Ensemble Bio
The Mägi Ensemble is a professional SA vocal ensemble that specializes in music from the Baltic region of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. We perform and record music from these countries and promote new choral works from Baltic women composers. Our vision is to use the power of music to connect with the community and continue to celebrate cultural heritage through the arts. We exemplify the values of cultural understanding, community, quality and commitment. Our philosophy as both a specialized repertoire ensemble and a treble ensemble is to demonstrate the effect that music can have for empowerment, both in social responsibility and gender identity.
Presenter/Conductor Bio
Heather MacLaughlin Garbes is currently Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, where she helped develop and maintains the UW Baltic Choral Library, the first collection of its kind in the United States. She is also Founder and Artistic Director of the Mägi Ensemble, a women’s ensemble that performs and records Baltic music. Dr. MacLaughlin Garbes has presented at ACDA National and Divisional, College Music Society’s National and International conferences, the Library of Congress and the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies conferences. She co-authored the chapter “Baltic Languages: Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian” in the book The Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet in the Choral Rehearsal (Scarecrow Press). She has conducted numerous collegiate and community ensembles in the Seattle, Chicago, and Houston. Dr. MacLaughlin Garbes has been a preparatory conductor for the national festivals in Estonia Latvia and Lithuania and currently conducts the Finnish Choral Society of Seattle, the Seattle'i Eesti Koor (Estonian).