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2024 Featured Performers
Wyatt Smith, organist
Originally from Rapid City, South Dakota, Wyatt Smith is an American concert organist, appearing in both solo and collaborative performances throughout the United States and Europe. Hailed as a performer with “nuance, polish, and personality” (Michael Barone, APM Pipedreams), Dr. Smith has concertized all over the United States and Europe. Notable performances include the Grace Cathedral (San Francisco), USAFA Protestant Cadet Chapel (Colorado Springs), St. Mark’s Cathedral (Seattle), St. Thomas Church (New York City), Marktkirche (Wiesbaden), The Queen’s College (Oxford), and Coventry Cathedral (Coventry). He has been a featured performer at regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists. Wyatt can also be heard on American Public Media’s Pipedreams, performing works from J. S. Bach to Margaret Sandresky.
An advocate of new music, Smith has commissioned and premiered works by Emma Lou Diemer, Margaret Sandresky, Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, Carson Cooman, Craig Phillips, Kurt Knecht, and more.
As a collaborative musician, Wyatt performs with various choral ensembles in the Pacific Northwest including The Esoterics and the Tacoma Bach Festival Chorus and Orchestra. In addition to choral collaborations, Wyatt performs in a variety chamber settings. Since 2015, he has performed with Dr. Tracelyn Gesteland, mezzo-soprano, as the Gesteland-Smith Duo. Wyatt has served as the Affiliate Artist in Organ & Harpsichord at the University of Puget Sound since 2018. He is also on the faculty of the Epiphany Music Academy, which he founded in 2019.
Trío Guadalevín
Trío Guadalevín is a journey as much as a musical destination. Named for the ancient gorge that slices through the Andalusian city of Ronda, the trio took shape in 2014 when three distinct musicians gathered to investigate musical connections between Mexico and the
Mediterranean. Employing a wealth of instruments and techniques the trio explores and often reimagines the musical dialogue between Indigenous, European and African cultures, which define Latin American identity. The ensemble takes a fresh, innovative approach to music with deep roots: from the son huasteco and son jarocho of Mexico, to Afro-Oaxacan music, Sephardic Jewish melodies, Spanish fandangos and xácaras, historic Arab-Andalusian song, Italian ciaccona and Moroccan shabia. Vocals in Spanish, Zapotec and Ladino intermingle with guitar, oud, theorbo, baroque guitar, vihuela, jarana, quinta huapanguera, harp, bendir, bombo, pandero cuadrado, pandereta, teponatzli, cajón and more
The trio has collaborated with Ensamble Continuo Tembembe (Mexico City), Orquesta Sonora
Barroca (Guadalajara), Orquesta Northwest’s Latino Chamber Music Festival, Washington State poet laureate Claudia Castro-Luna, La Sala Seattle, international authority on Sephardic Jewish and Iberian music, Paco Díez, Israeli percussionist Dror Sinai, world flute artist Gary Stroutsos, Alma Cimarrona Danza Experimental (Mexico City), Bailadores de Bronce (Seattle), Afro-Venezuelan dancer Milvia Pacheco, Chinese multi-instrumentalist Guo Ke, Northwest Folklife, Puget Sound Revels, and others.
Trío Guadalevín consists of Abel Rocha, a Mexico City-born folklorist, singer and multi-instrumentalist who performs music of Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Argentina and beyond, percussionist Antonio Gómez, a Chicano-Italian son of the American West who has studied across Latin America and in Morocco, Spain and Italy and serves an Associate Folklorist for the Washington Center for Cultural Traditions, and August Denhard performs on lute, theorbo, baroque guitar, oud and vihuela and has appeared with Baroque Northwest, the Concord Ensemble and Chicago Music of the Baroque and serves the Artistic Director of Early Music Seattle,