Postcard from Violinist Edwin Huizinga and Mandolinist Ashley Hoyer

In SFGC’s Postcard series, our guest artists, collaborators, and faculty take us behind the scenes and share an intimate look into their thoughts about music, life, and art-making.

This postcard features violinist Edwin Huizinga and Mandolinist Ashley Hoyer, this year's special guests at Davies! Don't miss your chance to see them in action on December 23rd for SFGC Presents: A Celtic Winter with Edwin Huizinga and Ashley Hoyer.

Edwin Huizinga, Violinist

Dutch-Canadian violinist Edwin Huizinga is currently a professor of baroque violin at Oberlin Conservatory. At Oberlin, he has started a fiddle ensemble that is now part of the curriculum. Edwin is the Artistic Director of the Internationally acclaimed Sweetwater Music Festival, and the Director of the Baroque and Classical Academy at the Carmel Bach Festival.

Edwin’s 2025–2026 season includes recording a new album of folk and baroque music with Fire & Grace, his fusion ensemble celebrating folk and classical music from around the world. This is a collaborative band which will include artists like Brian Finnegan, Olov Johansson and more. Edwin will also be touring with ACRONYM baroque ensemble, a group that thrives in bringing old music to life in new ways. Edwin has also been invited to solo with the National Symphony in Panama this coming season, and is currently working with Ashley Hoyer on composing a new children’s record for a project in the California Sierras. In his spare time, Edwin loves hiking, biking, and swimming up river.

Coming back to the Bay Area for this concert with the San Francisco Girls Choir feels like a homecoming. Huizinga received a Master’s degree from the San Francisco Conservatory, and was part of a worldwide grassroots movement in the early 2000’s that brought about a project called Classical Revolution around the world. This movement is all about bringing chamber music to alternative settings, for free, around the world. San Francisco has also brought many amazing collaborations with early music groups, Rock bands like Third Eye Blind, and also recording albums with Vanessa Carlton and The Mars Volta.

This year, our winter concert at Davies highlights and celebrates Celtic music. What is your relationship to Celtic music? What should audiences know about it before attending the concert?
I fell in love with Celtic music many years ago while playing baroque violin. We were all learning some tunes for a concert where we wanted to blend folk and baroque music, and then it really hit me how incredible it was to play in the sandbox of these different genres. I also toured for many years in a Celtic Christmas show which, and have now recorded three albums that are all folk inspired with my duo Fire & Grace with William Coulter. The thing that I believe connects almost all music together, is the groove, and when you find a way to share the groove Bach has in his music with other folk and celtic traditions, I think you simply cannot help but start to move your body. 

Through your work with Classical Revolution, you help organize accessible chamber concerts. What is special to you about chamber music? Why is it important that chamber music reaches a broader audience?
Being in San Francisco always floods me with memories of Classical Revolution, which is a movement that was started here while I was in school at the Conservatory. We really just wanted to play together so much, and share our love and passion for the art of chamber music that we spent at least one night a week playing string quartets and more at a cafe in the mission district. Our first location, which we played at for years and years, was the Revolution cafe. Chamber music to me feels like one of the purest forms of communication, and I have always thought that we as humans can always work on being more communicative, and the art of seeing and hearing and playing chamber music has always felt like a powerful tool to share how beautiful conversation, of any kind, can be. 

What has been the happiest accident of your career so far?
Oh wow, my whole career feels like happy accidents of situations where my dearest friends, mentors, and colleagues call me up and ask me to do something special. A few things that come to mind are being asked last minute to step in on a solo Concerto for Elizabeth Wallfisch at the Carmel Bach Festival. Also being asked to compose my first piece, I didn't really know how, but I said yes, and it was life changing! Also even having a conversation in the elevator with a friend led to me eventually moving to Cleveland to teach at the Oberlin Conservatory. Life has been so full of little moments where if you are open to saying yes, amazing things can happen. 

You are the Professor of Baroque Violin at the Historical Performance Department of Oberlin Conservatory. What draws you to Baroque performance? Where should someone start if they were curious about Baroque music?
What draws me to the world of historical performance and baroque music. Great question. It is an innate draw for me. The music is just absolutely incredible, and the stylistic playground is so vast. I love improvisation and ornamentation in music. I just love how the composers and performers of the day left room for artists to add their own flair and voice to the music. If you are interested in looking into more of this style and this era, I would say read books from the time, look at paintings, listen to all kinds of music from those composers, and see how your mind and body and soul react to all of that information. One thing I always like to tell my students, is that because performers and composers were always improvising and adding and changing things about the music, it shows how much of a live tradition it really is, and how amazing it is to continue to make changes and create new ways of playing a note, a line, or a piece, every single time you perform it. 

What are your two favorite albums? What draws you to them?
Two favorite albums for me for this year would be Brian Finnegan's Ravishing Genius of Bones, and Rakish's Now, O Now. These are just so special because I know the artists personally which is often how I fall in love with new music, through getting to know the incredible artists out there making that music. Also they are a huge inspiration as composers and folk musicians, and you will even hear one of Brain Finnegan's tunes at Davies! 

What inspires you about working with SFGC?
I have always for my whole life gravitated to working with youth. It gives me such hope and strength and delight for our future knowing how many young people are embracing music and art. The enthusiasm and joy is always so abundant and palpable, and I often still feel like a kid, and so I find myself enjoying being surrounded by them. Valérie Sainte-Agathe is just an amazing human being. I'm so grateful to my dear friend Nel Snaidas for introducing us. The human voice is the most organic way to hear a story being told. I spend my whole life trying to make my violin sound like a human voice. This collaboration is one of my favorites and I have been looking forward to it all year!!!

What are you excited to work on in the future? Give us a sneak peek!
What is up next!! Well, I have some more recordings in the pipeline. I am working on a new record with William Coulter, my duo mate, and we are inviting Brian Finnegan to record with us. I am also one of the artistic programmers at the Carmel Bach Festival and am so excited to be bringing Olov Johansson back to the festival to do two concerts together!  I am also recording and touring with my dear dear friends and bandmates in ACRONYM. We are an early music band discovering and sharing early music that has often not been heard in a couple of hundred years. It is a super exciting project. My teaching is also a big part of my life, as well as possibilities to perform with the National Symphony in Panama. My festival, the Sweetwater Music Festival, is also doing very well, and in its 22nd year!! 

What advice can you give to our singers that you wish you had received when you were their age? 
Ahhhhhh asking a teacher that loves to teach for some advice. I love it. What kind of advice would I share with the singers that I will get to work with in December? Try singing everything. Learn the languages, try folk music, try different techniques, and different combinations of chamber music. Look around whenever you sing, and realize that the people around you could turn out to be part of your chosen family for years and years to come. Music connects us all. Music gives us strength, and music heals. Enjoy this concert, it is a joy to be part of it myself. 

Ashley Hoyer, Mandolinist

California based composer-instrumentalist Ashley Hoyer keeps a varied schedule of musical
adventures. Described as a “mandolin phenomenon” by the San Diego Tribune, she performs in various venues ranging from great dance halls with The Syncopaths; to castles of Ireland with Sam ‘n Ash (featured in the Oscar-nominated movie The Sea Beast and the podcast Welcome to Night Vale); to performing arts centers with Fire, Grace, & Ash; as well as small listening rooms with her all-original folk trio Long Story Short. A frequent collaborator, Ashley’s playing can be heard on albums such as Karan Casey’s Nine Apples of Gold as well as Brian Finnegan’s Hunger of the Skin.

Ashley is an avid composer premiering and recording her folk and new music works with various bands, chamber ensembles, and orchestras. With her unquenchable curiosity for composition, she perpetually chips away at writing projects and commissions. In her time at home, Ashley keeps a studio of violin, mandolin, and cello students.

This year, our winter concert at Davies highlights and celebrates Celtic music. What is your relationship to Celtic music? What should audiences know about it before attending the concert?
I grew up steeped in various folk styles, many of them Celtic. The depth of the music really resonates with me and I love the communal aspect of the genre. I find it fascinating that Celtic styles not only come from Ireland and Scotland, but France, Spain, and Canada. I particularly adore modern tunes that pay homage to these time-tested styles.
 
You play many instruments, including the mandolin, an instrument that some may be unfamiliar with. What drew you to mandolin? What makes it special?
I began my musical life as a violinist. When I was encouraged to pick up another instrument, I gravitated towards the mandolin for its identical tuning and its association with folk styles. The mandolin became my "fun" instrument and it gradually became my go-to. The instrument is extremely versatile with its distinct percussive, melodic, and harmonic capabilities. Looking back as a composer, I can see why I was so attracted to all of its colors and textures.

As you mentioned, you compose in addition to performing. How do you approach composition? How do your composition and performance practices inform each other?
I find the two practices very different. Performing is typically very collaborative and involves others. Composition, on the other hand, is (for me) solitary, quiet, and full of patience and listening. I find separating myself from my instrument provides more creative solutions rather than the patterns I may fall into if I were to use my instrument.

You have written a piece, “Fire-Flowers,” for our concert together. Tell us about this piece! What should audiences listen for in your work?
As Californians, we have all experienced wildfires. On a search for lyrics, I came across the moving poem of the same name by Emily Pauline Johnson and could immediately visualize the music. With all of the chaos and trauma of a wildfire, the poem expresses a hopeful message and I felt the need to try and capture that and share it with others.

What inspires you about working with SFGC? 
I'm so inspired by the dedication and skill of these young musicians. What a joy to work alongside them.

What are you excited to work on in the future? Give us a sneak peek!
I have a new album brewing with my instrumental trio, Long Story Short, as well as the beginnings of a new orchestral work.

What advice can you give to our singers that you wish you had received when you were their age? 
Be honest with your creative choices, it will only make you sound more like you.