Gil Zilkha, bass
Since winning 2nd Prize at the 2006 Leeds Competition, Andrew Brownell has pursued an active and varied international performing career. Critics regularly remark on his creative programming and interpretive insight. Musical Opinion has described him as “potentially one of the most significant pianists of his generation”, and The Oregonian wrote that Brownell “impresses as much with his mind as with his hands… the anti-Lang Lang.”
A native of Portland, Oregon, Andrew Brownell began studying the piano at the age of four. His teachers have included Nancy Weems and Horacio Gutiérrez at the University of Houston; John Perry at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles); and Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music in London, where he earned a doctorate. An enthusiastic collaborative artist, Andrew Brownell was a member of a prize-winning trio at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition (USA) and has appeared in concert with principals of orchestras such as the Philharmonia, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and Vienna Philharmonic. In 2017, he joined the faculty of the Butler School of Music, The University of Texas at Austin.
2025 Texas Bach Festival Performers
Bassoon
Daniel Chrisman
Gil Zilkha, bass, has performed in a wide range of repertoire with such ensembles as the Texas Early Music Project, La Follia, Conspirare, the Oregon Bach Festival Berwick Chorus, Vox Humana, and Spire Chamber Ensemble of Kansas City. Some of Gil's favorite solo credits include Bach's St John Passion and Ich habe genug, Durufle's Requiem, Dvorak's Stabat Mater, Handel's Messiah, Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, Mozart's Requiem and C Minor Mass, and Vaughan Williams' Five Mystical Songs. His opera roles include Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore with the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Austin and Count Ceprano in Verdi's Rigoletto with Austin Opera. Gil received his Masters in Voice Performance from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000, studying with acclaimed mezzo-soprano Rose Taylor.
Trumpet
Kyle Koronka - principal
Joe Cooper
Wesley Miller
Patrice Calixte, violin
Mariama Alcântara, violin
Bruce Williams, viola
Douglas Harvey, cello
Timpani
Cindy Willis
David Polley is an adjunct Professor of Organ at Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX and currently serves as the Music Director of Grace Episcopal Church in Georgetown. He earned degrees from Concordia University, Seward NE; Northwestern University, Evanston, IL; and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE. He has served Lutheran, Catholic, and Methodist churches in Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Texas. He has performed as a featured recitalist in concerts in the Georgetown Festival of the Arts playing music of Schubert, Schumann, Saint-Saens, and Vierne as well as Scandinavian and Latin American composers. His most recent invited recitals include the Church of the Heavenly Rest in Abilene, TX, St. Austin Catholic Church in Austin, TX, and Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Austin.
Oboe/English Horn
Julianne Webner - Principal
Jennifer Bernard
Texas Bach Festival Choir
Tenor
Evan Brown
Michael Dixon
Gary Goethe
Mark Istratie
Jeffrey Jones-Ragona
The Artisan String Quartet, Patrice Calixte and Mariama Alcântara violin, Bruce Williams viola, and Douglas Harvey cello, is comprised primarily of principal players from the Austin Symphony Orchestra and has become a fixture around central Texas and beyond. In addition to regular appearances at Mozart Festival Texas in San Antonio and the Victoria Bach Festival, the Artisans enjoy Quartet-in-Residence status at the Texas Bach Festival in Georgetown, Classical Sound Inc., the Mason Chamber Music Festival, and the Lampasas County Chamber Music Festival. MidAmerica Productions, Inc. invited the Artisan String Quartet to make its Carnegie Hall debut performing on the Carnegie Hall Weil Recital Hall Chamber Music Series on March 22, 2012. The concert in New York was commemorated by the Texas House of Representatives on March 13, 2013, with HR 703 read into the Texas Congressional Record with the Artisans present. Please visit the ASQ website at www.artisanstringquartet.com or “like” us on Facebook.
Flute
Adrienne Inglis - Principal
Nicholas Goodwin
Texas Bach Festival Camerata
Austin Haller, organist and keyboardist
Violin 1
Mariama Alcântara - concertmaster
Megan Zapfe
Ashley Cooper
David Polley, organ
Andrew Brownell, piano
Hailed as “always remarkable” (Austin Chronicle), Austin Haller serves as Organist for the Austin Symphony and as Principal Organist at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church in Austin. He performs regularly with the Grammy®-winning choir Conspirare, and he makes music regularly with a number of Central Texas-based choral ensembles. Austin’s musical theatre music direction “produces a gloriously rich choral sound full of exquisite harmonies” (Broadway World), and he is the grateful recipient of Austin Critics’ Table and B. Iden Payne Awards for Music Direction. He has music-directed for productions at Zach Theatre, Texas State University, TexArts, and Zilker Theatre, and his “fierce piano stylings” (Austin Chronicle) are frequently heard at Austin Shakespeare’s cabaret series at Parker Jazz Club.
Viola
Bruce Williams - Principal
Alexander Smith
Bass
Jonathan Rouse
Continuo
Austin Haller
ARTISAN STRING QUARTET
Violin 2
Karen Styles - principal second violin
Helen Cooper
Antonio Cevallos
Cello
Douglas Harvey
Bass
Benedict Ankuwah
Michael Follis
Eric Johnson
Tim O’Brien
Gil Zilkha
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