Concert: Sospiri di Merula

Janna Kysilko

Janna Kysilko, soprano, is the co-founder and director of Sospiri Early Music. She has appeared in several early opera roles, including Flerida in Cavalli’s Erismena at the Amherst Early Music Festival, Amore in Gagliano’s La Dafne with Bold North Baroque Opera, Euridice in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at Eastman Opera Workshop, and was contracted to perform in Lyra Baroque Orchestra’s covid-canceled Jomelli Requiem. With interests that expand beyond early music, Janna has given several song recitals for organizations such as the Schubert Club, Thursday Musical, and the Women in Music Festival in Rochester, NY. She has appeared as a soloist with the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra and the Macalester Festival Chorale, and performed in more modern operatic roles such as Mabel in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance and Jenny in Sondheim’s Company. Awarded a McKnight grant in 2022, she was able to participate in the International Music Encounters program at Casa de Mateus in Portugal.

Having completed a bachelors in music and Germanic studies at Macalester College, Janna went on to complete a master’s at the Eastman School of Music, where she had the opportunity to work with early music specialists Paul O’Dette and Kristian Bezuidenhout, and studied voice with Dr. Robert McIver. After continuing bel canto vocal studies with the ledendary Emma Small, Janna expanded her early music technique under the tutelage of Spanish mezzo Nerea Berraondo, co-founder of Sospiri. Janna now resides in St. Paul, MN, where she is also a prominent trainer of dressage horses.

Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson is associate concertmaster of the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra. He has freelanced as a violinist within the Twin Cities since graduating from Macalester College in 2000, performing everything from high-concept performance art music with composer Franz Kamin, to classical and romantic string quartet music with the Elderberry String Quartet, to traditional English and Scottish Country Dance music. His forays into historical dance forms, in turn, led him to an interest in studying baroque performance practice with violinist Marc Levine.

Since developing an interest in baroque performance, Joe has studied baroque dance with Paige Whitley-Bauguess, and worked with Marc Destrubé, Ingrid Matthews, and Aisslinn Nosky studying baroque violin performance.

Joe also plays in a violin duo with MPO stand partner Catherine Himmerich. Together, they have worked extensively on sets of violin duos by diverse artists such as Violet Archer, Bela Bartok, Victoria Bond, Paul Hindemith, LeClair, and the Cure.

Phillip Rukavina

Phillip Rukavina performs as a lute and vihuela soloist and as a continuo lutenist. He’s appeared at many music festivals specializing in early music, including the Utrecht Early Music Festival (2013) and the Boston Early Music Festival (2015). In 2017, Phillip was invited to perform as a soloist at the European Lute Festival in Füssen, Germany (2017) and at the Lute Society of America’s 2017 WestFest held in Victoria, BC Canada.

Phillip is a founding member of the Venere Lute Quartet and has performed with many prominent ensembles, including the Newberry Consort, the Texas Early Music Project, the Rose Ensemble, the Bach Society MN and with renowned sopranos Emma Kirkby and Ellen Hargis. He has served on the faculty of the Lute Society of America’s LuteFest in Cleveland, OH and the Amherst and Vancouver Early Music Festivals. He has recorded on the Lyrichord, LSA, and Naxos labels. His fifth Studio395 solo release, Dutch Light: the Lute Music of Nicolas Vallet, was issued in winter of 2017.

Bruce Jacobs

Bruce Jacobs, (continuo organ, harpsichord), is heard frequently in the Twin Cities. Since his musical debut at First Avenue, he has performed with the Eglantine Consort, Waltham Abbey Singers, Ensemble Polaris, Bach Society of Minnesota, Lyra Baroque Orchestra, Elm Ensemble, Hymnus, The Rose Ensemble, Consortium Carissimi and the National Lutheran Choir.

He was a founding member of Banchetto Musicale, a leading baroque ensemble in Fargo-Moorhead. Jacobs studied pipe organ performance with Ruth Berge at Concordia College in Moorhead and continuo through the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. He retired as Chief Technologist at Twin Cities Public Television in 2022.

Ginna Watson

Ginna Watson is a Minneapolis-based violinist who specializes in historically-informed performance. She plays baroque violin and viola with the Lyra Baroque Orchestra and medieval bowed strings and harp with The Rose Ensemble for Early Music. Ginna also performs with Consortium Carissimi and Sprezzatura, ensembles dedicated to performing 17th-century music on historic instruments.

Ginna has performed in concert series and festivals around the country, including the Boston Early Music Festival, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, and Princeton
University. She is concertmaster of the annual Early Music Montana festival. Internationally, she has performed throughout France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Bolivia. Ginna frequently gives masterclasses on medieval and baroque performance practice, including Houston Baptist University, Colorado State University, Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity in Los Angeles. Ginna is the violin instructor at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Michelle Wenderlich

Michelle Wenderlich (pronouns: they/them) has worked, toured and recorded with many of the top early music orchestras and conductors in Europe, such as Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Leipziger Barockorchester and Die Kölner Akademie, as well as with innovative crossover groups like Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop and Pera Ensemble. They work locally with La Grande Bande, Bach Society of Minnesota, Consortium Carissimi, and Flying Forms. After studying with Joe Carver at Stony Brook University they moved to Europe for early music studies with Dane Roberts at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.

They also have performance degrees from the Orchestra of the Enlightenment and the Formation Supérieure of the Abbaye aux Dames de Saintes, in cooperation with l’Orchestre de Champs-Elysées, specializing in period classical and romantic orchestra and chamber music. They have been featured as a soloist, especially for Viennese bass repertoire, at the Limberger Musiktage and Baroque Nights in the Frankfurt area. They received the Edith Salvo Music Prize at Stony Brook and were supported by a Postgraduate Fellowship from the Heinrich Böll Foundation for musical studies in Germany. Michelle moved back to the US for doctoral studies and is currently completing a Ph.D. in human geography while remaining an active performer.