Soprano Amanda Sidebottom is known for her “luminous,” clear tone and versatile musicianship. An active soloist, choral singer, and chamber musician, she performs music ranging from Renaissance polyphony to newly commissioned works. Recent solo credits include Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s St. John Passion, Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater, Charpentier’s Te Deum, and Boismortier’s Printemps. This season she has joined the Trinity Wall Street Choir for performances of Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Easter Oratorio. Last season she sang in Holy Trinity Lutheran’s long-running Bach Vespers series and joined the New Haven–based ensemble Yale Choral Artists for concerts led by William Christie and Mark Morris. Amanda can be heard with Etherea Vocal Ensemble on the group’s albums Hymn to the Dawn and Ceremony of Carols (both on Delos). The debut concert season of Well-Tuned Words included concerts in four states, with a fringe concert at the Berkeley Festival. The 2012–13 season opened with a collaboration between WTW and Brooklyn Baroque. The duo made its first European tour in the fall of 2012, giving recitals in Milan (Sforza Castle), Paris, and Amsterdam; harpsichordist Rebecca Pechefsky joined them in Milan and Amsterdam. WTW’s 2013–14 season opened with a second European Tour, featuring concerts in Basel and Berlin. An avid proponent of historical performance, she has worked with such luminaries as Ellen Hargis, Stephen Stubbs, and Grant Herreid and has been invited to participate in workshops in Vancouver, Seattle, and Boston. She has performed in fringe concerts at early-music festivals in Boston and Berkeley with the New York Continuo Collective and the award-winning Ensemble Lipzodes. She has also worked with the early-music chamber ensemble The Soul’s Delight. In addition, as a member of the New Haven– based Etherea Vocal Ensemble, she performs works of the 19th and 20th centuries for upper voices. A founding member and now artistic director of the chamber choir Conflitti di voci, she has sung in acclaimed performances of major oratorio works with New York’s Grand Tour Orchestra. Amanda holds a master’s degree in early music from Indiana University. For more information, visit amandasidebottom.com. |
- Born in New York City, Erik Ryding
began music studies at age nine, when
his father gave him his first lessons on
the harpsichord. In high school he
performed in an electric-guitar duo and
also studied classical guitar with William
Hellermann; he later studied with jazz
guitarist Lou Mecca. In his late teens,
he settled on the lute, studying with
Frank Eyler in New York and participating
in master classes with Eugen Dombois
in the Netherlands. As an undergraduate
he majored in music and English, giving
early-music performances in the New York
area and accompanying many singers.
He later studied lute in Basel, Switzerland,
with Anthony Bailes, taking a particular
interest in historical techniques and ornamentation. In 1979 and 1981 he
toured Germany, performing with the soprano and lutenist Cornelia
Praetorius in programs of lute songs, solos, and duets.
Though he continued to play the lute while finishing his dissertation at
Columbia—a thesis on Renaissance music and poetry, later published
as In Harmony Framed—in the mid-1980s he began to suffer severe
back pain, which eventually forced him to stop playing altogether.
In 2008, however, after hearing a performance by the 93-year-old
Les Paul, he determined to return to the lute, teaching himself how to
play while standing up, which put less stress on his back. He began
performing with soprano Amanda Sidebottom in 2010, and they
formed Well-Tuned Words in 2011. Since its formation, the duo has
performed frequently, with concerts on both coasts of the US as well
as in Milan, Paris, Amsterdam, Basel, and Berlin. Erin Heisel, reviewing
the Well-Tuned Words debut CD, Great Wonder, in American Record
Guide, wrote of “Ryding’s beautifully played solos,” adding: “His
playing ... is unexpectedly warm and I wanted to hear more.” In June
2016 he played in an ensemble of twenty lutes led by Paul O’Dette
that included Nigel North, Ronn McFarlane, Robert Barto, Xavier Diaz-
Latorre, Christopher Morrongiello, and other lute masters.
Erik taught literature for a decade and a half, specializing in the
Renaissance, before beginning a new life in the frenetic music
business—a period culminating in seven years at Carnegie Hall. With
his wife, the harpsichordist Rebecca Pechefsky, he co-authored the
award-winning biography Bruno Walter: A World Elsewhere (Yale
University Press). For years he gave annual pre-concert lectures
on different lute-song collections performed by My Lord Chamberlain’s
Consort. His other lectures include the pre-concert talks on Mahler’s
Eighth for Lorin Maazel’s final appearances as music director of the
New York Philharmonic.
| PHOTO: QUILL CLASSICS |
| PHOTO: DAVID WHITE |
| COPYRIGHT © 2015 WELL-TUNED WORDS Amanda Sidebottom • Erik Ryding |