| Ryan Turner, Artistic Director • John Harbison, Principal Guest Conductor • Craig Smith, Founder |
Emmanuel Music Instrumentalists' Biographies
Pianist Leslie Amper, recipient of the NEA Solo Recitalist Fellowship Grant, has delighted audiences with her piano recitals in cities across the nation, including Boston, New York, San Francisco and Chicago. She has appeared in concerto performances with the Boston Pops, the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh Symphony. Ms. Amper is a frequent performer in Emmanuel Music’s Chamber Series, and she has also appeared in chamber music concerts at Bargemusic, Eastern Music Festival, Monadnock Music, and in Strada, Italy. She was chosen to present a special program with an art lecturer on Debussy and the Visual Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her recording of Andrew Imbrie's Short Story was selected for the WGBH "Art of the States," an international radio broadcast. Ms. Amper also presented the music of Scriabin on stage for Peter Sellar's American National Theater production of A Seagull. Leslie Amper studied with Russell Sherman and holds faculty positions at Longy School of Music and New England Conservatory. She has lectured on music at Harvard University and Boston University.
Mark Berger, violinist and violist, has performed with many of the elite ensembles of the Boston area, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Boston, Emmanuel Music, Boston Musica Viva and ALEA III Contemporary Music Ensemble. An avid chamber musician, he is member of the Worcester Chamber Music Society and Music at Eden’s Edge and has performed as a guest artist with QX and the Lydian String Quartets. Mr. Berger has participated in major summer music festivals including the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and the Tanglewood Music Center, where he was in residence for two summers as a member of the New Fromm Players, a chamber ensemble dedicated to the performance of new music. In addition to his work as a performer, Mr. Berger is also a composer, and his works have been commissioned and performed by many leading contemporary music ensembles. Mr. Berger has received degrees from Boston University, and is currently a PhD candidate at Brandeis University. Mr. Berger has taught music theory, composition and electronic music for Wellesley College, Clark University, Atlantic Union College, and Middlesex Community College.
Andrea Bonsignore is a graduate of Oberlin College and New England Conservatory. She is the oboist for the four theatres in Boston that present Broadway touring musicals, Principal Oboist for the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and a member of North Winds - the Young Audience Woodwind Quintet. In her capacity as a free-lancer, she has played and recorded with the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, Emmanuel Music and appeared in YoYo Ma's video chronicling his music experiences at Tanglewood. Additionally, she performs with Boston Lyric Opera, Opera New England, and many other groups throughout New England. She is the Coordinator (and performer) for Monadnock Music's “Lend an Ear” outreach program. She recently authored “Doxie and Andre’s Flight Path” – a story inspired by the watercolors of Roger Kizik featuring two intrepid ducklings and brought to life with music selections played by small ensembles of orchestral instruments.
Violinist Heather Braun performs often with ensembles throughout the greater Boston area, such as Cantata Singers, Back Bay Chorale, and Emmanuel Music. She also performs regularly in the New England area with the Manchester (VT) and New Hampshire Music Festivals. She earned her undergraduate degree from the Eastman School of Music and her Master of Music degree from Boston University. Her main instructors include Mikhail Kopelman and Peter Zazofsky. Heather attended the Tanglewood Music Center twice and received the Jules C. Reiner Violin Prize. She has performed as concertmaster under Seiji Ozawa, Herbert Bloomstedt, David Hoose and Neil Varon. As a chamber musician, she has studied with members of the Muir, Tokyo, Concord, Cleveland, and Juilliard Quartets, and has collaborated with the Ying Quartet. She has also performed in the Winsor and Manchester Music Festival chamber music series. Her solo appearances include performances with the Manchester Music Festival Orchestra and the Washington (DC) Chamber Orchestra. She teaches privately in Boston and at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. Heather is currently a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate at Boston University, continuing her studies with Peter Zazofsky.
Violinist Heidi Braun-Hill has been featured as a guest artist on chamber music series’ presented by Emmanuel Music, Winsor Music, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, and the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival. Since 1999, she has been a soloist in Emmanuel Music’s Bach Cantata series, having performed over 150 cantatas. Ms. Braun-Hill has made guest appearances as concertmaster with many orchestras in and around Boston, including the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, the Chamber Orchestra of Boston, and the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. She performed in Peter Sellars’ production of Bach Cantatas BWV 82 and 199 with Lorraine Hunt Leiberson in the U.S. and Europe and has premiered chamber works by Martin Boykan, Edward Cohen, and Allen Anderson. Her recent engagements include collaborations with oboist Peggy Pearson, mezzo-soprano Pamela Dellal, baritone David Kravitz, and members of the Lydian String Quartet. She has played under the batons of conductors Craig Smith, David Hoose, Larry Rachleff, Seiji Ozawa, Gil Rose, Keith Lockhart, Maxim Shostakovich, and Neemi Järvi, and has made recordings with various groups on the Arsis, Nonesuch, Naxos, and Albany Records labels. Ms. Braun-Hill is passionate about arts education and participates in musical outreach programs in Boston-area schools for Emmanuel Music’s Community Connections. She is a graduate of Boston University, where she studied with Peter Zazofsky of the Muir String Quartet. Her other teachers have included Kevork Mardirossian and Routa Kroumovitch. She is currently on the music faculty at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and lives in Boston with her husband and their young daughter.
Lisa Brooke performed in NYC with the Orchestra of Saint Lukes', the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the American Symphony Orchestra and the American Composer's Orchestra, and has toured extensively. Concertmaster posts include Liza Minnelli's "Minnelli on Minnelli" (Broadway run + CD). In the popular music genre, her work includes the New York Pops, concerts and CD with Barbra Streisand ("The Concert Tour"), much studio session work, and performances with Chuck Mangione and Charles Aznavour (principal 2nd). In Boston, she has worked with the Boston Ballet Orchestra, the Boston Lyric Opera, Emmanuel Music, the New England String Ensemble, the Landmarks Orch. and the Boston Classical Orch. and with the Back Bay Chorale as principal 2nd, and with Coro Allegro as principal 2nd. Lisa is concertmaster for the New England Classical Singers, (David Hodgekins), where she has performed the Bach Double concerto, and has been concertmaster also for a Jethro Tull concert and Mannheim Steam Roller at the Boston Pavillion and the Garden respectively. Ms. Brooke has recorded with Orchestras for Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, Nonesuch, and Telarc, and recorded a world premiere of a septet for Opus 1.
Ya-Fei Chuang’s appearances
include the Beethoven Festival (Warsaw) with Christoph Eschenbach, the European Music Festival (Stuttgart), the Schleswig-Holstein, the Bach Festival Leipzig, and the Ruhr Festival. A CD of her solo recital there was included in the July 2007 issue of the German music magazine, Fono Forum. Ms. Chuang has also performed at the Tanglewood and Ravinia, Gilmore, Oregon, and Satasota festivals. She has performed in venures including the Berlin Philharmonie Hall, Schauspielhaus Berlin, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Symphony Hall, and Jordan Hall. Her duo partners include Kim Kashkashian, Robert Levin, and Steven Isserlis. Engagements this season include concerts in the Berlin Philharmonie Hall with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra as well as in Salzburg, in South America, and in Asia, along with many resturn festival engagements. Four CDs are soon to be released. Ms. Chuang serves on the faculty of Boston Conservatory, and gives master classes at Tanglewood, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and elsewhere.
Bruce Creditor was born in Brooklyn and grew up in suburban Belleville, New Jersey. He began playing clarinet at the age of nine and studied with John Morsillo while performing in the Youth Symphony Orchestra of New York and American Youth Performs National Orchestra, as well as participating in the summer programs at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, University of Vermont, and Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Mr. Creditor is an honors graduate of New England Conservatory in both clarinet and musicology. He was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1976 and 1978. Mr. Creditor’s extensive free-lance activities have included performances with the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops and Boston Pops Esplanade orchestras, as well as the New Hampshire Symphony, Boston Philharmonic, Boston Ballet, Boston Musica Viva, Collage New Music, Cantata Singers and Ensemble, Emmanuel Music, Holy Cross Chamber Players, Brandeis Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Aeolian Chamber Players, and many other ensembles. He has performed, recorded, and toured worldwide as clarinet and assistant conductor of the Grammy Award-winning New England Ragtime Ensemble. A founding member of the Emmanuel Wind Quintet - winner of the 1981 Naumburg Award in Chamber Music – and Alea III (the contemporary music ensemble in residence at Boston University), Bruce has given the Boston premiere of works by Schuller, Martino, Wyner, Harbison, Antoniou, Tower, Lerdahl, Starer, and others, and has recorded for CRI, GM, New World, Koch and Neuma. Mr. Creditor has served as the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Assistant Personnel Manager since September 1992. He lives in Sharon, Massachusetts with his wife Susan and their two children, Yael and Avi.
Cellist Michael Curry is originally from New Jersey, and was trained at Juilliard, Harvard, and New England Conservatory. His major cello teachers were David Finckel and Laurence Lesser; he also studied piano with Andrew Willis and chamber music with Louis Krasner, Gilbert Kalish, Joseph Silverstein, and Leon Kirchner. He was awarded two fellowships to study at the Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood, where he won the Albert Spalding prize for outstanding string playing. A member of Dinosaur Annex since 1983, he has also performed with groups such as the Boston Pops, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Ballet, and Emmanuel Music. He has made other chamber music appearances at Carnegie Recital Hall, the United Nations, Dumbarton Oaks, and Monadnock Music, and is frequent solo cellist at the Colonial Theatre. He has recorded for Albany, Gasparo, Nonesuch, and other labels, in addition to recordings with Dinosaur Annex.
Flutist Jacqueline DeVoe is an active freelancer in the New England area and performs regularly with Emmanuel Music, Cantata Singers, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Masterworks Chorale, Boston Ballet and other ensembles. In addition to her degrees in Boston at New England Conservatory, she was a two-time recipient of the Frank Huntington Beebe Fund grant and the Austrian Government’s Stipend for Foreigners, and completed a diploma at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria. Her primary teachers were Claude Monteux, John Heiss and Wolfgang Schulz. A Tanglewood Fellow, Ms. DeVoe is the former principal flutist of the Mexico City Philharmonic, has performed with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and has been presented in solo and chamber music concerts in Europe, Mexico and the US. A strong advocate of music education in public schools, Ms. DeVoe performs with the North Winds Quintet, which has presented educational concerts in schools throughout Massachusetts under the auspices of Young Audiences and throughout rural New Hampshire with Monadnock Music’s Lend an Ear program. Ms. DeVoe has created and directed chamber music concerts for the Newport Symposium and for three years, she was selected as one of two “Artist Teachers” in a pilot program through Young Audiences and NPR’s “From the Top” which brings gifted young artists into Massachusetts’ public schools. Ms. DeVoe is also the president of the James Pappoutsakis Memorial Fund, which hosts a flute competition for Boston-area flutists.
Violinist Rose Drucker performs regularly with the Orchestra of Emmanuel and Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, where she currently serves as principal second violin. Recent chamber music engagements have included performances in New York and the Banff Centre for the Arts with the Arneis String Quartet as well as concerts and outreach with Winsor Music, Sarasa Ensemble and Emmanuel Music's Community Connections program. Ms. Drucker has performed throughout Europe and South America on tours with the Festival Ensemble of Stuttgart and Youth Orchestra of the Americas, playing in a wide variety of venues from Lucern and Salzburg to Bogota and Buenos Aires. A native of Tucson, Arizona, Rose attended Boston University where she earned a Master of Music degree as a student of Peter Zazofsky, and holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Arizona. She has also performed with the New World Symphony and participated in the National Orchestral Institute and Round Top Festival.
Joshua Gordon joined the Naumburg Award-winning Lydian String Quartet and the faculty of Brandeis University in 2002. He has performed across the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, Japan, and South America. He was a member of the New York Chamber Soloists, the Group For Contemporary Music, and the New Millennium Ensemble, and has been a guest of the Cassatt and Ying Quartets, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Fromm Players at Harvard University, New York Festival of Song, North Country Chamber Players, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Williams College Players, and performs with Emmanuel Music and Speculum Musicae. He is principal cellist of the New England String Ensemble and resident cellist at the Wellesley Composers Conference. In 2007 Joshua Gordon and Randall Hodgkinson were awarded a Copland Fund grant for their critically acclaimed CD from New World Records, “Leo Ornstein: Complete Works For Cello and Piano." Their most recent collaboration as a duo was a celebration of Elliott Carter’s centennial birthday performed at Brandeis and at Bargemusic in New York City. With the Lydian String Quartet, Gordon can be heard on a Centaur Records CD in the four quartets of Vincent Persichetti and on an upcoming release of John Harbison’s Third and Fourth Quartets. He is also featured on recordings from Albany Records, CRI, Cala, Koch International Classics, Naxos, and Tzadik.
Nancy Granert is the organist at Boston's Emmanuel Church. She is also organist for Boston Jewish Spirit, Organist in Residence at Harvard’s Memorial Church, and teaches organ privately. The Harvard University Choir has, over the past few years, released 5 CDs on which she is heard as accompanist and in solo works.
Ms. Granert has spent three summers in Spain, pursuing scholarly studies of Iberian organ music. Her interest in this area has taken her to Mexico several times to see and play many historic instruments. She has taught courses in the Interpretation of Spanish Organ Music in Oaxaca, Mexico. She has spent three weeks in Japan, giving several organ recitals in Tokyo and Nagoya, and participated in the International Organ Festival held in Nagoya and Shirakawa. She served as Dean of the Boston Chapter, American Guild of Organists from 1988-90 and as Treasurer for the National Convention held in Boston in June, 1990.
Ms. Granert received her education at Oberlin College, studying organ with Garth Peacock and harpsichord with David Boe and William Porter. In 1976 she received her Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, under Yuko Hayashi. Her early education in organ and church music was with Margaret Budd, now of Baltimore.
Violinist Jodi Hagen received an Artist Diploma, Masters Degree and Bachelor Degree in violin performance at Boston University, where she was a student of Roman Totenberg. Ms. Hagen has earned numerous honors for her solo and chamber music performances from such notable institutions as Boston University, the Carmel International Chamber Music Competition, and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. She enjoys playing violin for the PBS television series American Experience. Jodi has appeared in recitals in King’s Chapel in Boston, MIT, the Nahant Historical Society, Swampscott Unitarian Universalist Church and Boston University among others. Ms. Hagen has appeared as soloist at Boston University, and with the Harvard Summer School Orchestra, the MIT Summer Philharmonic and the Salem Philharmonic orchestras. As a freelance violinist in Boston, Jodi is a member of Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Boston Classical Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra of Boston and performs with the Boston Lyric Opera Orchestra, Boston Pops, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Opera Boston, and the Boston Ballet Orchestra.
Double bassist Susan Hagen received both her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Double Bass Performance from Boston University, graduating with honors as a student of Edwin Barker, principal bass of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1998 and again by invitation in 1999. Ms. Hagen is a substitute player with the Boston Symphony Orchestra as well as with the Utah Symphony and is an active free-lancer in the Boston area performing with the Boston Pops/Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Emmanuel Music, New England String Ensemble, the Cantata Singers Ensemble, Opera Boston, Collage New Music, Boston Lyric Opera, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Susan has a private teaching studio, is currently on faculty at the Gordon College Music Department, and is the bass coordinator for the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras.
Violinist Rose Mary Harbison’s recent performances include Bach’s D minor Partita (Boston), Harbison’s Crane Sightings (Tanglewood), and Schoenberg’s Phantasy (Los Angeles). Recent projects include her highly acclaimed recording of John Harbison’s Violin Concerto (Koch International), and a recording of Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto, with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, soon to be released on Koch. She has appeared as soloist with the Oakland, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh Symphonies, and has worked directly with many composers, including Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions. With Rudolph Kolisch she founded the Kolisch Ensemble, and continues to be an advocate for his performance practice, presenting seminars at the Tanglewood and Aspen music festivals. Ms. Harbison taught at Brandeis University and MIT, was named a Scholar at the Radcliffe Institute and was winner of an Ingram-Merrill Award. With John Harbison she is co-Artistic Director of the annual Token Creek Chamber Music Festival. She has just completed, with physicist Jack Fry, a documentary video to accompany the forthcoming book on Professor Fry's groundbreaking research into the acoustical properties of the world's finest violins. They will present their work, "Solving the Stradivarius Secret," at the Boston Museum of Science on March 25th 2009.
Oboist Jane Harrison earned a Bachelor of Music degree at Ohio Wesleyan University. She attended the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with John Mack, and later received her Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Elaine Douvas. She has been a regular member of Emmanuel Music since 1990, and is also oboist in Arcadian Winds, a wind quintet specializing in contemporary music. She is currently free-lancing actively in the New England area, appearing with the Boston Pops, the Cantata Singers, ProArte Chamber Orchestra, Boston Classical Orchestra, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, and the New Hampshire Music Festival, among many others. She has participated in several commercial recordings and radio broadcasts. Ms. Harrison is on the teaching staff of Boston College, Northeastern University, The Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, and The All-Newton Music School.
Betty Hauck's (viola) eclectic career includes performing at the White House for the Kennedys, playing a Broadway show with Mary Martin and Robert Preston, coaching the viola section of the Royal Jordanian Army Orchestra in Amman, Jordan, and playing at the Convocation for the Dalai Lama at Brandeis University. She received her training at the Longy School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Brandeis University, where she was a recipient of the Coffey Award in Music, and the New England Conservatory of Music. She has also been a Fellow at both Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals. In the Boston area, Ms. Hauck has appeared with Emmanuel Music, the Cantata Singers, Monadnock Music, and the Boston Pops. As a founding member of the Apple Hill Chamber Players, she performed in numerous chamber music concerts, touring both nationally and internationally from 1973 to 1995. She has recorded for CRI, Opus One, and Centaur Records.
Whitacre Hill (horn), a native of central Pennsylvania, received his Bachelor’s Degree from the Eastman School of Music, and continued graduate studies at Northwestern University. His teachers include Verne Reynolds, Eli Epstein, Richard Oldburg, Norman Schweikert and Dr. James Thurmond. He has performed with the Harrisburg Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Heidelberg Schloss-Spiele Orchestra and the Chicago Civic Orchestra. Since moving to Boston, Mr. Hill has performed with The Boston Philharmonic, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, The North Shore Music Theater and the Paramount Brass. He is currently on faculty of Boston Conservatory of Music.
Randy Hiller earned the BS degree from Harvard University and the MBA and PhD in Applied Mathematics from MIT. He has studied violin with Sarah Scriven and Roger Shermont and chamber music with Raphael Hillyer, Robert Merfeld, and Leon Kirshner. Mr. Hiller has performed with many local ensembles including Emmanuel Music, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the Auros Ensemble, and the Lexington Sinfonietta. He was the concertmaster of the Concord Orchestra from 1999 until 2005. An avid chamber musician, Mr. Hiller has coached chamber music at a number of local music schools. He serves as Vice President of the board of Project STEP, a Boston-based program designed to provide string instrument training to talented minority children with the goal of encouraging them to pursue careers in music.
Betsy Hinkle received her M.M. from The New England Conservatory and B.M. from Florida State University, both in Violin Performance. Betsy performs throughout the Boston area, namely with the Boston Ballet Orchestra, the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, and the Boston Classical Orchestra. Recent recital engagements include the concert series of the Methuen Memorial Music Hall, and the Church of the Epiphany, Washington D.C. She is on the faculty of the Rivers School Conservatory and is creating a string quartet residency in a Boston Public School.
Pianist Brett Hodgdon is a versatile collaborative artist and coach living in the Boston area. He has performed both song and instrumental recitals at venues throughout the United States, including The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory (NEC), and Auer Hall at Indiana University, Bloomington. Most recently, he has appeared with NEC’s Contemporary Ensemble for the Boston premiere of John Harbison’s Milosz Songs for soprano and piano. He has participated in numerous performances of the vocal works of composer Mohammed Fairouz, and has also performed frequently as a member of a graduate piano quartet at NEC. Upcoming engagements include performances at the Aspen Music Festival, the Token Creek Chamber Festival, and the Emmanuel Music Schumann Chamber Series.
Away from the recital stage, Hodgdon is the vocal director and music advisor for Guerilla Opera, a Boston-based contemporary chamber opera company. In April 2008, he participated in the company’s world premiere performance of Andy Vores’ No Exit, and will coach the world premieres of several operas for the group’s upcoming season. He has served as assistant music director for the Boston Opera Collaborative’s 2007 performance of Dialogues of the Carmelites. Currently, he serves as a music coach for the NEC Undergraduate Opera Company, as well as the Opera Seminar for graduate students. He also serves as rehearsal pianist for the PALS Children’s Chorus (Brookline, MA) and for Emmanuel Music, where he was recently named a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow for the 2008-09 season.
A doctoral candidate at New England Conservatory, Hodgdon has studied collaborative piano with Irma Vallecillo, Cameron Stowe, and John Moriarty. Before moving to Boston, he received the MM and BM degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where his principal teachers were Andrew Harley, Andrew Willis, and Benton Hess.
Randall Hodgkinson (piano) Grand Prize Winner of the International American Music Competition, sponsored by Carnegie Hall and the Rockefeller Foundation, has performed with orchestras in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Boston, Cleveland and abroad in Italy and Iceland. He is an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, and he performs the four-hand and two-piano repertoire with his wife Leslie Amper. Mr. Hodgkinson's festival appearances include Blue Hill (Maine), BargeMusic, Chestnut Hill Concerts (Madison, Connecticut), Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and has preformed regularly on the Emmanuel Music Chamber Series. His recordings include solo works by Roger Sessions and Donald Martino for the New World label, chamber music with the Boston Chamber Music Society for Northeastern Records, and the Morton Gould Concerto with the Albany Symphony for Albany Records. Mr. Hodgkinson is presently on the faculty of the New England Conservatory and the Longy School of Music.
Born in Berlin, Vermont, Jesse Irons has been praised by the Baltimore Sun as a "polished and sensitive" violinist, his performances "moving... with a perfect mix of passion and precision." Since completing his studies with Pamela Frank and Nicholas Kitchen, he has performed chamber music around the world, including in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, France, and Singapore, and recently appeared with the Borromeo String Quartet. Exploring music outside the classical mainstream, Jesse performed with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, attended the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music, and performed as soloist with the Peabody Camerata in Alban Berg's Kammerkonzert. Jesse is a Crier - a member of Boston’s new self-conducted chamber orchestra A Far Cry (www.afarcry.org).
Laura Jeppesen is a graduate of the Yale School of Music. She is the principal violist of Boston Baroque, gambist of the Boston Museum Trio, and plays in many early music groups, including the Handel & Haydn Society, The Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Aston Magna and the Carthage Consort. She has been a Woodrow Wilson Designate, a Fellow of Harvard's Institute for Advanced Studies, and a Fulbright Scholar. In 2006, the Independent Critics of New England nominated her for an IRNE award for the score she produced as music director of the American Repertory Theater's staging of Christopher Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage. She has performed as soloist under conductors Christopher Hogwood, Edo de Waart, Seiji Ozawa, Martin Pearlman, Grant Llewellyn and Bernard Haitink. Her extensive discography includes music for solo viola da gamba, the gamba sonatas of J.S.Bach, Buxtehude's Trio Sonatas opus 1 and 2, Telemann's Paris Quartets, and music of Marin Marais. She teaches at Boston University and Wellesley College.
Christopher Krueger has performed as principal flutist with the Boston Symphony, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Opera Company of Boston, and is a member of Collage New Music and Emmanuel Music. As a Baroque flutist, he has been a soloist at Lincoln Center, Tanglewood, Ravinia, and throughout North America and Europe. He is a member of the Bach Ensemble and the Aulos Ensemble, and is principal flutist with the Handel & Haydn Society and Boston Baroque. Mr. Krueger is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and is on the faculty of New England Conservatory, Boston University, and Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute.
Harpsichordist Leslie Kwan is General Director of L’Académie. She leads an active music career and performs with an array of ensembles, including Duo Bella and the New World Symphony. In 2005, Ms. Kwan made her Carnegie Weill Hall debut with soprano Brenna Wells and her New World Symphony debut, to critical acclaim. The Miami Herald has praised Ms. Kwan's skills "the zesty string articulation and the graceful, imaginative continuo playing... gave the music palpable energy". She has performed under the direction of Ton Koopman, Peter Holman, Stephen Stubbs, Robert King, and her coaches include Arthur Haas, Peter Sykes,Ton Koopman, Stephen Stubbs, Richard Egarr, and Paul Leenhouts. Performances with New World Symphony for the 2009-2010 season include Frank Martin's Petite Symphony Concertante for Harp, Piano, Harpsichord and String Orchestra with Scott Yoo conducting and A Baroque Feast under the direction of Nicolas McGegan. Ms. Kwan holds degrees from Hofstra University and Mannes College of Music.
Oboist Barbara LaFitte is a familiar face on the Boston music scene. She is the principal oboist in the Boston Ballet Orchestra and Boston Classical Orchestra, and plays English Horn in the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. She is also a regular performer in Emmanuel Music’s Bach Cantata series where she has performed most of Bach's sacred works for oboe, and is a member of the cutting edge Boston Modern Orchestra Project. For many years she was a member of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and was principal oboe in the Rhode Island Philharmonic prior to joining the Boston Ballet Orchestra. In addition, she has played in the support orchestras for Andrea Bocelli, Rod Stewart, Yanni, Jethro Tull, and the Moody Blues, as well as playing in the show orchestras for “Miss Saigon”, “Camelot”, and “The King and I”. Ms. LaFitte’s major studies were with Louis Rosenblatt in Philadelphia. She received a fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center, and participated in the Aspen and Spoleto Music Festivals. Locally, she has performed at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and has been a guest at the Bay Chamber Series in Maine, the Monadnock Festival in New Hampshire, the Andover Chamber Series, and is oboist in residence at Music at Eden’s Edge. Ms. LaFitte is a Professor on the faculty of Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she has developed an innovative oboe studio and coaches chamber ensembles. She also joined the faculty of Wellesley College in September 2003.
Roxanne Layton graduated from New England Conservatory with Distinction in Performance. She has performed throughout the United States with many groups. These include: Utah Opera Company, Portland Baroque Orchestra, New Orleans Philharmonic, Boston Opera Company, Handel & Haydn, Spectrum Singers, Emmanuel Music, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Boston Pops with John Williams, and many more.
Roxanne is also a member of Mannheim Steamroller and has performed at the White House, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Regis and Kathy Lee, The Tonight Show, Nancy Kerrigan's Halloween Special, and many more. She enjoys playing Early Music as well as playing Latin Jazz and Worldbeat Music on the recorder with Zoe Lewis( an original songwriter) in many Folk Festivals which include opening up for Judy Collins.
Ms. Layton has worked at the von Huene Workshop making recorders periodically for almost 20 years and has enjoyed playing Bach Cantatas with Emmanuel Music for 16 years. She has written music for the film "Art Spirit' about Provincetown artists and performs film music with John Thomas. She has recorded on many cd's which include Holiday Musik, Renaissance Holiday, Zoe Lewis' cd's, and her own "The Sound of Christmas Winds" which are original carols from the Oxford Book of Carols for 4 recorders, percussion, and voice.
She is a member and co-founder of "Second Wind" a recorder duo with Roy Sansom, performing and recording many styles of music, arrangements, and original compositions for 2 recorders.
Pianist Robert Levin has been heard throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, and in Asia. His solo engagements include the orchestras of Atlanta, Berlin, Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Montreal, Utah, and Vienna on the Steinway with such conductors as James Conlon, Bernard Haitink, Sir Neville Marriner, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Helmuth Rilling, and Joseph Silverstein. On period pianos he has appeared with the Academy of Ancient Music, the English Baroque Soloists, The Handel & Haydn Society, the London Classical Players, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Christopher Hogwood, Sir Charles Mackerras, Nicholas McGegan, and Sir Roger Norrington. Renowned for his improvised embellishments and cadenzas in Classical period repertoire, Robert Levin has made recordings for DG Archiv, CRI, Decca/London, Deutsche Grammophon Yellow Label, ECM, New York Philomusica, Nonesuch, Philips, and SONY Classical. Robert Levin’s active career as a chamber musician includes long associations with the violist Kim Kashkashian and the New York Philomusica. He appears frequently with his wife, pianist Ya-Fei Chuang. After more than a quarter-century as an artist faculty member at the Sarasota Music Festival he was made Associate Artistic Director in 2004, and succeeds Paul Wolfe as Artistic Director in 2007. In addition to his performing activities, Robert Levin is a noted theorist and Mozart scholar and is the author of a number of articles and essays on Mozart. Robert Levin is President of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition (Leipzig, Germany), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University.
Violinist Danielle Maddon is an exceptionally active and versatile Boston-based artist. She performs as a solo recitalist, soloist with orchestra, concertmaster, and orchestral violinist in Boston and other cities throughout the United States. In demand as a concertmaster, she frequently leads Boston’s Emmanuel Music, the New England Philharmonic, the Cantata Singers, and other prominent local organizations. She was concertmaster of the Tallahassee (FL) Symphony Orchestra for four seasons, and also performed this role with orchestras in Pennsylvania, Los Angeles, Rome, Italy, Tennessee, Michigan, and at the Tanglewood Music Center. On baroque violin, she performs and tours as a member of Boston Baroque and The Handel & Haydn Society, recording for Telarc, Nonesuch, Koch, and London Records. Recent solo appearances include Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in Nebraska, a solo Bach recital in Hartford, Ct, and concertos with Emmanuel Music, the Cantata Singers, and Boston Baroque. Ms. Maddon is in her eighth season as Concertmaster of the New England Philharmonic, with whom she has annually performed major 20th century violin concertos, including the Lutoslawski, Berg, Harbison, Barber, Janacek, Zwilich and Schuller concertos, to critical acclaim. In February 2005, she premiered composer Andy Vores’ Violin Concerto, a work commissioned by the New England Philharmonic, and written especially for her. In April 2009, she will give the Boston premiere of Dutilleaux’ Violin Concerto with the New England Philharmonic.
A devoted chamber musician, Ms. Maddon has performed with the Lydian String Quartet and mezzo Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in concerts at Carnegie Hall. Other chamber music engagements include Emmanuel Music’s Brahms, Schubert, Harbison and Schumann Series, The Token Creek (WI) Festival, Music at Eden’s Edge, and the Grand Island (NE) Performing Arts Series. She often performs with contemporary music groups such as The Boston Musica Viva, Auros New Music Ensemble, and The Boston Cyber Arts Festival.
Ms. Maddon began her violin studies with noted violinist and pedagogue Sin Tung Chiu, graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Texas Christian University. She holds a Masters degree in Violin Performance from Ohio University, and completed post-graduate studies at Boston University with Rafael Druian, Eugene Lehner, Bayla Keyes, and Raphael Hillyer. Awards include twice-won fellowships to both the Tanglewood Music Center and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, where she won the concertmaster position for conductors Kurt Masur, Sir Charles Grove, Michael Tilson Thomas, Andre Previn and Leonard Slatkin. She was a first violinist with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and now performs and tours internationally with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra and other groups.
Percussionist Craig McNutt serves as Principal Timpanist of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Opera Boston, and Emmanuel Music. He performed throughout New England with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops and Pops Esplanade Orchestras, the Boston Ballet, Boston Lyric Opera, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, and the Cantata Singers and Ensemble, as well as the period instrument ensembles Boston Baroque and the Handel & Haydn Society. An advocate of contemporary music, Mr. McNutt also performs with Collage New Music, Dinosaur Annex, and ALEA III, all ensembles dedicated to the performance of new music.
Mr. McNutt was twice a fellow at the prestigious Tanglewood Music Center, and has performed for six seasons at the internationally renowned Newport Music Festival. He has recorded for Telarc, Koch Classics, Albany, Chandos, Crystal, Arsis, Bridge, Naxos, and BMOP Sound.
In the Summer of 1997, Mr. McNutt served as Principal Percussionist in the Peter Sellars/Craig Smith production of Kurt Weill/J.S. Bach: Conversations Between Hope and Fear after Death which was presented in Paris and Frankfurt. In May 2000 he toured with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, performing Messiaen’s Turangalila in Cologne and Paris. He also took part in a performance of a 300-member orchestra at the Eiffel Tower featuring tenor Andrea Bocelli. In the summer of 2000, Craig returned to Tanglewood to perform Boulez’s Sur Incises, a performance applauded by the Boston Globe as “simply beyond praise.”
Mr. McNutt holds degrees from the Hartt School of Music where he studied with Alexander Lepak, and Yale University, where he was a student of Gordon Gottlieb. He has also studied with Paul Yancich and the late Cloyd Duff, both timpanists of the Cleveland Orchestra, as well as BSO cymbalist Frank Epstein at the New England Conservatory. Craig currently serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music (Preparatory Division), the Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Wellesley College, and has also taught at the Berklee College of Music.
Richard Menaul enjoys a wide-ranging career as a free lance horn player and teacher in the Boston area. He is a member of the Boston Ballet Orchestra, the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Boston Baroque, the Handel & Haydn Society, and has served as Principal Horn of the Opera Company of Boston and the Albany Symphony Orchestra. He appears regularly with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and has also performed with the Syracuse and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. Concert tours have taken him world wide to more than fifteen countries on four continents, and to thirty-eight of the U.S. states. Conductors he has played for include Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Haitink, Andre Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Colin Davis, and James Levine. He was born in Chicago and grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. Mr. Menaul holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Ithaca College and a Masters of Music degree from Northwestern University. His teachers include Dale Clevenger, John Covert, and Joseph Singer. He teaches at Boston University.
Karen Oosterbaan is a professional violinist and an AmSAT certified Alexander Technique Teacher in the Boston area. She completed her Graduate Diploma in Violin Performance at Longy School of Music with distinction, Master of Music degree in violin performance at the New England Conservatory with honors, and her Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude, from Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University. She has studied with Janet Packer, James Buswell IV, Cornelia Heard, Dana Maiben, and Paul Kantor. She completed her three year Alexander Technique Teacher Training at the Dimon School in Somerville, Massachusetts where she studied with Ted Dimon.
Ms. Oosterbaan has given a series of workshops and classes on the Alexander Technique for musicians at the New England Conservatory, Longy School of Music, Olin College, Minnesota String Teacher’s Association, Vanderbilt University, Cambridge Center for Adult Education, and Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra Program. She has a private Alexander studio for students with a variety of backgrounds.
As a professional violinist, she frequently performs with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, Cantata Singers, National Lyric Opera, and Vermont Symphony. She has performed as a concerto soloist with the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra. She performs with the “Harvey Diamond Jazz Quintet" and Alcyon Chamber Players throughout New England. In addition, she has participated in a wide variety of music festivals, including the Aspen Music Festival, International Baroque Institute, New Hampshire Music Festival, and the Cours International de Musique, in Switzerland. She teaches violin and coaches chamber music at the Winchester Community Music School, where she is the Chamber Music Coordinator.
Violinist Mark Oshida made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2003, performing Copland’s original version of Appalachian Spring as concertmaster under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas. He has performed with the Utah Symphony, Boston Pops, and the Handel & Haydn Society. He has appeared as soloist with the Peninsula Symphony, the Baroque Sinfonietta, the Nova Vista Symphony, and the Orchestra at Temple Square. As guest soloist with the Catholic University Orchestra of Parana, he recorded Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto for Piano and Violin on national Brazilian television. He has traveled as soloist, chamber musician, and concertmaster throughout Japan and Brazil and has also performed in London’s St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Moscow Conservatory’s Great Hall. He has appeared as concertmaster for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with whom he accompanied artists including Frederica von Stade and Bryn Terfel. He is a frequent guest at the Aldeburgh Festival, the Snape Proms, and the Mendocino Music Festival. Mr. Oshida has also performed with the popular group Mannheim Steamroller, the Grammy award-winning jazz artist Al Jarreau, and the R&B singer Gladys Knight. Mr. Oshida was educated at Harvard University and Brigham Young University. He plays on a 1760 Carcassi violin from Florence, Italy, and began playing with Emmanuel Music in 2007.
Beth Pearson began her professional life as a founding member of the Apple Hill Chamber Players, and has performed close to two thousand chamber music concerts throughout the United States. She has given solo recitals at Lincoln Center, the Gardner Museum, the Longy School, and Harvard and Smith Colleges. Ms. Pearson has appeared as soloist with the Brockton Symphony, the Merrimac Valley Philharmonic, The New England String Ensemble, the Boston Lawyers Orchestra at the Esplanade, the Nashua Chamber Orchestra, and the Cambridge and Brookline Symphonies.
An Oberlin conservatory graduate, Ms. Pearson studied with George Neikrug and Richard Kapuscinski. She combines freelance playing, solo and chamber music, and teaching. She has recorded for Sine Qua Non, Opus One, and Sonora labels.
Peggy Pearson is a winner of the Pope Foundation Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Music. Lloyd Schwartz, who received the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, called her "my favorite living oboist." Ms. Pearson gave her New York debut with soprano Dawn Upshaw in 1995, a program featuring the premier of John Harbison's Chorale Cantata which was written specifically for them. She has performed solo, chamber and orchestral music throughout the United States and abroad. A member of the Bach Aria Group, Ms. Pearson is also solo oboist with the Emmanuel Chamber Orchestra, an organization that has performed the complete cycle of sacred cantatas by J. S. Bach. According to Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe, "Peggy Pearson has probably played more Bach than any other oboist of her generation; this is music she plays in a state of eloquent grace." Ms. Pearson is Artistic Director of, and oboist with the Winsor Music Chamber Series in Lexington, Massachusetts, a founding member of La Fenice, and principal oboe with the Boston Philharmonic. She has toured internationally and recorded extensively with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra as principal oboist, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Music from Marlboro.
In addition to her freelance and chamber music activities, Peggy Pearson has been an active exponent of contemporary music. She was a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute in contemporary music, and has premiered numerous works, many of which were written specifically for her. She is featured on a recording of John Harbison's music entitled First Light, with Dawn Upshaw and Lorraine Hunt (Archetype Records). She has premiered and recorded Oboe Quartet by Fred Lerdahl (Bridge Records), Quartet for Oboe and Strings by Yehudi Wyner (Bridge Records), Quartetto for oboe and strings by Mario Davidovsky (Bridge Records), John Harbison's Snow Country (Archetype Records), Peter Child's Sonatina (CRI), and Ivan Tcherepnin's Flores Musicales (CRI). Ms. Pearson was a founding member of the Emmanuel Wind Quintet, an ensemble formed to study and perform the Schoenberg Wind Quintet, and winner of the Walter Naumburg Award in 1981. The Emmanuel Quintet collaborated with the Guild of Composers, and worked with other composers including Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Gunther Schuller, John Harbison, Fred Lerdahl and John Heiss.
Peggy Pearson has studied with Mela Tenenbaum, Heinz Holliger, Fernand Gillet, Robert Bloom, Alfred Genovese, Ralph Gomberg, Laurence Thorstenberg and David Huston. She has been on the faculties at the The Tanglewood Music Center (Bach Institute), the Conservatory of Music (University of Cincinnati), Wellesley College, the Composers Conference at Wellesley College and the Longy School of Music. She is currently on the faculties at the Boston Conservatory, and MIT (Emerson Scholars Program).
Paul Perfetti, a resident of Boston, Massachusetts, performs on baroque trumpet with Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn Society, Aston Magna, Boston Bach Ensemble, Portland Baroque (Oregon), Early Music New York, Millenial Arts Productions (NY), and Collegium Musicum Bach (Mexico).
His recordings with Boston Baroque for the Telarc label include J.S. Bach: Complete Orchestral Suites, Mass in B Minor (2000 Grammy nominee), Magnificat/Vivaldi Gloria; W.A. Mozart: Requiem (1995 Robert Levin completion), The Impresario/The Beneficent Dervish (world premier), The Philosopher's Stone (world premier); C.W. Gluck: Iphigenie en Tauride; G.F. Handel: Messiah (1992 Grammy nominee), Music for the Royal Fireworks/Watermusic; C. Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610 (on cornetto) (1998 Grammy nominee). He has also recorded the F.J. Haydn "Lord Nelson" Mass with Banchetto Musicale on the Arabesque label and the J. S. Bach Weinachts Oratorium with the Boston Bach Ensemble on the Titanic label.
In 2004 Mr. Perfetti was invited to lecture on baroque and natural trumpets at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Musical Instrument Collection. Presently, Mr. Perfetti has been engaged to record some of these same instruments in an effort to further document these rare trumpets.
Mr. Perfetti holds a Bachelor of Music in Trumpet Performance/Composition from the University of Wisconsin and a Master of Music degree in Trumpet Performance "with distinction" from the New England Conservatory of Music. His principal teachers were Michael Galloway and Charles Schlueter (Boston Symphony). He studied baroque trumpet with Friedemann Immer (Michaelstein, Germany).
From 1988 to the present, he has been the Principal Trumpet of the national touring company of "Les Miserables." He has also served as principal trumpet of the Virginia Opera and has been a frequent performer with Emmanuel Music, Opera Company of Boston, Boston Academy of Music, Boston Pops Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic, and Boston Musica Viva.
Mr. Perfetti performs with the Boston Musica Viva on film with YoYo Ma in a BBC Production "A Month at Tanglewood."
Violinist Dianne Pettipaw as part of Boston's free-lance classical music community, performs with such ensembles as: Emmanuel Music; playing the Bach Cantatas every Sunday, the concert series, and the European tour in 2005. She also performs with Boston Ballet Orchestra, where she holds the principal second violin position, and has performed solo repertoire with the company in 1991, 2004, and 2006. Ms. Pettipaw performs with Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, which includes annual US tours, and several tours to Japan. She also performs with Handel & Haydn Society, Cantata Singers, and Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra. She studied at Boston University with Roman Totenberg and Raphael Bronstein. Ms. Pettipaw is a member of the faculty of Longy School of Music.
Hailed by the New York Times as “imaginative and eloquent”; praised by the Boston Globe for his “dazzling dispatch of every bravura challenge” and his “melodic phrasing of melting tenderness,” cellist Rafael Popper-Keizer has established himself definitively as an artist both supremely accomplished and versatile. As one of Boston’s most eminent freelance musicians, his career routinely encompasses everything from continuo in 17th-century motets to solo recitals to avant-garde improvisation to indie rock. Mr. Popper-Keizer’s formative years were spent at the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Laurence Lesser; and at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he performed to great acclaim from Mstislav Rostropovich and Joel Krosnick, and had the opportunity to understudy for Yo-Yo Ma in open rehearsals of Don Quixote with Seiji Ozawa.
Mr. Popper-Keizer is the principal cellist of the Boston Philharmonic and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and has made appearances as guest principal with innumerable ensembles throughout New England. He appears regularly as a chamber musician with Emmanuel Music, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Winsor Music, Monadnock Music, and the Ibis Camerata, and has enjoyed guest appearances with the Fromm Chamber Players, the Boston Trio, Firebird Ensemble, Walden Chamber Players, Boston Musica Viva, and John Harbison’s Token Creek Festival, among others. Labels for which Mr. Popper-Keizer has recorded include Albany, Arsis, Helicon, Musical Heritage Society, Intrada, and Zimbel; he is also the solo cellist on the BOSE demo CD. Upcoming solo releases include Robert Erickson’s Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra, Yehudi Wyner’s De Novo, and Mark Kuss’ Concerto for Cello and Orchestra.
David Russell (cello) is busy performer in the Boston area, serving as Principal Cello of Opera Boston and the Hingham Symphony and making regular appearances with such ensembles as Pro Arte Chamber orchestra of Boston, the New England String Ensemble, Cantata Singers and Ensemble and Emmanuel Music. He served as Assistant Principal 'cello with the Tulsa Philharmonic and on the teaching faculty of Oklahoma City University from 2001 to 2003. A strong advocate and performer of new music, Mr. Russell has performed with such ensembles as Phantom Arts Ensemble for American Music, Dinosaur Annex, Collage New Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Music on the Edge, AUROS Group for New Music, Firebird Ensemble, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, and the Fromm Foundation Players at Harvard. Mr. Russell obtained his D.M.A. in 'cello performance at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, the University of Akron and Brandeis University. He was appointed to the teaching faculty of Wellesley College in 2005 and currently serves as Visiting Assistant Professor.
Violist Mary Ruth Ray is an internationally known performer who has received critical acclaim throughout the United States, Europe and Russia. As violist of the Lydian String Quartet, she has been awarded prizes at competitions in France, England and Canada, and is a 1984 winner of the Naumburg Award for Excellence in Chamber Music, resulting in debuts at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Library of Congress. Ms. Ray has performed as guest artist with the Fromm Series at Harvard University, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Bard Music Festival, Apple Hill Chamber Players, Boston Musica Viva, and Juneau Jazz and Classics, and was invited to present a featured concert/demonstration of the Bach Cello Suites for the 13th International Viola Congress. She is a recording artist with CRI, Nonesuch, Centaur, Harmonia Mundi, New World, and Tzadik Records. Mary Ruth ("U.V.") Ray has been a faculty member at Brandeis University since 1980, teaching viola and chamber music, and was appointed Chair of the Music Department at Brandeis in 2005.
A founding member of the Naumburg Award winning Lydian Quartet, with whom she played for over twenty years, cellist Rhonda Rider has also been a member of the celebrated piano trio Triple Helix. Actively touring,
she has been heard at international festivals including Concerts Spirituel de Geneve, American Academy in Rome, and Tanglewood. She has performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, Moscow Conservatory, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Library of Congress. Highlights of this season include appearances at the Corcoran Gallery (Washington, D.C.), Boston Conservatory String Masters Series, Robert Helps Festival of Contemporary Music (University of South Florida), Emmanuel Music's Bach and Schumann Series (Boston), as well as collaborations with the Boston Chamber Music Society and St. Paul
Chamber Orchestra Chamber Music Series.
Dedicated to the performance of "new" music, Rider has premiered and recorded works by such composers as John Harbison, Lee Hyla, Yu Hui Chang, Bright Sheng, and Elliott Carter. Her chamber music and solo recordings have been nominated for Grammy Awards and cited as "Critic's Choice" in both the New York Times and Boston Globe. She has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, the American String Teachers' Association, and Chamber Music America. She has also adjudicated at the Concert Artists
Guild Competition, Stulberg International String Competition and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. During the summer months, she performs and teaches at Music From Salem, Green Mountain Festival, and is the cello coach for the Asian Youth Orchestra in Hong Kong. Rider is Chair of Chamber Music and on the cello faculty at The Boston Conservatory.
Alice Robbins received degrees from Indiana University and the Schola Cantorum of Basel, where she was a student of Hannelore Mueller. She has performed widely on baroque cello and viola da gamba in various chamber ensembles, including the Early Music Quartet (Studio der frühen Musik), Concerto Vocale, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Boston Camerata, and the Oberlin and Boston Consorts of Viols. She was a founding member of Concerto Castello, an international quintet specializing in the music of the early seventeenth century, and currently performs with Handel & Haydn Society, Arcadia Players, Boston Early Music Festival, and Washington Bach Consort.
Ms Robbins has recorded for Telefunken, EMI-Reflexe, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Smithsonian and Gasparo Records, as well as for many radio stations. A resident of Amherst, Massachusetts, Ms. Robbins teaches at Smith and Mount Holyoke Colleges in the Five College Early Music Program.
Roy Sansom has performed with a wide range of groups including the Boston Pops Orchestra, the New World Symphony in Miami, Utah Opera, the New York City Opera and Emmanuel Music. In 1995 he was featured in the Boston Early Music Festival production of Purcell’s “King Arthur,” to national critical acclaim. He has played with Emmanuel Music, in their weekly Bach cantata series, since 1986, and appeared as soloist in their twenty-fifth anniversary-season presentation of the Bach Brandenburg concertos. His recordings include Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, and the 1610 Vespers of Monteverdi with Boston Baroque on Telarc Records, “Renaissance Holiday” on American Gramaphone, and Bach Christmas Cantatas with Emmanuel Music on Koch International. He has been featured on “Long Ago and Far Away,” a PBS television program for children and on the A&E cable network sound track for Bob Villa’s “Historic Homes of Europe.” He teaches at Brandeis University, Merrimack College, the New School of Music in Cambridge and Winchester Community Music School.
Charles Sherman is recognized as one of the leading harpsichord soloists and continuo players in the country and has been called a "fluent virtuoso" by the Los Angeles Times. He is currently a member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (SF) and Musica Angelica (Los Angeles) as well as the San Francisco-based chamber ensemble Musica Pacifica; in Boston he plays regularly with the Sarasa Ensemble and Emmanuel Music. He was a long-time member of the Aulos Ensemble (NY). Mr. Sherman has played with many acclaimed ensembles as well as at leading music festivals and has made numerous recordings.
An eloquent communicator both on and off the concert stage, pianist Russell Sherman continues to garner accolades from critics and audiences alike for his grace, imagination and poetry. As the author of a highly acclaimed book Piano Pieces (a rhapsodic compilation of vignettes and personal anecdotes from Mr. Sherman’s life experiences as a pianist and teacher), Russell Sherman has been praised not only as an ingenious virtuoso but also as an insightful master. Mr. Sherman has performed with such major orchestras as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Luke’s (with whom he performed the five Beethoven concertos), Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. Abroad, Mr. Sherman has played in the major cities of Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Korea, China, Russia and South America.
In recital, Russell Sherman has appeared on Carnegie Hall’s Keyboard Virtuoso Series, California’s Ambassador Foundation Series, the Distinguished Artists Series at New York’s Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y, and the Bank of Boston Celebrity Series. He has performed at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Sarasota’s Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Jordan Hall, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. Additionally, he has appeared at the Ravinia Festival, the Hollywood Bowl and the Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as recitals at Spain’s Santander Festival and Germany’s Ruhr Triennale Festival. Mr. Sherman is a prolific recording artist. He has recorded the five Beethoven concertos with the Czech Philharmonic and the Monadnock Festival Orchestra, and the complete Beethoven sonatas, recorded as five dual-CD sets (each having been released individually and as a complete set). The entire Beethoven sonatas project has been called “a set for the ages” by Bernard Jacobson in Fanfare. This makes Mr. Sherman the first American pianist to have recorded all of the sonatas and concertos of Beethoven. His earlier recording of Liszt’s Transcendental Études was critically acclaimed: Anthony Tommasini in a 1999 New York Times piece said, “Several impressive recordings of Liszt’s ‘Transcendental Études’ prove that these audaciously difficult works are actually playable and triumphantly pianistic. But none make Liszt’s visionary understanding of what the piano could do more palpable and exciting than Russell Sherman’s extraordinary 1990 recording.” Mr. Sherman has also recorded Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35 and Fantasies, Op. 116, Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Op. 28, Schubert’s Sonata in D major, D. 850 and Sonata in B-flat major, D. 960, both Grieg and Schumann concertos and works by Liszt, including the B minor Sonata, Don Juan Fantasy, and transcriptions. He has also recorded Mozart’s two concertos in minor keys plus solo fantasies with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music under Craig Smith. Additional recordings include a GM Recording CD, “Premieres & Commissions,” in which he performs contemporary repertoire by Schoenberg, Schuller, Helps, Perle and Shapey, which, with the exception of Schoenberg’s Six Piano Pieces, Mr. Sherman has personally premiered and commissioned. Mr. Sherman’s newest releases on Avie Records are a CD of Debussy’s Estampes, Images Book II and Préludes Book II, and a DVD of his live performance of the Liszt Études d’exécution transcendante. Recently, Mr. Sherman performed and recorded the complete sonatas of Mozart, the Bach English Suites, and the complete Chopin Mazurkas.
Russell Sherman was born and educated in New York, beginning piano studies at age six. By age eleven, Mr. Sherman was studying with Eduard Steuermann, a pupil and friend of Ferruccio Busoni and Arnold Schoenberg. Sherman graduated from Columbia University at age nineteen with a degree in the humanities. He was Visiting Professor at Harvard University and is currently a Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory. With a brilliant career and creative imagination, Sherman continues to merit the title “a thinking man’s virtuoso.”
Oboist Jennifer Slowik performs regularly with Cantata Singers and the Orchestra of Indian Hill, and has served as Principal Oboist with Opera Boston and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. She has also appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Chamber Music Society, Alea III, the Vermont Mozart Festival and North Shore Music Theater. A committed advocate of new music, Ms. Slowik has worked closely with composers Robert Ceeley and Alla Cohen, with Boston's Dinosaur Annex, Auros Group for New Music, New York's Sequitur Ensemble, and Alarm Will Sound. She is a founding member of the award-winning woodwind quintet Southspoon Winds. Ms. Slowik is on the faculty of St. Mark's School in Southboro, MA.
Cellist Shannon Snapp is well known in Boston as a performer and longtime associate of Emmanuel Music. As solo and continuo cellist, she has performed most of the sacred cantatas of Bach, and has toured Europe with Peter Sellars and Craig Smith, presenting acclaimed performances of Handel and Mozart operas. A committed teacher, Shannon is an adjunct faculty member at the Cambridge School of Weston, conducts a string ensemble for Acton-Boxborough Regional School District, and operates a lively private studio. Her passion to create opportunities for young children to hear and perform live chamber music led her to found Alcyon Chamber Ensemble in 2006. Now in its third season, the seven-member mixed chamber ensemble performs a concert series in Winchester and creates innovative programs for school children which integrate live music, literature and arts into the curriculum. In addition to Winchester, Alcyon has partnered with school systems in Gloucester, Rockport, and Lowell, and has most recently presented a concert and workshop for students at Perkins School for the Blind.
Shannon also holds an MSN degree, and offers geriatric care management services to elderly in retirement communities and recovery homes in the Boston area. She lives in Winchester with her two daughters.
Michael Sponseller has appeared throughout Europe and North America with critical acclaim as a soloist, conductor, and chamber musician. Winner of the American Bach Soloists Competition (1998) and the Jurow International Harpsichord Competition (2002), he holds the distinction of being a two-time prizewinner at the Festival of Flanders International Harpsichord Competition (Bruges), as well as taking prizes in Montréal and Kalamazoo.
His recitals, which favor the French "clavecinists" and English virginal repertoire, have been heard at the Smithsonian Institution, Saint Cecilia's Hall, Alliance Française and at festivals such as Boston, Berkeley, and Edinburgh.
Following his return to the US in 1999, Mr. Sponseller has performed and recorded frequently with the Handel & Haydn Society, Smithsonian Chamber Players, American Bach Soloists, New York Collegium, and Apollo's Fire. Michael Sponseller performs in partnership with leading artists from around the world with numerous ensembles such as La Luna, Aradia, and Rhetoric. In addition to holding degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, Mr. Sponseller was a teacher of harpsichord at the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music.
Mr. Sponseller's passionate interest in 17th and 18th century opera led to making his conducting debut in 2000 with Dido and Aeneas of Henry Purcell. Since then he has performed and been assistant conductor in a wide range of repertoire, including Castor et Pollux (Aradia Ensemble and Nederlandse Opera), Ariodante, Amadigi, Alcina, Cephale et Procris, and Les Arts Florissants. In 2000, he became a research assistant at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, working with Lisa Goode Crawford on the operas of Joseph Nicolas Pancrace Royer (1705-1755). This work culminated in 2002 in the modern-day premiere of Royer's Le Pouvoir de l'Amour with the New York Baroque Dance Company, Oberlin College, and the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, which received recognition and praise from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Opera News. Mr. Sponseller can also be heard on numerous recordings from Electra, Vanguard Classics, Naxos and Centaur.
Since 2002, he has be part of the Bach Cantata Series with Emmanuel Music. With Emmanuel Music, he also performed in Peter Sellars' stagings of Bach cantatas for the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson on tour in 2005, and Mark Morris' production of Handel's L'Allegro, Il Moderato, e Il Penseroso. In 2006, Sponseller was named Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow by Emmanuel Music, in recognition of his achievements as an emerging young artist. In 2007, he founded Ensemble Florilege which gave its debut concert in Boston with Charpentier's "Les Arts Florissants."
Born in Willingboro, New Jersey, Irving Steinberg grew up in San Francisco, California and started studying the double bass in the public school system. He received his Bachelor’s degree in music from the University of California at Berkeley and his Master of Music degree from Boston University. Mr. Steinberg is currently a freelance musician in the Greater Boston Area. His teachers include Charles Siani, Brian Marcus, Edwin Barker, George Neikrug, Todd Seeber, and Jim Orleans.
Thomas Stephenson (bassoon) has performed with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music since 1975. Mr. Stephenson as also performed with many of Boston's prominent musical organizations, including the Boston Symphony, Boston Lyric Opera, the Opera Company of Boston, the Cantata Singers, the Handel & Haydn Society, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and the Boston Ballet Orchestra.
Bassist Anne Trout is familiar presence as a continuo player and in the classical orchestra, in music from the 17th through the 19th centuries, on both modern and period instruments. She has performed with many prominent ensembles in North America sized five to 50 and recorded for Telarc, Sony Classical, London, Centaur, Musica Omnia, among others. In Boston she has served as a principal player for the Handel & Haydn Society, the Boston Bach Ensemble and Boston Baroque. A regular member of REBEL, the New York-based chamber ensemble, she appears frequently on its concerts, recordings and live broadcasts on WQXR in its residency at Trinity Church in lower Manhattan and its national tours. A long-time participant with the Aston Magna Festival directed by Daniel Stepner, she toured Italy and performed Handel's oratorio "Time and Truth" at the site of its premiere, the Pamphili Palace in Rome. She appears as a guest with esteemed ensembles such as Philharmonia Baroque and Tempesta di Mare, at renowned venues such as Carnegie Hall, Symphony Hall in Boston, the Library of Congress, and on prestigious series such as the London Proms and the Regensburg Festival. She has worked with a diverse group of artists including Roger Norrington, Christopher Hogwood, William Christie, Nicholas McGegan, Jane Glover, Harry Christophers, Dominique LaBelle, Richard Burgin, David Amram, Jaap Schroeder, Jonathan Miller, Robert Levin, Philip Pickett, Andrew Parrott, Bruno Weil, Mark Morris, Ton Koopman, Peter Sellars, Julian Wachner, Theodore Antoniou, Matthias Maute, Roger Daltrey and Joni Mitchell. Ms. Trout serves on the faculties of the Groton School, Boston College and Longy School in Cambridge.
Bassist Tom Van Dyck is an active chamber and orchestral musician in the U.S. as well as abroad. He is a member of the conductor-less chamber orchestra ECCO (East Coast Chamber Orchestra) that tours internationally under Frank Solomon Management. A recipient of the Maurice Schwarz Prize at Tanglewood, Thomas has played chamber music at The Mostly Mozart Festival in New York City, People’s Symphony Concerts at New York City’s Town Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Boston Chamber Music society, Harvard University’s Houghton Library Chamber music series, The Union College Chamber Music Series, Bay Chamber Concerts in Rockport Maine, and The Morrison Chamber Music Series in San Francisco among others. He has collaborated with the Ying Quartet and the Lydian Quartets. A former member of the New World Symphony, he is currently a substitute with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the San Diego Symphony. In addition to enjoying a diverse performing career, Thomas is Artist Professor of Double Bass at the Longy Conservatory of Music in Cambridge Massachusetts and also enjoys doing outreach through Monadnock music in New Hampshire. Thomas lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
Katherine Vincent from Perth, Western Australia, is the Artistic Director, Violist and founder of the Firebird Ensemble - a Boston based new music ensemble. In addition Ms. Vincent is the Associate Principal Violist of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and has performed as both Principal and Associate Principal Violist with groups such as Emmanuel Music, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Opera Boston, Opera Aperta and Opera Unlimited. Ms. Vincent was the violist of the Arden String Quartet between 1999 and 2003 and has been featured as a guest artist with numerous groups including Apple Hill Chamber Players, Dinosaur Annex, Alea 3, Chameleon Ensemble, the Euclid Quartet, Winsor Music, Callithumpian Consort, Sarasa Ensemble, and the Fromm Foundation Players at Harvard. Ms. Vincent has been featured on the Boston Modern Orchestras ' Club Cafe Series, Emmanuel Music's Chamber series, at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and at the Bennington Composers Conference of the East.
As a chamber musician, Ms Vincent has performed throughout Australia, Canada, US, Germany, Holland, Russia and in Central Asia. Ms. Vincent has premiered solo and chamber works by Luciano Berio, John MacDonald, Lee Hyla, Curtis Hughes, Joe Maneri, among others and recorded for the Tzadik, New World, Oxingale and Steeplechase labels.
Ms Vincent graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in 2000 where she studied with James Dunham. She holds Masters degrees in both viola performance and music education. In 2004 she was awarded a St. Botolph grant-in-aid award and in 2005 was appointed Co-Director of Longitude, the new music ensemble at the Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA.
Heather Wittels recently won a violin position with the New World Symphony in Miami, FL. She is a frequent recitalist, performs a wide range of contemporary solo and chamber works, was a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow for three summers, and plays with various orchestras and chamber groups in the Boston area, including Emmanuel Music. She has served as concertmaster of many orchestras, including the NEC Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia, and Symphony (where she respectively led Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite, and Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration and Ein Heldenleben) and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra (where she led Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier Suite and Don Juan under the direction of Raphael Frübeck de Burgos). She is an opera lover, and has performed four operas under the direction of James Levine at Tanglewood. She also performs occasionally with the Mark Morris Dance Group. Heather made her solo debut in June 2001, performing the Khachaturian Violin Concerto with the NEC Youth Philharmonic Orchestra in Jordan Hall. The Boston Globe said she made a “dazzling impression”. She again performed the Khachaturian Concerto in Russia, with the Saint Petersburg State Symphony in November 2001. In May 2005, she graduated cum laude from Yale University with a BS in Chemistry with distinction. In May 2007 she earned her MM in violin performance from New England Conservatory in the studio of Malcolm Lowe, and she earned her GD in the same studio in 2008, as beneficiary of the 2007 Tourjée Alumni Award for graduate study. A native of Brookline, MA, Heather began the violin at age three.
Lena Wong, violin, is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She was a member of the Florida Philharmonic and the Honolulu Symphony before moving to Boston. Ms. Wong performs with Emmanuel Music, Cantata Singers, Boston Classical Orchestra, Boston Lyric Opera and the Boston Ballet Orchestra. On period violin, she performs and records with the Handel & Haydn Society and Boston Baroque.
Randall Zigler began his bass studies as a high school student in St. Louis, Missouri and attended Oberlin College shortly thereafter, where he received undergraduate degrees in bass performance and mathematics. He has since received a Master of Music degree from Boston University, and continues to freelance as an orchestral and chamber musician throughout New England.
Recently appointed Principal Bass of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Zigler is also principal of the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra and performs regularly with the Rhode Island Philharmonic and New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, among others.