Donald E. Osborne,  Director California Artists Management 564 Market Street, Suite 420, San Francisco, CA  94104-5412 415 362-2787 / fax: 415 362-2838 / Skype: calartistsdon  / Email

Susan Endrizzi Morris,  Director California Artists Management P.O. Box  2479, Mendocino, CA  95460-2479 707-937-4787 / cell: 415-302-1083 / Skype: sueendrizzi / Email

MUSICA ANGELICA Martin Haselböck, Music Director

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Musica Angelica has presented an annual season of orchestral and chamber concerts in venues throughout Los Angeles County since it was co-founded by Michael Eagan and Mark Chatfield in 1993. The ensemble performs both well-known masterworks and rarely heard compositions that showcase leading Baroque musicians from around the world.

Under the leadership of Austrian conductor and Music Director Martin Haselböck, Musica Angelica is now Southern California’s leading Baroque ensemble, garnering critical and audience acclaim both nationally and abroad.

"Musica Angelica soars in a Baroque gem…a triumph…Haselböck´s leadership was nuanced and inspiring," wrote the Los Angeles Times in a recent review. KUSC FM Classical Radio hailed Musica Angelica as a "world class Baroque orchestra" while Angeleno Magazine christened the group "L.A.´s premiere Baroque music ensemble." Added esteemed music critic Alan Rich, " [Musica Angelica is] a serious and important early-music ensemble, the best of its kind in these parts."

After embarking upon its first international tour in 2007 – performing Bach´s St. Matthew Passion with the Weiner Akademie Baroque of Vienna – Musica Angelica was applauded by El Universal of Mexico City for presenting "a Passion as God and Bach commanded." Italy´s Dolomiten concurred: "Haselböck conducted with intense spirit and soul…Martin Haselböck is a superb conductor. The festival concert…was a triumph."

In March 2009, Musica Angelica collaborated with the Long Beach Opera in the U.S. premiere of Vivaldi´s Motezuma. The work had been lost for 269 years until it was rediscovered in 2002.  An equally sensational collaboration for the baroque orchestra was

in 2008 with celebrated actor and Academy Award nominee John Malkovich in the full-evening work Seduction and Despair. The multi-media world premiere, directed by and starring Malkovich, played to two nearly sold out houses and attracted media attention throughout the United States and Europe. Seduction and Despair was conceived after Malkovich met Haselböck at a dinner at the Austrian Consulate in Los Angeles.

Ultimately, the two agreed to work together on a project that would bridge and reflect the cultures of both Southern California and Austria. Austrian writer and director Michael Sturminger wrote the libretto.

Musica Angelic has a contract for four recordings on the New Classical Adventure (NCA) label in Germany. The first recording – Handel´s Acis and Galatea – was released in 2007.  The second album, Concerti by Georg Philipp Telemann, features principal players from the orchestra.

Based in Santa Monica, California, Musica Angelica collaborates with leading performing arts institutions throughout Southern California, including Los Angeles Opera, Long Beach Opera, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Norton Simon Museum, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Guest conductors have included Rinaldo Alessandrini, Giovanni Antonini, Harry Bicket, Paul Goodwin, and Jory Vinikour, among others.  Musica Angelica was co-founded by Michael Eagan, widely considered one of the foremost lute players in the country, and gambist Mark Chatfield. Eagan passed away in 2004; Chatfield, in 1998.

Martin Haselböck has a versatile career as an organist, composer and conductor. He studied harpsichord, organ, composition, and conducting in Vienna and Paris, won numerous organ prizes and competitions, and embarked on an international solo career.

While Court Organist for Vienna, Haselböck became dedicated to conducting, and in 1985 became Music Director of the Vienna Academy Orchestra. The ‘period instrument’ orchestra has since established a year-round series of Viennese classical music concerts in the Great Hall of the Vienna Musikverein, is a regular guest at major festivals, “Artist in Residence” at the Cologne Philharmonic Hall and the Würzburg Mozart Festival, and performs frequently in the great concert halls of Europe, Japan and North America.

In Europe he has led the orchestras of Berlin (Deutsches sinfonieorchester), Dresden, Leipzig, Zürich, the National Philharmonic Orchestras of Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Slovenia, Croatia, Spain, Prague (Prague Symphony and Prague Philharmonic), and Brussels (Royal Philharmonic of Flanders). Haselböck’s longstanding relationship with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra has led to a series of oratorio performances that began in 1999.  In 2000 he was named Principal Guest Conductor of the Hamburger Symphoniker.

In 2000 Haselböck made his North American debut conducting Bach’s “B Minor Mass” in Seattle. He is now repeatedly invited to conduct major American orchestras, including the Pittsburgh Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Bay Area’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

Haselböck also regularly conducts and records operatic literature. He has conducted most of Mozart’s operas in Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Spain and is regularly invited to major European festivals, to Istanbul and Tel Aviv. In 2007 he was appointed Music and Artistic Director of the Rheinsberg and Sankt Pölten Festivals in Austria.

Martin Haselböck is a recognized recording artist with over sixty releases ranging from Bach to Liszt to contemporary composers, including more than forty CDs as conductor of the Wiener Akademie. His involvement in rediscovering the famous Berlin Singakademie Archives in Kiev produced the first recording of major pieces by C.P.E. Bach, W.F. Bach, Graun and Benda in 2001. Haselböck‘s recordings have won numerous awards, including the 1986 Liszt Award, the Diapason d’Or and the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis.

In 1997 he received the highest Austrian Cultural Award by the State President, and in 2003 was given an honorary Doctor of Music by Luther College in Iowa.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR MUSICA ANGELICA

This "St. Matthew" is a big opportunity for Musica Angelica. "St. Matthew" became a battle of the bands, Baroque style… at that moment, they convinced me that there could be no more meaningful music. With a tour and recordings lined up, the period instrument group is raising its profile.                                         Los Angeles Times

The greater triumph belonged to the excellent Haselboeck, for his taut, beautifully shaded, forthright, dramatic reading. That man knows his Bach.

                                                                                    Alan Rich, LA Weekly

Under the baton of Music Director Martin Haselboeck, we were blessed with extraordinary performances, powerful emotions and the clarity and invigorating complexity that Bach put into one of his greatest, most personal and most elaborate works.          To hear two superb Baroque-style orchestras play together was in itself a treat, and Haselböck mixed their orchestral voices with perfection.  He created an evening that was at once intimate and expansive, delicate and rich… It is hard to remember a performance of this work that showed so well Bach's complexity and his simplicity… It was a blessed evening.                                     Pasadena Star News

It was a Passion as God and Bach commanded.        El Universal, Mexico City

The single most ambitious event in this year’s [Savannah Music] Festival is Bach’s St. Matthew Passion… One of the [Festival's] very few can’t miss performances.

                                                                                    Connect Savannah Weekly

[the audience] showed their appreciation with a standing ovation and shouts of 'bravo!'

                                                                                    Savannah Morning News

A highlight.                                                                  New York Times

When Martin Haselböck cheerfully asserts that recreating Bach begins as an act of historical imagination, it's difficult to argue and impossible not to be charmed. The former Court Organist for Vienna and a world-renowned conductor, composer and soloist, the tall and sprightly director of L.A.'s prestigious Musica Angelica baroque ensemble speaks with deep conviction and disarming enthusiasm. The performance of J.S. Bach's eternal masterpiece, 'St. Matthew Passion' pairs Haselböck's two orchestras, Musica Angelica and Wiener Akademie Baroque of Vienna, in spiritual and mimetic rapture.                                                               Arroyo Monthly Magazine

An impressive interpretation.              Badisches Tagblatt - Baden-Baden, Germany

Haselböck's perfect tempos and his feeling for the dramatic context… outstanding soloists… enthralling music.                  Badische Neueste Nachrichten - Baden-Baden

Haselböck's interpretation was full of musical power… he found beautiful, diverse characteristics, especially for the chorales. His thoughtful phrasing gave each passage deepness, structure and musical shape.                      Die Rheinpfalz - Baden-Baden

The earthy beauty of Musica Angelica contrasted with the bright and brilliant sound of Wiener Akademie.                                             Abendzeitung München – Munich

[Haselböck conducted with] intense spirit and soul… He is a superb conductor.  The festival concert in the packed concert hall was a triumph.