Artistic Director

Linda Burman-Hall, Artistic Director of the Baroque Festival, is a performer and cultural musicologist with decades of activity in research on performance practices, improvisation and in the history of music. As a scholar-performer and Professor Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz, she relates regional styles and fashions in music to cultural context, and describes, analyzes, and performs historically-and culturally-informed realizations and improvisations on musical materials. Audio recordings of Burman-Hall’s ensemble and solo work are available on the Kleos, GoldenHorn, MSR, East Meets West, New Albion, and Koustic Music labels and often heard on National Public Radio.

Despite a full range of activity in western music performance and directing, she maintains a parallel career as a research ethnomusicologist, and has published articles on Southern American folk fiddling, traditional and contemporary Balinese and Sundanese gamelan, African pianism, Ottoman music performance, and recently several articles about the shamanic songs referencing the endemic gibbons (Hylobates klossii) and the cultural context of the shamanic religion of the Mentawai archipelago of Indonesia, west of Sumatra.

Recently, UC-Santa Cruz appointed Linda Burman-Hall Edward A Dickson Emerita Professor for 2019-2023, an honor that will result in a free-to-the-public concert of Celtic music October 9, 2022 at the Veteran’s Hall in downtown Santa Cruz featuring music of Irish harpist-composer Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738) honoring his 350^thbirthday.

Co-President

Donald Wilson

Co-President

Brian Johnston

Vice-President

Chris Smith

Treasurer

Jill Perry

Secretary

Rowan O’Neal

Board members

Penny Hanna

Dorothy Manzo

Ontario Alexander

Vlada Moran

Grijda Spiri

General Manager

Kate Smit

Kate has worked in a number of management positions for start-up as well as established companies. She is originally from the east coast where she studied classical piano with Naomi Pollack from Juilliard and concert pianist Karen Goodin at Hartt Conservatory of Music. She has also studied with internationally acclaimed concert pianist Thomas Hansen in the Bay Area.

Currently Kate is an independent piano teacher who works with beginner to intermediate students. She is excited to have recently joined Santa Cruz Baroque Festival as General Manager.

Assistant manager

Isabella Balbi

Isabella is a writer, radio DJ, and music enthusiast from Los Angeles.

She has a passion for non-profit media and has worked extensively in non-commercial radio as a staff member at KZSC Santa Cruz, in addition to working with independent music venues including The UC Theatre Taube Family Music Hall.

She is eager to continue to create opportunities for communities to connect through music, and is especially excited to work towards the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival’s mission of preserving musical and cultural traditions.