About six years ago, bass Richard Stumpf yearned to perform baroque vocal music again after more than a decade of raising kids, working in a demanding day job and singing lieder at friends' soirées. After two baroque concerts with a pick-up modern instrument band, he thought there must be a better way. He hoped that there were others who wanted to play in a baroque ensemble focused on authenticity. The problem was finding them! He soon stumbled unknowingly on the solution when he attended the SFEMS Baroque Music & Dance Workshop in June, 2000.

At the workshop Richard was amazed to find a motley underworld of serious amateur and semi-professional baroque musicians attending master classes and receiving ensemble coaching from a distinguished faculty. Throughout the workshop participants' performances were heard, conversations ensued, and the ensemble began to take shape. Early members who continue in the group today include: Dawn Kooyumjian - harpsichord, Alan Paul - oboes, recorders, bassoon and transverse flute, Carl Lyngholm - recorders, Nancy Rivera - violin and viola, and Janet Small, violin. Other members were discovered by word of mouth, including: Glen Shannon - recorders and transverse flute, Sally Blaker - cello, Paula White and Hana Mori - violin, Jennifer Torresen - soprano, Joyce Todd McBride - contralto, Kathy Cochran - recorders and bassoon and Cara Fry - oboes.

Baroque Etcetera performs three to six programs each season and has presented two Fringe Concerts at the Berkeley Early Music Festival. Its repertoire is a mix of instrumental and vocal works by well known and obscure composers, from Händel, Vivaldi and Bach (including thirteen of his cantatas) to Schickhardt, Clérambault and Storace. Another example of obscure repertoire is last season’s "New World Christmas" concert, which included music of Peru, Bolivia, and the Moravians of colonial America. The group even slips in some Mozart and Shannon under the umbrella of "etcetera"! Shannon refers to Glen Shannon, a well-decorated composer in the neo-baroque style. Five of Glen's works for recorder ensembles have been performed by Baroque Etcetera, two of them premieres. A search for undiscovered masterpieces also led them to the Danzig Cantatas by Georg Philipp Telemann, published by PRB Productions of Albany. Last season they performed what is believed to have been the West Coast premiere of these works.

A unique aspect of the group is that they are one of the largest local early music groups to perform without a conductor. They have an ongoing relationship with Bay Area cellist and gambist David Morris, who coaches the group on the interpretation, style and performance practice of their varied repertoire. To paraphrase David "You are all assigned 1/15 of the conducting responsibility!" The ensemble collaborates on this responsibility, to strive for a high level of ensemble playing.

Baroque Etcetera's fifth season began last November with an all-Bach program "German Idol: J.S. Bach". Upcoming concerts are "Italian Beauties" March 12 and 13, featuring Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, and "Germans: Early & Late" May 14 and 15, featuring Bach’s C major Double Harpsichord Concerto. Both concerts will be held at Zion Lutheran Church in Piedmont and The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Berkeley. Admission prices are flexible to give everyone access to their concerts, regardless of financial circumstance. More important to the group is sharing the baroque repertoire as presented by their collection of singers, string, wind, reed and continuo performers. If they can ever find brass and percussion players, they would love to expand their repertoire to include these instruments -- maybe these players can be found at this summer's SFEMS workshop!