On Saturday, December 14, at 3:00 pm, the Santa Barbara Music Club will present its annual Holiday Concert and Reception with a festive program of choral and instrumental music by the Adelfos Ensemble, guest conductor Erin Bonski, flautist Andrea Di Maggio, and pianist Erin Bonski.
The Adelfos Ensemble was founded in 2004 as a men’s a-cappella ensemble and pursued that path until 2010 when it became a mixed-voice choral ensemble. Temmo Korisheli took over direction of the group from Dr. Michael Eglin in 2008. Their goal is to offer the best of a cappella and other choral music to audiences in the Santa Barbara area through live performances, radio broadcasts, and recordings. The group programs a broad repertoire of music spanning more than a millennium, from ancient chant and Renaissance motets to folk song arrangements and contemporary works.
Temmo Korisheli is an active performer in many musical styles, especially medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque. Recent early-music engagements have included concerts with Ensemble Ciaramella in Los Angeles, Victoria, and New York, and with the Texas Early Music Project in Austin. He has been on staff with the Amherst Early Music Festival of New England for the past 22 years, where he has collaborated with many luminaries of the early music world. He is a founding member of the UCSB Middle East Ensemble, sings frequently in the Opera Santa Barbara Chorus, and plays clawhammer banjo. Mr. Korisheli is assistant music director at All Saints’-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Montecito. He holds graduate degrees in historical musicology from UCSB, where he studied with Alejandro Planchart and William Prizer and where he presently supervises the Music Library.
Flautist Andrea Di Maggio is in demand as both a teacher and performer in the Santa Barbara area. Andrea graduated from San Jose State University in 2001, summa cum laude, with a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Performance where she studied with Paris Conservatory French flutist, Isabelle Chapuis. Andrea was granted a teaching position at Arizona State University during 2001-2002, and while completing her first year of graduate school, she taught private lessons to the undergraduate flute majors, implemented and taught a flute course to music education students, and performed in faculty recitals. Andrea transferred to the University of California, Santa Barbara in Fall 2002 to study with Jill Felber on a full scholarship. She graduated with honors with a Masters Degree in Flute Performance in 2004. While a graduate student at UCSB, she was the recipient of performance awards from the Santa Barbara Foundation, the Santa Barbara Music Club, and the Leni Fe Bland Foundation. Andrea has performed in masterclasses with Robert Stallman, Tadeo Coehlo, Marianne Gedigian, Michel Debost, and Jill Felber. Performing regularly in solo and chamber music recitals, she is a founding member of Sonos Montecito, the Woodwind Quintet-in-residence at Westmont College, where she has been the Flute Instructor since 2012. Andrea also maintains a small and competitive private flute studio, with students winning awards from the Santa Barbara Music Club, The Music Teachers Association of California, and the National Flute Association. Andrea performs on a silver Miyazawa Boston Classic flute with gold and platinum head joint. Erin Bonski, pianist, began her musical journey in Pennsylvania, where she studied with Dr. Tim Shafer at Penn State University while in high school, and became the youngest participant in the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts. Erin went on to earn her B.M. and M.M. degrees from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and pursued doctoral studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A versatile artist, Erin has served as Staff Continuo player at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, collaborative pianist at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, and as Chorusmaster and Repetiteur for Toledo Opera. Since moving to Santa Barbara, she has collaborated regularly with local arts organizations, including the Santa Barbara Symphony, Opera Santa Barbara, and Ensemble Theatre Company, and has performed internationally, including appearances with the Grammy-winning ensemble Forever Tango. Her academic career includes positions at Santa Barbara City College; the University of California, Santa Barbara; Westmont College and Bowling Green State University, where she has taught piano pedagogy, opera coaching, and piano literature.
She has published works on ensemble playing and sight-reading in American Music Teacher Magazine, and she has recorded the works of Dr. Earl Louis Stewart. Erin has also worked as a church musician throughout most of her career, leading a vibrant music ministry for the last decade at First Presbyterian Church. She is eager to give back to her community as Secretary on the Board for the Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation. Currently, she serves as adjunct faculty and collaborative pianist at Westmont College while maintaining a private piano studio and consulting with arts organizations across Southern California.