Celebrating 30+ Years of Wild and Scenic Music
2026-2027 Artists
Violinist Elizabeth Baker enjoyed a 40-year career with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (10 years) and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (30 years) before moving permanently to Taos. She now performs with many of New Mexico’s leading chamber and orchestral ensembles.
Baker was an active chamber musician with colleagues in both orchestras and a member of XTet and Bach’s Circle, appearing widely in the Western U.S. for Chamber Music Northwest, Sedona, the Bach Festivals in Los Angeles, Carmel, and Oregon, South Bay Chamber Music, and the Colly Soleri Music Center. She was featured three times as soloist with the LA Philharmonic, all premieres that earned critical acclaim.
She taught on the Cal Arts faculty for 12 years and has worked with YOLA youth at HOLA since 2011. Baker’s recordings appear on Hänssler Classics, Delos, New World, and Crystal. She performs on a 1733 Sanctus Seraphin violin once owned by her mother, Virginia Voigtländer Baker.
Beyond being a very active performer, Dr. Jeffrey Brooks is Associate Professor of Clarinet at the University of New Mexico. He holds the 3rd/Bass Clarinet Chair in the New Mexico Philharmonic and owns clarinetmonster.com.
As a concerto soloist, he has appeared often and given numerous solo recitals. Brooks has performed with the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, Atlanta Symphony, Charleston Symphony, Savannah Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera, and many others across the Pacific Northwest, Southwest, and Southeastern U.S.
His duo, Clarinet Meets Guitar, is releasing its second album featuring newly commissioned works. Brooks has recorded for Naxos, New World Records, and Frameworks, as well as on film scores, video games, and commercials.
An avid jazz performer, he has released two albums of original music and developed the symphonic pops show Monsters of Clarinet.
Brooks holds both an MM and DM from Florida State University.
Violinist and violist, Laura Chang, a native of Wisconsin, was born into a musical family, and began her violin studies shortly after her fourth birthday. She earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Peabody Conservatory, under the tutelage of Martin Beaver and Pamela Frank, for whom she was a graduate assistant.
Chang is an avid chamber and orchestral musician whose performances have taken her to venues across the US, Canada, and Europe. While a resident of Washington, DC, she was a member of the National Philharmonic, and the Maryland Symphony, and frequently performed as an extra with the major orchestras in the Baltimore/Washington metro area. More recently, she performed with the Colorado Symphony and the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. In 2020, Chang and her family relocated to Albuquerque, where she is the Principal Violist with the New Mexico Philharmonic, and a first violinist in the Santa Fe Symphony. She is also a member of the Central City Opera Orchestra, and performs as an extra with the Santa Fe Opera.
Judith Gordon, pianist, explores a diverse repertoire as both a soloist and in collaboration with a wide range of instrumentalists and singers. A featured guest of chamber music festivals and series such as Apple Hill, Charlottesville, Music Mountain, Santa Fe, Spoleto, Tanglewood, and Music from Salem, she has also appeared with the Boston Pops, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and was a member of the percussion-based ensemble Essential Music. A graduate of the New England Conservatory, Gordon was a Boston Globe ‘Musician of the Year’ and an associate professor of music at Smith College from 2006-20. She is now based in New Mexico, playing often with Chatter, the Albuquerque Chamber Soloists, and at Placitas Artists Series.
Sally Guenther, a New Mexico cellist with performance degrees from Indiana University
and the Juilliard School of Music, has served in several major US orchestras (Syracuse, Cincinnati, Metropolitan Opera) before settling for twenty years in Norway as a solo cellist with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. While there, she also taught at the Grieg Academy of Music as well as touring extensively throughout Europe, Russia, and the Far East with the contemporary ensemble BIT 20. Since returning to the US, Guenther has performed with all of the major New Mexico ensembles, including Santa Fe Opera, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Santa Fe Symphony, New Mexico Philharmonic, Chatter, Taos Chamber Music Group, Montage Music Society, and NM Performing Arts Society. Recent activity includes solo performances in Cesis, Latvia, and Master Classes in Sonora, Mexico.
She has been on the faculty of the New Mexico School for the Arts and maintains a private teaching studio. Guenther plays a 1790 John Betts cello, which was totally and masterfully restored in 2017 by the late David Caron of Angel Fire, New Mexico.
Pianist, Gleb Ivanov, has wowed audiences around the world since winning prizes in the 1994 and 1996 International “Classical Legacy” Competition and first Vladimir Horowitz Competition. Before moving to the US, Ivanov appeared as soloist with the Nizhny Novgorod Philharmonic, the Moscow State Orchestra, in the Great Hall at Moscow Conservatory, with the Kremlin Orchestra, and at the Pushkin, Glinka, and Scriabin Museums in Moscow. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, where his teachers included the renowned Lev Naumov and where he was a protégé of Mstislav Rostropovich. Ivanov earned his Master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music, working with Nina Svetlanova, and was a recipient of a Musical Studies Grant from the Bagby Foundation.
In 2005, Ivanov won First Prize in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and made his critically acclaimed debuts at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He was also honored with the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists and presented at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. The New York Times called him “a young super-virtuoso with musical sensitivity and an appreciation of style to go with the thunder and lightning.”
Ivanov has given concerts at Princeton University, Bargemusic in New York, The Paramount Theater in Vermont, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, “Pianofest” in East Hampton, and the Louvre in Paris.
Numerous concerto performances have included the New Jersey, Knoxville, Dearborn, Las Cruces, Grand Rapids, Springfield, Southwest Florida, Peoria, and Napa Valley symphonies, and with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra and the Colorado Springs Philharmonic.
Ivanov is on the faculty of the Bluthner School of Music in Hoboken, New Jersey, passing on his amazing talents to children of all ages. In June 2023, he assumed the role of Music Director of Saint Peter and Paul Orthodox Cathedral in Jersey City, New Jersey, where he will be starting his own concert series in December.
Romanian-born violinist Ruxandra Marquardt studied at the ‘George Enescu’ School and Conservatory in Bucharest, earning top prizes in competitions such as Concertino Prague, Henri Wieniawski, Tibor Varga, and the All-Romania Prize. She also participated in the Yehudi Menuhin and Indianapolis Violin Competitions. In the U.S., Marquardt has served as Associate Concertmaster of the Syracuse Symphony, Principal Second Violin and Concertmaster of the Jacksonville Symphony, and guest Concertmaster with several orchestras, including the Rhode Island and New Mexico Philharmonics. Her solo credits include performances with the Bucharest Philharmonic, Jacksonville Symphony, and Coastal Symphony of Georgia. Marquardt has performed chamber music at Bayreuth, Skaneateles, Grand Tetons, Santa Fe Opera, and more. Currently, she is Assistant Concertmaster of the Santa Fe Symphony and a member of Movable Sol. A sought-after teacher and clinician, Marquardt has guided students to success in major competitions, conservatories, and auditions for professional and youth orchestras.
Violinist Stephen Redfield was a Starling Scholar with Dorothy DeLay and earned a Master’s at the Eastman School under Donald Weilerstein. A prize-winner in the Colman and Monterey Chamber Music Competitions, he has performed widely as a chamber musician on both modern and Baroque violin. Dr. Redfield retired from university teaching to Santa Fe, where he served as concertmaster of Santa Fe Pro Musica for nearly three decades. He now organizes MarketMusic, a Baroque series in the city’s Railyard District.
In his 45 years with the Oregon Bach Festival, Dr. Redfield has participated in many recordings, including the Grammy® Award-winning Credo. He is concertmaster of the Conspirare Company of Voices—earning four Grammy® nominations—and of the Victoria and Arizona Bach Festivals and La Follia Austin Baroque. Dr. Redfield has led Houston’s Ars Lyrica and Nashville’s Music City Baroque and is a member of the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra.
Katie Rietman has performed as a cellist on over 60 CD recordings and in numerous concerts with leading Baroque ensembles worldwide. Her career has taken her to 21 countries, and she is a prizewinner in the Bonporti and Van Wassenaer competitions.
Rietman studied cello at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam, later spending ten years in Cologne, Germany, performing with many European early music groups. Based in New York City for several years, she served as principal cellist of the Trinity Wall Street Baroque Orchestra, the Clarion Society, and Concert Royal.
Now living in Santa Fe, Rietman has performed with all the local classical groups and on the MarketMusic series at the New Mexico School for the Arts, where she also teaches cello. A trained soprano, she has a passion for languages—she speaks seven—and enjoys making jewelry and cooking.
