Bio and Discography

Praised by the Baltimore Sun for her “beguiling musicality” Ann Marie Morgan is a frequent guest artist with major orchestras and choral ensembles as well as a soloist and chamber musician. 

Viola da gamba soloist in the Bach St. John Passion with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst (2017),  she has also performed the St. John Passion with The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Minnesota Orchestra under Bach specialist Helmuth Rilling's direction.  Other performances of the Bach Passions include those in the U.S. with the Colorado, Helena, Richmond and Quad Cities Symphony Orchestras; in Canada with Les Violons du Roy and the Kitchener/Waterloo Symphony; and at numerous Bach Festivals including Oregon, Bethlehem, Boulder and Winter Park.  She has appeared on viola da gamba in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto number six with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and at the Boulder Bach Festival.  

This fall in Boulder she was featured on CU Boulder's "Faculty Tuesdays" with mezzo-soprano Abigail Nims and harpsichordist Lillian Gordis and with Colorado's Seicento Baroque Ensemble.  Ann has been featured as soloist on CU's Pendulum Series, as concerto soloist on both viola da gamba and cello piccolo with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, and in numerous chamber music performances with artists including Harumi Rhodes, Hsing-ai Hsu and Jamie Stone.

In 2020 Ms Morgan served as interim Director of the CU-College of Music's Early Music Ensemble in Boulder, Colorado, coaching strings, voices, harpsichord, and offering lessons in baroque style to students on modern instruments.  She also served as one of four on the Preliminary Judging Panel for that same year's Indianapolis International Baroque Competition.  

Collaborations with tenor Nicholas Phan include performances with Apollo's Fire in Cleveland and with the trio from his album "A Painted Tale" in Istanbul, Turkey, at the Chautauqua Festival in New Yoik and at Carnegie Hall (a review of which was featured as an Editor's Choice in the April 2015 issue of Gramophone Magazine, in which lutenist Micheal Leopold and she were noted for their instrumental arrangements being "intelligent and exquisitely played").  

Ms Morgan has her own solo viola da gamba album,  Among Rosebuds, of French and English repertoire with William Simms and Daniel Rippe, continuo. The J.S. Bach Flute Sonatas; Sonata from the “Musical Offering” (Joshua Smith) and The Soulful Bach and Telemann (Olde Friends) feature her on baroque cello. As a result of Ann's 15 year appointment with Apollo’s Fire: the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra she can be heard as baroque cellist and violist da gamba on nearly a dozen of that ensemble’s recordings.  Labels upon which one can hear Ms Morgan perform include AVIE, Centaur, Chandos, Dorian and Naxos. 

Reviews of her playing on Chris Norman: The Man with the Wooden Flute include: “Before hearing Ann Marie Morgan, I would not have believed that so pure a tone could be drawn from a viola da gamba; it is straight from heaven.” - H&B Recordings Direct, 1992 and “... my hands down favorite is Ann Marie Morgan’s viola da gamba solo in Skinner’s ‘Cradle Song’...If there was a dry eye in the studio when this was recorded I say someone needs sensitivity training.” - Classical Disc Digest.

Ms Morgan received her Artist Diploma (1989) in viola da gamba and baroque cello from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music as a student of Catharina Meints. Master Class appearances include those with August Wenzinger, John Hsu, Weiland Kuijken and Sarah Cunningham. 

In 1989 Ms Morgan was appointed to the Early Music Faculty at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland.  She also served as a long-time member of the Early Music Faculties of the Interlochen Arts Camp and at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. 

An experienced choral singer and director, Ms Morgan holds a staff singer position at Holy Ghost Church in Denver, is an alto with Denver's St Martins Chamber Choir and sings frequently with Gaudium Verum and the Archdiosesan Schola.

Some more highlights from her now 30+ year career include: 

Concerto soloist on viola da gamba with Apollo’s Fire: The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra 

Featured Lecturer at the University of Minnesota on their "Tuesdays with Bach!" Series in 2016 (The role of the viola da gamba in the works of JS Bach) and returning to Minneapolis in March 2017 to perform the St. Matthew Passion in a staged production         

Guest performer and teacher at the Alte Musik Institut in Hannover, Germany (2015)

Violist da Gamba, Oregon Bach Festival (by invitation from Helmuth Rilling for his final summer as Director and 80th birthday celebration)

Baroque cellist in Joshua Smith's Bach recording and performances  with Grammy-nominated flutist Joshua Smith 

Violist da gamba with Les Violons du Roy under the direction of Bernard Labadie; bowed continuo player for Stephanie Blythe and Elizabeth Futral in Opera Colorado’s production of Handel’s “Giulio Cesare”; violist da gamba with La Tempesta di Mare at the Prague Spring Festival; years of touring and performing with baroque violinist and founding Olde Friends duo member Allison Edberg Nyquist.

During the pandemic touring, recording and concertizing came to a halt. In March 2021, however, all but the former was revived for Ann Marie in a concert with Boulder's Ars Nova Singers.  She joined with frequent collaborator Nicholas Phan in three songs together (apart!) for the ANS "Rebirth" event (https://youtu.be/D4ywveSasUQ)*.

*Nick and AMM: 24:04 – 37:35 (Time Stands Still, Dowland 28:14 – 31:43; Willow Song, Anon 32:40 – 37:35);  1:06:59 – 1:09:59 (Fire, Fire! Lanier 1:08:20 -1:09:59)

RECORDINGS:

A Painted Tale: Nicholas Phan, tenor; viola da gamba AVIE

Among Rosebuds: Music for Viola da Gamba Solo, with Theorbo and with Voice, Centaur

J.S. Bach Flute Sonatas: Sonata from the “Musical Offering”,  Joshua Smith, flute; Jory Vinikour, harpsichord; Allison Edberg, baroque violin; baroque cello Delos

Chris Norman: the Man with the Wooden Flute, viola da gamba, Dorian

French Baroque Viol Technique, John Hsu and the Viola da Gamba Society of America, viola da gamba (Video - VdGSA)

The Soulful Bach and Telemann, Olde Friends Concert Artists, baroque cello, Centaur

Thy Hand Hast Done All This: Judith and Other Works of Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, Cecilia’s Circle, viola da gamba, Centaur

Veracini: The Recorder Sonatas (1716), La Tempesta di Mare, baroque cello, PGM

Watkin’s Ale, The Baltimore Consort, viola da gamba, Dorian

Weiss Concertos for Lute and Chamber Ensembles, La Tempesta di Mare, viola da gamba, Chandos

12 cantatas by Rosanna Scalfi Marcello with counter-tenor Darryl Taylor, harpsichordist Jory Vinkour, Deborah Fox, theorbo; baroque cello, Naxos

RECORDINGS with Apollo’s Fire: The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra:

J.S. Bach -  The Brandenburg Concertos (viol and cello);

                        The St. John Passion (viol and cello), Eclectra

G.F. Handel -   Messiah (cello), NPR

Monteverdi -    L’Orfeo (viol);

                         Vespers of the Blessed Virgin (1610) (viol), Eclectra

Mozart -           Piano Concertos, No. 20 in D minor, K.466; No. 23 in A major, K.48;

                         Requiem, KOCH;

                         Symphonies 35 in D, K.385 (Haffner) and 41 in C, K.551 (Jupiter)

Praetorius -      Christmas Vespers: Music of Michael Praetorius, (cello) KOCH

Telemann -       Don Quixote: Concertos and Suites by Telemann, (cello) Eclectra

Du Chiffre -    Vivaldi and Friends, Concertos for Four Violins & Four Harpsichords; 

                         Concerto “Tango” in d minor for Two Violas da Gamba (viol and cello), Eclectra