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. Ms. Amper has presented concerts related to art exhibitions at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Frick Art and Historical Society, The Phoenix Art Museum, and the National Gallery of Art. 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. Ms. Amper studied with Russell Sherman and holds faculty positions at Longy School of Music of Bard College, the New England Conservatory, Preparatory, and Wheaton College. She has lectured on music at Currier House at Harvard University, Boston University, and New Hampshire Music Festival, where she is a also regular performer. 

Michael Beattie has received international attention for his work as a conductor and keyboardist specializing in the music of the Baroque. In 2009 Mr. Beattie debuted at Glimmerglass Opera, conducting Purcell's Dido and Aeneas; in 2011, he conducted Handel's Rinaldo with the Pittsburgh Opera and Chatham Baroque.  In 2012, he conducted Handel’s Teseo for the Chicago Opera Theater. For many years Associate Conductor of Emmanuel Music, he has conducted Handel's Ariodante, Bach's St. John Passion, the complete Bachmotets, a recent concert of orchestral music of Haydn and Schoenberg, and more than one hundred Bach cantatas in the weekly series at Emmanuel Church. Mr. Beattie has performed as harpsichordist and organist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Boston Lyric Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Glimmerglass Opera Festival, and the Carmel Bach Festival. In 2009 he toured with Les Violons du Roy.  Recent keyboard highlights include concerts with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Pegasus Early Music, and Emmanuel Music. As a pianist, he has performed at the Athens, Banff, and Tanglewood music festivals and in Emmanuel’s Chamber Series, surveying the works of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Beethoven, and Debussy. World premieres include works by John Harbison, Andrew Imbrie, Earl Kim, and Andy Vores. As a continuo player and vocal coach specializing in music of the Baroque and Classical periods, he has taught at Glimmerglass Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Pittsburgh Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Florida Grand Opera. He is Music Director of the vocal master class at the Carmel Bach Festival. He is a founding member and harpsichordist of Favella Lyrica and the baroque chamber ensemble Très. Mr. Beattie’s work with director Peter Sellars included the role of Assistant Conductor (Craig Smith conducted) for Sellars' stagings of the Mozart/da Ponte operas, performed throughout the US and Europe, recorded for television, and released on DVD. As organist for Sellars’s staging of two Bach cantatas featuring Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, he performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival, Lucerne Festival, Barbican Centre, and Cité de la Musique, and recorded for Nonesuch records. Mr. Beattie is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and Boston University. He is currently a Lecturer at Boston University. He has recorded for KOCH International Classics and Nonesuch records.

Mark Berger, composer/violinist/violist, has performed with many of Boston’s finest ensembles, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Emmanuel Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Opera Boston, and Boston Lyric Opera. An avid chamber musician, he is a member of Music at Eden’s Edge, the Worcester Chamber Music Society, has a duo partnership “The Two Composers” with pianist/composer Ketty Nez, and has performed with Lydian String Quartet, Radius Ensemble, and Ludovico Ensemble.  Mr. Berger has also performed at summer festivals such as Kneisel Hall and Tanglewood, where he was a member of the New Fromm Players, a new music ensemble-in-residence.  He has recorded music by Ketty Nez on Albany Records. Mr. Berger’s compositions have been performed locally by the New York New Music Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, ALEA III, the Worcester Chamber Music Society, Xanthos Ensemble, Music at Eden’s Edge, QX String Quartet, and the Lydian String Quartet, and further afield by the Third Coast Percussion Quartet, Ensemble Permutaciones (Mexico) and the Hellenic Ensemble of Contemporary Music (Greece).  He has received awards from the League of Composers/ISCM and ASCAP, and he has received grants from NEFA and the Brannen-Cooper Fund.  Mr. Berger studied composition at Boston University and Brandeis, where his principal teachers included Theodore Antoniou, Lukas Foss, David Rakowski, Eric Chasalow, and Martin Boykan.  He is on the faculty at Clark University, UMass Lowell, Middlesex Community College, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.

The 2010 Zulalian Foundation Award winner, violinist Heather Braun is a member of the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, and performs regularly as concertmaster and soloist. At Emmanuel Music, she was awarded a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellowship for the 2010-2011 season. She attended the Manchester (VT) Music Festival as a Young Artist in 2003 and 2004, and since then performs regularly in series concerts for the MMF. Twice a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow, she received the Jules C. Reiner Violin Prize in 2005, and sat concertmaster under Seiji Ozawa and Herbert Bloomstedt. Ms. Braun performs as the first violinist of the prize- winning Arneis Quartet, which recently performed at the Beijing Modern Music Festival and Music on Main’s Modulus Festival in Vancouver. Other festivals include chamber music residencies at the Banff Centre, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, and the Juilliard Quartet Seminar. She received her Bachelor of Music from the Eastman School of Music, studying with Mikhail Kopelman, and her Master of Music from Boston University. She is currently a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate at Boston University, studying under Peter Zazofsky. Heather has appeared in concert with the Ying Quartet, Menahem Pressler, Peter Zazofsky, Bayla Keyes, Mary Ruth Ray, and Marc Johnson. Ms. Braun performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Boston and the New England area; she maintains a private studio and is a chamber music coach for the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Violinist Heidi Braun-Hill has performed with chamber music series presented by Emmanuel Music, Token Creek, Apple Hill, Firebird Ensemble, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Winsor Music, Radius Ensemble, and the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival. Since 1999 she has been a soloist with Emmanuel Music’s Bach Cantata Series and has performed in Peter Sellars/Craig Smith productions in the US and Europe. She has premiered chamber works by Martin Brody, Martin Boykan, Edward Cohen, and Allen Anderson, and has worked closely with composer John Harbison. Ms. Braun-Hill, affliated with many Boston groups and sought after as a concertmaster, has made recordings with various groups on the Arsis, Nonesuch, Naxos, BMOP/sound, and Albany labels. Passionate about arts education, she is a member of the music faculty at Phillips Exeter Academy. She is a graduate of Boston University, where she studied with Peter Zazofsky. Ms. Braun-Hill lives in Boston with her husband, Whitacre Hill, and their two children.

Michael Curry, cellist, is originally from New Jersey, and graduated from Harvard and New England Conservatory.  His major teachers were David Finckel and Laurence Lesser.  He was awarded two fellowships to study at Tanglewood, where he was principal under Ozawa and Rozhdestvensky, and won the Albert Spalding Prize for outstanding string playing.  He has performed with the Boston Pops, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Ballet, Cantata Singers, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and Boston Classical Orchestra (co-principal), and others. He is a frequent solo cellist at the Colonial Theater and Opera House.   As a long-time member of Dinosaur Annex, he has premiered dozens of new chamber works by Shapey, Hartke, Weir, Babbitt, and our own John Harbison, among others. Mr. Curry has performed and lectured as a guest at the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Ijsbrekker in Amsterdam, Brown University, and the Central Conservatory, Beijing.  He has made chamber music appearances at Weill Hall, the United Nations, and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. He has recorded for New World, Naxos, Bridge, Albany, and several other labels.  At Emmanuel over the course of 25 years, Michael has been honored to be among those playing in the Sunday Bach Cantata Series, and in many memorable evening concerts.  He played continuo with Mark Morris Dance Group in Boston and New York, in the staged production and recording of Bach cantatas with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in Boston, New York, and Europe, and also participated in Emmanuel’s Brahms, Schubert, Schoenberg, and Beethoven chamber music series.

Originally from Long Island, New York, bassist Anthony D’Amico is in demand as a freelance musician throughout the New England area. He serves as principal bass of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Boston Philharmonic, and Opera Boston, and is a member of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Portland Symphony and Springfield Symphony. He performs frequently with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Emmanuel Music, and New England Camerata. During recent summers, he has served as principal bass of the New Hampshire Music Festival orchestra, and currently participates in the Sebago-Long Lake Chamber Music Festival of Maine. His recordings of Elliot Schwartz’s Chamber Concerto I with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Lisa Bielawa’s Synopsis #4 for solo double bass are available on the BMOP/Sound label. A versatile artist, Mr. D’Amico’s repertoire encompasses myriad styles, including symphonic and chamber music, jazz ensemble playing, and musical theater productions. He is a dedicated educator, and serves on the faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division, the Walnut Hill School, and Project STEP. Mr. D’Amico is an alumnus of the Hartt School of Music in Hartford Connecticut and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

Flutist Jacqueline DeVoe is an active freelancer in the New England and performs regularly with Emmanuel Music, Cantata Singers, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Boston Ballet, Boston Classical Orchestra, Alea III, and other ensembles. Ms. DeVoe was principal flutist of the Mexico City Philharmonic, performed with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, and has presented solo and chamber music concerts in Europe, Mexico, and the US. In addition to two degrees from New England Conservatory, she twice received the Frank Huntington Beebe Fund grant and an Austrian government stipend, completed a diploma at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria, and was a Tanglewood Fellow.  Her primary teachers were Claude Monteux, John Heiss, and Wolfgang Schulz. Since 1991 Ms. DeVoe has performed with the North Winds Quintet, which presents educational concerts in schools throughout Massachusetts under the auspices of Young Audiences.  She has created and directed lecture/chamber music concerts for the Newport Symposium and was an “Artist Teacher” in a collaboration of Young Audiences and NPR’s “From the Top,” which brings gifted young artists into Massachusetts public schools. A faculty member for 22 years at the NEC Preparatory School, she has also taught at Walnut Hill, MIT, Milton Academy, New School of Music in Cambridge,  and maintains a private studio.  Ms. DeVoe also serves as president of the James Pappoutsakis Memorial Fund, which hosts a flute competition for Boston-area flutists.

Violinist Gabriela Diaz, a Georgia native, began her musical training at the age of five, studying piano with her mother, and beginning the next year, violin with her father. Ms. Diaz came to Boston to study at New England Conservatory, where she completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.  A cancer survivor, Ms. Diaz is committed to cancer research and treatment. In 2004 she was recipient of a grant from the Albert Schweitzer Foundation, enabling her to begin organizing The Boston Hope Ensemble,  a series of chamber music concerts in cancer units at various hospitals in Boston. Devoted to contemporary music, Ms. Diaz has been fortunate to work closely with many significant living composers on their own compositions: among these are Pierre Boulez, Magnus Lindberg, Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Lucier, John Zorn, Osvaldo Golijov, Steve Reich, Brian Ferneyhough, Lee Hyla, Hans Tutschku, and Helmut Lachenmann. In the summer of 2007 Ms. Diaz served as concertmistress under Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival Academy in Lucerne, Switzerland. 

Violinist Rose Drucker enjoys a diverse career as a chamber musician, teacher, and orchestral violinist, performing in Boston with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, Discovery Ensemble and, since 2006, as principal  second violin of the Boston Philharmonic. Ms. Drucker is also second violinist in the Arneis quartet, appearing recently in Stanford University’s Lively Arts Series, Music on Main's Modulus Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the Beijing Modern Music Festival in China. Arneis has also performed in New York at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall as a winner of the 2010 International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition and at Juilliard’s Paul Hall, as well as in festivals at the Banff Centre in Canada, Stanford University, and Deer Valley. Ms. Drucker was a member of the 2011 Fellowship Quartet at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music in New Hampshire and one of the inaugural winners of the John Lad prize, awarded by the St. Lawrence String Quartet at Stanford University. In addition to performing Bach cantatas at Emmanuel Music since 2004, she has appeared in the Chamber Music and Solo Bach series at Emmanuel and was a 2005-2006 Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow. Ms. Drucker has been coached by members of the Muir, St. Lawrence, Juilliard, and Brentano quartets, and has studied with Peter Zazofsky and Mark Rush. She holds degrees from Boston University and the University of Arizona.

Double bassist Kate Foss is an active classical performer in the Boston and New England area, appearing often with ensembles such as the Orchestra of Indian Hill and Discovery Ensemble. She began performing with Emmanuel Music in the fall of 2011, serving in both continuo and orchestral roles.  Originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she performed with groups including the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Ballet, and Madison Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Foss moved to Boston in 2008 to enroll in the New England Conservatory’s master’s program.  While at NEC, she studied with Boston Symphony bassist Todd Seeber.  She has traveled far and wide for music, attending summer orchestra festivals in Japan, Austria, and British Columbia.  Kate also enjoys performing in musicals, often appearing in pit bands on upright and electric bass in several of Boston's theaters.

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 released five CDs on which she is heard as accompanist and in solo performance. Ms. Granert 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, and where she has also taught courses in the interpretation of Spanish organ music.  She has given 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 of the 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 the Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, studying under Yuko Hayashi.  Her early education in organ and church music was with Margaret Budd, now of Baltimore.

John Grimes has distinguished himself as a freelance timpanist/percussionist in New England.  Based in Boston, he performs regularly with Boston Ballet, Boston Baroque, Boston Lyric Opera, Cantata Singers, Emmanuel Music, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Portland Symphony.  He has performed with the Miami Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica de Venezuela, the Opera Company of Boston, Singapore Symphony, and the Boston Symphony.  A member Boston Conservatory’s percussion department faculty for the past eight years, Mr. Grimes developed a popular team-taught percussion master class series featuring traditional and innovative presentations by members of the percussion/marimba faculty and guests.  In August 2009, Mr. Grimes was invited by “El Sistema” to return to Venezuela, the scene of his first position as an orchestral timpanist.  It was an emotional “home-coming” for him,  where he conducted timpani/percussion master classes, performed in concert, and conducted percussion ensembles at the annual Festival de Percusion de los Llanos.  In July 2010, Mr. Grimes toured as timpanist with the Star Wars in Concert orchestra throughout the US and Canada.  In November 2010, he co-presented a lecture-demonstration on the development of the Baroque and early Classical timpani at the annual Percussive Arts Society International Conference in Indianapolis.

A native of Ohio, horn player 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. In addition to Emmanuel Music, where she has performed for many years, she is a member  of Arcadian Winds, a wind quintet specializing in contemporary music. An active free-lancer, she has appeared with the Boston Lyric Opera, The Cantata Singers, Opera Boston, ProArte Chamber Orchestra, Portland Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra and the New Hampshire Music Festival as English horn soloist. She has participated in several commercial recordings and radio broadcasts. Ms. Harrison is on the faculty of Wellesley College, the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, and the All-Newton Music School.

Inspired by a photograph of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Whitacre Hill began his studies of the horn at the age of nine with Prowell Seitzinger in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. Study of the horn continued at the Eastman School of Music, the Music Academy of the West, and Northwestern University. Mr. Hill currently lives in Dorchester with his wife, violinist Heidi Braun-Hill, and their two children Adelaide and Finnis, and performs in a wide range of ensembles in the Boston area, including Emmanuel Music, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Pops, Cantata Singers Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic and Portland Symphony Orchestra.  Summers are spent at the New Hampshire Music Festival. Mr. Hill is a frequent participant in John and Rosie Harbison's Token Creek Chamber Music Festival near Madison, Wisconsin.

Violinist 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, Eugene Lehner, and Leon Kirshner. He was the concertmaster of the Concord Orchestra from 1999 until 2005, and is a current member of the Lexington Symphony.  Mr. Hiller is a founding director of the Lexington Chamber Music Center, Inc. a non-profit focused on training middle and high school students in classical chamber music and presenting outreach concerts at area hospitals and retirement homes.  He also serves as immediate past president of the board of Project STEP, a Boston-based program designed to provide string instrument training to talented minority children.

Betsy Hinkle, violinist, pursues dual careers as a performer and innovative music educator. She is the founder and director of the Boston Public Quartet and the non-profit musiConnects, which provides free access to holistic and in-depth music education and performance in the neighborhoods of Boston. Read more about the Boston Public Quartet and musiConnects at www.musiconnects.org. Ms. Hinkle received an M.M. from The New England Conservatory and B.M. from Florida State University, both in violin performance. She has performed with the Boston Ballet Orchestra, the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, and the Boston Classical Orchestra, and has served as concertmaster for several area orchestras. With the BPQ she has performed at the Harvard Musical Association, in the Lark Chamber Music Series, and in many Boston venues such as Emmanuel Church. 

Pianist Brett Hodgdon is a versatile collaborative artist and vocal coach living in Boston, Massachusetts. Equally comfortable as chamber musician and vocal collaborator, he has presented recitals to audiences at Jordan Hall (Boston), the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), the Aspen and Tanglewood Music festivals, as well as performing in the Emmanuel Music Chamber Series. Away from the recital stage, Mr. Hodgdon has been an Emerging Artist Coach at Boston Lyric Opera and will join the company’s permanent coaching staff in the 2012-13 season.  He is the rehearsal pianist for Emmanuel Music’s Bach Cantata Series. A doctoral candidate in collaborative piano at the New England Conservatory, Mr. Hodgdon’s research centers in French art song of the mid-twentieth century.

Pianst Randall Hodgkinson, 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 he has performed regularly in 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 currently on the faculty of the New England Conservatory and the Longy School of Music of Bard College. 

Flutist Vanessa Holroyd holds a bachelor’s in literature from Yale University, a master’s in flute performance from McGill University, and an Artist Diploma from the Longy School of Music of Bard College. Her teachers include Geralyn Coticone, Robert Willoughby, Timothy Hutchins, Michael Parloff and Elssa Green. She was a prizewinner in the 2002 National Flute Association’s Young Artist Competition, receiving the award for best performance of Dan Welcher’s “Florestan’s Falcon,” commissioned for that competition; and was the 2004 recipient of Chamber Music America’s “Residency Partnership Grant.”  Ms. Holroyd performs with Emmanuel Music, the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, and Arcadian Winds, a Boston-based woodwind quintet specializing in contemporary music. Other collaborations include the Boston-based chamber group Ensemble Poema, and recitals with pianist Joy Cline Phinney throughout New England and by invitation at festivals in the British and American Virgin Islands. She is on the faculty of Philips Exeter Academy and serves as the school’s  concert series manager; she also serves on the faculty of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. She has performed and taught as a guest faculty artist at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music in Nelson, NH since 2007. Ms. Holroyd also co-owns and operates the music agency Music Management in Belmont, MA.  She lives in Jamaica Plain, MA with her husband and two children.

Jesse Irons, violin, is a founder of A Far Cry, a self-conducted string orchestra, and has appeared in concert across the United States, as well as in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Singapore. His playing was described as "insinuating" by the New York Times, and he's pretty sure they meant it in a good way. Before completing his studies at New England Conservatory, he received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory, serving as graduate assistant in chamber music. His teachers have included Pamela Frank and Nicholas Kitchen. Mr. Irons enjoys exploring music outside the classical mainstream, and has performed with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble as well as with the avant-garde-improvising Ligeti String Quartet Project. His baroque-violin-playing alter ego appears with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, and numerous small ensembles around Boston, and it has studied historical performance with Manfredo Kraemer and Robert Mealy.

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 holds the English horn position in the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. She is also a regular performer in Emmanuel Music’s Bach Cantata Series, where she performs Bach’s sacred works that include oboe; she is also a member of the cutting-edge Boston Modern Orchestra Project. She can be heard on two 2010 Grammy-nominated recordings: Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s Dreamhouse, by Stephen Mackey, and Danilo Perez’s highly-acclaimed jazz recording, Providencia.  Ms. LaFitte is a professor in the woodwinds department at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where she developed an innovative oboe studio, coaches contemporary chamber ensembles, and manages the Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra.

The distinguished American pianist Michael Lewin has concertized in 30 countries. His career was launched with top prizes in the Liszt International Competition, the American Pianists Association Award and the Kapell International Piano Competition, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Aaron Copland Foundation. He has appeared as soloist with the Netherlands Philharmonic, Cairo Symphony, China National Radio and Television Orchestra, Bucharest Philharmonic,Youth Orchestra of the Americas, Thessaloniki State Symphony of Greece, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Pops, and the Phoenix, Indianapolis, Miami, North Carolina, West Virginia, Nevada, New Orleans, Colorado, Guadalajara, and Puerto Rico Symphonies. Mr. Lewin has performed in New York’s Lincoln Center, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Taiwan’s National Concert Hall, Hong Kong’s City Hall Theatre, Holland’s Muziekcentrum, Moscow’s Great Hall, the Athens Megaron, London’s Wigmore Hall, Bargemusic, the National Gallery of Art, Spoleto Festival and PBS Television. His extensive repertoire includes over 40 piano concertos, with particular interest in the music of Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy and American composers. His highly-praised recordings include the complete piano music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Scarlatti Sonatas, Michael Lewin plays Lisz, a Russian piano recital, piano music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk and the Bolcom Violin Sonatas with Irina Muresanu. Following the success of If I Were a Bird for Sono Luminus, 2013 will see their release of Piano Phantoms and an all-Debussy disc. A Juilliard School graduate, Mr. Lewin is on the piano faculties of the Boston Conservatory and Boston University. www.michaellewin.com

Violinist Danielle Maddon is well known to New England audiences for her vibrant playing and broad experience as a soloist, concertmaster, recitalist, chamber and orchestral musician. Performing on both modern and period instruments, Ms. Maddon has appeared in venues including Carnegie Hall, Vatican City, and Tokyo's Suntory Hall, in repertoire spanning four centuries. Critics have hailed her playing as "magnificent", "stunning", "masterful", and "heartfelt". She performs with Boston Baroque, Emmanuel Music, the Boston Pops, the Boston Musica Viva, the Handel and Haydn Society, Cantata Singers, the Boston Cecelia, and other groups. Ms. Maddon was twice awarded full fellowships to both the Tanglewood Music Center and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, winning concertmaster posts for conductors Kurt Masur, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Leonard Slatkin, and Sir Charles Grove. For four seasons, she was concertmaster of the Tallahassee Symphony. Ms. Maddon performed for two years as a first violinist in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and tutored violin students at the National University of Singapore. As concertmaster and soloist for the New England Philharmonic under Richard Pittman, she has performed twelve violin concertos by modern masters including Berg, Harbison, Dutilleux, and Lutoslawski. On March 2, 2013, she will premiere a new violin concerto by Bernard Hoffer, commissioned by the New England Philharmonic and written for her.

Violist Jonina Allan Mazzeo originally hails from Salem, Oregon, but has lived in Massachusetts since 2000. After graduating magna cum laude from Wellesley College, Ms. Mazzeo studied with Marcus Thompson at the New England Conservatory, where she earned a Master of Music in viola performance. She has performed in orchestras in the United States, Canada, Germany, Austria, New Zealand, and Australia, and has been a member of the Albany  and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, where she held the Sandra Shaw chair. In addition to her appearances with Emmanuel Music, Ms. Mazzeo has performed with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Sol y Canto, and Son de las Americas mariachi. She has collaborated with composers John Harbison, Steve Reich, Liza White, and Dan VanHassel. As a member of the Fens Trio (flute, viola, and harp), she won second prize in the 2008 International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition. Ms. Mazzeo  studied chamber music with members of the Concord, American, and Borromeo String Quartets, and has participated in the Spoleto Festival USA, the Aspen Music Festival, and as a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center.

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 and 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 to more than fifteen countries on four continents, and to thirty-eight of the fifty states. He has played under the direction of Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Haitink, Andre Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Colin Davis, and James Levine among others. 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 Master of Music degree from Northwestern University. His teachers include Dale Clevenger, John Covert, and Joseph Singer. He teaches at Boston University.

Karen Oosterbaan, violinist, is also an AmSAT-certified Alexander Technique teacher in the Boston area.  She completed her Graduate Diploma in violin performance at Longy School of Music of Bard College, the Master of Music degree in violin performance at the New England Conservatory, 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 Alexander Technique teacher training at the Dimon School in Somerville, MA.  Ms. Oosterbaan has presented workshops and classes on the Alexander Technique to musicians at the New England Conservatory, Longy, Olin College, Minnesota String and Orchestra Teachers Association, Vanderbilt University, Cambridge Center for Adult Education, and Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra.  She has a private Alexander studio for students from diverse backgrounds. She teaches violin and coaches chamber music at the Winchester Community Music School, where she is Chamber Music Coordinator. As a professional violinist, she 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 numerous festivals, including the Aspen Music Festival, International Baroque Institute, New Hampshire Music Festival, and the Cours International de Musique, in Switzerland.

 

Obiost Peggy Pearson has performed solo, chamber, and orchestral music throughout the United States and abroad. She is solo oboist with the Emmanuel Chamber Orchestra, and a member of the Bach Aria Group.  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 the founding director of, and oboist with, Winsor Music, Inc., and also a founding member of the chamber group La Fenice.  She has toured internationally and recorded extensively with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s 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. As director of Winsor Music, Inc., Ms. Pearson organized the Winsor Music Consortium (a project to commission works for oboe) and has premiered over 20 works in her chamber music series.  She has been on the faculties at Songfest, the Tanglewood Music Center (Bach Institute), Boston Conservatory, MIT, the Conservatory of Music (University of Cincinnati), Wellesley College, the Composers Conference at Wellesley College and the Longy School of Music of Bard College.  She is currently on the faculty of the Emmanuel Bach Institute.

Paul Perfetti, a Boston resident, performs on baroque trumpet with Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, Aston Magna, Boston Bach Ensemble, Portland Baroque (Oregon), Early Music New York, Millenial Arts Productions (NY), and Collegium Musicum Bach (Mexico). Recordings with Boston Baroque on Telarc include, among others, J.S. Bach: Complete Orchestral Suites, Mass in B minor (2000 Grammy nominee), Mozart’s Requiem (1995 Robert Levin completion) and Handel’s Messiah (1992 Grammy nominee), and the Grammy-nominated Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 (on cornetto).  Other recordings include Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with Banchetto Musicale (Arabesque), and Bach’s Christmas Oratorios with the Boston Bach Ensemble (Titanic). In 2004 Mr. Perfetti lectured on baroque and natural trumpets at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts musical instrument collection, and has been engaged to record some of these instruments to document these rare trumpets. He has been principal trumpet with the national touring company of Les Miserables since 1998.  He 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. He performed with Yo Yo Ma and Boston Musica Viva in a BBC production, "A Month at Tanglewood."  Mr. Perfetti holds a Bachelor of Music in trumpet performance/composition from the University of Wisconsin and a Master of Music 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).

Violinist Dianne Pettipaw is an active freelance musician performing with orchestral and chamber music groups in the Boston area. She holds the position of principal second violin with the Boston Ballet Orchestra, which has included solo performances in 1991, 2004, 2006, and 2011. She has also performed in BBC productions of ballet choreographed for dance and solo violin.  She performs regularly with Emmanuel Music, including the weekly Bach cantatas, the Emmanuel Concert Series, and performed with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music on its 2005 European tour.  She performs regularly with the Cantata Singers Orchestra, the Handel and Haydn Society, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, which has included cross-country tours and as well as five tours in Japan.  Ms Pettipaw regularly plays chamber music and in violin-and-piano recitals in Boston and Brookline, MA.  She has taught violin in her studio since 1970.  Ms Pettipaw studied at Boston University with Roman Totenberg and Raphael Bronstein.

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 maintains a vibrant and diverse career as one of Boston's most celebrated freelance musicians. Mr. Popper-Keizer is principal cellist of the Boston Philharmonic and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and appears regularly with Emmanuel Music, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Winsor Music, Monadnock Music, and the Ibis Camerata.  Recent solo recordings include Robert Erickson's Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra on New World Records, Yehudi Wyner's De Novo on Albany, and Thomas Oboe Lee's Eurydice for cello and orchestra, on BMOP/sound.

Violist Mary Ruth Ray, an internationally-known performer, has received 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.

Hailed as a “superb cellist” and as “sonorous and panoramic” in The Boston Globe, David Russell maintains a vigorous schedule both as soloist and as collaborator in the US and Europe. He was appointed to the teaching faculty of Wellesley College in 2005 and currently serves as Director of Chamber Music. He is a busy performer in the Boston area, making regular appearances with such ensembles as Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the New England String Ensemble, Cantata Singers and Ensemble, and Emmanuel Music.  He served as Principal Cello of Opera Boston from 2006 to 2011.  A strong advocate and performer of new music, Russell has performed with such ensembles as Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Firebird Ensemble, Music on the Edge, Dinosaur Annex, and the Fromm Players at Harvard.  Recent projects include recordings of works by Eric Moe, Lee Hyla, Tamar Diesendruck, Chen Yi, and Roger Zahab, premieres of Laurie San Martin’s Cello Concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony, Eric Moe’s “Mud Wrestling at the O.K. Corral” for cello and piano, and new works for solo cello by Andrew Rindfleisch, Sam Nichols, and John Mallia.  Recordings on Tzadik, Centaur, CRI, Albany Records, and New World Records

Roy Sansom, recorder, has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Orchestra, New World Symphony in Miami, BEMF Orchestra, New York City Opera and (most proudly) Emmanuel Music. Roy composes for the recorder, scores for films, and makes recorders at the Von Huene Workshop.

 

 

 

Russian-American pianist Sergey Schepkin has performed internationally, from the United States to Russia to Japan to New Zealand. He made his Carnegie Hall recital debut in 1993 (at Weill Recital Hall) to an enthusiastic reception from the audience and The New York Times, and has performed in the Celebrity Series of Boston, Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center, LACMA and Maestro Series in Los Angeles, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, St. Petersburg Grand and Chamber Philharmonic Halls, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and the Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo, among many other venues and series. Schepkin’s discography includes major works by Bach (the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, the sixpartitas, the Italian Concerto, the French Overture, the four duets, and two recordings of the Goldberg Variations), Brahms, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and Schnittke. His performances and recordings have been acclaimed in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, BBC Music Magazine, International Piano, Gramophone, Fanfare, and Musicweb-International. Schepkin’s repertoire spans four centuries and includes hundreds of piano and chamber works. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Schepkin studied piano with Alexandra Zhukovsky and Grigory Sokolov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and with Russell Sherman at the New England Conservatory, where he earned an Artist Diploma and a Doctor of Musical Arts. He teaches piano at Boston University and at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Sergey Schepkin is a Steinway Artist.

Charles Sherman has played organ continuo regularly with Emmanuel Music for the Sunday morning Cantata Series since 1993.  He has had a long and distinguished career as harpsichord soloist and chamber musician.  He currently performs with the chamber ensemble Musica Pacifica (San Francisco) as well as the period instrument orchestras Philharmonia Baroque (San Francisco) and Musica Angelica (Los Angeles).

 

 

An eloquent communicator both on and off the concert stage, pianist Russell Sherman continues to astonish critics and audiences with his grace, imagination and poetry. As author ofthe book Piano Pieces (2006), a compilation of vignettes and anecdotes from his experiences as pianist and teacher, he has been praised as an ingenious virtuoso and an insightful master. Mr. Sherman has performed with major orchestras internationally, and is the first American to record Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas and the five piano concertos.  Bernard Jacobsen, in Fanfare, called the Beethoven sonatas project “a set for the ages.”  In recital, Russell Sherman has appeared in celebrated series and at renowned festivals  and venues around the world. Mr. Sherman is a prolific recording artist. Anthony Tommasini, in The New York Times (1999)  praised Mr. Sherman’s 1990 recording of Liszt’s Transcendental Études, “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 recorded works by Gershwin, Brahms, Chopin, Schubert, Grieg, Schumann, Debussy, Bach, and additional works by Liszt. Mr. Sherman also performs and records work of  modern and contemporary composers, among these are the complete piano works of Schoenberg as well as pieces he has commissioned from Schuller, Helps, Perle, and Shapey. Russell Sherman was born in New York, began piano studies at age six, and by eleven was studying with Eduard Steuermann, pupil and friend of Ferruccio Busoni and Arnold Schoenberg. He graduated from Columbia University at 19 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. At age 81, Sherman continues to explore, and to merit the title “a thinking man’s virtuoso

Oboist Jennifer Slowik is currently principal oboe with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), assistant principal oboe at the Orchestra of Indian Hill, and a member of Emmanuel Music, where she was a recipient of the 2009/10 Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellowship. She has been featured in the Dame Myra Hess chamber music series in Chicago, the Phillips Collection series in Washington, DC, and as a member of the wind quintet Southspoon Winds. Ms. Slowikwas awarded a grant from the Midori Foundation's Outreach Program to present a series of chamber music master classes in New York public schools.   Recent highlights include the world- and US premieres of Tod Machover's multi-media opera Death and the Powers at the Sally Garnier Theater in Monte Carlo and the Chicago Opera Theater, Opera Boston's production of Zhou Long's Pulitzer-Prize winning Madame White Snake, and composer Livia Lin's Ju for solo oboe, composed for Ms. Slovik. Ms. Slowik has recorded Thomas Oboe Lee's Persephone for oboe and strings as well as Lisa Bielawa's Synopsis #10: I Know This Room So Well, for solo English horn, both on the BMOP Sound label.

Michael Sponseller is recognized as one of the outstanding American harpsichordists of his generation. Since his training at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, Mr. Sponseller has had a highly diversified career which brings him to festivals and concert venues all around as recital and concerto soloist, and partner to several of today’s finest musicians. He appears regularly as harpsichordist and continuo organist with many of America’s baroque orchestras and chamber groups such as Bach Collegium (San Diego) and Les Délices. He is heard on many recordings from Delos, Centaur, Eclectra, Vanguard Classics, RMAP and Naxos. Behind the scenes, Michael has been a regular presence in the orchestra pit for several productions of Handel’s operas Alcina, Amadigi, and Ariodante, as well as Rameau operas, including performing as repetiteur for the Netherlands Opera production of Castor et Pollux, conducted by Christophe Rousset. At home, Michael is a regular presence at  Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music, where he has performed over 90 works in their Bach Cantata Series.  Mr. Sponseller also teaches continuo and figured bass at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, and is artistic director of Ensemble Florilège.

Thomas Stephenson has been an active freelance bassoonist in Boston for most of his career.  He has performed with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music since 1975, where he has played numerous Handel operas and oratorios, Mozart operas, symphonies, and chamber music and works of many other composers including the entire cycle of Bach cantatas under Craig Smith.  He has also performed on a number of Emmanuel Music collaborations, including Mark Morris’s setting of Handel’s L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato; and Bach cantatas staged by Peter Sellars and featuring Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.  Mr. Stephenson has 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 and Haydn Society, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and the Boston Ballet Orchestra.  His discography includes recordings on Koch, Nonesuch, and AVIE labels.  He played his first Bach cantata under John Harbison when he was an MIT undergraduate, and heard wonderful performances of many Bach cantatas by the Cantata Singers under his direction, which set him on a course for life.

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 Boston Baroque and the Handel and Haydn Society.

 

 

Randall Zigler began his bass studies as a high school student in St. Louis, Missouri, and attended Oberlin College, 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.