The History of Musica Angelica

A 1988 Los Angeles Times review of a performance by the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra mentioned a “generally solid continuo team” that included cellist Mark Chatfield and lutenist Michael Eagan, potentially the earliest published evidence of the two musicians who led the creation of Musica Angelica in 1993. American ensembles specializing in historical performance practice developed a decade or two after their European counterparts, relying longer upon modern classical performers to double but also initially sharing a larger pool of specialists across nascent groups which often changed identities and memberships with a fluidity appropriate for the postmodern era.

Chatfield and Eagan both personified this, being composers who included their own works on programs of Baroque music and open to increasingly creative approaches in engaging wider audiences: a 1997 Los Angeles Opera collaboration on Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria was a breakthrough for Musica Angelica, followed by an innovative Long Beach Opera staging of Purcell’s The Indian Queen. Regarding the latter, Eagan noted that half the audience came for the musicians, half for the production (which featured “lots of nudity”).

In 1998, Chatfield died of lymphoma at the age of 45 and Eagan assumed sole directorship. A recording of Vivaldi concertos for lute, oboe, violin, and strings was released the same year, featuring Gonzalo Ruiz and Elizabeth Blumenstock. Musica Angelica continued to concertize and grow its audience base, with more and varied performances around the greater Los Angeles region. The 2004 US premiere by Musica Angelica of Nicola Porpora’s 1737 oratorio Il Gedeone was directed at the Colburn School by the manuscript’s discoverer, Austrian organist and conductor Martin Haselböck.

Eagan suffered a fatal heart attack later that year, but the group persisted under leadership from Haselböck, who became Music Director in the fall of 2005. A tour of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion was mounted in collaboration with Haselböck’s Wiener Akademie, with fourteen performances in Mexico, New York, and various locations across Europe. More recordings were released over the next few years, including Handel’s Acis & Galatea, concertos by Telemann, and cantatas by Bach.

A relocation of operations from Santa Monica to Long Beach was accomplished in 2016, with the Beverly O’Neill Theater serving as a home venue ever since; other large projects have included a 2011 collaboration with John Malkovich (The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer) and 2019’s stage work for tenor, dancers, and Baroque ensemble based on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat, as well as a second tour of St. Matthew Passion to Mexico City.

Artists

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Artistic and Operational Staff

Music Director and Conductor
Martin Haselböck

Associate Music Director
Gonzalo Ruiz

Executive Director
Matthew Faulkner
mfaulkner@musicaangelica.org

Director of Operations
Ashley Salinas
ashleys@musicaangelica.org

Director of Patron Relations
Norma Ramirez
nramirez@musicaangelica.org