B.M.
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 1998
M.M.
Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, 2001
D.M.
Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, 2007
About
VUCA 2505
Biography
Dr. Phillip W. Serna, Valparaiso University’s instructor of double bass and violas da gamba, has performed on double bass with numerous Midwestern ensembles including the 5th Wave Collective, Camerata Chicago, Chicago Wind Symphony, EChO – the Evanston Chamber Opera Company, Illinois Philharmonic, the Naperville Winds, New Philharmonic, Northshore Concert Band, Rockford Symphony, South Bend Symphony, Southwest Michigan Symphony, the Zohn Collective, and many others. As a specialist in historically-informed performance, Professor Serna performs on the baryton and has emerged among the nation’s leading advocates of the viol – the viola da gamba. Co-founding Black Tulip, New Comma Baroque, ViolMedium and the Spirit of Gambo – a Chicago Consort of Viols, he’s collaborated with a myriad of distinguished historical-performance ensembles, most notably Aperi Animam, the Bach Collegium of Fort Wayne, the Bella Voce Sinfonia, the Callipygian Players, the Chicago Early Music Consort, Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Les Touches, the Newberry Consort, Second City Musick, Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, and countless others. He has appeared on WFMT Chicago, Wisconsin Public Radio, Milwaukee Public Radio, and can be heard on releases from Clarion, Cedille, New Focus, Varèse Sarabande Records and Midweſt415, the Chicago-area’s newest independent Early Music & New Music record label focused on historically-informed performance practice on period instruments. As a champion of a variety of new works for the baryton and viol, Dr. Serna performed the U.S. premieres of Rudolph Dolmetsch’s Concertino for Viola da Gamba & Small Orchestra in 2012, Carl Friedrich Abel’s Concerto Violo de Gambo in 2018 as well as being the 1st American gambist to perform ALL of Telemann’s once-lost 1735 Viola da Gamba Fantasias in 2017 – the 250th anniversary of Telemann’s death. Holding Masters and Doctoral degrees from Northwestern University, Professor Serna also has served on the faculties of Wisconsin Lutheran College, Elgin Community College, North Central College, the Music Institute of Chicago and as assistant director of Illinois’ first public-school period-instrument program at Adlai E. Stevenson High School. Professor Serna is music director of Viols in Our Schools earning him Early Music America’s 2010 Laurette Goldberg Award for lifetime achievement in Early Music outreach.
