Early Music Missouri

Early Music Missouri

Chamber Ensemble

Begun as informal concerts in 2018, Early Music Missouri has grown to become an important part of our region’s musical life, presenting concerts, workshops, master classes, lectures and more regionally and nationally. EMMo concerts feature Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and early Classical repertoire played on instruments (originals and reproductions) from these eras. Utilizing historical documents and original musical scores and guided by modern research, EMMo offers performances that reflect an Historically Informed Approach to technique, interpretation and performance.

Samantha Arten

Soprano & Music Historian

Samantha Arten holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from Duke University. Integrating musicology, religious studies, and book history, her research focuses on sixteenth-century English music printing in the context of Reformation theology and book history. Her work has been published in the Yale Journal of Music and Religion, Early Music, Reformation, and in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and the Arts. She is co-editing Elizabethan and Jacobean Praises of Music (under contract with Routledge) and completing her first monograph, Reading The Whole Booke of Psalmes, with archival research for her next book project, Making Notes: Print, Music, and Readers in Tudor England, already underway. In addition to sixteenth-century English music printing, her other research interests include Reformation sacred music, especially hymnals and congregational song; early music performance practice (especially in relation to her work as a professional soprano); and contemporary sacred vocal music, particularly that of Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, and James MacMillan.

Now back in St. Louis, she teaches music history courses as a Lecturer in Musicology at Washington University in St. Louis, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and Maryville University, and is a faculty affiliate with the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University. She is a Principal Singer with the Bach Society of St. Louis, a Principal Artist with the St. Louis Women’s Chorale, and a staff singer at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. She sings a regular series of early music recitals and is an active performer with Early Music Missouri.

In past years, she performed as a soloist with the Raleigh Bach Soloists, the Duke Vespers Ensemble, the Byrd Festival Consort, Musicke’s Cordes, St. Louis Baroque, Collegium Vocale St. Louis, and the Southeast Baroque Ensemble. She was a founding member of Bull City Baroque and Concentus Carolina, and directed the Duke Collegium Musicum (2016) and the children’s choir at First Presbyterian Church of Durham, NC (2015–2018). Her women’s barbershop quartet, Ringtones, won an international competition (Harmony, Incorporated) in 2010.

Jeffrey Noonan

Lute, Theorbo, Guitar

Trained as a classical guitarist, Jeffrey Noonan has played lute, theorbo and early guitars for over forty years across the Midwest. Based in St. Louis, he has performed throughout the region with various ensembles including Shakespear’s Bande, Early Music St. Louis, Armonia e Passione, Kansas City Baroque Consortium, Bourbon Baroque (Louisville, KY), the Madison Early Music Festival (Madison, WI), Ars Antigua (Chicago), and Musik Ekklesia (Indianapolis, IN.) In addition, Jeff has created and directed a number of Early Music ensembles including The Ellenwood Consort, Such Sweete Melodie, Musicke’s Cordes and La Petite Brise. An in-demand accompanist and continuo player, Jeff performs a varied repertoire ranging from sixteenth-century chanson with solo voice to Handel’s Messiah with the St. Louis Symphony. A recognized expert on the early guitar, Jeff has produced two books and several articles for The Grove Dictionary of American Music/Oxford Music Online on the subject. His edition of violin trio sonatas by the 18th-century Italian composer Giovanni Bononcini was published in 2012 by A-R Editions. Jeff's most recent research project is an edition of an Italian song manuscript he uncovered in Chicago’s Newberry Library. The manuscript holds over thirty arias by the Italian composer Bernardo Pasquini, including several pieces thought lost. He has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and in 2015 the Newberry Library awarded Jeff its Cullen Fellowship to research and edit music manuscripts in its collection. In 2016, the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission presented Jeff with a RAC Artist Fellowship in recognition of his accomplishments in musical scholarship, pedagogy and performance. In early 2021, the Missouri Arts Council selected Jeff for its new “Featured Artists Program.” (https://www.missouriartscouncil.org/featured-artists)