A prosperous maritime society flourished on Bronze Age Crete from ~2700 to ~1400 BCE, a thousand years before classical Greek civilization. Egyptian records, paintings of Cretans bearing gifts to the Pharaoh, and Minoan paintings found in Egypt testify to this brilliant culture. The magnificence of its art and architecture and the sophistication of the urban culture of Knossos on Crete were not rediscovered until British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans undertook the excavation and controversial reconstruction of Knossos from 1901-1930. The resulting images of a peaceful, matriarchal society have been increasingly challenged, with archaeological finds in Crete and Santorini that showcase Minoan Crete as a flourishing sea empire. A devastating volcanic eruption at nearby Thera (Santorini), followed by a tsunami, destroyed its navy and economy, triggering its gradual collapse. In the 14th century BCE came influential interaction with the Mycenaean culture developing on the Greek mainland and a shift in power that transmitted and transformed Minoan culture onto the European continent and into a palatial empire that marks the end of one fascinating story and the beginning of yet another.

Sponsored by the Consul General of Greece; the Center for Modern Greek Studies and Classics Department at San Francisco State University; Stanford University; UC Berkeley

Moderator: Kim Shelton (Classics; Director, Nemea Center for Classical Archaeology, UC Berkeley)

Friday, April 29, 2011, 8:00 to10:15 pm

Opening Remarks
Ioannis Andreades (Consul General of Greece in San Francisco)

Excavating in Santorini
Xenia Stefanidou (Ambassador of Greece to the Philippines)
Ambassador Stefanidou reflects on her experience excavating ancient archeological sites on Santorini.

Knossos and the Making of Minoan Civilization: a Century of Bronze Age Archaeology
Eleni Hatzaki (Classics, University of Cincinnati)
On March 23, 1900, British archaeologist Arthur Evans began excavating the largest prehistoric building in Crete and the Aegean, which he named Palace of Minos at Knossos. The unparalleled craftsmanship of local and imported material culture, combined with Evans’s definitive scholarship, has much shaped our understanding of Europe’s first civilization. Professor Hatzaki explores, critiques, and evaluates 100 years of Knossian and Minoan archaeology in the context of Bronze Age Crete, the Aegean, and the East Mediterranean.

Performance
Mezzo soprano Lauren Groff performs Monteverdi’s “Lamento d’Arianna,” the aria from the lost opera Arianna, and Haydn’s solo cantata “Arianna a Naxos,” with piano accompaniment. Introduced by Clifford (Kip) Cranna (SF Opera).

Enomenoi Dancers of the Church of the Holy Cross, Belmont, California.

Saturday, April 30, 2011, 10:00 am to noon and 1:30 to 4:00 pm

Explaining the Minoan Miracle
Ian Morris (Classics and History, Stanford University)
Minoan Crete was an amazing place: between 1800 and 1600 BCE its people ate better, lived longer, and inhabited bigger, more comfortable houses than Cretans ever had before or would have again for centuries. Why? By looking at Minoan Crete against the background of other moments when ancient Greeks lived unusually well (particularly 600-300 BCE and 400-600 CE), we see the answer—geography. The Aegean world began each of these eras as a backwater on the fringes of a more dynamic core in the east Mediterranean. As the core expanded, the Aegean world was drawn in, setting off economic and cultural explosions from its advantageous position on the periphery. Similar growth has happened throughout history, not least to northwest Europe and then North America after about 1600 CE. Only by looking at the Minoan Miracle in a global framework can we make sense of what happened there–and gain a whole new way to see our own times.

The World of Minoan Art: Sacred Landscapes and Nature; Gods and Man; Daily Life and Epic
Vance Watrous (Art History, SUNY Buffalo)
During the Late Bronze Age (1700-1400 BCE), the civilization of Minoan Crete was part of an international era that included the entire Eastern Mediterranean – the Aegean, Levant and Egypt. Famous as craftsmen, Cretan artists created wall paintings, jewelry, vases and seals. Of exquisite quality, this art still has the power to affect us today. In the Bronze Age, Minoan seafarers travelled widely and absorbed the artworks they saw in their journeys. Details in their art were clearly derived from the Near East, especially from Egypt. Nevertheless, when we turn from the art of Egypt and the Levant to Crete, nothing prepares us for what we see. We pass into a land of enchantment, into a world that is sensuous, alive, full of wonder and spirituality. Minoan art depicts landscapes and nature as well as gods and man, and epic themes of war and peace in which we can detect the very beginnings of Western art.

Lunch Break

Plato’s Myth of Lost Atlantis
Andrew Jameson (Emeritus, History, Harvard University and UC Berkeley)
Lost Atlantis, one of the most exasperating mysteries of human history, was born in the mind of Greek philosopher Plato. In two dialogues, Timaeus and Critias,Plato originated the idea, the legend, and the mystery of an advanced civilization “destroyed by a huge natural catastrophe.” Since antiquity many have tried to find Atlantis and date its destruction. The search has involved many disciplines: geology and archeology, ethnology and linguistics, mysticism and occultism, and the natural and psychological sciences. Ever since Greek archeologist Spyridon Marinatos proposed in 1939 that the Bronze Age eruption of Santorini (ancient Thera) was responsible for the demise of the Minoan Crete civilization, geologists and archeologists have studied the volcanic eruptions of the island, leading some to conclude that Santorini is the antecedent of Plato’s Atlantis. Thousands of works have been written about Atlantis in the scientific literature and in bestsellers of popular science, much of it characterized by myth, legend, and fantasy. Lost Atlantis has become a legendary symbol of the human search for a lost “cradle of human culture.”

The End of the Minoan Story and the Beginning of the Mycenaean
Kim Shelton (Classics; Director, Nemea Center for Classical Archaeology, UC Berkeley).
The Mycenaean Greeks rose to power on the mainland and in the Aegean during and after the collapse of the Minoan civilization. The interaction between these two cultures helped define not only the nature of the Late Bronze Age in the Aegean but also the legacy of prehistoric and pre-Hellenic civilization to the later Greeks of the historical period. The Mycenaeans lived at Knossos before its destruction in the middle of the 14th century BCE. Mycenaean art and society were strongly influenced by Minoan culture at several essential phases, while the concept of “Mycenaean” Crete and what that means for our understanding of the Minoans themselves and the implications for the first Greeks on the mainland as they develop into a palatial empire is the end of one fascinating story and the beginning of yet another.

Panel Discussion with All Presenters

Presenters

Mezzo-soprano Lauren Groff completed her master’s degree in Vocal Performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2008, studying under Catherine Cook. Ms. Groff completed her undergraduate studies at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she performed the role of Dido, (Dido and Aeneas) and was part of the chorus for Pacific Repertory Opera. Her roles in the Bay Area have included Hänsel (Hänsel and Gretel), Hippolyta (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Claudio (Silla-US Premiere), Meg (Little Women), and Lidio (L’Egisto-Cavalli). A frequent soloist, her concert credits include Respighi’s Laud to the Nativity, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah, and Mozart’s Grand Mass in C-minor. Ms. Groff made her Bay Area opera debut with Festival Opera as Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Her future engagements include a concert version of Carmen with the San Jose Youth Symphony (title role), Bay Area appearances in Handel’s Messiah, soloist appearances with the Valley Concert Chorale, and a soloist with the SF Concert Chorale in Saint-Saens Christmas Oratorio.

Mary Louise Hart, Associate Curator of Antiquities, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Eleni Hatzaki (Assistant Professor, Classics, University of Cincinnati) is an Aegean Pre-historian working on Crete with research interests in the archaeology of Prehistoric Knossos, ceramic production and consumption, burial customs and society, the archaeology of urban complexity, and household archaeology. She came to University of Cincinnati from the British School at Athens where she held the academic positions of Assistant Director and Knossos Curator. In Greece she has directed two excavation projects (Little Palace North Project and Villa Dionysos Viridarium Project) at the quintessential Bronze Age site of Knossos, Crete. Her long-standing academic association with Knossos (urban development, labyrinthine stratigraphy, pottery, and architecture) started while a graduate student of Mervyn Popham, who suggested the Little Palace (excavated in the 1900s by Arthur Evans) as a suitable Oxford D.Phil. thesis. Apart from Knossos she has participated in numerous fieldwork projects in Greece: Palaikastro, Myrtos Pyrgos, Malia on Crete, Lefkandi and Phylla on Euboea, Kythera and Dokos (islands off the Peloponnese). Publications include the Late Bronze Age (MM IIIB to LM IIIC) chapters of the Knossos Pottery Handbook ( Momigliano ed. 2007); Knossos: the Little Palace (Hatzaki 2005); Knossos: Palace, City, State (Cadogan, Hatzaki and Vasilakis, eds. 2004). Current projects include the Little Palace North Project (now at post-excavation study season phase); publication of the Late Bronze Age ceramic assemblages from the ‘Minoan’ settlement and House Tomb of Myrtos Pyrgos (excavated in the 1970s by Gerald Cadogan); and publication of the Temple Tomb at Knossos (excavated in the 1930s by Evans and John Pendlebury).

Andrew G. Jameson (PhD, His­tory, Harvard; doctorate, History, The Sorbonne, Paris; MS, Library Science, Simmons; Archival Management, Radcliffe) taught Byzantine, Near Eastern, and African history at Harvard and UC Berkeley. He is Director Emeritus of Books for Asia of The Asia Foundation and President Emeritus of The Academy of Art SF. He was advisor to the National Libraries of Nigeria and China, visiting professor at Bosphorus University and advisor to the library of the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul-Constantinople. He lectures and writes on African and Asian cultures, on libraries, and on the Orthodox Church and mon­asteries; he is researching a book on the Nicene Creed and on the history and lore of the camel. He serves on Harvard’s Graduate Council, as a trustee of the William Saroyan Foundation, and as historian of the Bohemian Club of SF. He was recently elected to the Explorers Club of New York, having climbed Mounts Kilimanjaro and Cameroon and trekked the Sahara with the Tuareg. AWorld War II infantry veteran, he earned a Bronze Star with Cluster and a Purple Heart with Cluster in the Battle of the Bulge.

Ian Morris (Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and Professor of History, Stanford University) is an archaeologist and historian who has dug in Britain, Greece, and Italy. He has published eleven books. The latest of these, Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future, examines eastern and western history from the Ice Age into the twenty-first century (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 2010. At Stanford he has served as Chair of the Classics Department, Senior Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, Director of the Archaeology Center, and Director of the Social Science History Institute, and in 2009 he won the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. From 2000 through 2006 he directed Stanford’s excavations at Monte Polizzo, an indigenous town in Sicily, uncovering new evidence about the transformation of Mediterranean societies in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. His books have been translated into Spanish, Greek German, and Dutch, and he has appeared on numerous television specials.

Kim Shelton (Assistant Professor, Classics, and Director, Nemea Center for Classical Archaeology, UC Berkeley) is an active field archaeologist and Pre-historian with excavations at Petsas House in the settlement of Mycenae and in and around the Sanctuary of Zeus at Nemea. She is a specialist in ceramics, domestic architecture and Mycenaean religion. She came to UC Berkeley from the University of Texas at Austin following twelve years of field research in Greece, primarily at the Late Bronze Age palatial center of Mycenae where she remains the assistant to the director of the Archaeological Society of Athens’ research, Dr. Spyros Iakovidis. She has also participated in fieldwork and specialist study in Greece at the Mycenaean stronghold of Gla, at Pylos, Tegea, the shipwreck site of Iria and now in the sanctuary area and the settlement on Tsoungiza at Nemea. Publications include The Late Helladic Pottery from Prosymna (1996), the chapter on Late Bronze Age Mainland Greece for the Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (E. Cline, ed. Forthcoming) and numerous articles on the Petsas House excavations and the major finds (pottery, frescoes, Linear B tablets). Currently she is researching ceramic deposits from the UCB Nemea Excavations (1972-2002) for publication and finishing two books: one on the figurines of Petsas House (Archaeological Society) and the other the final publication of the Tsountas House excavations (Oxbow Books) conducted by the British School of Archaeology in 1950, 1959-1960. In 2009 she was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Xenia Stefanidou (Greek Ambassador to Philippines), a native Athenian, is a BA graduate of the School of Archeology and History of the University of Athens. In 2005, she completed her Masters in Public Administration at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. A nine-year stint in archeology led to an interest in diplomacy. After completing her studies in the Diplomatic Academy in 1984, she served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens whereupon she was assigned to Bonn, Germany to serve as Secretary of Embassy, then to Plovidiv, Bulgaria where she served as Consul General at the Consulate General of Greece. Returning to Athens, she served in several political departments at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2004, Mrs. Stefanidou was detached to the Consulate General of Greece in Boston, and in September of 2005, she assumed her duties as the Consul General of Greece in San Francisco. In 2009 she was named Ambassador of the Republic of Greece to the Philippines. In 1995, she was decorated with the “Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany” by the German Ambassador in Sofia, Bulgaria. She is fluent in six languages—Greek, English, German, French, Spanish and Italian.

Livingston Vance Watrous (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is Professor of Art History; Adjunct Professor of Classics; Adjunct Professor of Visual Studies at SUNY Buffalo. Professor Watrous’ interests include Aegean and Greek art and archaeology. He is particularly interested in iconography (mainly as it relates to Greek poetry) and the relationship between society, social institutions and art. He has recently published articles on the archaeology of Crete, and on the earliest architectural sculpture known in Greece. Recent publications include Plain of Phaistos: Cycles of Social Complexity in the Messara Region of Crete, 2006; The Cave Sanctuary of Zeus at Psychro: A Study of Extra-Urban Sanctuaries in Minoan and Early Iron Age Crete. University of Texas at Austin, Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, 1996; Kommos III, The Late Bronze Age Pottery, Princeton University Press, 1992. He is Director of the Gournia Survey Project, important for its new information about one of the most significant excavations of a town in the Late Bronze Age Aegean. He has received grants from the Archaeological Institute of America, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Geographic Society, Fulbright commission, and Institute for Aegean Studies to support his archaeological fieldwork and studies on Minoan Crete. In 1993/94 he was Elizabeth A. Whitehead Professor at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.

For centuries under both Moorish and Spanish rule, Toledo thrived as a cultural, religious, and political center for its Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities. Its artists influenced one another, blending styles in art and architecture, and remained influential enough to still attract El Greco late in the 16th Century. Its philosophers and scientists created a vibrant center of learning, while Latin translations of major Arabic works spread Toledo’s influence throughout Medieval Europe. Does Toledo deserve its reputation as a showcase of “Convivencia,” the relatively tolerant and synergistic co-existence of Muslims, Christians, and Jews? Or was its greatness the paradoxical result of tensions and conflicts that simmered beneath the surface until finally boiling over with the expulsion of the Jews (1492) and Muslims (1502)?

Moderator: Fred Astren (Professor and Chair, Department of Jewish Studies
Member, Faculty in Middle East and Islamic Studies, San Francisco State University)

Friday, February 4, 2011, 8:00 to 10:15 pm

The Place of Toledo in Spanish History
Teofilo Ruiz (Professor of History, UCLA) provides a broad view of the history of Toledo from its Roman foundation to the aftermath of the conquest of the city by the Christian armies of Alfonso VI in 1085. Emphasis is on the Visigothic presence in the city, the role of Toledo as the capital of the Visigothic empire, as primate Church in early modern Spain, as well as on the great Church councils held in the city. In many ways, the edicts of these councils eerily foreshadowed later harsh legislation against Muslims and Jews in the mid-thirteenth century. Focusing on discreet aspects of Toledo’s history and on its unique location in the center of the peninsula, Professor Ruiz also explores the contradictions inherent in Alfonso VI’s definition of himself as the emperor of the three religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) and the parallel development: the growing antagonisms between different religious groups in the city and the realm.

Performance

Soprano Susan Rode-Morris, percussionist Peter Maund, viola-da-gambist David Morris, and vielle/violinist Shira Kammen present a program indicative of the astonishing diversity of the music of late Medieval and Renaissance Toledo and Spain. From the Spanish secular storytelling villancicos to Sephardic love songs and laments, to the Moorish muwashah, this concert explores the rich and unusual meeting of cultures which culminated in a fascinating world. Introduced by Clifford (Kip) Cranna (Director of Musical Administration, SF Opera)

Performance

Multicultural Challenges of Medieval Spain. Spanish Villancicos, Sephardic Love Songs, and Moorish Muwashah of Medieval and Renaissance Spain. Shira Kammen (vielle/violin), Susan Rode Morris (soprano), David Morris (viola da gamba), and Peter Maund (percussion).

Saturday, February 5, 2011, 10:00 am to noon and 1:30 to 4:00 pm

From Difference to Deviance in Early Modern Toledo
Mary Elizabeth Perry (Research Associate, UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies).
The Purity of Blood Statute passed by the city government of Toledo in 1449 signaled a major change from past toleration of difference to official condemnation of difference as deviance. Originally aimed at judeo-conversos (Jews who had converted to Christianity), this law reflected a larger concern about growing challenges to a ruling elite. Historical records, literature, art, and architecture of Toledo expose deep anxieties about not only judeo-conversos, but also moriscos (Muslims who had to convert to Christianity in the early 16th century), the poor, the infirm, and prostitutes.

Toledo’s Visual Interlace
Deborah Loft (Art History Professor, College of Marin). Toledo offers a rich opportunity to explore artistic interchange across lines of political power. Works of art ranging from medieval mosques, synagogues, and churches to the paintings of El Greco—himself a product of several cultures—reflect the city’s complex cultural relationships. The “Cristo de la Luz” mosque and the “Santa Maria la Blanca” and “Il Tránsito” synagogues are considered in the broader context of the Iberian Peninsula and as contributions to European art down to modern times. Toledo is also viewed through the paintings and projects of El Greco, for whom the city provided the patronage for his distinctive later work.

Lunch Break

Performance
Orphenica Lyra: Orpheus’ Lyre in Spain
Virtuoso guitarist Richard Savino (Professor of Music, CSU Sacramento) captures the spontaneity of Spanish period music on the guitar and vuihuela, el rey de los renacimiento intrumentos español(the king of Spanish renaissance instruments). Shaped in a manner more closely resembling that of a modern guitar, yet tuned in the manner of a lute, the vihuela was the defining musical instrument of late 15th and 16th century Spain.

The Limits and Pitfalls of “Convivencia”
Teofilo Ruiz (Professor of History, UCLA). This lecture, a summation of our study of the great city of Toledo, examines critically the historiographical debate about convivencia, the supposedly peaceful interaction of Jews, Muslims, and Christians in medieval Toledo and Spain. By tracing the historical roots for this concept and its development over time, Professor Ruiz seeks to provide a new assessment of what the term meant for those different religions co-existing in medieval Toledo and Iberia, and what the presence or absence of real convivencia tells us about medieval Spain and about our own conflicted experiences of toleration and intolerance in the modern world. While most Toledan and medieval Castilian art shows a high degree of what Jerrilynn Dodds has defined as hybridity, Professor Ruiz examines, though a brief look at some specific cultural markers, how that hybridity worked at the level of everyday life.

Panel Discussion with all presenters and written questions from the audience.

Presenters

Fred Astren, Professor and Chair of the Department of Jewish Studies and member of the Faculty in Middle East and Islamic Studies at San Francisco State University, received his PhD in Near Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley, where he also earned a master’s degree in Arabic. His bachelor’s is in Medieval History from the University of Minnesota. Among Professor Astren’s publications are: Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding (2004); Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication, and Interaction (Editor, with B. H. Hary and J. L. Hayes), Festschrift for William M. Brinner (2000); and The Jewish Printed Book in India: Imprints of the Blumenthal Rare Book and Manuscript Library, The Judah L. Magnes Museum (1992). Areas of research include minority/sectarian history history in the Mediterranean Middle Ages, with special focus on Jewish history under Islam, Islamization, Jewish-Muslim relations, and the Karaite Jewish sect. Having recently published a study on Jews in the early medieval Muslim conquests of the Near East and Spain, he is currently writing a book on Jews in the Mediterranean of the early Middle Ages.

Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Shira Kammen received her music degree from UC Berkeley and studied vielle with early music specialist Margriet Tindemans. Shira has performed with Alcatraz, Project Ars Nova, Medieval Strings, Sequentia, Hesperion XX, Boston Camerata, Balkan group Kitka, and the Oregon, California and SF Shakespeare Festivals; with singer/storyteller John Fleagle, Fortune’s Wheel, Ephemeros, Panacea, storyteller/harpist Patrick Ball, sopranos Anne Azema, Susan Rode Morris, Margriet Tindemans, and in theatrical and dance productions. She founded Class V Music, an ensemble performing on river rafting trips. She has performed and taught in the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Israel, Morocco, and Japan, and on the Colorado, Rogue and Klamath Rivers. She has played on television and movie soundtracks, including ‘O’, a modern high school-setting of Othello. Her original music can be heard in a film about fans of JRR Tolkien. The strangest place Shira has played is in the Jerusalem Zoo elephant pit.

Dryden G. Liddle is a recently qualified PhD in history (Open University, UK),with an MA in Economics from Cambridge University, followed by a long career in diplomacy (the UK FO) and banking. His PhD thesis was on Charles V’s financial secretary, 1520-1547, covering issues on the finance of the Habsburg wars and the emergence of the fiscal state, largely by taxing the Castilian towns and not through the silver inflow from the Americas as is often thought. The thesis also covers the diplomatic and personal correspondence of artists, popes, ambassadors, and of course Charles V on issues raised by Luther, the Turk, Algerian piracy, and the wars against France in Italy. With the resulting imperial overstretch there is a clear parable with today, including the role of complex financial instruments, liquidity and subsequent solvency issues.

Deborah Loft is Art History Professor at College of Marin, with a BA from Oberlin College and MA from University of Pennsylvania. She has also worked on the curatorial staff at Fine Arts Museum San Francisco and has lectured at Bay Area museums, including the Getting to Know Modern Artseries at SFMOMA. In recent years, her research has focused on the artistic interactions of a variety of European cultures. Her wide-ranging travels have included significant time in Spain, including Toledo. She has paid particular attention to the ways in which the Islamic architectural vocabulary became integrated into the Christian buildings of northern Europe. She is currently working on a book on the meanings of interlace designs, and their significance as an indicator of intercultural contact.

Peter Maund, a native of San Francisco, studied percussion at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; tabla with Swapan Chauduri at the Ali Akbar College of Music; and music, folklore, and ethnomusicology at the University of California, Berkeley (AB, MA). As a PhD candidate at Berkeley, he specialized in the music of north India. He specializes in hand percussion from the Middle East and North Africa. He has performed and recorded with various early music, contemporary music, and world music ensembles throughout North American, the UK, and Europe, including Chanticleer, Ensemble Project Ars Nova, Paul Hillier, Quaternaria, and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. He has toured with Jordi Savall’s Hesperion XX in a program of medieval Spanish music, and performs and records regularly as a member of Ensemble Alcatraz, Davka and Alasdair Fraser’s Skyedance. He has played on film and television soundtracks and has appeared on dozens of recordings. He also enjoys teaching and presenting lectures, workshops and classes.

Kerrin Meis received her master’s degree in art history from UC Berkeley. She lectured at San Francisco State University for many years and taught European Art classes in the Emeritus program at the College of Marin, where she received a Most Valuable Teacher Award. Her focus is on the interaction among artists of different cultures made visible in the recurrence of certain symbols and motifs in architecture, painting and sculpture. She has recently taught courses in Spanish Art and Culture at Elderhostel and at the OLLI program at Dominican University of California and has led travel/study programs in Europe.

David Morris (violoncello) received his BA (Magna cum laude) and MA in Music from UC Berkeley and was the recipient of the University’s Eisner Prize for excellence in the performing arts. He has performed with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and been a guest of the Los Angeles and Portland Baroque Orchestras and the Mark Morris Dance Company. He is a member of Musica Pacifica and is the musical director of the Bay Area baroque opera collective Teatro Bacchino. He is the Dean of Students at the Crowden School in Berkeley, and has conducted the Crowden School Orchestra on festival tours through the United Kingdom and Europe. He has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Dorian, New Albion and New World.

Susan Rode Morris is a singer of unusual versatility whose accomplishments encompass a wide range of repertoire and musical styles. A native of the SF Bay Area, she has received much critical acclaim for her expressiveness and naturalness in singing, as well as her communicative presence. She is a founding member of Ensemble Alcatraz and has sung with many ensembles including Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Sequentia Koln, Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, Foolia!, Magnificat!, Women’s Philharmonic and others in North America and Europe. She has premiered numerous works of Bay Area composers, including opera and theatre pieces. Performances include appearances at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Metropolitan Art Museum in New York City, the Cloisters, Bellas Artes in Mexico City, and in such cities as Boston, Seattle, Phoenix, New Orleans, Portland, Pittsburgh, London, Regensberg, Vancouver, and at such universities and colleges as Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UC Davis, Oberlin College, and Washington State. She has enjoyed collaborations with artists including Shira Kammen, Phebe Craig, Judith Nelson, Alasdair Fraser, Paul Hillier, John Dornenburg, and others.  In 1992 she founded a recording company called Donsuemor which has released four compact discs, including songs of Henry Purcell and three recordings of the songs of 18th century Scottish poet Robert Burns. For many years she has studied voice with the legendary Lilian Loran. A special love is teaching children the joy of singing. She owns a baking company (Donsuemor) which supplies the U.S. with fresh madeleines.

Mary Elizabeth (Betsy) Perry is Research Associate for the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and a Fulbright Senior Specialist. She has published five books and many articles and essays on women’s history and marginality in early modern Spain. Crime and Society in Early Modern Seville (http://libro.uca.edu/perry/seville.htm) and Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville, won the Sierra Prize; Gender and Disorder has been translated and published in Spain as Ni espada rota, ni mujer que trota. A specialist in marginal people in 16th and 7th-century Spain, her most recent book is on Spanish Moriscos (baptized Muslims), exploring in particular the roles of women and children: The Handless Maiden: Moriscos and the Politics of Religion (Princeton University Press, 2005; paperback, 2007; Spanish edition, U. of Granada Press, forthcoming).

Peter O’Malley Pierson is Lee & Seymour Graff Professor of History Emeritus, Santa Clara University, where he taught for thirty-four years. He grew up in Southern California, and after two years at Denison University, he completed his undergraduate work at UCLA. Following four years active duty as a US Naval Reserve officer, he returned to UCLA to earn his PhD. Both a Fulbright Fellow to Spain and lately a visiting scholar at Stanford, he has written Philip II of Spain, Commander of the Armada and History of Spain, as well as many articles. He regards it his good fortune to have had to teach the whole of Western Civilization. He has a great interest in maritime and military history, travel, the fine arts, and locally, the opera; he serves on the Advisory Council of Humanities West. He also paints as a pastime.

Teofilo F. Ruiz, Professor of History, UCLA, was a student of Joseph R. Strayer, Teo received his PhD from Princeton in 1974 and has taught at Brooklyn College, CUNY Graduate Center, University of Michigan, Ecole des hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and Princeton–as 250th Anniversary Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching–before coming to UCLA in July 1998. A scholar of the social and cultural (popular culture) of late medieval and early modern Castile, Teo Ruiz’s selected publications include Spain, 1300-1469. Centuries of Crises (Oxford: Blackwell Press, 2007); Medieval Europe and the World (with Robin Winks) (Oxford, 2005); From Heaven to Earth: The Reordering of Castilian Society, 1150-1350 (Princeton University Press, 2004); Spanish Society, 1400-1600 (Longman, 2001); Crisis and Continuity: Land and Town in Late Medieval Castile (University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, 1994); The City and the Realm: Burgos and Castile in the Late Middle Ages (London: Variorum Reprints, 1992); Co-author, Burgos en la Edad Media (Valladolid, 1984) ; Sociedad y poder real en Castilla (Barcelona, 1981); Co-editor of Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Joseph R. Strayer (Princeton,  1976).

Richard Savino (Doctorate, SUNY) lectures at SF Conservatory of Music, directs the ensemble El Mundo, and is Professor of Music at CSU Sacramento. His instructors included Andres Segovia, Oscar Ghiglia, Albert Fuller and Jerry Willard. Recordings include guitar music of Johann Kaspar Mertz; virtuoso sonatas by Paganini and Giuliani; sonatas for flute and guitar; 18th century guitar music from Mexico by Santiago de Murcia (1998);Venice Before Vivaldi, a Portrait of Giovanni Legrenzi and Villancicos y Cantadas; music by Barabara Strozzi, Biagio Marini and Giovanni Buonamente; the Boccherini Guitar Symphonia and Op. 30 Concerto for Guitar by Mauro Giuliani; The Essential Giuliani Vol. 1; Music Fit for a King;and Baroque Guitar Sonatas (1696) of Ludovico Roncallii (2006-07). He received a Diapason d’Or from Compact (Paris) and a 10 du Rèpertoire (Paris). He is a principal performer with the Houston Grand Opera, New York Collegium, Portland Baroque Orchestra, SF Symphony, Santa Fe Opera, San Diego Opera, Opera Colorado, Dallas Opera and Glimmerglass Opera. From 1986-98 he directed the CSU Summer Arts Guitar and Lute Institute, and he has been Visiting Artistic Director of Aston Magna Academy and Music Festival at Rutgers.