BIOS
Wayne Wright - Tenor, joined Polyhymnia in March of 2008. Wayne has over 25 years of choral singingexperience, including stints with the Grace Church Choral Society, the Renaissance Street Singers and the Dessoff Choirs. Wayne has performed with both Robert Shaw and the Tallis Scholars in both the United States and England. Wayne has a bachelor’s degree in piano from SUNY Potsdam, and master’s degrees in piano and piano pedagogy from Teachers College, Columbia University. Wayne worked as a piano teacher in Manhattan for many years before shifting gears to become a software engineer. His other music experiences include work as a studio keyboard player, and playing and singing in rock bands. Though not formally trained as a singer, Wayne fits right in with Polyhymnia where his penchant for polyphony and solid sight-reading skills are put to very good use. Wayne's other interests include bicycling, piano playing, the great outdoors and NFL football.
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John Bradley, Artistic Director, was born and educated in the Midwest, holding degrees from Kalamazoo College, Western Michigan University and Case Western Reserve University He also spent one post-graduate year at Mannes College of Music. He has worked in many roles in the world of historically informed performance, from directing and costuming to dance, and of course singing. He has been involved with fully staged productions of Carl Heinrich Graun's Montezuma with the Arcadia Players, Henry Purcell's King Arthur with the Boston Early Music Festival, G.F. Handel's Alcina with Ex-Machina in Minneapolis and Handel's Dueling Sopranos with Julianne Baird and Beverly Hoch with the Philadelphia Classical Orchestra.
As a singer John’s credits include Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers with Artek and Bach's Saint John Passion with Artek and New Jersey Bach Festival. One of John's favorite gigs was as a baroque chorus boy in a tour of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Amherst Early Music, in which he was a singer as well as a featured dancer John has enjoyed learning from some of the greatest artists in the field of early music most recently as a student of Drew Minter.
John’s first and last love is small ensemble singing combined with research into the synthesis of music and liturgy. He has assembled several liturgical reconstructions including masses and vespers from pre-reformation England, 16th-century Spain and imperial Germany. Since 2000, John has been actively researching and creating original editions of Renaissance choral masterworks for Polyhymnia, focusing on composers Clemens non Papa and Jacob Vaet. In 2005 John's new edition of Vaet's Missa Ego flos campi was performed in Boston as a Boston Early Music Festival fringe event. He has also completed new editions of Nicholas Gombert's Missa Quam pulchra es et quam decora and 12-voice Regina Caeli, Cristobal de Morales’ Missa pro defunctis, in a liturgical reconstruction, all of which were also performed at the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe concerts.
John is currently finishing another collection of music by Clemens non Papa including the Missa Caro mea, and a collection of motets, and a liturgical reconstruction from early 16th-century Ireland for the 2010-2011 concert season. Additionally John has edited some thirty Franco-Flemish, German and Italian motets for the ensemble. John and his husband Charles live in a 19th Century building – with a lot of potential - in Jersey City, NJ with their two over-fed cats, Moses and Abraham.
As a singer John’s credits include Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers with Artek and Bach's Saint John Passion with Artek and New Jersey Bach Festival. One of John's favorite gigs was as a baroque chorus boy in a tour of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Amherst Early Music, in which he was a singer as well as a featured dancer John has enjoyed learning from some of the greatest artists in the field of early music most recently as a student of Drew Minter.
John’s first and last love is small ensemble singing combined with research into the synthesis of music and liturgy. He has assembled several liturgical reconstructions including masses and vespers from pre-reformation England, 16th-century Spain and imperial Germany. Since 2000, John has been actively researching and creating original editions of Renaissance choral masterworks for Polyhymnia, focusing on composers Clemens non Papa and Jacob Vaet. In 2005 John's new edition of Vaet's Missa Ego flos campi was performed in Boston as a Boston Early Music Festival fringe event. He has also completed new editions of Nicholas Gombert's Missa Quam pulchra es et quam decora and 12-voice Regina Caeli, Cristobal de Morales’ Missa pro defunctis, in a liturgical reconstruction, all of which were also performed at the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe concerts.
John is currently finishing another collection of music by Clemens non Papa including the Missa Caro mea, and a collection of motets, and a liturgical reconstruction from early 16th-century Ireland for the 2010-2011 concert season. Additionally John has edited some thirty Franco-Flemish, German and Italian motets for the ensemble. John and his husband Charles live in a 19th Century building – with a lot of potential - in Jersey City, NJ with their two over-fed cats, Moses and Abraham.
Natasha Badillo - Soprano
Rachel Bazaz - Soprano, has had the pleasure of singing with Polyhymnia for almost three years. She attended Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, where she performed with the Collegium Musicum under the direction of Andrew Kirkman. Rachel also performs regularly with the Riverside Choral Society and the St. Joseph Singers, with whom she had the honor of performing for Pope Benedict XVI during his April 2008 visit to New York City. She has performed as a section leader and soloist at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Westfield NJ, All Souls Episcopal Church in Park Slope, and St. Ann and the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn Heights. This summer, Rachel performed in the ensembles of La Boheme and Die Fledermaus with The Martina Arroyo Foundation’s Prelude to Performance program.
Ann, Berkhausen - Alto, has sung with many of the avocational vocal ensembles in New York that include or specialize in early music; among them Music Divine, the New York Continuo Collective, the Renaissance Street Singers, Sacrum Convivium, and the Amor Artis Chamber Choir; highlights of performances with the latter group include an a cappella Renaissance mass at Notre Dame in Paris, and Mozart works with the first period instrument ensemble in Russia. In earlier years she sang with the New York Choral Society and the Dessoff Choirs; recently, just to mix it up a little, she performed Mahlers 8th Symphony with Lorin Maazel, the New York Philharmonic, and the Dessoff Symphonic Choir. She has also substituted in the professional choirs of St. Bartholomew’s, Church of the Holy Apostles, and St. Ignatius of Antioch. By day she is a editor at a medical advertising and communications agency.
Richard Bränström – Tenor, got his musical training at Stockholm Music Gymnasium, Sweden. He has been singing with a variety of chamber choirs and vocal groups in Sweden e.g. St. Jacob’s Chamber Choir, St.George’s Chamber Choir and Adolf Fredrik vocal ensemble, performing a cappella works from a wide range of national styles and periods, as well as larger works for choir and orchestra. In 2007, he relocated to the US and has been singing with several vocal ensembles devoted to early music such as the San Francisco Renaissance voices, Music Divine, and since January 2010 with Polyhymnia.
Johanna Sassona Bronk - mezzo-soprano, is a 23 year old graduate of Oberlin Conservatory in Vocal Performance where she studied with Kendra Colton. She is a passionate performer of early and new music, as well as an interpreter of song from a sprinkling of ages in between. Recent performance credits include the role of “Architecture” in Marc Antoine Charpentier's Les Arts Florissants, performed at the Boston Early Music Festival, and an interpretive performance of Osvaldo Golijov's Ayre at Oberlin Conservatory. Johanna's radio credits include a performance on NPR's From the Top, and Israeli Public Radio's Israel Pro Musica. When not on stage performing with choirs, chamber groups, and collaborative puppet artists, Johanna can be found organizing cooperatives, baking challah, whittling, gardening, and cycling around New York.
James Middleton - Bass, has written and lectured extensively in both the U.S. and Mexico on Baroque Stagecraft and the arts of Colonial Latin America. As founder and Artistic Director of the baroque opera ensemble Ex Machina he directed and designed numerous early opera productions including the U.S.professional premiere of the first New World Opera, La Purpura de la Rosa, and the critically acclaimedProhibited by Order of the King, presented at the Boston and San Antonio (TX) Early Music Festivals. He has directed and/or designed productions in cities all over the U.S. and has directed and led workshops at Harvard, Dartmouth, Indiana University, Case Western Reserve University, Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación y Información Musical (CENIDIM)among many other institutions, and toured Mexico in 2003 with the ensemble Louis Louis in a production entitled Mujeres Locas (Mad Women). He has written program notes and translations for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Music and Arts at St. Luke’s and Concerts at Trinity, as well as for Polyhymnia. Among the many hats James wears are that of graphic designer ( he designed Polyhymnia’s 2009~10 season brochure) and fundraiser. He also serves on Polyhymnia’s board of directors, which he chaired from 2006-2008. He recently went back to school at NYU where he is working on an MA in the Arts of Colonial Latin America. He likes to cook.
Paul Nelson - Tenor, is thrilled to be back with Polyhymnia for the 2009-10 season. In addition to performing with Polyhymnia, Paul sings at Church of the Ascension on Manhattan's Upper West Side. When Paul is not singing, he works for the City of New York to help community-based organizations throughout the five boroughs create vibrant and healthy commercial districts. Paul holds a BA from Brown University and a MPA from New York University.
Michael Peppard - Bass has performance experience in diverse forms of choral music, from Gregorian chant to recent commissions. As a graduate student at Yale University and the Institute of Sacred Music, he sang and studied under Simon Carrington and Marguerite Brooks in Yale Camerata, Pro Musica, and Schola Cantorum. Previously Michael was a student conductor at the University of Notre Dame (men’s Glee Club) under Daniel Stowe, where he was also a founding member of the Collegium Musicum early music ensemble. In his home town of Denver, Colorado, he sang with Kantorei and conducted a boy’s choir at Regis Jesuit High School. He has worked in various roles as a music minister in the Roman Catholic tradition. Currently Michael is assistant professor of theology at Fordham University.
John Shumway -Tenor, a native of Northern California, is happy to be back in his second year with Polyhymnia. He began his career singing alto under Robert Geary in the Piedmont Children's Choir with tours to Eastern Russia and China. During an extended college career he sang in the Brigham Young University Men's Chorus under Mack Wilberg, and under Jameson Marvin in the Harvard Radcliffe Chorus before finally settling down at the University of California at Berkeley. While studying music there, he sang with the UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus under Marika Kuzma, with highlight performances such as King Arthur with the Mark Morris Dancers and a performance of the traditional setting of the Carmina Burana. He also performed and toured with student-run groups such as the Harvard Din & Tonics and the UC Berkeley Men's Octet. He is currently also in the NY-based vocal jazz quintet West Side 5, way at the other end of the stylistic spectrum. He lives on the Upper West Side with his girlfriend, an accomplished opera soprano with a penchant for cupcakes and a voice too large for their 1-bedroom apartment.
Nancy Temple - Soprano, is a multifaceted talent who has been active in opera, theatre and of course early music. She was a founding member of the Light Opera of Manhattan (LOOM), an Off-Broadway repertory company with whom she performed some twenty leading roles. She was featured with that company on NBC's Today program as well as several times on WQXR's The Listening Room. Nancy is a charter member of The Open Book, New York's first professional reader's theatre company, portraying hundreds of characters created by writers such as William Shakespeare, Conrad Aiken, Edna Ferber, Bertrand Russell, Mario Fratti, Daniel Mannes Pinkwater, J.M. Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, and many others. Nancy has performed and recorded works by contemporary composers Charles Wuorinen, Stefan Wolpe, Morton Feldman, Vincent Persichetti, Iain Hamilton, Theodore Duffy, McNeil Robinson and Paul Michael Levy, among others. Nancy also sang in the choir of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, with whom she made three recordings. She plays the piano, organ and French horn and her resume also includes work in summer stock, dinner theatre, opera, synagogue choirs, big band singing and spoken word recording. In December she will be performing Off-Off-Broadway in The Open Book's adaptation of Marvin Kaye's novel, The Last Christmas of Ebenezer Scrooge. An alumna of Duke University and Manhattan School of Music, she has been a member of Polyhymnia since 2003.