Daniel Stepner
Daniel Stepner, as Aston Magna’s Artistic Director, has programmed and led vocal and instrumental music dating from 1589 through the 1850s, featuring period instruments and vocal styles. Aston Magna repertoire has included everything from music for solo violin to early baroque opera, such as Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and L’incoronazione di Poppea, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne. Mr. Stepner is also first violinist of the Lydian String Quartet (Artists in Residence at Brandeis University) and a founding member of the Boston Museum Trio (resident at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts for 27 years). For the last 21 years, under Thomas Dunn, Christopher Hogwood and Grant Llewellyn, he has been the concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society, America’s oldest continuing musical organization. He is also a Preceptor in Music at Harvard University, where he team-teaches a course in the performance and analysis of chamber music with Robert Levin. In solo recital, chamber and orchestral settings, and in the theater, he has performed music from 1589 through 2008. Mr. Stepner has recorded baroque sonatas by Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann and Marais; major chamber works of Schubert, Brahms, John Harbison, Peter Child and Yehudi Wyner and violin and piano sonatas of Charles Ives with pianist John Kirkpatrick. For Aston Magna, he has led recordings of cantatas of J. S. Bach, chamber works of Mozart and Schubert, and an acclaimed recording of Handel’s oratorio, The Triumph of Time and Truth, and Monteverdi’s pioneering opera L’Orfeo. He has held concertmasterships for Boston Baroque, The Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra and New Haven Symphony, and for six years was assistant concertmaster of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, based in Holland. As a touring musician, he has played in 11 countries in Western Europe and the former Soviet Union, and throughout Australia and the United States. Mr. Stepner is a native of Wisconsin, and his major teachers were Steven Staryk in Chicago, Nadia Boulanger in France and Broadus Erle at Yale, where he earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree. Presently on the faculties of Brandeis and Harvard Universities, he has taught violin, chamber music and performance practice at the New England Conservatory, Eastman School, Boston University and the Longy School.
Roberta Anderson
Soprano, Roberta Anderson, has performed extensively throughout the USA, Europe and Canada, winning praise for her “sweet tone” and “exquisitely refined musicianship”. She has been a soloist with the Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Early Music Festival, Emmanuel Music, Concerto Köln, Boston Baroque, the Aston Magna Festival, The Spectrum Singers, Cantata Singers, the Boston Camerata, and Coro Allegro.
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Sharon Baker
A long time favorite of the Boston music scene, soprano Sharon Baker has brought her stylistic musicianship and purity of tone to a wide array of musical styles. Best known for her interpretation of baroque music, Ms. Baker has performed regularly with Aston Magna, the Boston Cecilia Society, Boston Baroque and the Handel & Haydn Society. Highlights from her career to date include Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in collaboration with Peter Martins and the New York City Ballet, semi-annual performances and Easter concerts in Poland of Messiah with Boston Baroque, Christmas concerts with the Boston Pops Orchestra in Symphony Hall and on tour, and the premiers of newly discovered works, notably Mozart’s Der Stein der Weisen with Boston Baroque and CPE Bach’s Dank-Hymne der Freundschaft with the Handel and Haydn Society.
In recital, Ms. Baker is a favorite in the greater Boston area. She has collaborated with Robert Kapilow in his national lecture/recital series, “What Makes It Great?” presenting Goethe’s Kennst Du das Land and Mozart’s opera arias. She also performs regularly at the University of New Hampshire, where she is an adjunct professor of voice.
Her numerous recordings include Monteverdi’s Orfeo and Bach’s Cantata #199 with Aston Magna, and Mozart’s Der Stein der Weisen and Impresario, Purcell’s Dido and Aneas, Moravian Lost music of Early America and Handel’s L’Allegro with Boston Baroque.
Michael Beattie
Michael Beattie has received international attention for his work as a conductor and keyboardist specializing in the music of the Baroque period. In 2009 Mr. Beattie made his Glimmerglass Opera debut conducting Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with Jonathan Miller as stage director; and in 2011, he conducted Handel’s Rinaldo with the Pittsburgh Opera and Chatham Baroque. This year he conducted Handel’s Teseo for the Chicago Opera Theater. For many years Associate Conductor of Boston’s Emmanuel Music, he has conducted Handel’s Ariodante, Bach’s St. John Passion, the complete Bach Motets, a recent concert of the orchestral music of Haydn and Schoenberg, as well as more than one hundred Bach cantatas in the weekly series at Emmanuel Church. Mr. Beattie conducted several performances of The Threepenny Opera at the American Repertory Theater, and the Boston premiere of Handel’s Rodelinda.
A highly regarded keyboard player, 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 joined Les Violons du Roy for their 25th anniversary tour (with performances of Messiah and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Quebec, Montreal, Carnegie Hall and Walt Disney Concert Hall). Keyboard highlights of the 2011-2012 season included concerts with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in Alice Tully Hall, Les Violons du Roy, Pegasus Early Music, and Emmanuel Music.
In demand as a continuo player and vocal coach specializing in music of the Baroque and Classical periods, he has been on the music staff of Glimmerglass Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Pittsburgh Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Florida Grand Opera, and the Carmel Bach Festival (where he is Music Director of the Vocal Master Class). He has served as musical assistant to Harry Bicket, Jane Glover, Emmanuelle Haïm, Bernard Labadie, Raymond Leppard, and Antony Walker. He is a founding member and harpsichordist of Favella Lyrica and the Baroque chamber ensemble Très.
Mr. Beattie has been associated with several projects of director Peter Sellars. He was Assistant Conductor for Sellars’ stagings of the Mozart/da Ponte operas conducted by Craig Smith, which were performed throughout the United States and Europe, recorded for television and released on DVD. He was organist for Sellars’ staging of two Bach cantatas featuring Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival, Lucerne Festival, Barbican Centre, and Cité de la Musique, and subsequently recorded for Nonesuch records. He was also pianist for Weill, Kleine Mahagonny and Bach, Dialogue between Fear and Hope after Death, presented at Theatre Bobigny, Paris, and Theater am Turm, Frankfurt.
As a pianist, he has performed at the Athens, Banff, and Tanglewood music festivals and in Emmanuel Music’s chamber series surveying the works of Shubert, Schumann, Brahms, Beethoven, and Debussy. World premieres to his credit include works of John Harbison, Andrew Imbrie, Earl Kim, and Andy Vores. Mr. Beattie is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and Boston University. He has been on the faculties of the Tanglewood Music Center and the Walnut Hill School and is currently a Lecturer at Boston University. He has recorded for KOCH International Classics and Nonesuch records.
Anne Black
Anne Black enjoys an active career in the Boston area as both a classical musician and visual artist. She performs with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, as well as with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops as an extra violist. She is principal violist of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, and the orchestras of Cantata Singers and Concord Chorus. Appearing frequently as a performer of contemporary music, Black is violist of the Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble. She performs with Collage New Music and can be heard on Collage’s Grammy-nominated recording of John Harbison’s Mottetti di Montale. She has presented solo and chamber works with Sound Icon, Notariotous, Auros New Music Ensemble, Extension Works, Alea III, Phantom Arts Ensemble, Composers in Red Sneakers, the Boston Microtonal Society, and the Harvard University Fromm Foundation Concerts. She has been a guest artist with the Lydian Quartet, in residence at Brandeis University. She appeared as viola d’amore soloist in Meyerbeer’s opera “Les Hueguenots” with the American Symphony in 2009.
As a performer on period instruments, she is a member of the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra and performs with Boston Baroque and the Aston Magna Festival. She has been featured as viola d’amore soloist with Handel & Haydn Society, Chorus Pro Musica, Concord Chorus, and Cecilia Society. She was a founding member of the Mannheim Quartet, which can be heard on Titanic Records.
She received her education at University of California, Los Angeles; Yale University School of Music; Boston University; and Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, CA. She has taught at Phillips Exeter Academy, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and Merrywood Music School in Lenox, MA.
A prize-winning photographer and artist in multiple media, she has been a resident artist at the Arlington Center for the Arts since 2004. Her work can be seen at www.Capriccio Arts.com.
Josh Cohen
A native of the Washington, D.C. area, baroque trumpeter Josh Cohen is greatly sought after by many leading early music ensembles throughout North America. For the past seven seasons, Josh has been principal baroque trumpet with the Washington Bach Consort. He has also performed as principal and solo baroque trumpet for ensembles such as Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montreal, Arion (Montreal), Bach Sinfonia (Washington D.C.), Aston Magna (Boston) Musica Maris (Rhode Island), Houston Bach Society, Ensemble Telemann (Montreal), and participated in festivals such as the Indiana Festival of Early Music, International Festival of Baroque Music at Lameque (N.B. Canada) and the Bach Festival of Montreal. Mr Cohen has recorded some of the most famous and demanding works for baroque trumpet. Most recently, Josh recorded J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 2 with Montreal-based Ensemble Caprice. He can be heard in the Washington Bach Consort’s recording of J.S. Bach’s Cantata no. 51 with soprano Elizabeth Futral. Two recordings Mr. Cohen participated in with prominent Canadian ensembles were both nominated for the 2009 Juno awards: “Let the Bright Seraphim” with soprano Karina Gauvin and Tempo Rubato and his recording of Vivaldi’s Gloria with Ensemble Caprice, the latter of which won the Juno award for Best Album of the Year in the vocal category. For the last several seasons, Mr. Cohen has been the solo baroque trumpeter for performances of Handel’s Messiah at the both the National Cathedral under the direction of Micheal McCarthy, as well as the Handel Choir of Baltimore under the direction of Melinda O’Neal. This season Josh performed this annual masterpiece once again at the Cathedral, as well as with Apollo’s Fire (Cleveland), the Trinity Choir (New York), and the Dallas Bach Society. In the fall of 2013, Josh will tour the United States with Apollo’s Fire under the direction of Jeanette Sorrell performing Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #2. Mr. Cohen received a M.M. from McGill University and a B.M. from the New England Conservatory of Music.
Guy Fishman
Guy Fishman made his Symphony Hall solo debut in 2005 with the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra, which he joined in 2002 as their youngest principal player. That same year he joined Boston Baroque, and since that time he has been in demand as an early music specialist in the United States and Europe, performing in recital and with Apollo’s Fire, Emmanuel Music, and the Boston Museum Trio, as well as with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and The Mark Morris Group, among others. His playing has been praised as “plangent” by the Boston Globe, “electrifying” by The New York Times, and “beautiful….noble” by the Boston Herald. Mr. Fishman started playing the cello at age 12, and at 16 began his Baccalaureate studies with David Soyer at the Manhattan School of Music. He subsequently worked with Peter Wiley, Julia Lichten and Laurence Lesser, with whom he completed Doctoral studies at the New England Conservatory of Music. In addition, he is a Fulbright Fellow, having worked with famed Dutch cellist Anner Bylsma in Amsterdam. He has recorded for the Centaur, Telarc, Titanic, and Newport Classics labels. He plays a rare cello made in Rome in 1704 by David Tecchler.
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Sarah Freiberg Ellison
Sarah Freiberg is principal cellist of Boston Baroque and a tenured member of the Handel and Haydn Society. She hasperformed with the New York Collegium, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (San Francisco), Portland Baroque Oregon), Seattle Baroque, the Boston Early Music Festival and Arion (Montreal). As a corresponding editor for STRINGS magazine, she has contributed dozens of articles and reviews. Ms. Freiberg edited the long forgotten Guerini cello sonatas for both PRB Productions and Broude Brothers, and recorded both Guerini and Laurenti cello sonatas for Centaur. She teaches in the Historical Performance department at Boston University as well as at the Powers Music School in Belmont. Sarah received her D.M.A. and M.M. degrees from S.U.N.Y. at Stony Brook, and holds degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory, Brown University and the Mozarteum in Salzburg , Austria. Ms. Freiberg can be heard on numerous recordings, including as soloist on the Boston Baroque CD of works by Vivaldi and Geminiani.
Stephen Hammer
Stephen Hammer enjoys a varied musical life playing and teaching oboes of all periods. He is principal oboist of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, Concert Royal, the Bach Ensemble, the Arcadia Players, the Clarion Music Society, and the Columbia Festival Orchestra, and was also a co-founder of the New York Collegium and served as its first Artistic Director. He also plays recorder regularly with the Metropolitan Opera orchestra and Yamaha wind synthesizer with the Neptune Philharmonic jazz trio. His solo, chamber and orchestral recordings appear on Decca L’Oiseau-lyre and many other labels. He teaches oboe and performance practice at the Bard College Conservatory, the Longy School of Music, and the Aston Magna Early Woodwinds workshops and collaborates with instrument-maker Joel Robinson in building replicas of historical oboes. Stephen Hammer has participated in Aston Magna festivals and academies since 1977, and lives in the town of Clermont, NY in the beautiful Hudson River Valley.
Clayton Hoener
Clayton Hoener is a dynamic and versatile violinist who has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. He is principal second violin of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, and also regularly performs with the Handel & Haydn Society and numerous other musical organizations. With eight musicians of the Handel and Haydn Society and the vocal group Chanticleer, Mr. Hoener participated in the 2002 Grammy Award winning recording of John Tavener’s compelling composition Lamentations and Praises.
Clayton Hoener was a founding member and first violinist of the Boston Composers String Quartet, winning a silver medal in the 1993 Osaka Chamber Music Competition, a Chamber Music America Three-Year Residency Grant, and the 1995 CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. As solo violinist and chamber musician, he has also participated in the Cleveland, Taos, and Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festivals, and the prestigious Internationale Sommerakademie-Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.
For over a quarter century, violin and pedagogical instruction has held a special place in his career. Mr. Hoener is a faculty member of Longy School of Music, where he held the posts of Associate Chair of Strings and Community Programs Chair of Strings from 1998 – 2010. He is also a faculty member of Cape Cod Conservatory.
He holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Boston University, as a student of Roman Totenberg. Mr. Hoener has recorded for Albany, Koch International Classics, Master Musicians Collective, Music and Arts, and Northeastern Records. He performs on both period and modern instruments. Carl Becker and Son of Chicago made his modern violin in 1925.
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Eric Hoeprich
For the past thirty years Eric Hoeprich has specialized in performing on historical clarinets, in music from the Baroque to the late Romantic. Educated at Harvard University (AB cum laude, 1976) and the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, he is currently on the faculties of the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague and at Indiana University, Bloomington. A founding member of Frans Brüggen’s Orchestra of the 18th Century (1982), Hoeprich has performed frequently as a soloist with this orchestra, as well as many of the major early music ensembles, under conductors such as Roger Norrington, Christopher Hogwood, Bruno Weil, Philippe Herreweghe and Nicholas McGegan. Also a variety of other ensembles, such as the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Akamus (Akademie für Alte Musik), Freiburger Barok, American Classical Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony, Orchestra, the Royal Galicean Symphony Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, Concerto Koln have invited him as a soloist. In the 1980s, he founded two wind ensembles, NACHTMUSIQUE and the Stadler Trio (three basset horns), which have toured around the world. His dozens of recordings are available on labels such as Deutsche Grammaphon, Philips, EMI, SONY, Harmonia Mundi, Glossa and Decca. Collaboration with string quartets, chamber ensembles and vocal soloists also feature regularly on his calendar. The recent release of clarinet quintets (Mozart and Brahms) with the London Haydn Quartet (Glossa), and the three clarinet concertos by Bernhard Crusell with Kölner Akademie (ARS Production) have received wide critical acclaim.
The real pleasure was in Hoeprich’s flawless technique and molten-gold tone… the high point was the radiant Clarinet Quintet in A, K. 581, played by Hoeprich on a re-creation of an 18th-century basset clarinet. With its peculiar bulbous end, the thing looks downright cartoonish, but its sound just shimmers — and Hoeprich’s mastery of the piece made a perfect close to an altogether fascinating evening.
- The Washington Post
An interest in historical clarinets has led to the publication of numerous articles, and a general text on the clarinet published by Yale University Press (The Clarinet, 2008). He has also contributed to The New Grove Dictionary. Hoeprich has collected over a hundred antique clarinets, including instruments from the eighteenth century, which has led to restoration and construction of replicas of period originals; he maintains a workshop for instrument making at his home near London.
Laura Jeppesen
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 and 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.
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Frank Kelley
Frank Kelley sings a wide variety of music throughout North America and Europe. He has performed many roles with the Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Boston, Florentine Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, and the San Francisco Opera Company, has appeared at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, The Franfurt Opera Opera de Monte Carlo, and in the Peter Sellars productions of Die Sieben Todsünden, Das Kleine Mahagonny, Cosi fan tutte, and Le nozze di Figaro. The Mozart operas were recorded by Decca and Austrian Public Television, and were broadcast on PBS’s “Great Performances”. They are available on London DVD as is Weill’s Die Sieben Todsünden. In concert performances Mr. Kelley has sung with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He has performed medieval and renaissance music with Sequentia, the Boston Camerata , and the Waverly Consort, and he performs baroque music with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque , Emmanuel Music, Music of the Baroque, and Aston Magna. Mr. Kelley has participated in the Blossom Festival, the Tanglewood Festival, Ravinia Festival, Marlboro Music Festival, Pepsico Summerfare, the Nakamichi Festival, the New England Bach Festival, Next Wave Festival, Wexford Festival Opera, and the Boston Early Music Festival. He has recorded for London, Decca, Erato, Harmonia Mundi France, Teldec, Telarc, Koch International, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Arabesque, and Northeastern. A resident of Boston, Mr. Kelley sings there regularly with Emmanuel Music, both in the ongoing series which presents the complete Bach cantatas and in special projects, including the complete piano/vocal works of Schumann and Brahms, Schubert lieder, Don Giovanni, The St. Matthew Passion, Alcina, The Magic Flute, The St. John Passion, and most recently The Rake’s Progress.
Christopher Krueger
A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, Christopher Krueger was a student of James Pappoutsakis. He has performed as principal flutist with the Boston Symphony, the Boston Pops and Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestras, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Opera Company of Boston, Boston Ballet, Boston Musica Viva, and Cantata Singers, among other organizations, and was a founding member of the Emmanuel Wind Quintet, winners of the 1981 Walter W. Naumburg Award for Chamber Music. Currently he is a member of Collage New Music, Emmanuel Music, and performs frequently as principal flutist with Cantata Singers and other organizations in Boston
In the mid-1970’s, Mr. Krueger became interested in historical performance. His career as a Baroque flutist has taken him throughout the United States, Europe, Eastern Europe, and Australia. He has been a soloist on the Great Performers Series and Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, the Philadelphia Bach Festival, Tanglewood, Ravinia, the Berlin Bach Festival, the City of London Festival, and the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music, as well as in France, Belgium, Italy, and Poland. He is a member of the Bach Ensemble and the Aulos Ensemble, and is principal flutist with the Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Baroque.
Christopher Krueger has conducted and been a soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music, and his recordings can be heard on Sony, DG, Decca, EMI, Nonesuch, Pro Arte, CRI, Telarc, Koch, and Centaur. Mr. Krueger has served on the faculty at Wellesley College, the Longy School of Music, and the Akademie für Alte Musik in Brixen/Bressanone, Italy. He is currently on the faculty at New England Conservatory of Music, Boston University, and Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute. He is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Dominique Labelle
Soprano Dominique Labelle’ enjoys close and enduring collaborations with a number of the world’s most respected conductors and composers, particularly Nicholas McGegan, Iván Fischer, Roger Norrington, Jos van Veldhoven, and the Pulitzer Prize winning composer Yehudi Wyner.
Recent and upcoming engagements include Handel’s Messiah/Seattle Symphony Orchestra; Wyner’s Fragments from Antiquity/Lexington Symphony; Barber’s Knoxville, Summer of 1915/Boston Classical Orchestra; Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poetry of Alexander Blok/Mt. Desert Festival of Chamber Music; and ten performances at the 2011 Göttingen Festival in Germany with Nicholas McGegan. She and Mr. McGegan are also collaborating in performances of Handel’s Orlando and Alexander’s Feast, with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.
Recent appearances with conductor Iván Fischer include the Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro at Teatro Perez Galdos in Las Palmas and in Budapest, a Bach B-minor Mass in Washington, D.C., and a Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.
Her most recent recording is Monsigny’s Le Déserteur, with Opera Lafayette and Ryan Brown (Naxos). She can also be heard on recordings on the Virgin Veritas, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, RCA Victor Red Seal, Koss, Denon, New World, Carus and Muisica Omnia labels.
Born in Montreal and trained at McGill and Boston Universities, lives in central Massachusetts with her husband and two children. Visit Dominique Labelle on her website: www.dominiquelabelle.com.
Julie Leven
Julie Leven is a principal player in the Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Baroque. In June 2004, she made her Los Angeles solo debut in Disney Hall. She has many times been a featured soloist, with Daniel Stepner and Boston Baroque, in concertos of Bach, Vivaldi and Telemann. As a guest soloist with the Boston Museum Trio it has been her particular pleasure to play the chamber music of Bach, Telemann, Buxtehude and Purcell. Ms. Leven is concertmaster of the Bach and Beyond Festival, and has participated in the Krakow/Warsaw Easter Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Boston Early Music Festival, Spoleto Festival, Colorado Music Festival, and Tanglewood Music Center. As a member of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Ms. Leven has performed throughout the US, Japan and Korea. She has been a member of the Jerusalem Symphony and the Aarhus Symfonieorkester in Denmark. With these orchestras she has toured throughout Germany, France, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. She has recorded with Telarc, Decca, Harmonia Mundi and Titanic. Ms. Leven can be heard as a soloist on two Telarc recordings of Boston Baroque: Handel Opus 6 Concerti Grossi, and the 1999 Grammy nominated performance of the Monteverdi Vespers.
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© Jessamyn Mayher
Catherine Liddell
Catherine Liddell, theorbo, is in high demand for her skill, sensitivity and experience as a continuo player. She has performed with many of America’s leading period instrument ensembles, including Boston Baroque, the Handel & Haydn Society, Apollo’s Fire (Cleveland), the New York Collegium, and in the Aston Magna and the Boston Early Music Festivals. She recently performed in the US Premier of Heiner Goebbel’s Songs of War I Have Seen with the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment as part of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. She has recorded for Musical Heritage Society, Titanic, Dorian, Wildboar and Centaur Records. Her solo recording, La belle voilée, 17th Century French Lute Music by Jacques Gallot and others is available on the Centaur label. Her edition, Sacred Music for Lute, Vol. I is available through Lyre Editions, Fort Worth, Texas. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Ms. Liddell earned the Soloist Diploma from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland. She is Past-President of the Lute Society of America and Lecturer in Lute in the Historical Performance Program at Boston University.
Danielle Maddon
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 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. In the 2013-2014 season, she will give the world premiere of a new violin concerto by Bernard Hoffer, commissioned by the New England Philharmonic and written for her.
David Miller
David Miller holds an undergraduate liberal arts degree from Oberlin College and a graduate music degree in viola from The Juilliard School. A devoted performer of chamber music on period instruments and a pioneer of early music performance in this country, he is a founding member of the Classical Quartet, Haydn Baryton Trio, Bach Ensemble and Concert Royal. He has performed with Aston Magna every season since 1974 and has appeared frequently as a guest artist with the Mozartean Players and Helicon. Mr. Miller plays principal viola for numerous Baroque and Classical orchestras including the Handel and Haydn Society, New York Collegium, Boston Early Music Festival and American Classical Orchestra. Notable chamber music appearances at summer festivals include Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center, Tanglewood Festival, Festival of Perth (Australia), Lufthansa Festival (London) and the Esterhazy Palace (Eisenstadt, Austria). His many recordings of solo and chamber works can be heard on Decca, Dorian, Harmonia Mundi, EMI, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings, among others. Mr. Miller has taught viola at Princeton University and at the Akademie für Alte Musik in Brixen, Italy.
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Susan B. Obel
A life-long music lover, and presently a singer with Collegiate Chorale in New York City, Susan Obel, Aston Magna’s new Executive Director, had her first job in Arts Management with St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble/Orchestra of St. Luke’s. “I got my feet wet as a part-time Office Manager, but as a member of a small staff I soon became involved in writing, fundraising and special events.” Following St. Luke’s she joined the staff of the Harlem School of the Arts, working closely with then Executive Director Betty Allen. There she launched and co-produced an annual Radiothon with radio legend Robert Sherman and WQXR, a fundraising event that continued for many years. Following that was a 15-year stint in PR and Fundraising with Theatreworks/USA, the nation’s preeminentprofessional theatre for young and family audiences.
Loretta O’Sullivan
Loretta O’Sullivan has appeared on the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center, at the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Merkin Concert Hall with the Four Nations Ensemble. The group has several recordings with Gaudeamus.
As a member of the Haydn Baryton Trio and The Classical Quartet, she toured throughout the US and England, and recorded for Dorian, Titanic, and Harmonia Mundi.
Ms. O’Sullivan has played continuo cello for many ensembles including Opera Lafayette, The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Aston Magna, Florida Grand Opera and The American Bach Soloists, and has played many years with The Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
She has played cello recitals around the country. In collaboration with musicologist Larry Lipkis, Loretta gave a pre-concert lecture for Yo Yo Ma’s performance of the Bach Suites in Bethlehem, Pa. and has given Performance Practice classes in major conservatories.
Deborah Rentz-Moore
Hailed for her “deep, radiant, clear tone” (Early Music America) and “lustrous” singing (The Boston Globe), mezzo-soprano Deborah Rentz-Moore performs with some of the most celebrated ensembles in North America, including Emmanuel Music, Aston Magna, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Handel & Haydn Society, The Boston Camerata, New York Collegium and Magnificat. She has also worked with esteemed Boston-area groups such as Chorus Pro Musica, the Newton Choral Society, Masterworks Chorale, Back Bay Chorale, Coro Allegro, New Bedford Symphony, Harvard University Choir, Pro Arte Orchestra, Ensemble Très. and Boston Cecilia.
Specializing in early music, Ms. Rentz-Moore also performs opera, oratorio, and chamber music of various eras. In addition to her appearance at Aston Magna, Ms. Rentz-Moore’s recent performances include Puer Natus Est, The Harvest and Borrowed Light with The Boston Camerata, Dvorak’s Mass in D with the Candlelight Choir, Mozart’s Requiem with Berkshire Concert Choir and Harvard University Choirs, Messiah with the New Bedford Symphony, BWV 182 with the Newton Choral Society, Jeptha with the Sounds of Stow and John Harbison’s opera, The Great Gatsby with Emmanuel Music.
Her recordings include music of Cozzolani and Bach on the Musica Omnia label, Shaker songs (Glissando), Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Aston Magna (Centaur) and Spanish baroque holiday music (Meridian). In 2010, she recorded the critically-acclaimed The Rose of Sharon (early American music with Ensemble Phoenix Munich) for Harmonia Mundi.
David Ripley
Recent performance highlights include performances at the Metropolitan Museum Cloisters Musical Theater, the premier of Kaddish, by New Hampshire composer Larry Siegel an oratorio work based on testimony from Holocaust survivors, the premier of Lori Dobbins’ The Rage of Achilles in Jordan Hall, Ernst Bloch’s Sacred Service with the Brattleboro Music Center, Bach’s St. John Passion at the University of New Hampshire, a performance of his own work, Wounded Dove, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. at the New Hampshire State House and with the UNH Dance Company. Recent recordings include The Songs of Johnny Mercer with Boston Musical Theater, and Enoch Arden with pianist Chad Bowles, a melodrama by Richard Strauss.
Mr. Ripley is professor of music at the University of New Hampshire where he teaches voice and directs the Opera workshop, which recently presented Victor Ullman’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis, as part of a Department series entitled “Echoes of the Holocaust.” He has been a regular presence at the Aston Magna Festival for many years, appearing on two recordings, Solo Cantatas of J.S. Bach, and Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. He is a graduate of Harvard and the New England Conservatory.
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Michael Sponseller
Michael Sponseller is recognized as one of the outstanding American harpsichordists of his generation. A highly diversified career brings him to festivals and concert venues all around in recital, concertosoloist, partner to several of today’s finest musicians, and as an active continuo performer on both harpsichord and organ. He studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Lisa Goode Crawford with additional studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music, The Hague. In the next few years, he garnered prizes at the International Harpsichord Competitions of Montréal (1999), the International Harpsichord Competition at Bruges (1998, 2001) as well as First Prizes at both the American Bach Soloists and Jurow International Harpsichord Competitions.
Mr. Sponseller appears regularly as harpsichordist and continuo organist with several of American’s finest baroque orchestras and ensembles, such as Bach Collegium San Diego, Les Délices, Aston Magna,Tragicomedia, and the Boston Early Music Festival orchestra and can heard on many recordings from Delos, Centaur, Eclectra, and Naxos et al. At home, Michael is a regular presence at Boston’s Emmanuel Music, having performed over 100 sacred cantatas.His various recordings include a diverse list of composers, including Bach, Handel, Rameau, Praetorius and Laurenti received excellent reviews throughout the world. Early Musica America Magazine has said of his performance of the Bach Concertos, “His well-proportaioned elegance carries the day quite stylishly.” He currently is Artistic Director for Ensemble Florilege. He has been on faculty at Longy School of Music, and will be joining the faculty at Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute in 2013.
Jane Starkman
Jane Starkman received B.M. and M.M. degrees from the New England Conservatory of music. She continued her studies in Basel, Switzerland at the Schola Cantorum with Jaap Schroeder and in New York with William Lincer. While living in Basel she performed with the Radio Orchestra Basel. Ms. Starkman has performed as both a violinist and violist with many groups in the US and abroad. In Europe she has performed with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, Capella Clementina as well as ensembles in the Netherlands and Italy. Some of the ensembles Ms. Starkman performs with include the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Ensemble Florilege, and the Aston Magna Festival as well as being a founding member of The King’s Noyse. Ms. Starkman teaches at Oberlin College’s Baroque Performance Institute, Boston University, Wellesley College and has been a guest clinician at the Massachusetts Suzuki Festival and the New England Conservatory of Music.
Peter Sykes
Peter Sykes performs widely in the US and in Europe on the harpsichord, organ, clavichord, and fortepiano. He has recorded ten solo CD recordings of organ and harpsichord music, including his best-selling organ transcription of “The Planets” of Gustav Holst, and appears as a soloist and continuo player on recordings with Boston Baroque, Music from Aston Magna, and the Cambridge Bach Ensemble. He has recently completed a two-year benefit recital series (“Tuesdays with Sebastian”) in which he and Christa Rakich performed the complete works of Bach for organ and harpsichord in thirty-four concerts at five locations in the greater Boston area. In May 2005 he was honored by the New England Conservatory with its Outstanding Alumni Award. He is Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Historical Performance Department at Boston University, Director of Music at First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, and instructor of organ, harpsichord and chamber music at the Longy School of Music.
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Anne Trout
Bassist Anne Trout is active as a chamber and orchestral musician throughout North America. She has performed with many prominent ensembles sized five to 50 and recorded for Telarc, Sony Classical, Chandos, London, Musica Omnia, Centaur and others. In Boston she has served has been a principal player for the Handel and Haydn Society, Emmanuel Music, the Boston Bach Ensemble and Boston Baroque. She has appeared on NPR’s Performance Today and can be heard often on WQXR live broadcasts. She frequently performs with REBEL, the New York-based chamber ensemble, in its national tours and its residency at Trinity/Wall St. Church in lower Manhattan. Recent engagements have included the PROMS in London with Sir Roger Norrington, New York Collegium, Clarion Society (NY) and Mark Morris “Dido and Aeneas” conducted by Mark Morris, Haydn Masses with Jane Glover (NY), Saint Matthew Passion with the Grand Tour Orchestra (NY), Arcadia Players with Ian Watson, the Providence-based women’s ensemble Foundling, a Music for Shakespeare program with actors’ readings led by Philip Pickett. Recently released recordings include the Aston Magna Monteverdi L’Orfeo and a premier disk of works by Fasch with the Philadelphia-based Tempesta di Mare. Ms. Trout serves on the faculties of the Groton School, Boston College and Longy School in Cambridge.
Guiomar Turgeon
Guiomar Turgeon, violinist, is a third generation musician who has played at Tanglewood, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the French Conservatoire in Nice, the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., Early Music at Amherst, the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, and the Vatican for Pope John Paul II. She has performed in masterclasses at the invitation of Denes Zgimondy, Aaron Rosand, Joseph Silverstein, Yuri Mazurkevich, Marilyn MacDonald and Enrico Gatti. Ms. Turgeon performs with many Boston ensembles; Boston Baroque, Boston Cecilia and Chorus Pro Musica. Ms. Turgeon has performed under the direction of Christopher Hogwood, Jane Glover, Leonard Bernstein and Grant Llewelyn. Ms. Turgeon currently holds a tenured position with the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra. She coaches chamber music for Harvard University Chamber Music Society at Mather House and is artist in residence at Hill Crest Academy, Norton.
Ms. Turgeon has been recorded on Titanic, Telarc and Meridian labels.
Kristen Watson
Soprano Kristen Watson, hailed by critics for her “blithe and silvery” tone and “winning stage presence,” has made solo appearances with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Mark Morris Dance Group, Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music, at such venues as Walt Disney Concert Hall, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and Boston’s Symphony Hall. Praised for her “keen musicianship, agility and seamless control,” Ms. Watson has been recognized by the Concert Artists Guild, Oratorio Society of New York, Joy in Singing, American Bach Society, and Louisville Bach Society competitions. Opera audiences have heard her with Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Boston, Boston University Opera Institute, Opera Providence, and the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh in such roles as Tytania in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Adele in “Die Fledermaus,” and Anne Trulove in “The Rake’s Progress”. As a versatile crossover artist she has performed with the Boston Pops in programs ranging from Mozart to Richard Rodgers. Additional solo performances include the Boston Early Music Festival, Carmel Bach Festival, Cactus Pear Music Festival, Topeka Symphony, Gulf Coast Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Evansville Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Camerata, Arizona Early Music Society, Musicians of the Old Post Road and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Ms. Watson is originally from Topeka, Kansas.
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Nancy Wilson
With a repertoire ranging from early 17th-century violin solos to the string quartets of Beethoven and Schubert, Nancy Wilson is known as one of the leading early music violinists in the United States. A founding member of many of American’s pioneering period instrument ensembles, including Concert Royal, the Bach Ensemble and the Classical Quartet, she performs regularly with Aston Magna and has worked extensively with the Smithsonian Chamber Players. She has worked as concertmaster and soloist with leading conductors in early music, Jaap Schroeder, Christopher Hogwood and Nicholas McGegan among them, regularly leads period orchestra performances in New York City and the metropolitan area, and has a considerable discography to her credit. Her solo playing has been called “clear and sweet in tone, refined in articulation” by Gramophone, and “exceptionally stylish” by The Edinburgh Scotsman. A native of Detroit, Ms. Wilson holds degrees from Oberlin College and The Juilliard School. She has been invited as guest lecturer and clinician at workshops and music schools throughout the United States and Europe, currently teaches at The Mannes College of Music in Manhattan and Princeton University and has served on the faculty at the Academies of Aston Magna. Ms. Wilson can be heard in Philadelphia with Philomel, as director of Princeton University’s Richardson Baroque Players and in collaboration with Westminster Choir College and Fuma Sacra in Princeton.
Barbara Wright
Barbara Wright is a member of Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, Arcadia Players, and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. Barbara’s festival appearances include the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, the BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall in London, and the Krakow/Warsaw Beethoven Festival. She has performed throughout Europe with the Heidelberg Chamber Orchestra and in Japan and Korea with the Boston Pops. Barbara is a staff member at the Smith College Campus School.
