Jefferson Baroque Orchestra Members

Jim studied musicology at Northwestern & CCNY, studied voice with Walter Carringer, and, in master classes, recorder with Marion Verbruggen, oboe with Sand Dalton & Bruce Haynes, bassoon with Dennis Godburn and voice with Christine Brandes. During his NYC days he produced records for Musical Heritage Society including Peri's "Dafne", the last recording of the New York Pro Musica.

He is a blacksmith and tall-ship sailor, crewing regularly on the brig Lady Washington and the square topsail schooner Lynx. His alto recorder is a DeBey copy by Jean-Luc Boudreau, his oboe a Hotteterre copy by Sand Dalton, his traverso a Chevalier copy by Peter Dickey and his bassoon a Denner copy by Barbara Stanley.

Jim Rich, vocalist, Margret Gries, harpsichord, and Elinor Frey, cello.

Laurel Bloombaum plays violin with the Jefferson Baroque Orchestra since 2004, and has played violin in community orchestras in Buffalo NY, Salinas and Monterey CA, and Honolulu HI. She has played violin or viola in local string quartets and trios. She began playing the violin in public school at the age of 11.

She has played on an instrument which she converted to Baroque at Bellwood under the guidance and mentoring of Stephen Bacon. Recently she acquired an unlabeled Baroque German violin believed to be made by David Hopf between 1762-1786.

She is retired from a career as a physician assistant and a second career as a primary school classroom teacher. She works at Bellwood Violins part time, doing repair and restoration work when she is in Ashland. Her other interests include Hula and Hawaiian studies, gardening and sewing. Mrs. Bloombaum has been a member of AshFoDaBa, 5 string fiddle, mandola and vocals, for the last 9 years, performing at Folk Festivals and the Key of C offee House and now Grilla Bites, and Kalmiopsis Players, an international folk dance music trio, as well.

Margret Gries has pursued a career in early music that has included both academic research and professional performance. She has been a member of many early music ensembles in the Pacific Northwest and is known best for her work as a harpsichordist and organist. She has also studied and performed extensively on early string instruments including Renaissance and Baroque violin and viola, and most recently on vielle.

For over twenty years she has been a recitalist and instructor at summer music courses, and is valued for leading discussions on performance questions as they relate to broader cultural and philosophical issues. Gries has also written program notes and presented pre-concert lectures for concerts throughout the northwest. She has been on the faculty of the Vancouver Baroque Programme for many years.

A native of the Olympic Peninsula, she studied music and philosophy at Pacific Lutheran, Yale, and Cornell universities. She has been an instructor in harpsichord at the University of Washington and in music and philosophy at Central Washington University. Currently she is pursuing additional doctoral research at the University of Oregon, studying how aesthetic theory is related to issues in the history of music. Her current research involves intonation issues between strings and winds in period instrument ensembles.
Gries continues to be known as one of the most accomplished continuo keyboardists on the West Coast, and has recently established three new period instrument ensembles in Eugene, Oregon. She is also the conductor and music director of the Jefferson Baroque Orchestra in Ashland, Oregon, a position she has held since 2000.

Celia Rosenberger was a music major at the University of California at Berkeley in the heyday of early music exploration She fell in love with authentic early music performance when the University Chorus and Orchestra (of which she was concertmaster) performed Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610. She learned stylistic performance from Frans Brueggen, Philip Brett, and Alan Curtis, and participated in master classes with Sigiswald and Wieland Kuijken. She has since led her own Baroque chamber ensembles and performed with Sand Dalton, Margret Gries, Peter Hallifax, and many other early music specialists. She has also been a member of the San Francisco Opera and Ballet Orchestras and taught in the Prep Department of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 1991 she moved to Lopez Island, Washington where she teaches violin, cello, and piano to children and adults, directs the Lopez String Orchestra, and performs regularly in the Pacific Northwest. Her violin was made in 1811 by Francois Aldric in Paris, France and her Baroque bow is a transitional model by the modern German bowmaker K. Gerhardt Penzel.