BIOS
A world in commotion; traversing migratory paths that cross the globe; narrowing the gulfs that divide; intuiting the common rhythms that pulse sympathetically with our shared humanity. These are the reverberant muses at the heart of Viatorum Formed in the rich cultural mosaic of San Antonio, Texas, the members of Viatorum share a passion for music that grooves, uplifts, moves the spirit, and unites.
Imagine a jam session swirling in Middle Eastern modes, Western counterpoint, driving rhythms, and Andalusian flair and you will begin to understand the musical ambition of Viatorum. Based on their collective study and training in a variety of musical traditions, their music endeavors to spread the infectious joy that it continually brings to them.
Founded in 2019, Viatorum features the eclectic talents of core members Berk Agar (guitar), Andrew Bergmann (bass), Rami El-Farrah (saxophone), and Ethan Wickman (oud). Often featuring guest performers from the community, their repertoire includes music from across the Middle East, Iberia, the Balkans, Turkey, and original works that highlight the distinctive colors of their instruments.
Born in Izmir, Turkey, Berk Agar began his classical music education with private lessons in the classical guitar studying throughout middle school and high school. Mr. Agar continued his collegiate music education in theory and composition at Del Mar college in 2005. After completing his studies at Del Mar college in 2008, he attended Texas A&M University where he earned his Bachelor’ s of Music in classical guitar performance under the professorship of Philip Hii. As well as a classical guitar, Mr. Agar performed and led the band Mundowho released their first album, “A New Beginning” in 2009. The band also went on to release more music in 2011, their second album was called “Oyun”. In 2011 Mr. Agar was accepted into the graduate program at the University of Texas at San Antonio under the professorship of Matthew Dunne. After earning his Master’ s in Guitar Performance in 2014, Mr. Agar went on to teach at Palo Alto College where he thought classical guitar until 2018. Mr. Agar also recorded with a Turkish band Insiyatifand recorded their “Hayat ” album. In 2016, he released his single called “Serendipity” with bassist Jim Kalson and percussionist Joe Caploe. Mr. Agar was appointed as the director of Northside Music School in San Antonio and owns and directs the Institute of Musical Arts of San Antonio. During his free time, Mr. Agar performs in musical many styles in venues all around Texas collaborating with many artists such as Juan Ortiz, Armin Marmolejo, Jim Kalson, and Joe Caploe.
Andrew Bergmann grew up in Massachusetts and has lived and traveled across Europe and North America working as a bassist, composer, producer, and bandleader. Andrew holds a B.A. in music from Brown University, a Second Phase Degree (Dutch equivalent of master’s) in jazz double bass performance from the Amsterdam Conservatory, and PhD in music composition from the University of Minnesota.
Andrew also remains active as a performer, composer and producer. His original jazz group Sued Nandayapa Bergmann Saunders recently released their first album on the record label Ropeadope Sur. Other ongoing projects that Andrew co-directs include Ghorar Deem Express , Troglodytes , and the San Antonio Ambient Orchestra. Andrew has also played acoustic bass on recent album releases by noted San Antonio artists Azul Barrientos, Aaron Prado, and Chris Guerrero and while producing and mixing the most recent release by Aaron Walker.
He is Assistant Professor of Production, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at the University of the Incarnate Word.
Dr. Rami El -Farrah is a concert saxophonist known for his solo performances and as a member of both the Bel Cuore Quartet and the Austin Saxophone Ensemble. He is the author of the Dynamic Duos for Saxophone series (published by MusePub) and the etude book 64 Musical Studies (published by Southern Music). As an award-winning soloist and chamber musician, Dr. ElFarrah has performed extensively across the United States and Europe. He has been featured on several musical albums, with recent releases from the Bel Cuore Quartet and the Austin Saxophone Ensemble. In addition to his concert performances, Dr. El-Farrah teaches saxophone at The University of Texas at San Antonio, where he also directs the university’ s saxophone ensemble and teaches Jazz History.
Born in Tripoli, Libya Dr. El-Farrah’ s emigration to Southern France and then to the U.S. shaped his worldview and work ethic with music. From the moment he started saxophone in his home town in San Diego, California, Rami knew it was his passion. From there he earned degrees from California State University, Fullerton and The University of Texas at Austin.
Currently, Dr. El-Farrah performs with groups such as the Austin Saxophone Ensemble, the Bel Cuore Quartet, the San Antonio Philharmonic, the Mid Texas Symphony, and the Symphony of the Hills. He also serves as the Associate Professor of Practice in saxophone at The University of Texas at San Antonio. As an arranger, Dr. El-Farrah continuously creates new works for his ensembles and others across the U.S., many of which have recorded his music, with some pieces appearing on the PML list.
Described as a "composer of facility and imagination, the kind to whom both performers and audiences respond" (The New York Times), the music of oudist and composer Ethan Wickman (b. 1973) has been performed by soloists and ensembles in venues in the U.S. and around the world. He has received grants and commissions from the Barlow Endowment, Meet the Composer, the American Composers Forum, the Wisconsin Music Teachers Association, the Utah Arts Festival, the San Antonio Opera Guild, and Chicago's Music In The Loft where he was the 2014-15 Composer-In-Residence. He was awarded the Jacob Druckman prize for his orchestral work Night Prayers Ascending at the Aspen Music Festival, the Ha rvey Phillips Award for his work Summit from the International Tuba Euphonium Association, first place in the Utah Arts Festival Chamber Commission Competition, and was a finalist in the 25th annual ASCAP Rudolf Nissim Orchestral Composition Competition. He has received fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival, the Norfolk Contemporary Music Workshop/Yale Summer School of Music, the Wellesley Composers Conference, the American Composers Orchestra/Earshot New Music
Readings, and from the U.S. State Department as a Fulbright Fellow in Madrid, Spain. His recordings have garnered critical acclaim such as "the most attractive new string quartet I have heard in a long while" (Fanfare), "epic and dreamy" (The New York Times), "absorbing" (American Record Guide), and possessing "stunning breadth and poise" (Time Out Chicago).
Wickman holds a DMA in composition from the University of Cincinnati College -Conservatory of Music, with additional degrees from Boston University (MM) and Brigham Young University (BM). In addition, he studied modal music composition at the Labyrinth Workshop on Crete with Ross Daly, oud with an emphasis on the musics of Egypt and Iraq with Egyptian virtuoso Ramy Adly, and Turkish oud with Yurdal Tokcan in Istanbul.
GUEST ARTIST BIOS
Buse Babadag was born in Istanbul, Turkey. She started her training at Istanbul University State Conservatory with Christopher Paluch at age 11. After five years of intensive training with him, she got accepted to Ballett – Akademie der Hochschule fur Musik und Theater Munchen in Germany. She was trained with the Vaganova technique by the world-known former ballet stars in Munich. She got to perform at Heinz Bosl Stiftung Matinee with BayerischesStaatsBallet’ s Junior Company. She graduated from Ballett – Akademie with a ‘Bachelor diploma of dance ’ . She was chosen to perform Kirill Melnikov’ s Cinderella pas de deux at Biennalle Dance Education 2014/Dresden Gala at Semperoper Dresden. Same year, she was invited to perform Romeo and Juliet Balcony Pas de Deux at the galas in Rome, Pisa, Toscana and Cairo. In 2014, she moved to America and started working with Tulsa Ballet II. After performing a season with Tulsa Ballet, she got an offer as a company member with Dance Alive National Ballet in Florida. In 2018, she was offered to join Indianapolis Ballet that’ s where she mostly danced Balanchine Ballets as Serenade, Rubies, Who Cares , Wals-Fantaisie, Four Temperaments, Raymonda Variations, and Allegro Brilliant
After 3 seasons of performing with Indianapolis Ballet, she was offered a Soloist contract with Ballet San Antonio and moved to San Antonio to perform the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker as her debut with the company. Her repertoire with BSA included principal roles as Cinderella, the Sugar Plum Fairy and Kitri. She also performed featured roles such as Kitri’ s friends in Patrik Armand’ s Don Quixote , Snow queen, Arabian Couple in Easton and Haley Smith’ s Nutcracker and Cheshire cat in Brian Enos’ s Alice in Wonderland in 2023. She was featured and had an interview in Pointe Magazine in July 2023 about her ballet career as well as her own coffee brand as a professional ballerina. She performed in the legendary musical West Side Story as Jets girl Pauline with the San Antonio play house in May, 2024. Her repertoire includes some William Forsythe works, Balanchine and Bournoville.
In her 4th season with Ballet San Antonio, she got promoted to Principal Dancer by Artistic Director Sofiane Sylve.
Amy Frishkey is a percussionist, keyboardist, vocalist, and ethnomusicologist who serves as Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She was initially trained in Western classical piano and voice and began her percussion studies at University of North Texas under the tutelage of Ghanaian Ewe master drummer Midawo Gideon Foli Alorwoyie and continued at UCLA with Gideon's cousin-in-law Kobla Ladzekpo. Also at UCLA, she studied Bulgarian tupan and tarambuka drumming with musicians Vassil Bebelekov and Ivan Varimezov and Bulgarian singing with Tzvetanka Varimezova. While living in California, Amy drummed for the UCLA Music of Ghana and Dance of Ghana ensembles and for the UCLA Music of the Balkans bitov ensemble. Since moving to south-central Texas in 2013, she has sung and played percussion in the former Austin -based Balkan group Vishudolskaia Collective (now based in Seattle), sang backing vocals and played keyboard for the Austin psych-surf-soul band The Harms, and sang in the Hispa nic Caribbean Ensemble of the University of Texas at Austin. She also occasionally performs as a duo on percussion, vocals, and keyboards with her husband Aaron Muguerza, a singer, drummer, and guitarist.
Linda Jenkins is an ardent collaborative musician and educator recently based in Denton, TX. She frequently collaborates with local composers as a soloist and chamber musician and can be heard playing with various ensembles in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex.
Linda was thrilled to join the music faculty at The University of Texas at San Antonio for Fall 2023 as a part-time Flute instructor, having taught flute at North Central Texas College and a variety of secondary schools in Plano and HEB ISD during her time in Denton. She competed live on a number of regional and national flute stages, including the NFA 2023 Young Artist Competition. Linda has recently been a guest performer at NFA, as well as the MidAtlantic, Atlanta, and Florida Flute Association Festivals. Her teachers have included Terri Sundberg, Molly Barth, Conor Nelson, Elizabeth McNutt, and Amy Taylor.
Linda was named Honorable Mention in the final round of Oklahoma Flute Society’ s 2022 Young Artist Convention as well as in the Rochester Flute Association’ s Piccolo Artist Competition in 2020. That year she was a finalist in the Central Ohio Flute Association’ s Young Artist Competition, although the live final round was cancelled. In 2019 she was named first prizewinner of Atlanta Flute Club ’ s Carl D. Hall piccolo competition and presented a recital at the AFC’ s Annual Flute Convention. Linda has been a guest performer at the biennial Oregon Bach Festival’ s Composer Symposium, SEAMUS, University of Oregon’ s Musicking conference, Greater Portland Flute Society’ s Spring Flute Fair, National Flute Association, and has performed in master classes for Bonita Boyd, Carol Wincenc, Jim Walker, Elizabeth Rowe, and many other notable flutists.
Linda has a B.M. from Bowling Green State University and a M.M. from the University of Oregon where she studied with Dr. Conor Nelson and Professor Molly Barth respectively. She recently completed a Graduate Artist Certificate with Professor Terri Sundberg at the University of North Texas and is pursuing a Doctorate in Music.
