Artists | Aston Magna

*Asterisks indicate 2024 artists.

In Summer 2024, we are thrilled to be joined by so many of your favorite familiar artists, along with celebrated artists performing with us for the first time. We welcome them all and we welcome you as you join us. Meanwhile, we will maintain the bios of Aston Magna artists, to remind you of the depth and breadth of Aston Magna’s extensive talent over the decades and in coming seasons!

Daniel Stepner

For three decades as Aston Magna’s Artistic Director, Daniel Stepner has programmed and led vocal and instrumental music dating from 1589 through the 1850s – with occasional forays both earlier and later — always featuring period instruments and vocal styles. The Aston Magna Music Festival’s repertoire has ranged from music for solo violin to baroque and early opera, such as Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne.

Mr. Stepner was a founding member of the Boston Museum Trio at the Museum of Fine Arts and first violinist of the Lydian String Quartet at Brandeis University. He has held concertmasterships with the Handel and Haydn Society, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra and Boston Baroque. For six years he was assistant concertmaster and frequent soloist 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. He is Professor Emeritus at Brandeis University, was a Preceptor in Music at Harvard University for 20 years, and enjoyed guest teaching stints at The Eastman School, The Longy School of Music, New England Conservatory, Boston University and Smith College.

In solo recital, chamber, theatrical and orchestral settings, he has performed music from the Renaissance through 2018. Mr. Stepner is featured on over 60 commercial recordings, including the Sonatas and Partitas of J.S. Bach, the Late Quartets of Beethoven, the five Violin Sonatas of Charles Ives, (with pianist John Kirkpatrick), and major chamber works of Schubert, Brahms, John Harbison, Peter Child and Yehudi Wyner. For Aston Magna, he has led recordings of cantatas of J. S. Bach, chamber works of Mozart and Schubert, an acclaimed recording of Handel’s oratorio, The Triumph of Time and Truth, and Monteverdi’s pioneering opera L’Orfeo. 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.

Julie Andrijeski

Julie Andrijeski, violin, is a leading performer, scholar, and teacher of early music and dance. Known for her “invigorating verve and imagination” (Washington Post) and “fiery and poetic depth” (Cleveland Plain Dealer), Andrijeski performs with diverse early music groups, mainly Atlanta Baroque Orchestra (Artistic Director/Concertmaster), Quicksilver (Co-Director), and Les Délices. In 2018 she was Apollo’s Fire’s concertmaster and soloist on tenor Karim Sulayman’s Grammy award-winning album Songs of Orpheus, and is Music Director for Sulayman’s compelling new theatrical production, Unholy Wars, that premiered at the Spoleto Festival in 2022. She was appointed Head of the Historical Performance Practice Program at Case Western Reserve University Music Department in 2023 where she teaches violin/viola lessons, classes in early music performance practice, oversees the HPP ensembles, and directs the baroque music and dance ensembles. Special teaching engagements include a twice-yearly residency at the Juilliard School and invitations to lead workshops at similar institutions across the country. In 2016 Julie was awarded a Creative Workforce Fellowship from Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Arts and Culture and the Thomas Binkley Award from Early Music America in recognition for her outstanding achievement in performance and scholarship.

Anne Black

Anne Black, viola, is a multi-faceted artist fluent in many media, who enjoys a vibrant career in the performing and visual arts. She is Principal Viola of Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra and Cantata Singers and performs with many Boston-area organizations, including the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops, Boston Ballet, and the Bach, Beethoven and Brahms Society. Ms. Black is a violist of Handel & Haydn Society’s period instrument orchestra and performs frequently with the Aston Magna Music Festival. She was featured on Mozart’s own Viola, during its first trip to the US, for a live performance and recording with violinist Daniel Stepner at WGBH in June 2013. A champion of contemporary music, Ms. Black is violist of Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble and appears often with Collage New Music. She will be featured as soloist with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston in the 2023-24 season, performing Jennifer Higdon’s Viola Concerto. She is violist of the newly formed Conifer Quartet, with fellow members of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Black is a prize-winning photographer and visual artist in multiple media and maintains studios in West Concord, MA, and in Eastport, ME, where she is a member of the Eastport Gallery. www.CapriccioArts.com, www.eastportgallery.com/anne-black

Sarah Cunningham

Sarah Cunningham is recognized as one of the foremost viol players worldwide. She trained at Harvard, the Longy School of Music and with Wieland Kuijken at the Royal Conservatory in The Netherlands. Another important teacher was Marleen Montgomery, director of the legendary Quadrivium. She was co-founder, with Jeanne Lemon and Robert Hill, of Musick for the Generall Peace, with Mary Springfels and Wendy Gillespie, of Les Filled de Saint Colombe. Her move to London in 1981 saw the founding, with Monica Huggett and Mitzi Meyerson, of Trio Sonnerie, with whom she recorded most of the important chamber music for violin and viol, and toured on four continents.

She also performed and recorded with Fretwork, Hesperion XX, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, the English Concert, Les Arts Florissant, among other groups. She was invited by Sir James Galway to collaborate on his CDs and concert tours of Bach’s flute music. A double CD of solo viol music entitled “Play This Passionate”, as well as the complete Bach gamba sonatas with Richard Egarr, have received international acclaim, and she has appeared as recitalist from Helsinki to Vancouver. As concerto soloist she recorded works by Telemann with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She is on the faculty of The Juilliard School, and retires this year from Princeton University. Her fascination with improvisation has led to collaborations with dancers, poets and story-tellers. Her 2016 degree from Bryn Mawr College, in Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance, brought together visual art, creative writing, dance, and music.

Heloise Degrugillier

Heloise Degrugillier has worked extensively as both a recorder and traverso performer, and a teacher throughout Europe and the United States. She has performed with leading period ensembles, including Handel and Haydn, the Boston Camerata, Boston Early Music Festival, Piffaro and Tempesta Di Mare. Heloise also enjoys an active teaching career. She teaches at Tufts university and Rhode Island College. She is the President and Music Director of the Boston Recorder Society. She has completed her studies in the Alexander Technique and has a Masters in Music from the Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands.

Julia Glenn

Boston native Julia Glenn, violin, has been called “remarkable,” “gripping,” and “a brilliant soloist” by the New York Times and performs internationally on modern and baroque violins. She recently joined the Lydian Quartet and the faculty of Brandeis University after teaching for three years at the Tianjin Juilliard School, where she served as violin and theory faculty and was a member of the Tianjin Juilliard Ensemble. Ms. Glenn has appeared on stages including Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, Sanders Theatre, Jordan Hall, the Beijing Recital Hall, Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, and Shanghai Concert Hall. In January of 2016 she gave the world premiere of Milton Babbitt’s violin concerto to critical acclaim; her article on the work was published in 2022 in Contemporary Music Review.

With a deep interest in exploring and sharing the music and culture of China, Ms. Glenn draws on her backgrounds in phonology and Chinese language to open fresh avenues in perception and performance. Her recently recorded solo album “The Road” featuring new and recent works by Chinese-speaking composers will be released fall 2023. Ms. Glenn studied with Joseph Lin and Cynthia Roberts at Juilliard, where she received her DMA in 2018. In 2013 she obtained her master’s from New England Conservatory with James Buswell, and in 2012 her bachelor’s in linguistics magna cum laude from Harvard University. She plays a 2018 Benjamin Ruth as her modern violin and a (baroque-d) 2008 Andrew Ryan as her baroque violin.

Priscilla Herreid

Ms. Herreid’s playing has been called “downright amazing” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the New York Times has praised her “soaring recorder, gorgeously played…” She performs on recorder, period oboe, and a multitude of renaissance wind instruments, with some of the finest ensembles in the U.S. and abroad. She is principal oboist of Boston Baroque, Tempesta di Mare, The Sebastians, and New York Baroque Inc. She plays winds with Piffaro, accompanies silent films with Hesperus and sings the Latin mass in New York City. She performs regularly with The Handel + Haydn Society and Trinity Baroque Orchestra and has appeared with Philharmonia Baroque, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Venice Baroque, Portland Baroque, American Bach Soloists, The Gabrieli Consort, Tenet, the Dark Horse Consort and The City Musick. She was part of the onstage band for the Broadway productions of Twelfth Night and Richard III, and she is a founding member of the quartet New World Recorders.

Priscilla is former director of the Early Music Ensemble at Temple University. She frequently coaches renaissance and baroque ensembles at Yale University and The Juilliard School. She is a graduate of Temple University and The Juilliard School.

William R. Hudgins

William R. Hudgins was appointed by Seiji Ozawa as Principal Clarinetist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Chamber Players in 1994. He has been heard as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on numerous occasions, including performances of both Mozart and Copland’s Clarinet Concertos and works by Bruch, Krommer, Martin and Weber. Past chamber music performances include collaborations with Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Paula Robison, Barbara Bonney and the Lydian String Quartet.

Mr. Hudgins spent eight seasons with the Saito Kinen Summer Festival Orchestra in Japan and six seasons as a member of both the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Charleston, South Carolina, and Il Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italia. He formerly served as Principal Clarinet with Charleston (SC) Symphony Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfonica Municipal in Caracas, Venezuela.

Laura Jeppesen

Laura Jeppesen, player of historical stringed instruments, earned a master’s degree from Yale University and studied at the Hamburg Hochschule and the Brussels Conservatory. She has been a Woodrow Wilson Designate, a Fulbright Scholar, and a fellow of the Bunting Institute at Harvard. A prominent member of Boston’s early music community, she has long associations with The Boston Museum Trio, Boston Baroque, The Handel and Haydn Society, the Boston Early Music Festival and Aston Magna. She has been music director at the American Repertory Theater, creating music for Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage, for which she earned an IRNE nomination for best musical score. In 2015, she was part of the BEMF team that won a Grammy for best opera recording. She has performed as soloist with conductors Christopher Hogwood, Edo deWaart, Seiji Ozawa, Craig Smith, Martin Pearlman, Harry Christophers, Grant Llewellyn, and Bernard Haitink.

She has an extensive discography of solo and chamber works, including the gamba sonatas of J.S.Bach, music of Marin Marais, Buxtehude, Rameau, Telemann and Clerambault. She teaches at Wellesley College and Harvard University, where in 2015 and 2019 she won awards of special distinction in teaching from the Derek Bok Center. She is a 2017 recipient of an Andrew W. Mellon Blended Learning Initiative Grant for innovative teaching at Wellesley College. Her essay, “Aesthetics of Performance in the Renaissance: Lessons from Noblewomen,” appears in Uncovering Music of Early European Women 1250-1750, published by Routledge Studies in Musical Genres, 2019. Her most recent CD, “Marais at Midnight,” was released by Centaur in 2021.

Jeanne Johnson

Jeanne Johnson, violin, has performed and toured with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Tafelmusik, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Chatham Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, Bach Akademie Charlotte, Nashville Chamber Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, and has been concertmaster of the Washington Bach Consort and Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. Recitals include Tage Alter Musik Festival, The Frick Collection, Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments, Berkeley Early Music Festival mainstage, and the San Francisco Early Music Society, many with her Baroque trio Music of the Spheres. Radio broadcasts include Harmonia, Performance Today, and WNYC. Jeanne has also recorded violin works by Johann Jakob Walther and Jean-Fery Rebel for Centaur Records. www.jeannespheres.com

Adrienne Hyde

Adrienne Hyde is a multi-instrumentalist specializing in historical performance practice on the baroque cello, bass viol, lirone, and bass violin. She graduated from the Eastman School of Music in 2020 and in 2023 she completed her Master’s degrees in Baroque Cello and Viola da Gamba at the Juilliard School on full scholarship. At Juilliard she was a Morse Teaching Artist, a Music Advancement Program Fellow, and a Gluck Community Service Fellow, through which she taught in NYC public schools and mentored young cellists, while providing musical service to her community. Currently she is a Manager of Community Engagement and Education for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In 2023-2024 she will perform at the Boston Early Music Festival and tour with the Belgian group Vox Luminis. She will also join Trinity Wall Street Baroque Orchestra, Repast Baroque, the Sebastians, the Thirteen, Philharmonie Austin, Bach Collegium San Diego, the Helicon Foundation, and Aston Magna players for concerts all over the United States.

Adrienne is deeply committed to equity. She is a passionate artistic administrator for the Valissima Institute, a conducting training program for young women committed to gender equity in classical music. Three years ago she co- founded Open Source Baroque, a consort dedicated to playing the music of women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ composers. She is also a regular volunteer at the Mt. Sinai Psychiatric hospital, where she plays weekly in a high acuity locked ward for patients.

David Hyun-su Kim

David Hyun-su Kim, regarded “as among the finest pianists of his generation” (WholeNote), has been acclaimed as a musician who “rivals Golden Age pianists. [His playing is] brilliant artistry indeed, … nuanced and naturally phrased, clear and poetic… A performer of artistry, integrity, and interest” (Early Music America). David’s early interests were in math, philosophy, and chemistry, and he matriculated at Cornell University as a Presidential Research and National Merit Scholar. A life-changing encounter with Beethoven’s piano sonatas convinced him to trade the lab stool for the piano bench and he launched himself into music, earning degrees from Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and the New England Conservatory. He has performed in Australia, South Korea, Austria, Belgium, Czechia [the Czech Republic], Italy, Germany, the UK, and throughout North America.

He has conducted residencies at Stanford, Bucknell, Indiana-Bloomington, Duke, and Pennsylvania State Universities, the Universities of Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, and Colby and Bowdoin Colleges, as well as serving as guest speaker and performer at the University of Michigan Piano Festival and the University of California-Berkeley’s Piano Institute, and appearances at the Banff, Orvieto, and Norfolk Music festivals. David is also active as a recording artist. A recent all-Schumann recording was praised as “endlessly fascinating… [T]his familiar music yields unexpected depth and a sheer beauty that is unrivaled by performances on modern instruments… playing of the highest order” (ConcertoNet). More info at: davidkimpiano.com\

Shira Kagan-Shafman

Shira Kagan-Shafman is a dancer and choreographer originally from the Boston area and is now based in New York City. Her works have premiered in theaters and museums around New York. She has performed in works by Caitlin Corbett, Kelley Donovan, Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp, Peggy Florin, Dean Moss, Rebecca Stenn, jess pretty, Joanna Kotze and Mariana Valencia. In 2021, she participated in Arts on Site Residency in process for her work, To Breathe Over Seas, which premiered in December 2021. She received her BA in Dance from the New School and spent a semester studying in Israel through DanceJerusalem. There she found a passion for Gaga and danced in Ohad Naharin repertory, including sections of Sadeh 21, Mamootot, Hora and Last Work along with performing in new works by Roni Chadash and Noa Zuk. She spent additional time in Israel for Batsheva Dance Company’s Summer Course for outstanding dance students.

Recently she premiered her work, Anchor in Continuum, in collaboration with violinist, Leandria Lott, for Poster House museum and the work was restaged for WAXworks at Triskelion Arts in April 2023. Kagan-Shafman received the 2023 B. Wilson Foundation grant for a new production coming summer 2023 and is a recipient of Mother’s Milk residency for Fall 2023. She currently works as GALLIM Dance’s Company Manager. Find more at shirakaganshafman.com/@shiraroseks

Frank Kelley

Frank Kelley has sung over one hundred opera roles with companies including the San Francisco Opera Company, Opera Theater of St. Louis, the Cincinnati Opera, the New Israeli Opera, the Theatre de la Monnaie, the Frankfurt Opera, Wexford Festival, El Gran Teatre del Liceu, The Dallas Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, Odyssey Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Boston, Florentine Opera, Opera LaFayette, and the Opera de Monte Carlo. Kelley was involved in several seminal productions directed by Peter Sellars including Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Sieben Todsünden, and Das Kleine Mahagonny—the Mozart operas were recorded by Decca and Austrian Public Television and were broadcast in the United States on the PBS show Great Performances. 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, the New World Symphony, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. He has more than twenty recordings on the Naxos, Teldec, London, Erato, Telarc, and Harmonia Mundi labels.

He has performed medieval and Renaissance music with Sequentia, the Boston Camerata, and the Waverly Consort, and he performs baroque music with Sarasa, the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Emmanuel Music, Tafelmusik, the Bach Ensemble, Concert Royal, Music of the Baroque, Opera Lafayette, the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society, and Aston Magna. In addition to the Conservatory, Kelley currently teaches at the School of Jewish Music at Hebrew College and is the voice teacher of the Ferris Fellows of Memorial Church at Harvard University.

David Kravitz

Hailed as “a charismatic baritone” by the New York Times, “magnificently stentorian and resonant” by Opera News, and “a first-rate actor” by Opera (UK), David Kravitz’s opera roles include Captain Balstrode in Peter Grimes (Chautauqua Opera), The Forester in The Cunning Little Vixen (Opera Santa Barbara), Scarpia in Tosca (Skylight Music Theatre), Leporello in Don Giovanni (Jacksonville Symphony), Don Pizarro in Fidelio (Grand Harmonie), Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola (Opera Saratoga), Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress (Emmanuel Music), Duke Bluebeard in Bluebeard’s Castle (MIT Symphony Orchestra), Wozzeck in Wozzeck (New England Philharmonic), Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof (Charlottesville Opera), and Fredrik in A Little Night Music (Opera Huntsville & Emmanuel Music). He created the lead role of Davis Miller in Approaching Ali with Washington National Opera; other contemporary opera roles include Abraham in Clemency with Boston Lyric Opera and Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby with Emmanuel Music.

He appears regularly as a guest soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, including for this season’s performances of Act III of Götterdämmerungat Tanglewood, and Lady Macbeth of Mtsenskin Boston and at Carnegie Hall; other concert appearances include the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Virginia Symphony, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Emmanuel Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Boston Baroque. Recent chamber music engagements have included the Arpeggione Ensemble for a program featuring Schoenberg’s arrangement of Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, and the Essex (CT) Winter Series for the Liebeslieder Walzer. An exceptionally versatile artist, Mr. Kravitz’s repertoire ranges from Bach to Verdi to Sondheim to cutting-edge contemporary composers such as Matthew Aucoin, Mohammed Fairouz, Paul Moravec, and Elena Ruehr. Mr. Kravitz has recorded for the Naxos, BIS, Sono Luminus, Koch International Classics, BMOP/sound, Albany Records, and New World labels. His distinguished legal career has included clerkships with the Hon. Sandra Day O’Connor and the Hon. Stephen Breyer.

Christopher Krueger

Christopher Krueger has performed as principal flutist with the Boston Symphony, the Boston Pops, 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. He is a member of Collage New Music and Emmanuel Music.

As a Baroque flutist, he has been a soloist in 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 recently retired as principal flutist with the Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Baroque after 40 years of playing for those organizations. Mr. Krueger has conducted and been a soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music.

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 f¸r Alte Musik in Brixen/Bressanone, Italy. He is currently on the faculty of Boston University, and Oberlinís Baroque Performance Institute. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Dominique Labelle

Dominique Labelle, soprano, takes greatest pride not in her rave reviews, but in her work with colleagues and in her probing explorations of the repertoire from the Baroque to new music. Her passionate commitment to music-making has led to close and enduring collaborations with a number of the world’s most respected conductors and composers, such as Iván Fischer, Nicholas McGegan, Jos van Veldhoven, Jean-Marie Zeitouni, and the Pulitzer Prize winning composer Yehudi Wyner. She also treasures her long association with the late Robert Shaw. Dominique’s many collaborations with Nicholas McGegan at Göttingen and with his Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra have included Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 “Lobgesang” and Handel’s Atalanta, Orlando, Alexander’s Feast, and Teseo,. Her appearances with Iván Fischer include the Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro in Las Palmas and Budapest; a Bach B Minor Mass in Washington, D.C.; a Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; as well as Mozart’s Requiem and a Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. She has also sung Britten’s Les Illuminations with Jean-Marie Zeitouni and I Musici de Montréal; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Brahms Requiem, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with Zeitouni and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Labelle is Chair of Voice Area at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. She has also taught master classes at Harvard University, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts. In 2018 she was a recipient of the prestigious Opera Canada Award (“The Rubies”) for her significant contributions to the opera world. During the previous year, she was honored at gala concerts by both Göttingen Handel Festival and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra for her extraordinary artistic contributions. Visit Dominique at www.dominiquelabelle.com

Andrea LeBlanc

Flutist Andrea LeBlanc is devoted to furthering the artistry and expression of the flute by performing on instruments from the baroque, classical, and romantic eras. She has been praised by Early Music America for her “sensitive and beautiful playing, with crystalline tone and execution [that] made you wonder why it was necessary to invent the Boehm system for flute” (Fall 2015). Andrea has performed and recorded with numerous ensembles in the Northeast, frequently serving as principal flute. She appears with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, the Boston Early Music Festival, Arcadia Players, Aston Magna, The Sebastians, the Connecticut Early Music Festival, Blue Hill Bach Festival, and the Big Moose Bach Festival, as well as Mercury Houston. She performs chamber music of the late-classical and early-romantic periods in recital with pianist David Hyun-Su Kim.

In 2021 Andrea co-founded the ensemble Arpeggione with clarinetist Thomas Carroll, to explore the ways in which Classical and Romantic music was historically experienced outside of the concert hall and bring innovative performances to venues around her home on Boston’s North Shore. Ms. LeBlanc holds a B.Mus. with honors and distinction in performance from New England Conservatory and a M.Mus. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she was a teaching assistant in flute and early music. She spent a year furthering her study of the traverso at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague.

Julie Leven

Violinist Julie Leven (she, her, hers) is the Founder and Artistic/Executive Director Emeritus of Shelter Music Boston. Julie created Shelter Music Boston in 2010 as a social service organization able to provide an immediate positive impact with classical music performances of the highest artistic standards in homeless shelters and substance misuse recovery centers. She received certification from the Arts Connect International Cultural Equity Curriculum in 2020, was a fellow in the 2021 and 2019 Upswell Changemakers Conferences, and received the 2014 Boston Neighborhood Fellow Award (Boston’s mini MacArthur Award). She is a member of the Handel + Haydn Society Orchestra and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. International festival appearances as a violinist include the BBC Proms in London, Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, Edinburgh Festival, Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt Austria, Krakow/Warsaw Beethoven Festival, and in the US: Aston Magna Festival, Cactus Pear Music Festival, Colorado Music Festival, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Ms. Leven has performed throughout the US, Japan, and Korea as a member of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. She has been a member of the Jerusalem Symphony, and the Aarhus Symfoniorkester in Denmark. She can be heard as a soloist on the Boston Baroque recordings of Handel Opus 6 Concerti Grossi and the Grammy nominated performance of the Monteverdi Vespers. Ms. Leven is a graduate of the BU School of Management Institute for Nonprofit Management and Leadership, and Oberlin College and Oberlin Conservatory, with degrees in English and Violin Performance.

Robert Levin

Pianist and conductor Robert Levin has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Australia and Asia, appearing with the orchestras of Atlanta, Berlin, Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Montreal, Philadelphia, Toronto, Utah and Vienna on the Steinway and with the Academy of Ancient Music, the English Baroque Soloists, the Handel & Haydn Society, the London Classical Players, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique on period pianos. Renowned for his improvised cadenzas in Classical period repertoire, Mr. Levin has made recordings of a wide range of repertoire for Bridge, DG Archiv, Decca/London, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, ECM, Hänssler, Hyperion, Klavierfestival Ruhr, Le Palais des Dégustateurs, New York Philomusica, Philips and SONY Classical. His recordings include Bach’s complete keyboard concertos, the six English Suites and both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier (Hänssler Edition Bachakademie); a Mozart concerto cycle with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music for Decca/Oiseau Lyre; the Beethoven concertos with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique for DG Archiv; the complete piano music of Dutilleux for ECM; Bernard Rands’ Preludes and Impromptu for Bridge; and the complete Beethoven sonatas and variations for fortepiano and ’cello with Steven Isserlis for Hyperion. Recent releases include the six Bach Partitas (Grand Prix International du Disque) and the complete Schubert piano trios with Noah Bendix-Balgley and Peter Wiley (Le Palais des Dégustateurs), and the complete Mozart sonatas on Mozart’s Walter piano (ECM).

A passionate advocate of new music, Robert Levin has commissioned and premiered numerous works, including Joshua Fineberg’s Veils (2001), John Harbison’s Second Sonata (2003), Yehudi Wyner’s piano concerto Chiavi in mano (Pulitzer Prize, 2006), Bernard Rands’ Preludes (2007), Thomas Oboe Lee’s Piano Concerto (2007), and Hans Peter Türk’s Träume (2012). Mr. Levin has long performed and recorded with violist Kim Kashkashian. He appears frequently with his wife, pianist Ya-Fei Chuang, in duo recitals and with orchestra, and with cellist Steven Isserlis. A noted Mozart scholar, Mr. Levin’s completions of Mozart’s Requiem and other unfinished works have been recorded and performed throughout the world. In 2005 his completion of the Mozart C-minor Mass, commissioned by Carnegie Hall, was premiered there and has since been widely heard in the United States and Europe. He has been an artist teacher at the Sarasota Music Festival since 1979 and was its Artistic Director from 2007-2016. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and member of the Akademie für Mozartforschung, he is President of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition (Leipzig, Germany). He was awarded the Bach Medal of the City of Leipzig in 2018. From 1993 to 2013 he was Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University and is presently Visiting Professor at The Juilliard School.

Catherine Liddell

Catherine Liddell, theorbo, is in high demand for her skill, sensitivity and experience as a continuo player on theorbo and lute. In her more than 35 years as a professional 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, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra, A Far Cry, Emmanuel Music and in the Aston Magna and the Boston Early Music Festivals. With the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment she performed in the US premier of Heiner Goebbel’s Songs of War I Have Seen 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 recent recording on the Centaur label, Marais at Midnight, with Laura Jeppesen, viola da gamba, has received enthusiastic acclaim. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Ms. Liddell earned the Soloist Diploma from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland. She is Lecturer in Lute in the Historical Performance Program at Boston University, teaches lute at Wellesley College, and has just completed two terms as President of the Lute Society of America.

David McFerrin

David McFerrin, baritone, hailed for his “voice of seductive beauty” (Miami Herald), has won critical acclaim in a variety of genres. His opera credits include Santa Fe Opera, Seattle Opera, Florida Grand Opera, the Rossini Festival in Germany, and numerous roles with Boston Lyric Opera and other local companies. As concert soloist he has sung with the Cleveland Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Handel and Haydn Society, and in recital at the Caramoor, Ravinia, and Marlboro Festivals. He was runner-up in the Oratorio Society of New York’s 2016 Lyndon Woodside Solo Competition, the premier US contest for this repertoire. David is also a member of the renaissance vocal ensemble Blue Heron, winners of the 2018 Gramophone award for Best Early Music Album. Recent performance highlights have included two turns as Lucifer/the Devil––one in a filmed production of Handel’s La Resurrezione with Emmanuel Music and the other in Stravinsky’s “A Soldier’s Tale” with Aston Magna Music Festival; the Cimarosa monodrama Il Maestro di Capella with Boston Baroque; and Monteverdi’s dramatic scena Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda with American Bach Soloists in the Bay Area. David lives in Natick, Massachusetts with his wife Erin, an architectural historian and preservation planner; their daughter Fiona; and black lab Holly.

Jason McStoots

Reviewers describe Jason McStoots as having an “alluring tenor voice” (ArtsFuse) and as “the consummate artist, wielding not just a sweet tone but also incredible technique and impeccable pronunciation.” (Cleveland Plain Dealer) In 2015 he won a GRAMMY award in Opera with the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) for their recording of the music of Charpentier. A respected interpreter of medieval, renaissance and baroque music, his recent stage appearances in period-style baroque opera with BEMF include Le Jeu in Les plaisirs de Versailles by Charpentier, Apollo in Orfeo, Eumete and Giove in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria both by Monteverdi. Other performances include evangelist in Bach’s St. Mark Passion (Emmanuel Music), evangelist and soloist for Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (Bach Collegium San Diego), and soloist for Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 (Green Mountain Project NYC.)

In addition to the groups mentioned above he has appeared with Boston Lyric Opera, Pacific MusicWorks, Les Délices, TENET, San Juan Symphony, The Bach Ensemble, Pablo Casals Festival, Early Music Guild of Seattle, Folger Consort, Newbury Consort, and the Tanglewood Music Center. He is a core member of the ensemble Blue Heron and can be heard on all their recordings. With BEMF, he is on recordings of Lully’s Pysché (GRAMMY nominated), Handel’s Acis and Galatea (Damon), John Blow’s Venus and Adonis (soloist), and Charpentier’s Acteon (Orphée).

Sophie Michaux

Praised for her “warm, colorful mezzo” by Opera News, Sophie Michaux has become one of North-America’s most versatile and compelling vocalists. Born in London and raised in the French alps, Sophie’s unique background informs her artistic identity, making her feel at home in an eclectic span of repertoire ranging from grand opera to French cabaret songs. Solo engagements include the role of Alcina in Caccini’s La Liberation di Ruggiero dall’Isola d’Alcina (Haymarket Opera), Olofernes in Scarlatti’s La Giuditta (Haymarket Opera), a Hawaii tour (Les Délices), the Alto solos in the Handel’ Dixit Domino (Upper Valley Baroque), DeFalla’s El Amor Brujo (Lowell Chamber Orchestra). Recent collaborations include A Far Cry, Blue Heron, Roomful of Teeth, The Lorelei Ensemble, Les Délices, The Boston Early Music Festival, Bach Collegium San Diego, Palaver Strings, and others.

Jennifer Morsches

Jennifer Morsches, cello, enjoys an international career as a versatile cellist, acclaimed for playing with “intelligence and pathos” (The Strad) and a “fine mixture of elegance and gutsiness” (Gramophone). Especially inclined towards historical performance, she is the principal cellist of Florilegium since 2000, with whom she performs around the globe and has recorded multiple award-winning discs for Channel Classics Records. She teaches Baroque chamber music & cello at London’s Royal College of Music, as well as at Dartington Summer School, UK. She is Co-Artistic Director of Sarasa Ensemble, based in Cambridge, MA, a group highly acknowledged for its outreach in youth detention centers in the Boston Metropolitan Area. Cellist of Richter Ensemble, the group has embarked on a project of recording the complete Second Viennese School string quartets on gut strings. Their first two albums, Vienna 1905-1910: Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg ©2020 and Bach’s Art of Fugue coupled with Webern’s complete published string quartets ©2023 on Passacaille Records have each received critical acclaim with 5 diapasons and the Qobuzissime prize.

In the orchestral sphere, Jennifer is a regular member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Les Siècles and Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, and has toured and recorded with eminent artists such as Sir Simon Rattle, Sir András Schiff, Vladimir Jurowski, Sir Roger Norrington, Dame Emma Kirkby, Sir Michael Chance, David Zinman, François-Xavier Roth, and Philippe Herreweghe. Jennifer graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, First Group Scholar from Smith College with degrees in Music History and German Literature, and was awarded the Ernst Wallfisch Prize in Music. She received her Master’s and Doctorate in Cello Performance as a scholarship student of Timothy Eddy at the Mannes College of Music and SUNY at Stony Brook in New York. Recipient of the CD Jackson Prize for outstanding merit and contribution at Tanglewood, she was featured on Wynton Marsalis’s educational music videos with Yo-Yo Ma.

Loretta O’Sullivan

Loretta O’Sullivan, cello, praised by the NY Times as “an agile, eloquent player,” has played with many of this country’s leading ensembles and orchestras. On period instruments, these include the Four Nations Ensemble, Opera Lafayette, Aston Magna, Artek, the New York Collegium, the Haydn Baryton Trio, the Classical Quartet, and the American Classical Orchestra. In concerts and recordings, she has given memorable performances of Bach, Biber, and Britten for solo cello, concertos of Vivaldi and Porpora and Fiorenza, obbligato cello arias of Caldara and Handel, and a wide range of chamber music. She recorded the complete Op. 5 sonatas of Francesco Geminiani, with the Four Nations Ensemble, for Orchid Classics.

As principal cellist of Opera Lafayette, she has performed at Versailles, the Kennedy Center and the Rose Theater, and has recorded for Naxos. As principal cellist with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, and featured artist in 2023, Loretta performed the CPE Bach cello concerto in A minor, the Vivaldi concerto for two cellos, and Sarah Quartel’s “Snow Angel” for solo cello and children’s choir. In collaboration with Francine Ringold, former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma, Loretta set several poems for solo cello entitled “Bird Songs.”

Robinson Pyle

Robinson Pyle, trumpet, performs extensively on both modern and historic instruments. He is currently principal trumpet with the Plymouth Philharmonic. Formerly, Mr. Pyle had been a principal with Boston Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, and The Lyra Concert. He has appeared as a guest artist with numerous ensembles, including the Purcell Society of Boston, Portland Symphony Orchestra, Grand Harmonie, Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Albany Symphony, Boston Cecilia, Handel and Haydn Society, Ensemble Caprice, and Washington Bach Consort. As a jazz performer, Mr. Pyle has played in bands with such legends as saxophonist Joe Henderson, trombonist J. J. Johnson, and trumpeter Donald Byrd, and has appeared at the House of Blues. He has recorded for the Linn, Telarc, Eclectra, Interscope, OJE, and A2Z labels, and has been featured in radio broadcasts on WGBH, WCRB, WCLV, WKSU, National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and European Community Radio. Mr. Pyle currently teaches in the Historic Performance Department at Boston University and is a faculty member in the Wellesley Public Schools. He has been a guest lecturer in Historical Performance at Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts, and has delivered lectures in Musical Acoustics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University, Dartmouth College, and the Acoustical Society of America. He lives with his wife, Julie, and their two cats, Rose and Lily. In his spare time, Mr. Pyle enjoys kayaking and photographing nature, often at the same time. He holds a degree in Trumpet Performance from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music.

Mack Ramsey

Mack Ramsey is a specialist in performance of Renaissance and baroque music on instruments of the periods, playing sackbut, recorder and Renaissance flute. He makes his home in the Boston area, but he is frequently called upon to appear with baroque orchestras across the continent, performing on historical trombones of the baroque, classical and romantic eras. Mack Ramsey is a specialist in performance of Renaissance and baroque music on instruments of the periods, playing sackbut, recorder and Renaissance flute. He makes his home in the Boston area, but he is frequently called upon to appear with baroque orchestras across the continent, performing on historical trombones of the baroque, classical and romantic eras.

This season has included performances with the Staunton Music Festival, Pegasus Ensemble, Apollo’s Fire, The Thirteen, Piffaro Renaissance Band, Philharmonia Baroque, Tenet Vocal Artists and Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society.

Deborah Rentz Moore

is known for her “deep, radiant clear tone” (Early Music America) and an her “effortlessly warm and resonant mezzo, with exquisite control over vibrato” (Boston Classical Review). She enjoys frequent solo collaborations with Aston Magna, as well as celebrated ensembles Emmanuel Music and The Boston Camerata. Her solo engagements with the Boston Early Music Festival, Handel+Haydn Society, Tapestry, Voices of Music, Ensemble Phoenix Munich, Terezín Music Foundation and Magnificat Baroque have brought her to such venues as Lincoln Center, the Paris Philharmonie, Utrecht Early Music Festival, Prague Spring Festival, Boston Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, Boston MFA and Tanglewood.

Specializing in vocal works of the Baroque and earlier, Ms. Rentz-Moore’s vocal pursuits are nonetheless expansive, with many notable premieres of new music, highlighting repertoires of under-represented composers, and featuring popular vocal styles in diverse vocal ranges.

Her recordings on Musica Omnia, Centaur, Meridian and Harmonia Mundi span genres and eras, from Monteverdi, Cozzolani and Bach to early American, Shaker and 21st-century works. She appears on video with Voices of Music, Emmanuel Music, The Boston Camerata and the University of New Hampshire, where she is Resident Artist in Voice. Her students have won and placed at chapter and regional NATS auditions in classical, contemporary music and musical theatre divisions. Ms. Rentz-Moore is featured on The Boston Camerata’s critically-acclaimed “Free America” and “Hodie Christus Natus Est” recordings.

Edson Scheid

Edson Scheid has been praised for his “polished playing” (The Strad), for being “more than equipped to deal with the virtuosic challenges” (Seen and Heard International), and for being “both musically and technically one of the most assured and accomplished of today’s younger period violinists” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer). His performance of Strauss’s song Morgen at Carnegie Hall was described as follows: “The concertmaster, Edson Scheid, proved a worthy foil as violin soloist” (The New York Times). A native of Brazil, Scheid has performed with such ensembles as Les Arts Florissants, Il Pomo d’Oro, the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Juilliard415, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Sejong Soloists, NOVUS NY, the Aston Magna Music Festival, Orchester Wiener Akademie, and the Aspen Festival Orchestra.

He is the two-time winner of the Historical Performance Concerto Competition at The Juilliard School, and recipient of the Broadus Erle Prize at the Yale School of Music. Edson Scheid’s many performances of Paganini’s 24 Caprices, on both period and modern violins, have been received with enthusiasm around the world. He has performed the Caprices in cities in Europe, North and South America, and Asia, and has been featured live in-studio on In Tune from BBC Radio 3.

His recording of the Caprices on the baroque violin for the Naxos label has been critically acclaimed: “Far from being mere virtuoso stunts, Scheid’s Caprices abound in the beauty and revolutionary spirit of these works…” (Fanfare Magazine). As a chamber musician, he has performed as a violinist and a violist in festivals including the Juilliard Chamberfest, Utrecht Early Music Festival, Dans les Jardins de William Christie, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. He holds degrees from the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg, the Yale School of Music and The Juilliard School, where he was a recipient of a Kovner Fellowship.

Aaron Sheehan

Aaron Sheehan regularly performs in the United States, South America, and Europe. Known especially for his singing of the French Baroque, he also enjoys a reputation as a first-rate interpreter of the works of Bach, Handel and Mozart. He sang the title role in Boston Early Music Festival’s Grammy Award-winning recording of Charpentier’s opera La déscente d’Orphée aux enfers.

He has performed concerts at Staatsoper Berlin, Concertgebouw, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Early Music Festivals of Boston (BEMF), San Francisco, Vancouver, Washington DC, Carmel, Regensburg and the Halle Handel Festival. He also works regularly with AKAMUS, Boston Baroque, Handel and Haydn Society, Opera Lafayette, Pacific Music Works, Philharmonia Baroque and Tafelmusik.

Aaron Sheehan currently teaches historical performance voice at Boston University.

Michael Sponseller

Michael 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 be 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-proportioned elegance carries the day quite stylishly.” He currently is Artistic Director for Ensemble Florilege. He has been on faculty at the Longy School of Music at Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute.

Peter Sykes

Peter Sykes is a core faculty member and principal instructor of harpsichord at the Historical Performance Department of the Juilliard School in New York City.
He has taught at the University of Michigan, New England Conservatory, Boston University, and the Longy School of Music. He also has been Music Director at First Church in Cambridge since 1985, directing the choir and playing their 1972 Frobenius organ. He performs extensively in recital and has made ten solo recordings of organ and harpsichord repertoire ranging from Buxtehude,
Couperin and Bach to Reger and Hindemith and his acclaimed organ transcription of Holst’s “The Planets.” Newly released is a recording of the complete Bach harpsichord partitas on the Centaur label, and an all-Bach clavichord recording on the Raven label; soon to be released will be the complete Bach works for violin and harpsichord with Daniel Stepner. He often performs and teaches in Europe, and has been a judge in numerous harpsichord and organ playing competitions. A founding board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society as well as past president of the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, he is the recipient of the Chadwick Medal and Outstanding Alumni Award from the New England Conservatory, the Erwin Bodky Prize from the Cambridge Society for Early Music, and the Distinguished Artist Award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation.

Anne Trout

Bassist Anne Trout has been active in historical performance for many years. She regularly performed, toured and recorded with most of the prominent historical performance ensembles in North America including Handel & Haydn Society, REBEL, Aston Magna, Trinity Wall Street, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, Tafelmusik, American Classical Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Clarion Society, Concert Royal, Opera Lafayette, Washington Bach Consort, Atlantic Trio, Sarasa, The Sebastians, Emmanuel Music. She has performed in productions with choreographer Mark Morris and in modern re-stagings of baroque and classical masterworks by directors Peter Sellars, Jonathan Miller and R.B. Schlather. She performed at the Edinburgh Festival with Christopher Hogwood and at the BBC Proms under Roger Norrington. She played Haydn at the Esterhazy Palace and Handel in Rome. As part of the Green Mountain Project, Anne was performing Monteverdi Vespers in Venice in early 2020.

Last year she joined Philadelphia-based Tempesta di Mare on its tour of Germany where it was featured at the Telemann Festival. She regularly performs with FOUR NATIONS on its Manhattan concerts and its guest appearances in Detroit. She served as principal bass for the inaugural concerts of K366, a NYC classical period ensemble formed in 2021. Anne has been part of coastal Maine’s Blue Hill Bach Festival every summer since its formation 10 years ago. Other recent engagements include the NYC-based ACRONYM, Dryden Ensemble in Princeton, Isabella Ensemble at Boston’s Gardner Museum, Ensemble Altera directed by Christopher Lowery, Upper Valley Baroque led by Filippo Ciabatti, Portland Bach Experience. Anne serves on the faculties of Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge and Boston College. She is guardian of a rare fully-restored Brescian bass made by Giovanni Paolo Maggini in 1610, one of only three extant.

Kristen Watson

Soprano Kristen Watson, hailed by critics for her “blithe and silvery” tone (Boston Globe) and “striking poise” (Opera News) has made solo appearances with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Mark Morris Dance Group, American Classical Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music, at such venues as Walt Disney Concert Hall, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and Boston’s Symphony Hall. Opera audiences have heard her with Odyssey Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Boston, Boston University Opera Institute, Opera Providence, and the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh in such roles as Anne Trulove in The Rake’s Progress, Tytania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Voice of the Fountain in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar directed by Peter Sellars. 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, and 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 North Carolina Symphony, Trinity Wall Street, Masterwork Chorus of New Jersey, Duke Chapel Choir, Carmel Bach Festival and San Francisco Early Music Society, as well as frequent appearances with New England-based organizations such as the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Boston Early Music Festival, Musicians of the Old Post Road, Sarasa, Arcadia Players, and A Far Cry. Originally from Kansas, Ms. Watson holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and Boston University.

Charles Weaver

Charles Weaver, lute, is on the faculty of the Juilliard School, where he teaches performance practice and historical music theory. He has been assistant conductor for Juilliard Opera and has participated in opera productions at the University of Maryland, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Princeton University, Yale University, and the Boston Early Music Festival. As a collaborative musician, he has performed with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Virginia Symphony. In addition to being a regular member of the ensemble Quicksilver, his chamber-music projects have included engagements with Piffaro, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Folger Consort, Apollo’s Fire, Blue Heron, the Newberry Consort, and Musica Pacifica. He is organist and choirmaster at St. Mary’s Church in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he specializes in the liturgical performance of medieval and renaissance music. He holds a PhD in music theory from the City University of New York. His research interests include the rhythm of Gregorian chant and the history of the theory of harmony.

Jacques Lee Wood

Cellist, Jacques Lee Wood has performed around the world as a solo artist, chamber, and orchestral musician. His activities as a performer reflect a varied and broad range of interests. Historical performance on period instruments, commissioning new works for both modern and baroque cello, improvisation that incorporates live electronics, and composing his own material are just a few of the areas he explores in his creative scope.

Dr. Wood is Principal Cello of the Cape Symphony and is a member of several musical groups including Aston Magna, StringLab, Pedroia Quartet, Triop Klaritas, Antico Moderno, and the NYC-based bluegrass band Cathedral Parkway. He is a frequent guest artist with A Far Cry, House of Time, Yale Schola Cantorum, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Bachsolisten Seoul, Bach Collegium Japan, Juilliard 415, Firebird Ensemble, and the Handel and Haydn Society. A recognized pedagogue, Wood holds faculty positions at the University of New Hampshire, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, Milton Academy, and Concord Academy.

Because of his diverse musical interests, Dr. Wood is an active guest lecturer and clinician and has presented on a wide range of topics: from Historical Performance Practice to Music Technology in the Pedagogical Process. He is currently on the faculty of the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (Yale Summer School), Summer Youth Music School (University of New Hampshire), and is a frequent guest artist at the Great Mountains Festival (South Korea), Korea Strings Research Institute, Bari International Music Festival, Banff Centre, Avaloch Farm, Aston Magna, and the Manchester Summer Chamber Music Festival.

As a recording artist, Wood has released recordings on the Hyperion and Navona labels. Dr. Wood completed his BM at the New England Conservatory of Music under Laurence Lesser, and holds a MM and DMA from Yale University, where he studied with Aldo Parisot.

Administrative Staff

Susan B. Obel, Executive Director

A life-long music lover, and presently a singer with The Cecilia Chorus in New York City, Susan Obel 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.” She next 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 public relations and fundraising with Theatreworks/USA, the nation’s preeminent professional theater for young and family audiences. An early enthusiast of early music performed on original instruments, Susan is delighted to help bring Aston Magna to a wider audience.