The Toot is fortunate to present some of the best teachers and players in the Early Music world. This year our distinguished faculty includes (in alphabetical order):

Becky Baxter (Early Harps)

Ms. Baxter's resume as a professional in the field of early harp includes performances of harp literature from the 12th through 18th centuries on a wide variety of historical harps. Becky has performed at events such as: the National Harp Society Convention, Houston Grand Opera's productions of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo and L'Incoronazione di Poppea (including subsequent broadcasts on NPR), the Boston Early Music Festival, the Round Top Early Music Festival, the Texas Early Music Festival, the Amherst Early Music Festival, and the Historical Harp Society Conference/Workshops.

In addition to her full-time career in church music as Associate Director of music and organist at Clear Lake Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas and as a pedal harp performer and teacher, Ms. Baxter currently serves on the faculty of the Amherst Early Music Festival and the Texas Early Music Festival. Her first recording on the Dorian label is titled O Lux Beata, Renaissance Harp Music (DOR 93193.) She also appears as a guest artist with Chatham Baroque on another Dorian CD, Españoleta (DOR 90284.) Both recordings went up in the shuttle with astronaut Bill McArthur in Fall of 2000.

Frances Blaker (Recorders)

Frances Blaker earned pedagogy and performance degrees in recorder from the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen. She performs as a soloist and in ensembles including Vermillian Trio and Farallon Recorder Quartet. She is the author of "The Recorder Player's Companion" and the "Opening Measures" column in American Recorder Magazine.

Frances can be heard on the Disc Continuo series of play-along recordings. She has taught at several Fall and Summer Toots and is on the Executive Advisory Board of Amherst Early Music.

Bruce Brogdon (Lutes)

Bruce Brogdon studied classical guitar at the University of St. Thomas. His interest in early music led him to take up the lute, and he has studied privately and in masterclasses with Paul O'Dette and Pat O'Brien. Bruce has performed with the Texas Baroque Ensemble, the Green Mountain Consort, the Houston Baroque Ensemble, the Texas Early Music Project, La Follia Austin Baroque, Ars Lyrica Houston (based at University of Houston), and Aquinas, the resident ensemble of the University of St. Thomas.

Bruce leads his own group, Canzonetta, which specializes in plucked string continuo (lutes, guitars, and harp), and features music of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Karen Burciaga (Viols and Violin)

Karen Burciaga discovered early music while a student at Vanderbilt University. In 2004, she earned a Master of Music in Early Music Performance from the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA, studying violin with Dana Maiben and viol with Jane Hershey. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has performed with the King's Noyse, Seven Times Salt, Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, Saltarello, Voices Rising, the Arcadia Players, and other period ensembles including appearances at the Boston, Bloomington, and Amherst Early Music Festivals.

Karen is on the string faculty of the Texas Toot in Austin, TX, where she also leads The Killer Bees, a baroque ensemble. Other musical interests include traditional Scottish fiddle and dance, American shape-note singing, and Italian Renaissance dance.

Barbara Coeyman (Viols)

Barbara Coeyman has been a player, teacher, coach, and editor of music for the viol since the mid-1970s. She performed in Collegia at University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, New York University, and the University of Texas, and has studied viol with Mary Springfels and John Hsu, among others. As a music professor, she directed the Collegium of West Virginia University, and also led the Darlington Consort of Pittsburgh. She has published a variety of articles on the French Baroque viol and current performs with the Texas Early Music Project.

Therese Honey (Harps)

Therese Honey has been performing, studying, researching and teaching harp in the Houston area since 1968. She performs early music with the Texas Early Music Project and La Follia Austin Baroque and more, and performs Celtic music at the North Texas Irish Festival, Milwaukee Irish Festival, and more, in addition to nationally broadcast PBS Christmas Specials. She has presented concerts and workshops throughout the United States and Canada. Ms. Honey has published several books of arrangements of Celtic and Early Music for Celtic harp and has recorded 4 solo CDs.

Jan Jackson (Recorders)

Jan Jackson, director of Passing Measures (renaissance/medieval music) and Passing Fancies (baroque music), has performed in early music realms for 20 years. She has served on the national boards of directors for the American Recorder Society and its educational committee.

A charter member of the American Recorder Teachers Association and a registered Suzuki instructor, she teaches privately at her studio, The Academie of Recorder Musick, at the Armstrong Music School, and at workshops, including several years at the Fall and Summer Toots. She performs frequently with the Texas Early Music Project and Two Early, a newly formed duo playing Renaissance and Baroque music on period woodwinds.

Danny Johnson (Voice, Workshop Director)

Award-winning director, international performer, and recording artist Daniel Johnson has been the artistic director of the Texas Early Music Project since its inception in 1987. Johnson has performed and toured both as a soloist and ensemble member in such groups as the New York Ensemble for Early Music, Sotto Voce (San Francisco), and Musa Iberica. He can be heard on various recordings for Koch International, Foné Records (Rome), Amherst Festival Productions, and the Texas Early Music Project label.

Johnson was the director of the UT Early Music Ensemble, one of the largest and most active in the U.S., from 1986-2003. In 1998, he was awarded Early Music America's Thomas Binkley Award for university ensemble directors. He is also the recipient of the 1997 Quattelbaum Award at the College of Charleston. Johnson teaches master classes in performance practice and also serves on the faculty, staff, and the Executive Advisory Board of the Amherst Early Music Festival. He has been on the faculty of the Texas Toot since 1994.

Judith Overcash (Voice and Ensemble)

Judith Overcash has spent several years specializing in the performance of music from the Medieval through the early Classical period and the 20th century, and has received repeated critical acclaim across the country. Judith was recently named as a finalist in the International Bodky Award Competition, the only vocalist ever to receive such a distinction.

Judith is currently part-time music history, vocal pedagogy and voice faculty at both Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio, and is ever-active as guest faculty and lecturer for special events, including most recently the International Historical Harp Conference, the Southeast Medieval Association International Conference in New Orleans, and the Amherst Early Music Festival and Workshop. Judith can be heard on commercial recordings and public radio broadcasts with the Texas Early Music Project, the Columbus Bach Ensemble, the Dayton Bach Society, the Warren Philharmonic, Amherst Early Music, Inc., and the Charleston Pro Musica. Please visit her website at www.judithovercash.com.

Dr. Frank Shirley (Recorders)

Dr. Frank Shirley holds a Master of Music degree in musicology from the University of Texas, where as a Ph.D. in mathematics he teaches courses in math for non-math majors. He has performed in early music ensembles in Ithaca NY, Dallas, and Austin, and has taught for several years at the Fall and Summer Toots. He has studied recorder in workshops with Saskia Coolen, Reine-Marie Verhagen, and Aldo Abreu. In addition, Dr. Shirley has performed as a bass chorister in the UT Early Music Ensemble, the Austin Civic Chorus, the Victoria Bach Festival, and the Dallas area Renaissance Polyphony Weekend.

Dale Taylor (Winds)

Mr. Taylor worked with Phil Levin Historical Instruments for a number of years and has maintained his own repair shop for years. He has worked in the ARS National Office and has written extensively for musical journals. He has also performed with many groups around the country and has taught at ARS workshops around the US.

Tom Zajac (Recorders and Reeds)

Tom Zajac is a multi-instrumentalist widely praised for his versatility,

"and sacbut player Tom Zajac...was particularly versatile, also playing a bagpipe, flutes and recorders and, in some numbers, fingering a recorder with his right hand while he played a drum with his left." [Washington Post, October 14th, 2002]

"The art of improvisation, long before the jazz era, was explored in a bagpipe solo dashingly played by Tom Zajac." [Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 5th, 2002]

Tom is a member of Piffaro, the Philadelphia-based renaissance wind band, and the musical/theatrical group Ex Umbris. He's a regular guest artist with the Folger Consort, of Washington, DC, and has also appeared with other leading ensembles in the US including the King's Noyse, Newberry Consort, Violins of Lafayette, Waverly Consort, Concert Royal, and New York's Ensemble for Early Music.

Tom can be heard on over 30 recordings, ranging from Medieval dances and baroque opera, to contemporary folk-rock for Dorian, Deutsche Gramophon, Angel EMI, Virgin Veritas, Harmonia Mundi, Lyrichord, Windham Hill, and others. With his group Ex Umbris, he performed at the 5th Millennium Council event in the East Room of the Clinton White House. He played serpent in a work by Peter Schickele for the nationally broadcast radio show "A Prairie Home Companion", hurdy gurdy for an American Ballet Theater Company performance of a work choreographed by Twyla Tharp, bagpipe for an internationally broadcast sports beverage commercial, and percussion for a 16th-century equestrian ballet at the Berkeley Early Music Festival in California. The sound of his bagpipe also awoke the astronauts every morning on a recent space shuttle mission.