Galax Quartet & Karen R. Clark
Biography Galax Quartet & Karen R. Clark
Karen R. Clark
Founder and director of Vajra Voice's, Karen R. Clark has performed and recorded with world renown ensembles, to include, Sequentia, Boston Camerata, Project Are Nova, Waverly Consort, New York Early Music, Pomerium Musices, and Joshua Rifkin's Bach Ensemble. Karen holds degrees from the Indiana University School of Music where she studied with the legendary artists Virginia Zeani, and Thomas Binkley. In new music, Karen has premiered works by Joseph Schwantner, Ben Johnston, Fred Frith, and Roy Whelden. Her recording with the Galax Quartet, On Cold Mountain: Songs on Poems of Gary Snyder (Innova) was the culmination of concerts with the Pulitzer Poet, Gary Snyder. Joshua Kosman (San Francisco Chronicle) wrote,“It’s mesmerizing in it’s unplaceable timelessness. Clark’s majestic, throaty singing hints of modernist extravagance and medieval troubadours.”
A devoted voice teacher and practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method®, Karen has developed a somatic approach to vocal instruction which she offers in classes and workshops, and, which she implements in her work with Vajra Voices.
Karen R. Clark has served as private voice instructor and ensemble director in the music schools and departments of UC Berkeley, USC Thornton School of Music, Sonoma State University, Swarthmore College, and Princeton University. Karen's lecture/demonstrations, workshops and classes have been hosted by The Jung Institute, San Francisco; Chanticleer Workshops in Sonoma, Grace Cathedral Camerata Choir, The San Francisco Choral Society, San Francisco Early Music Society, The Madison Festival, Amherst Early Music, and Stanford University.
Galax Quartet
Founded in 2005, the Galax Quartet—two violins, viola da gamba and 'cello—explores the realm where early music and Baroque instruments intersect with new music and living composers, in classical quartets, film scores, song cycles, jazz, and collaborations with poets and mad scientists.
The Galax Quartet’s instrumentation is modeled on an early version of the string quartet as practiced by the late 18th century composer and viola da gamba player, Carl Friedrich Abel. The period instruments are characterized by the use of gut strings, low angle fingerboards, the absence of chin rests or end pins, and the use of lighter bows balanced nearer to the player’s hand. The ensemble tunes to A 415 Hz. These elements offer a rich pallet of coloration and nuances to composers of new music.
By keeping their ears open to a myriad of modern influences, the Galax Quartet has helped create in little more than a dozen years more music for the ensemble than it inherited from the early classical period.
Each member of the Galax Quartet is a specialist in the field of early music. David Wilson, violin, is author of Georg Muffat on Performance Practice (Indiana University Press); Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin, is a frequent soloist and concertmaster with San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra; cellist David Morris was founder and musical director of the Baroque opera ensemble Teatro Bacchino; and composer and gambist Roy Whelden has been called “a key figure in the world of new music" by Early Music America.
