Holiday Concert and Reception

The Adelfos Ensemble was founded in 2004 as a men’s a-cappella ensemble and pursued that path until 2010, when it became a mixed voice choral ensemble. Temmo Korisheli took over direction of the group from Dr. Michael Eglin in 2008. Our goal is to offer the best of a-cappella and other choral music to audiences in the Santa Barbara area through live performances, radio broadcasts, and recordings. The group programs a broad repertoire of music spanning more than a millennium, from ancient chant and Renaissance motets to folksong arrangements and contemporary works. Adelfos Ensemble exists to explore the wide world of choral literature and, as the Santa Barbara News-Press observed, to “move right and left of center in the choral tradition.”

Director Temmo Korisheli is an active performer in many musical styles, especially medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque. Recent early-music engagements have included concerts with Ensemble Ciaramella in Los Angeles, Victoria, and New York, and with the Texas Early Music Project in Austin. He has been on staff with the Amherst Early Music Festival of New England for the past 22 years, where he has collaborated with many luminaries of the early-music world; he also serves as bursar of the Festival. Mr. Korisheli has appeared as soloist with ensembles such as the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, the New York Collegium under Andrew Parrott, and regional oratorio societies; as a guest artist with several university early music programs around the state and beyond; and sang for many years in the UCSB Cappella Cordina. He is a founding member of the UCSB Middle East Ensemble, sings frequently in the Opera Santa Barbara Chorus, and plays clawhammer banjo. This December, he celebrates 20 seasons of spreading Christmas cheer with the Santa Barbara Holiday Carollers. Mr. Korisheli is assistant music director at All Saints’-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Montecito. He holds the MA and PhD (ABD) degrees in historical musicology from UCSB, where he studied with Alejandro Planchart and William Prizer and where he presently supervises the Music Library.

Andrea Di Maggio, Flutist, graduated from San Jose State University, summa cum laude, with a Bachelor of Music degree where she studied with Isabelle Chapuis. While attending Arizona State University, Andrea held a teaching position and worked with the undergraduate flute majors and music education students, and performed in faculty recitals. Studying with Jill Felber at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Andrea graduated with honors with a Masters Degree in Flute Performance. As flute instructor at Westmont College, she is a founding member of the woodwind quintet Sonos Montecito and a faculty member at the Westmont Academy of Young Artists. Andrea also maintains a small and competitive private flute studio, with students winning awards from the Santa Barbara Music Club, The Music Teachers Association of California, and the National Flute Association. Andrea performs on a Miyazawa flute.

Erin Bonski, pianist, began her musical journey in Pennsylvania, where she studied with Dr. Tim Shafer at Penn State University while in high school, and became the youngest participant in the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts. Erin went on to earn her B.M. and M.M. degrees from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and pursued doctoral studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A versatile artist, Erin has served as Staff Continuo player at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, collaborative pianist at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, and as Chorusmaster and Repetiteur for Toledo Opera. Since moving to Santa Barbara, she has collaborated regularly with local arts organizations, including the Santa Barbara Symphony, Opera Santa Barbara, and Ensemble Theatre Company, and has performed internationally, including appearances with the Grammy-winning ensemble Forever Tango. Her academic career includes positions at Santa Barbara City College, the University of California, Santa Barbara, Westmont College and Bowling Green State University, where she has taught piano pedagogy, opera coaching, and piano literature.