From its start, Ensemble Gothic has been dedicated to historically informed performance practice—reviving the sound world of the Renaissance and Baroque eras within the vaulted ceiling acoustics for which the music was first composed. Our audiences will feel intense emotions as we recover rubato practices that were lost after the invention of recording put musical performance “in a box” during World War I.
The seeds for this ensemble were sown 7 years ago when Jerimiah was profoundly influenced during harpsichord master’s studies with Harvard musicologist Dr. Robert Hill at the University of Colorado Boulder. Hill’s work recognizing that the first musicians to record baroque music 100 years ago were the closest in time to Bach allows insight into how the musical ideas present in these first recordings can be used to reconstruct the performance practices of earlier periods. No one can know exactly how baroque music sounded, but that will not stop Ensemble Gothic from striving to make the audience feel the intense emotions that were vividly described by ancient composers. Jerimiah’s master’s research on the many Frédéric Chopin recordings by controversial pianist Alfred Cortot further confirmed this viewpoint.
In all our events we prioritize a focus on informed performance practice, education and activism. Guest specialists work with Gothic in every season. In late 2026 director Jerimiah Otto will launch a choir for unhoused people in Denver to experience the glory and life changing power of ancient music. In 2027 the group’s core baroque violinist Jennifer Diaz Spera will launch a performance practice infused Suzuki camp for string players.
Jennifer Diaz Spera, baroque violin/viola
An equally passionate performer and educator, Jennifer Diaz Spera enjoys a varied career as Suzuki violin teacher and early music specialist.A Northern California native, Diaz Spera’s educational background includes degrees in violin performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of Colorado Boulder. Shortly after moving to Colorado, Diaz Spera discovered the colorful world of historical performance as co-director and performer in the early music group Ensemble Pearl. A concert review describes Diaz Spera’s baroque violin and viola playing as exemplifying “incredible grace” and a “full, colorful and expressive tone. Diaz Spera teaches violin with Boulder Suzuki Strings and feels honored to be connected to the nurturing and growth of the next generation of musicians and humans. Diaz Spera can be heard performing with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, Boulder Bach Festival, Seicento Baroque Ensemble, Fern Ensemble, and Quartet Aspaldiko.
Grant Johnson, baroque violin
Based in Denver, CO, baroque violinist Grant Johnson is a member of the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado and frequently plays with the Bach Society of Minnesota. He has also played with other period ensembles including Montreal-based Ensemble Caprice and Seicento Baroque. In the summer of 2026 Grant makes his debut at the Indianapolis Early Music Festival and his UK debut performing with the vocal ensemble VOCES8. Grant also plays regularly with many other Colorado ensembles including the Boulder Philharmonic, Fort Collins Symphony, Greeley Philharmonic, and frequently serves as guest concertmaster with the Boulder Symphony and Symphony of the Rockies.
Grant is currently Executive Director of the Bach Society of Minnesota and St. Martin’s Chamber Choir in Denver. He was previously a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for three seasons. Prior to that, Grant spent two years with the Phoenix Symphony as Assistant Librarian, frequently playing in the orchestra as well. He has also served as librarian for the Aspen Music Festival, Strings Music Festival, and was Interim Executive Director for the Reading Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania. He
has worked in various capacities with many of the top orchestras around the country including the Atlanta Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and St. Paul
Chamber Orchestra.
Ann Marie Morgan, viola da gamba, baroque cello
earned degrees in violoncello performance and Spanish. Playing open strings on a bass viola da gamba was love at first sound.
Her journey as a violist da gamba has taken her to foreign lands including Canada, the Czech Republic, Turkey, and Germany. Live performances with major symphony orchestras (Cleveland, Minnesota, Philadelphia) and tours with Olde Friends, Apollo’s Fire, and Les Violons du Roy have been a significant part of her career. Some of her favorite recordings, among twenty, include Among Rosebuds (with William Simms), The Soulful Bach and Telemann (Olde Friends), JS Bach Flute Sonatas and the Sonata from Musical Offering (Joshua Smith, Jory Vinikour and Allison Nyquist), and A Painted Tale (Nicholas Phan).
Ms. Morgan received an Artist Diploma in viola da gamba and baroque cello from Oberlin College under the tutelage of Catharina Meints Caldwell. She served on the Early Music Faculties of the Peabody Conservatory and the Interlochen Center for the Arts as well as interim director of the CU Early Music Ensemble and the Collegium Musicum at Regis University. The Baltimore Sun wrote of her “beguiling musicality” in live performance, and H&B Recordings Direct cited, “Before hearing Ann Marie Morgan, I would not have believed that so pure a tone could be drawn from a viola da gamba; it is straight from heaven.”
In the Front Range, Ms. Morgan has performed on viola da gamba and baroque cello with the Colorado Bach Ensemble, the Boulder Bach Festival, Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, the Colorado Symphony, Seicento Baroque Ensemble, Sounds of Lyons, and on faculty recitals at CU Boulder College of Music. She will serve as a judge in the preliminary round of the 2026 Blakeman Gerber Indianapolis International Baroque Competition. As the founder of The Morgan Studio in Broomfield, she welcomes both amateurs and highly skilled professional artists to study there with her.
Jenna Clarke, soprano
American Mezzo-soprano Jenna Clark is a versatile and compelling artist based in Denver, CO. With a love of creative storytelling, Ms. Clark captures audiences with her rich, vibrant tone and arresting stage presence on both operatic and concert stages.
In the 2025-2026 season, Ms. Clark joined the Colorado Bach Ensemble in their performance of Handel’s Messiah followed by a winter residency at Opera Naples, where she performed the role of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Derrick Wang’s Scalia Ginsburg as well as performing in the chorus of both Puccini’s Turandot and Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. She then returned to Colorado to debut the role of Octavian in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier with Boulder Opera Company. Summer of 2026, Ms. Clark will reprise the role of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Scalia/Ginsburg with Wichita Grand Opera, perform in the chorus of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly as a part of the Bravo! Vail Music Festival with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under the Baton of Fabio Luisi, and perform in art song programs at the Center for the Arts Crested Butte in Crested Butte, Colorado.
Kicking off the 2024-2025 season, Ms. Clark traveled to Lynchburg, Virginia to perform as a Tyler Young Artist with Opera on the James. She then joined the Colorado Bach Ensemble in December of 2024 to perform in the chorus of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. January of 2025, Ms. Clark sang the alto solos in the Colorado Bach Ensemble’s performance of Bach’s cantata, Süsser Trost, mein Jesus kömmt (BWV 151), followed by her performances as one of five soloists featured in The Voice of Juana Inés with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, a concert in celebration of the 17th century poet and composer, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. March of 2025, Ms. Clark sang in the chorus of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Colorado Bach Ensemble, and in April of 2025, she traveled to San Diego, California to cover the role of Ramiro in Vivaldi’s Montezuma as a Studio Artist with Opera Neo.
Jerimiah Otto, harpsichord, organ, direction
Jerimiah has had the privilege of conducting and music directing a wide variety of shows and concerts at Ei! Marionetas International Theater Festival Gondomar, Portugal, University of Guelph Canada, Denver Center for Performing Arts, Miner’s Alley Playhouse, Lakewood Cultural Center, Candlelight Dinner Theater, Vintage Theater, Aurora Fox Theater, Cherry Creek Theater, Red Rocks Community College and the University of Colorado at Boulder. They also performed assistant and substitute roles at the Denver Center for Performing Arts and Arvada Center respectively. In 2023 Jerimiah performed at L’Échappée Estivale early music festival in Cluny, France and in August 2025 gave two concerts at the church of Saint-Julien-du-Sault, France “L’orgue fait son marché” on harpsichord and on the historic 1568 Renaissance organ as part of the Les Épopeés early music festival. Otto holds a BM degree in Piano Performance and a MM degree in Harpsichord Performance from CU Boulder.
Jerimiah Otto 