Boomeria 2021 • Santa Cruz Baroque Festival

Four wonderful organists will play delightful music for up at the Boomeria chapel in the redwoods of Bonny Doon as part of the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival.

William Visscher, Vlada Moran, Ann Thiermann and Linda Burman-Hall will share a four-hour concert to help raise funds to maintain the Boomeria organ.

The festival will also feature fine wine, fencing demonstrations, a brass ensemble and a Drehorgel (Barrel Organ)

Most importantly, it’s a chance to be in the physical presence of friends, old and new

Tickets can be purchased at https://tinyurl.com/boomeria-tickets

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Learn more about our featured performers:

Bill Visscher was around to see the (perhaps terrifying) glory days of Boomeria, when water-gun wars raged, a diving bell was installed in the swimming pool, and a zip line that, because it terminated at a tree trunk, required a well-timed release into the pool. He is currently the music director and organist at All Saints Episcopal Church in San Francisco, where he also resides. He also builds and maintains pipe organs all over the San Francisco and Monterey Bay areas, including the one at Boomeria that you will get to hear him play. You can support his work keeping our treasured organ alive by clicking the “Support the Boomeria organ” link and making a generous donation.

Ann Thiermann is also well known among organ enthusiasts in the area. She has played organ with Antiquarian Funks, Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, and numerous concerts around town and beyond. But organ-playing is not her only outlet of highly-skilled creativity. She is a professional painter, classically trained in landscape, portrait, and mural art. She teaches studio art classes at Cabrillo (This July and August she is teaching a workshop on color sketching, at a series of outdoor locations around Santa Cruz. Visit her website, www.annthiermann.com, if you’re curious to know more.) Whether painting with sound or color, her artistic sensibilities are a delight to behold.

Vlada Moran is a member of the Baroque Festival’s Board of Directors, and is also an in-demand organist. A native of Russia, Vlada Volkova-Moran holds diplomas from the Tula Music College, the Moscow State Pedagogical University, and the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory as a musical educator, accompanist, and as a performing artist. She runs a large piano studio in Santa Cruz, and is an accompanist for many local ensembles. She frequently performs with Santa Cruz Chamber Players and and belongs to both the Loma Prieta Ensemble and the Celebrated Piano Ensemble. She has beem a featured solo artist at the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival and is the founder and artistic director of the annual New Year’s Eve “Organists Kaleidophone” concert series in Santa Cruz.

Linda Burman-Hall needs no introduction. As the originator of Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, its Artistic Director since its beginnings in 1974, and its driving force, she will be familiar to anyone who has been following the festival. She is well known for her excellent playing on early keyboards, mostly harpsichord, organ, and pianoforte, with a great many recordings and performances to her credit. Most summers she is unable to attend Boomeria because she would be pursuing another major research interest – the music of Indonesia. This year, due to the disruption of the pandemic, Indonesia’s loss is our gain, and she will be in town and performing at Boomeria in 2021. This will be just the second time that she has played the organ for this annual event.

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Boomeria is a beloved place in the Santa Cruz mountains that is a monument to creativity in art, music, and science. The brainchild of Preston Boomer — longtime San Lorenzo Valley High School physics and chemistry teacher, now retired – Boomeria’s grounds are known for a working Baroque-style tracker pipe-organ built by Boomer and his students incorporating recycled and European organ pipes and recent work by organ builder Bill Visscher and friends. The ‘Kingdom of Boomeria” also includes a castle built for climbing (most especially for those with short legs,) situated in a beautiful forest of redwood, bay-laurel, oak and madrone.

In August 2020, fires swept through the Santa Cruz mountains, destroying many homes and habitats, and upending the lives of many in the region. Through heroic efforts of neighbors, (and all the water in that super-sized swimming pool) most of Boomeria was spared. The home is still standing; the organ is intact but in need of maintenance; the castle still stands. The guillotine burned, and the swimming pool remains empty. But the charred forest is now bursting with abundant green growth, the sequoia sempervirens living up to its name.

To directly support the Boomeria Organ, visit https://tinyurl.com/Boomeria-organ-gofund