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Early music specialist Justina Golden, is a singer, conductor, and teacher from western Massachusetts. She maintains a thriving private vocal studio and performs widely, including regular appearances at Smith College and the Performing Arts Center in Easthampton. With a B.A. in Music from Amherst College (cum laude) and an M.M. in Music from Yale University, Justina brings twenty years of experience in music performance to her most recent venture, Justina Golden and The Amiable Consort. Specializing in 11th-14th century solo and multi-part chant, this new early music ensemble presents deeply moving performances of exceptional quality, imbued with a rare accessibility both for those in the know and those who are new to this music. Praised for her "honey rich, deep voice" and the "lush richness" of her expressive vocal work, Justina brings to her performances a boldness and passion rarely heard in this form. Combined with the highest technical standards, the result is powerful and moving.

As Justina and her new ensemble make their Boston debut, Justina reunites with Robert Einsenstein, her collaborator on her recent CD, Flos Regalis (Royal Flower). Robert Eisenstein is a founding member and program director for the Folger Consort (based at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.), and is the director of the Five College Early Music Program in Western Massachusetts. The other members of the Amiable Consort will be familiar to early music audiences in the Boston area. Sopranos Brenna Wells and Pamela Mindell, mezzo-sopranos Mary Gerbi and Thea Lobo and countertenor Martin Near are all accomplished young artists in their own right on the Boston early music scene.

	Justina Golden, soprano Click here to view Justina's biography.
	Mezzo-soprano Mary Gerbi appears frequently on New England stages singing everything from chant to world premiers. Recent solo performances include Schütz's Musikalische Exequien with the Providence Singers, Mozart's Requiem with the Clark University Choir, and Bach's Johannes Passion with Williamstown Early Music. She has appeared at the Cutler Majestic Theater with the Handel and Haydn Society in the chorus of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, and at Boston College performing new transcriptions of works by the early baroque composer Giovanni Battista Beria. She performs regularly with Boston Secession, and can be heard on their albums Afterlife and Surprised By Beauty. A highly experienced ensemble musician, Ms. Gerbi has also sung with the Schola Cantorum of Boston, the King's Chapel Choir, Emmanuel Music, and Philovox. She is a founding member of Cut Circle, a vocal octet that specializes in dynamic performances of Renaissance polyphony. This summer she will serve on the faculty of the Berkshire Choral Festival.
	Mezzo-soprano Pamela Dellal's singing has been praised for its "exquisite vocal color...matched by musical sensitivity." She made her Lincoln Center debut under conductor William Christie, singing Messiah with the Handel and Haydn Society at Avery Fisher Hall. She has also sung under conductors Seiji Ozawa, Christopher Hogwood, Paul McCreesh, Bernard Labadie and Roger Norrington, and has toured Japan as a soloist with the Tokyo Oratorio Society. She was named the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for the Newton Choral Society for the 2002-03 season, an honor which included the premiere of a specially commissioned work and a vocal recital. Other ensembles which have presented Ms. Dellal include the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, the Lydian String Quartet, Boston Baroque, the Boston Early Music Festival, Aston Magna, the Dallas Bach Society, the National Chamber Orchestra, the Baltimore Choral Arts Society and the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. She received critical acclaim for performances of Brahms' Alto Rhapsody, Handel's Messiah, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and the C-minor Mass, and Bach's St. Matthew and St. John Passions. Her operatic roles include Sesto in Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, Dorabella in Mozart's Così Fan Tutte, Bradamante in Handel's Alcina, Erika in Barber’s Vanessa and Lucretia in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. She has been a featured artist with the The Red House Opera Group, Prism Opera Company, Opera Aperta, Ocean State Lyric Opera, the New Boston Theatre Project, and the Opera Company of Boston, and has appeared in concert in major cities in Europe, the United States, Australia and Japan. A noted recitalist, she has been featured in concert performances throughout the Northeast US, including multiple appearances on the FleetBoston Celebrity Series. As a member and Acting Director of Sequentia's women's ensemble Vox Feminae, She has toured three continents and made numerous recordings of the music of Hildegard von Bingen, including the pivotal role of “Anima” in the production of Ordo Virtutum and solo work on the Grammy-nominated “Canticles of Ecstasy.” Ms. Dellal is a founding member of Favella Lyrica and is a frequent guest artist with Ensemble Chaconne and the Musicians of the Old Post Road. She has been alto soloist in Emmanuel Music's Bach Cantata series. Her repertoire encompasses a range including 12th-century monody through Renaissance lute songs, Baroque cantatas and oratorios, 18th-20th century art songs and opera, and premieres of works by contemporary composers such as Martin Boykan, Martin Brody, Edward Cohen, Ruth Lomon, Shulamit Ran, Fabio Vacchi, Judith Weir, Scott Wheeler, and others. She has recorded for Arabesque Records, Artona, BMG, CRI, Dorian, Meridian, and KOCH International Classics.
	Choral Director at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, Pamela Getnick Mindell is a graduate of the Yale University School of Music, where she received her doctorate in Choral Conducting. While at Yale, Ms. Getnick Mindell studied with Marguerite Brooks and David Connell and conducted both the Yale Freshman Chorus and the Yale Glee Club. Under her direction, both choruses performed the Mozart Requiem and the Rachmaninoff Vespers. Prior to taking up her conducting post at Holy Cross, Ms. Getnick Mindell was a member of the Music faculty at Smith College where she led choirs and taught conducting. She also spent a year as Visiting Choral Fellow at the Ascham School and Sydney Grammar School in Sydney, Australia, conducting several choirs and singing professionally in prominent Sydney ensembles. Since that time, she has been invited back to Sydney as guest conductor and soprano soloist for the 2003 and 2005 Sydney Grammar Bach Festivals. Ms. Getnick Mindell has worked with a number of children's choirs, including the Litchfield County Children's Choir in CT and the Paradise City Children's Choir, which she founded in 2001. As a soprano soloist, Ms. Getnick Mindell has performed in several duet recitals with mezzo-soprano Justina Golden as part of the Smith College Faculty Concert Series. She currently sings with The Boston Secession. Finally, Ms. Getnick Mindell serves as Artistic Director for the Hotchkiss Summer Portals Vocal Chamber Ensembles Program for High School students. Ms. Getnick Mindell also holds a master's degree in Music Education from The Hartt School as well as a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Princeton University.
	Countertenor Martin Near began his professional singing career at age ten, advancing to Head Chorister at Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue in New York City. Mr. Near currently sings with Blue Heron Renaissance Choir, Sprezzatura, Vox Triniti, Boston Secession, Amiable Consort, and with the choir of Church of the Advent. He has appeared as guest soloist with Fromm Players at Harvard, Seraphim Singers, Boston Choral Ensemble, Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus, Exsultemus, Andover Choral Society, and NotaRiotous. Trained in composition at New England Conservatory under Michael Gandolfi, Mr. Near served as composer and music director of the one act opera Six Characters in Search of an Opera for Project ARIA (AIDS Response by Independent Artists). The opera was given five performances in Boston, and was made possible by a grant from the American Composers Forum Boston. Mr. Near is an advocate of the performance of new music, and has been a soloist in numerous world premieres, including Temptation in the Desert by Elliott Gyger for Mr. Near and Seraphim Singers, On Prayer and Praying by Rodney Lister for Mr. Near and organist Ross Wood, and You Are There by Johanna Malone, a microtonal piece in 72-note equal temperament.
	Originally from Washington State, soprano Brenna Wells has been praised by the New York Times for her "star turn" as a soloist and has performed operatic and oratorio roles ranging from Bach, Handel, and Schütz to Mozart, Britten and Orff. She holds her B.M and M.M in vocal performance and received a Post-graduate Diploma with distinction from the Royal College of Music in London, where she studied with Elizabeth Robson and coached with soprano, Emma Kirkby. In 2005, she made her Carnegie Weill Hall Debut as a winner of the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition with Duo Bella (voice and harpsichord) and recently returned to Carnegie Hall, performing under the baton of Ton Koopman as a young artist in Weill Music Institute's Handel workshop. She was also a regional winner and national finalist in the NATSAA song competition of 2004. Known for her critically acclaimed performances of early music, she has sung with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Vox Consort, Seraphic Fire, Britten-Pears Baroque Orchestra, Apollo's Fire and appeared as Venus in Campra's L'Europe Galante at the Amherst Early Music Festival. Other festivals include Songfest, the Vermont Art Song Festival, Accademia D'Amore, the London Handel Festival, Aldeburgh Festival and most recently, the "Handel in Italy" program with the Parley of Instruments in Cambridge, England. She can be seen singing with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Opera Boston, Marblehead Festival Chorus, Boston Secession, the BBC Proms in London, and the Boston Early Music Festival, where she performed and recorded the role of Nymphe de L'Acheron in their 2007 production of Lully's Psyche. Recent operatic performances include the lead role of the Christian Woman in Delvyn Case's world premiere of The Prioress's Tale and La Poesie and La Paix in Charpentier's Les Arts Florrisants. Miss Wells was selected as a one of two singers to perform in the Egida Sartori and Laura Alvini Early Music Seminars in Venice, Italy this May and will return to Europe in the fall as semi-finalist for the 2008 Chimay Baroque Vocal Competition in Belgium.

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