia. Sylvia holds a M.M. in Violin Performance from the Longy School of Music, where she studied violin with Laura Bossert and early music with Dana Maiben, Na’ama Lion, Vivian Montgomery, and Ryan Turner. She also holds a B.S. in Engineering from Olin College. Sylvia teaches violin and Dalcroze-inspired musicianship classes at Vienna Music Institute in Irvine, California, and is very happy to be playing with L’Esprit Baroque for a third season.
Cellist and gambist John Ott, a native of Los Angeles, received his Bachelor of Music degree in cello performance from UC Irvine in 2004, studying with Dr. Margaret Parkins, and in 2016 completed his Master of Music degree in Early Music, viola da gamba at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he studied with Jane Hershey. In between, he performed with Symphony Irvine, Dana Point Symphony, Montage Civic Orchestra, and South Orange County Chamber Orchestra, played in the string quartet Elegie Quartet, and played chamber music all over Los Angeles and Orange County. He also maintains a large teaching studio, primarily at Vienna Music Institute in Irvine. During his two years in Massachusetts, aside from his Longy ensembles, he performed with Boston Camerata and Boston Opera Collaborative. He started playing with L’Esprit Baroque in 2013.Janice (Von Fange) Massatt is an organist, early music enthusiast, and long-time resident of Orange County together with her husband Paul and five grown children. She earned the Bachelor of Church Music in Organ Performance at Valparaiso University in Indiana; the First Prize in Organ Performance at the Conservatory in Toulouse, France, where she studied the organ with Xavier Darasse; and the Master of Music in Organ Performance at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Most recently she worked for ten years as the organist at St. Wilfrid of York Episcopal Church in Huntington Beach. For the past six years, she has worked as the staff accompanist in the music department at Golden West College in Huntington Beach. She has always loved playing in small group ensemble, and is happy to have found a group of kindred spirits!
L'Esprit Baroque 