2022-23 Artists
Jason Salt, lasers
Salty Robot Productions
(Bach Lit)
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Being in love with laser his whole life, Jason Salt has been providing immersive abstract laser art to the entertainment scene since 2007. His first show was at the IEEE annual banquet and featured a self-built single color laser projector and used function generators out of the college lab to perform live abstracts to music. Intrigued with how laser projectors work, Jason started building his own systems in his garage. In 2013 Jason built his first full color RGB system. This was also the first system that interfaced with control software providing recording capabilities. Using Mathematics and Science, Jason was able to transform a laser into an artistic display of abstract colors and patterns and sync it to music. Learning about various hardware and software platforms Jason decided to build a custom live performance console. The console features old school analog controls, as well as new school digital controls. What really sets his console apart are the two laser projector preview windows. Jason made his debut into the professional scene in 2017 by winning first place for abstract show, at the International Laser Display Association annual conference. With the power of the live console and the recognition of the community Jason formed Salty Robot Productions in 2018. Salty Robot Productions has been working out of the Charlotte NC area and has been able to provide laser FX for the Carolina Panthers and All Elite Wrestling. Live laser shows have been included with Western Piedmont Symphony in Newton NC, Yuri’s Night at Kennedy Space Center, and at Bach Akademie Charlotte. Salty Robot Productions partnered with local cellist Kelvin Chang to form Chromatic Strings in 2022, blending classical cello music with abstract laser entertainment.
Bonnie Thron,cello
(Bach Lit)
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Bonnie Thron joined the North Carolina Symphony as principal cellist in 2000. She is an active chamber musician and recitalist and locally has been a guest artist with the Mallarmé Chamber Players and the Ciompi Quartet, as well as occasionally joining the Jacobowitz-Larkin Duo to form a clarinet trio called Three For All. In the Washington, D.C. area, she has recently been a guest with the American Chamber Players and performs regularly on the Washington Musica Viva series. In the summers, she plays in the Sebago Long Lake Music Festival in Maine.
Previously Thron was a member of the Peabody Trio, in residence at the Peabody Institute, during which time the group won the Naumberg chamber music competition. Early in her career Thron was assistant principal cellist of the Denver Symphony for a season and has performed and recorded with the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble. She has had a long history with the Apple Hill Chamber Players, as a guest artist and chamber music coach, and was involved in the group’s first Playing for Peace tour to the Middle East in 1991. Thron has performed concertos with the North Carolina Symphony, the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, the Juilliard Orchestra, the Panama National Orchestra, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and various other orchestras in North Carolina and her original home state of New Hampshire.
Thron received both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from The Juilliard School. Her teachers include Lynn Harrell, Norman Fischer, and Elsa Hilger. Thron also received a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and worked as a nurse for several years at Johns Hopkins Hospital and as a case manager in home care nursing, during which time she was also a cello teacher at the Baltimore School for the Arts.
Juan Álamo, marimba
(Bach Lit)
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Dr. Juan Álamo is an internationally known performer, composer, and educator. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees with Jazz as related field from the University of North Texas.
Originally from Cidra, Puerto Rico, Dr. Álamo has presented solo recitals at universities and percussion and jazz festivals throughout the United States, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. He has been featured as a soloist and with Jazz ensembles in television and radio shows in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela, and the United States. Currently Juan is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Percussion Ensemble at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
As a Marimba soloist and percussionist, Álamo has presented recitals in different areas of United States, Central and South America and the Caribbean. Dr. Alamo has been featured in TV and Radio shows in Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the United States.
His first solo marimba recording, Remembrance, was released in 2007. It features standard repertory as well as two of his compositions for marimba. In 2014, Dr. Álamo released his second CD, entitled Marimjazzia, featuring original compositions and arrangements of jazz standards such as “Afro Blues” and “Waltz for Debby.” Marimjazzia was selected to represent Parma Records at the 58th Grammy Awards in the category of “Best Latin Jazz Album,” and “Best Instrumental Solo.” His 2016 recording, Pursuing Freedom, was selected to represent Albany Records at the 2017 Latin Grammy Awards in the category of “Best Solo Classical Album.” His 2019 Latin Jazz album reached and for four weeks remained on the list of the top 50 jazz tunes in the US, and it has been praised by critics and musicians for his unique blend of classical marimba, Latin rhythms and jazz. In September of 2021, Dr. Álamo released his fourth solo marimba album Ensoãcion. The album scheduled to be published by Summit records and it features an original composition written in the style of a Puerto Rican danza as well as Bach’s Cello suites No. 1 and No. 5, and Beethoven’s Bagatelles op. 119.
As a composer, Dr. Álamo has several pieces published by major publishing companies. In 2011, Dr. Alamo released his marimba method entitled: Music for Four Mallets. A collection of original etudes for beginners and intermediate marimba players. In 2014, Encore Mallets released his Signature Marimba Mallets, which can be purchased at Steve Weiss Music. Dr. Álamo is a performing artist and clinician for Yamaha, Meinl Percussion, and Encore Mallets Inc.
Suzanne Rousso, Viola
Mallarmé Artistic Director
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Violist Suzanne Rousso accepted an appointment as artistic director of the Mallarmé Chamber Players in 2008. In this capacity she is responsible for all aspects of Mallarme’s eclectic programming. The ensemble is known as one of the region’s most diverse collectives of musicians.
Her previous administrative and educational engagements included service as Director of Operations and Education of the Portland (Maine) Symphony and Director of Education for the North Carolina Symphony. She was on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival and served as that organization’s personnel manager.
Violist Rousso has performed with the North Carolina Symphony, as Principal violist of the Greensboro Symphony, the Vermont Symphony, the Portland Chamber Orchestra and orchestras of North Carolina Opera, Carolina Ballet, the Choral Society of Durham, PortOpera and Opera Boston.
Ms. Rousso was educated at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and at New England Conservatory, earning Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in viola performance. Her teachers included Eugene Becker, Max Aronoff, Heidi Castleman and Walter Trampler. As a high school student she was lucky to study at the prestigeous Juilliard Pre-College.
In 2009, she received a Regional Artist grant from the United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County and later a Durham Arts Council’s Emerging Artist grant that enabled her to acquire a baroque viola and enter into the field of historically-informed performance. Pursuing this interest, she attended the Amherst Early Music Festival, Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute and Tafelmusik’s winter baroque intensive. She has participated in both Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals, is a member of the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra and a regular player with Duke Chapel’s Bach Cantata Series in which Mallarmé is a musical partner.
Her service to the arts extends beyond performance and administration. She has served on the boards of the American Federation of Musicians Local #500 and Arts North Carolina, an advocacy organization for arts and arts education in NC.
Andrea Edith Moore, soprano
(The Life of a Bee)
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…brings to her performances an “opalescence that is particularly served by her impressive phrasing and inherent musicality” (operagasm.com), and “wows audiences with her powerful and flexible soprano voice, her acting ability, and her dedication and drive” (CVNC). Andrea has enjoyed a wide range of collaborations with artists and ensembles including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Gerhardt Zimmermann, David Zinman, Eighth Blackbird, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance company, the Hamburger Kammeroper, My Brightest Diamond and the Red Clay Ramblers.
Equally comfortable in the music of our time and of the distant past, she has starred in roles ranging from The Governess in Britten’s Turn of the Screw, Micaëla in Carmen, Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Sara in Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain. An accomplished concert soloist, she has garnered acclaim for her interpretations of solo cantatas, lieder and chanson, orchestral, choral and opera concerts at venues ranging from Teatro Colon, NC Symphony, El Paso Symphony Orchestra, the Duke Chapel, the NC HIP Music Festival, the Munich Residenz to the Richard Tucker Foundation.
Andrea’s commitment to voices from her home state of North Carolina has led her to commission, premiere, and perform composers including Kenneth Frazelle, Daniel Thomas Davis, Allen Anderson, Robert Ward, and numerous others. She produced, premiered, and developed Family Secrets: Kith and Kin and is especially proud to feature this new work as her debut recording released on Albany Records in 2020. Hailed as “A major new work… Five stars: A fascinating new chamber opera… Moore’s singing is hauntingly intense.” (Fanfare Magazine) “This is a slice of southern culture that could easily pass under your radar, and that would be unfortunate.” (American Record Guide) The album was a 2022 GRAMMY nominee under producer Elaine Martone’s “Classical Producer of the Year” nod. Her second album My Soul is All but Out of Me featuring four living American composers, is awaiting release later this year.
Andrea is a prizewinner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, was a fellow with four-time GRAMMY winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird at the Blackbird Creative Lab and has twice received the Yale School of Music Alumni Award. She holds degrees from Yale University, Peabody Conservatory of Music at The Johns Hopkins University and UNC School of the Arts. She served on the voice faculty of UNC Chapel Hill for seven years and currently lives, sings and teaches full-time in Durham. She currently serves on the board of Mallarmé Music. With her husband Shannon Healy she owns the acclaimed craft cocktail bar Alley Twenty Six which was recently nominated for the 2022 James Beard Foundation Awards Outstanding Bar Program.
Grace Lin Anderson, Cello
(The Life of a Bee)
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…has earned a reputation for “transforming performance” (Classical Voice of North Carolina), award-winning teaching and artistic direction.
As a soloist and chamber musician, Anderson has performed throughout North America and Europe, including recitals and chamber music concerts at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Bargemusic, Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center, Los Angeles Museum of Art, Caramoor Music Festival, and the historical Trinity Church on Wall Street, where her performance of the Schubert String Quintet was featured on BBC.
An active performer and interpreter of contemporary music, Anderson has premiered cello duets with cellist Fred Sherry in A Great Day in New York at Merkin Concert Hall, performed at Le Festival de Rugissants for contemporary music in France, and served as cellist of the contemporary music ensemble in residence at the Aspen Music Festival. Locally, the versatile cellist has performed at the Eastern Music Festival, Bechtler Museum for Modern Art and Wake Forest University’s Secrest Artists Series. Her 2022-23 season includes chamber music concerts at Queens University, Davidson College and UNC School of the Arts.
A graduate of Harvard University and the Juilliard School, Anderson is passionate about teaching and creating artistic communities. As the founder and director of Triad Chamber Music, Anderson programmed concerts for the Reynolda House Museum for American Art and directed the Young Performers Chamber Music Workshop.
LaToya Lain, Soprano
(The Life of a Bee)
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Applauded for her “wonderfully rich,” “powerful,” and “captivating” voice, American singer LaToya Lain, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, is a member of the voice faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well as the Metropolitan Opera Chorus.
Equally at home in the teaching studio and on the performance stage, LaToya continues to perform solo recitals, oratorio, and opera worldwide. She was recently a member of the GRAMMY Award-winning cast of Porgy and Bess at The Metropolitan Opera in New York City and last season, she returned to The Met for performances in Terrance Blanchard’s jazz opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, and Verdi’s Requiem.
Ms. Lain’s operatic roles include “Clarissa Davis” in Sanctuary Road, “Brünnhilde” in Die Walküre, “Countess Almaviva” in Le Nozze di Figaro, the title role in Carmen, “Suzuki” in Madame Butterfly, “Polinesso” in Ariodante, “La Principessa” in Suor Angelica, “Baba” in The Medium, and “Ježibaba” in Rusalka.
Dr. Lain’s research also includes the intensive study and performance practice of Negro Spirituals. She has performed her lecture recital “Narrative of a Slave Woman: Songs of Hope, Justice, and Freedom” on concert stages and at universities throughout the world. Consequently, she was one of 57 voice professors and singers invited to author a short chapter in The Voice Teacher’s Cookbook: Creative Recipes for Teachers of Singing.
Jeffery Beam, Poet
(The Life of a Bee)
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…work is hailed for its “transcendent, lush beauty, its minimal sacrament, simplicity and physicality” fuses through Gnostic intention the physical and spiritual worlds, creating a conversation between the natural world, the body, and the spirit. Known for collaborations with visual and musical artists, he is the author of over 25 award-winning works of poetry including Verdant, Spectral Pegasus/Dark Movements with Welsh painter Clive Hicks-Jenkins, Gospel Earth, The Broken Flower, The New Beautiful Tendons: Collected Queer Poems 1969-2012, a two CD spoken word collection What We Have Lost: New & Selected Poems 1977-2012, and co-editor of Jonathan Williams: The Lord of Orchards, the seminal anthology about his mentor. Tonight’s concert and the accompanying book Troubadour: Collaborations and Inventions in Music 1971-2023, are testaments to his own work in musical creation, and the many composers, beginning with Lee Hoiby, who have been inspired by his poetry. A retired UNC botanical librarian and Editor Emeritus of the literary journal Oyster Boy Review, Beam lives at Golgonooza at Frog Level outside of Hillsborough, North Carolina with his husband of 43 years, Stanley Finch, and their marvelous cats Vita Stevie Stein and Virginia Sitwell Toklas.
Kevin Streich, Clarinet
(The Life of a Bee)
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…balances an active performing and teaching career. He is Adjunct Professor of Clarinet at UNC-Pembroke and teaches several students in his home studio in Raleigh. He has also served on the Instrumental Music faculty for fifteen years at the NC Governor’s School East campus. He is Principal Clarinetist with the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle and plays regularly with the North Carolina Symphony, NC Ballet, and NC Opera. His other performing engagements include the Cape Fear New Music Festival, Mallarmé Music, Union Symphony Orchestra, Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra, Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra, and the Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra (Lansing, MI).
He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Michigan State University, a Master of Music from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Connecticut. He is also a teacher and practitioner of the Alexander Technique, having trained at the Chesapeake Bay Alexander Studies program in Greensboro, NC. Kevin lives in Raleigh, NC with his furry friend Ziva, a thoroughly spoiled brown tabby. When he is not playing or teaching the clarinet, he enjoys experimenting with culinary delights in the kitchen.
Daniel Spiegel, Piano
(The Life of a Bee)
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…received his Master of Music degree in Piano Performance at The Juilliard School, previously studying at Peabody Conservatory and Johns Hopkins university. He has won numerous competitions and awards, leading to solo performances with the National Symphony Orchestra and recitals at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. He has also collaborated with renowned artists such as Joshua Bell, Edgar Meyer, and Midori, performing at venues such as Jazz at Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
After several years as a free-lance musician, he began a law career. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he serves as Policy Counsel and Property/Drug Team Lead at the Durham County District Attorney’s Office. He also served for seven years as organist/accompanist at Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Durham. He continues to find his voice improvising at the piano. Recent performance highlights include a concert at Durham’s Sharp Nine Gallery of Brad Mehldau’s “Suite: April 2020,” where Spiegel also offered selections by Keith Jarrett, another hero of his. In 2013, he released his first solo album, “Pilgrim,” a country music journey of love and salvation infused by elements of classical and jazz. And in 2021, he released an album based on his experience as a church musician during the pandemic, “Seeking Sanctuary.”
Robbie Link, Violone
(Baroque ABC’S)
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The short, simple story: I love music. I love music and I love sharing music through performance and through teaching. It’s what I love the most. Well, almost. There’s dark chocolate and cats and the beautiful woods of North Carolina and family and friends and so many other things but, music – that’s the thread that runs through it all.
I love all kinds of music. I grew up listening to classical music almost exclusively until high school when the influences of blues and rock and folk snuck in via my various friends. My bass teacher from 5th grade until I left high school, Marvin Lewis, guided me through the orchestral literature and the solo works for bass while my friends slipped me records by John Lee Hooker, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Jefferson Airplane, Pentangle and others. Late in high school I discovered late night jazz on the radio and later, in college at Indiana University School of Music, I studied jazz improvisation with David Baker alongside my classical studies with Murray Grodner.
Before, during, and since college I’ve performed in symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, big bands and small jazz ensembles, rock, latin, and folk groups both American and International. I’ve done hundreds of recording sessions, am active in the HIP (historically informed performance) movement playing viola da gamba and violone, have hosted and performed in several jazz series, accompanied singers of all kinds, and teach students of all ages.
In the academic world I taught double bass at East Carolina University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, and for 30 years taught bass and cello and coached the young ensembles at the Duke University Pre-Collegiate String School. Currently I teach bass, cello, and viola da gamba at my home studio overlooking New Hope Creek equidistant from Chapel Hill, Durham, and Hillsborough and easily accessible from Raleigh and I-40.
I have a strong interest in technology and computers – I had one of the early Commodore 64 computers when they first came out in the 80’s – and love the open internet and all the information available to anybody. I’ve helped many folks get started on the web and currently host websites for several artists/musicians and arts organizations. And while I do often play in ensembles with electronic instruments and amplify my instruments when needed, my favorite sound is that of a wooden instrument with strings and bow played in a good sounding room full of attentive listeners.
Andrew Bonner, Violin
(Baroque ABC’S)
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Andy Bonner is an active performer on both baroque and modern violin, and teaches at Duke and Elon universities. Andy grew up in Durham and holds a DMA degree from UNC-Greensboro, as well as degrees from the Eastman School of Music and UNC-Chapel Hill. He has performed with five professional symphonies and with acclaimed smaller ensembles including Ossia, the Duke New Music Ensemble, the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, Mallarme Music and the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, and in venues including the Piccolo Spoleto Festival (with Chamber Music Charleston) and the Boston Early Music Fringe Festival (with the Duke Vespers Ensemble), played with Edgar Meyer in a masterclass, and provided solo improvisation in a Moth Mainstage show. Andy’s doctoral dissertation focused on the 1627 Capriccio Stravagante, which uses a violin ensemble to imitate trumpets, shawms, organs, cats, dogs, roosters, and more.
Martha Perry, Violin
(Biber Bowl Revisited)
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lives in Bloomington, Indiana. Her playing has been called “ideally realized…taut and loaded with nuance” by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ms. Perry performs with many U.S. period instrument ensembles including the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra and Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, the Washington Bach Consort, Opera Lafayette of Washington, D. C., the Dallas Bach Society, and Foundling Baroque Orchestra. Having appeared in productions with the National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, at Wolftrap, for the Magnolia Baroque Festival, St. Louis, and Bloomington Early Music Festival, the Victoria Bach Festival, and in Italy’s 2003 Musica nel Chiostro, Martha also performs regularly with Bourbon Baroque, Quince, Ensemble Voltaire, The Comic Intermezzo, Musika Ekklesia, and on Chicago’s Ars Antigua Presents early music series. Martha has been heard in a live international broadcast on Chicago’s WFMT radio, on the early music program Harmonia, and on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” and has recorded for Edition Lilac, Musica Omnia, Naxos, WFIU, the National Cathedral, and Concordia Records. Ms. Perry completed her Master of Music in Early Music Performance at Indiana University, where she was a student of Stanley Ritchie, and served as Ritchie’s graduate assistant for the Baroque orchestra. Martha has served as the Interim Executive Director for the 2005 Bloomington Early Music Festival.
David Wilson, Violin
(Biber Bowl Revisited)
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has performed extensively with period instrument ensembles in the United States and Europe, including Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra, and Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, and as concertmaster with Jubilate Baroque Orchestra, the California Bach Society, Apollo Baroque Orchestra, the Dayton Bach Society, and Ensemble Musical Offering.
An avid chamber musician, he performs with Magnificat, the Albany Consort, Ensemble Vermillian, and Lux Musica, and he is a founding member of Florilegia, Ensemble Seicento, Aurora Baroque, and the Galax Quartet. A co-founder of the Bloomington Early Music Festival, he performs regularly at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Berkeley Early Music Festival, and the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival. He has taught Baroque violin at Indiana University, where he earned the Doctor of Music degree in Early Music, and he holds degrees in violin from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Georg Muffat on Performance Practice, published by Indiana University Press.
Joey O’Donnell, Viola
(Biber Bowl Revisited)
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, baroque violin and viola, lives in central North Carolina where he has been performing and teaching for the last eight years. In recent history he has performed with Seraphic Fire, the nationally-acclaimed chamber choir (early music through contemporary) based in Miami; and with the English Country Dance band Collard Greene, Wild Rose, and various Broadway touring shows. He performs with regional early music ensembles, maintains a studio of thirty students, and leads the Meredith College Fiddlers, a reading group for youngsters.
Jennifer Streeter, Harpsichord
(Biber Bowl Revisited)
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has performed throughout the United States and Europe with ensembles such as the North Carolina, Indianapolis and Seattle Baroque Orchestras, Piedmont Baroque, Ensemble 415, and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra. She has been featured at the Bloomington, Magnolia Baroque and Amherst Early Music Festivals. She holds masters’ degrees in recorder and harpsichord from the Early Music Institute at Indiana University, studying with Eva Legêne and Elisabeth Wright. Originally from Europe, she now calls Cary, North Carolina home where she is a freelance musician and body therapist.
Daniel Swenberg, Lute, Theorbo
(Biber Bowl Revisited)
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…plays a wide variety of lutes and guitars: baroque, renaissance, classical/romantic – small, medium, and large. Chief among these is the theorbo – the long lute that you are either wondering about or overhearing your neighbor discuss.
While based in New York, Daniel schleps instruments throughout North America and Europe to play with a wide range of ensembles: ARTEK, REBEL, The Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Jones & the Engines of Destruction, Ensemble Viscera, New York City Opera, Opera Atelier/Tafelmusik, The New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Catacoustic Ensemble, the Four Nations Ensemble, Apollo’s Fire, Handel & Hayden, The Green Mountain Project, Tenet, Skid Rococo, the Newberry Consort, with soprano Nell Snaidas, Lizzy & the Theorboys, Music of the Baroque, the Aspen Music festival opera, Staatstheatre Stuttgart, the Orchestra of St Lukes, and more. He accompanied Renee Fleming and Kathleen Battle at Carnegie Hall and is on faculty at Juilliard’s Historical Performance program.
Prior to this life’s incarnation as a Lutenist, he studied classical guitar at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and musicology at Washington University (St. Louis). His programing integrates and emphasizes music with the history, sciences, economics, politics, and broader culture of its time.
David Faircloth, Baritone
(Biber Bowl Revisited)
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is known for his vocal versatility, has been featured in musical ensembles ranging from the Washington Bach Consort to the New York City Opera National Company. The Washington Post has noted his “…rich, rangy, and intense singing,” as well as his “…colorful and richly comic portrayals.” He has also appeared with The Washington National Opera, Baltimore Opera, OperaDelaware, The Cathedral Choral Society, The Mantovani Orchestra, American Vocal Ensemble, and spent three seasons in the chorus of the Metropolitan Opera. He is currently the Program Coordinator for Chapel Music at Duke University Chapel and also serves Duke Chapel as a staff singer for its choral ensembles and for the Chapel’s Bach Cantata series.
Elizabeth Field, Violin
(Baroque ABC’S)
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Violinist Elizabeth Field, distinguished for her passionate and stylistic playing on both period and modern instruments, is the founder of The Vivaldi Project. Field is concertmaster of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem and also performs with a wide variety of ensembles throughout the US: from Washington DC’s acclaimed Opera Lafayette to the Sun Valley Summer Symphony. A former member of Brandywine Baroque, Field was also a founding member of the Van Swieten Quartet. In addition to period instrument recordings for Hungaroton, Naxos, and Dorian, Field has performed and recorded extensively for Deutsche Grammophon with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Field holds a DMA from Cornell University in 18th-century performance practice and has coached student & professional performers throughout the U.S. including at the Universities of Maryland, Illinois and Iowa, and the University of Washington. She has held professorships at Sacramento State University and the University of California at Davis, and has served twice as the Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence at Lafayette College in Easton PA. She is an adjunct professor at George Washington University. As co-director of the Institute for Early Music on Modern Instruments with cellist Stephanie Vial, she has given workshops and classes at numerous institutions, working with a variety of string players, from talented young Curtis students, Suzuki teachers and their pupils, to seasoned professional orchestral and freelance players. Her DVD with fortepianist Malcolm Bilson, Performing the Score, explores 18th-century violin/piano repertoire and has been hailed by Emanuel Ax as both “truly inspiring” and “authoritative.”
Katya Kramer-Lapin, Piano
(Music of Hope for Ukraine)
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Katya hails from Moscow City Russia, where she entered Gnessin School of Music at the age of 5, the professional institution for young, gifted children. During her studies there, Katya appeared at the Moscow State Conservatory Hall stage at the age of 13. Immediately after her graduation, Katya was granted the scholarship to study in Cologne, Germany at the Hochschuele Fuer Musik. During her concert tour to the US in 1997, Katya was invited to attend Oberlin College Conservatory, provided a full scholarship. Upon her graduation at Oberlin in 2003 Katya was invited to do her graduate work (Masters, Artist Diploma, the terminate degree in music/piano) at Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music. During her years in Bloomington, IN, Katya held the position of an Adjunct Professor of Music and Collaborative Pianist at DePauw University School of Music. Her chamber collaborations included concert appearances with the soloists of New York Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as world-renowned recitalists, chamber musicians. Katya’s recordings were often broadcasted on the National Public Radio. For two summers Katya served as faculty/guest artist at the International Summer Festival “Ameropa”in Prague, Czech Republic. Katya now resides in Cary NC, where she and her husband raise their four children.
Caroline Stinson, Cello
(Music of Hope for Ukraine)
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An active recitalist and chamber musician, Caroline is invited regularly as guest and has appeared at the Rencontres d’été Strasbourg, France, Rudersdal Sommerkoncerter, Denmark, Manchester Music, Newburyport and Caramoore Music Festivals in the USA. Since joining the Ciompi Quartet in 2018, she has performed with the group across the US, in Taiwan and Italy and has given solo recitals in New York City presented by the League of Composers and in Denmark. In 2022 she will tour Lithuania with pianist Gabrielius Alekna performing Dialogues with Beethoven including a premiere by Žibuoklė Martinaityte.
Samuel Gold, Viola
(Music of Hope for Ukraine)
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began studying the viola at the age of four with Sherida Josephson of the Des Moines Symphony. He is a graduate of the New England Conservatory, where he studied primarily with Martha Strongin Katz and Roger Tapping, and the University of Iowa, where he studied with Christine Rutledge and Elizabeth Oakes.
Gold has performed at the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Taos School of Music, and the Montreal International String Quartet Academy. In May of 2008 he performed as soloist with the University of Iowa Chamber Orchestra after winning the school’s concerto/aria competition.
Gold is currently the principal viola of the North Carolina Symphony.
Jennifer Curtis, Violin
(Music of Hope for Ukraine)
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The New York Times described violinist Jennifer Curtis’s second solo concert in Carnegie Hall as “one of the gutsiest and most individual recital programs.” She was celebrated as “an artist of keen intelligence and taste, well worth watching out for.”
Curtis navigates with personality and truth in every piece she performs. Jennifer is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and founder of the group Tres Americas Ensemble. She has appeared as a soloist with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra in Venezuela and the Knights Chamber Orchestra; performed in Romania in honor of George Enescu; given world premieres at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York; collaborated with composer John Adams at the Library of Congress; and appeared at El Festival de las Artes Esénias in Peru and festivals worldwide.
An educator with a focus on music as humanitarian aid, Jennifer has also collaborated with musical shaman of the Andes, improvised for live radio from the interior of the Amazon jungle, and taught and collaborated with Kurdish refugees in Turkey.
Jennifer joins the Haw River Ballroom’s Culture Mill in Saxapahaw, North Carolina as artist in residence and teaches a course on the art of interpretation at Duke University. She plays on a 1777 Vincenzo Panormo violin.
Jacqueline Saed Wolborsky, Violin
(Music of Hope for Ukraine)
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Wolborsky has performed at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., as a co-founder of LACE (Living Arts Collective Ensemble) and with fellow NCS musicians in a trio setting. She has performed for Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Weisel in Chicago and, in 2001, for the Vice President of the United States in Washington, D.C. She has spent past summers at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, with the Chautauqua Symphony in New York, at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in Connecticut, at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute in Chicago, at Keshet Eilon in Israel, and at the Weathersfield Festival in Vermont. She has worked with members of the Tokyo, Cleveland, and Vermeer Quartets; and with Yuri Bashmet, Joseph Silverstein, and Claude Frank, among others. She has toured with Joshua Bell, James Levine, and Mstislav Rostropovich.
Wolborsky received her bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory, as a student of Roland and Almita Vamos, and her master’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Donald Weilerstein and received her Suzuki teacher training.
Nathan Leyland, Cello
(Music of Hope for Ukraine)
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was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, later moved to Lynchburg, Virginia and began his cello studies in their public school system at the age of nine. Nathan attended the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Tchaikovsky Competition gold medalist Nathaniel Rosen, a former student and teaching assistant to the late Gregor Piatigorsky. Mr. Leyland has performed as soloist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Manchester Symphony Orchestra, The Southeastern Ohio Symphony Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, and the Welsh Hills Chamber Orchestra, to name a few. Nathan began his professional career at the age of 20, becoming the cellist of the Pioneer String Quartet. In addition to that appointment, he was Principal Cellist of The Des Moines Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Leyland moved to North Carolina in 2001 and began performing regularly with some of the area’s professional ensembles such as the North Carolina Symphony, Carolina Ballet, North Carolina Opera, North Carolina Master Chorale, and the Choral Society of Durham. Currently, he is the principal cellist of the North Carolina Opera, Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra, Tar River Symphony Orchestra, and a member of The Mallarme Chamber Players. Along with these positions, Leyland is an avid chamber musician and recitalist, having performed in venues across the U.S.
Stephanie Vial
Baroque Cello
(Baroque A,B,C’S & Biber Bowl Revisited)
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is a widely respected cellist, praised for her technical flair and expressive sense of phrasing. Vial performs regularly in early music ensembles throughout the US and has given solo and chamber music concerts, lectures, and master classes at numerous universities and institutions: including The Shrine to Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota, The University of Virginia, Duke University, and The Curtis Institute of Music. She is co-director of the period instrument ensemble The Vivaldi Project and its educational arm, the Institute for Early Music on Modern Instruments (EMMI). www.thevivaldiproject.org
Vial received her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University, an MM from Indiana University, and a DMA in 18th-century performance practice from Cornell University. Her book, The Art of Musical Phrasing in the Eighteenth Century: Punctuating the Classical “Period,” published by the University of Rochester Press, was praised by Malcolm Bilson as “inspired scholarship” and “essential reading.” She has recorded for the Dorian Label, Naxos, Hungaroton, and Centaur Records, with a recent release of string trios for MSR Classics, titled Discovering the Classical String Trio. Vial lives in Durham, N.C.
Kathryn Mueller, Soprano
(Baroque A,B,C’S)
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American soprano Kathryn Mueller thrills and connects with audiences with her crystalline sound, personal warmth and musicianship. She sings a wide range of repertoire from period baroque performances to world premieres of new works, and has been a soloist with the LA Chamber Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Phoenix Symphony, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Winston-Salem Symphony, and Tucson Symphony Orchestra.
Kathryn’s favorite concert works include Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Glière’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano, Haydn’s Creation, Bach’s St. John Passion, and anything by Mozart or Handel. She collaborates as a guest artist with the award-winning early music group Wayward Sisters, and has also sung operatic roles for Arizona Opera, the North Carolina HIP Music Festival, and Bach Collegium San Diego.
Kathryn received a 2015 GRAMMY nomination for her solo work on True Concord’s album Far in the Heavens. She has also recorded two GRAMMY-nominated albums with Seraphic Fire, and is featured as a soloist on recordings by New Trinity Baroque, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Tucson Chamber Artists, and Seraphic Fire, including Seraphic Fire’s best-selling Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, which reached the top of the iTunes classical chart.
In 2011 Kathryn was one of four fellows in the Adams Vocal Master Class at the Carmel Bach Festival. She was a finalist in the 2012 and 2013 Oratorio Society of New York’s Solo Competition, winning the Frances MacEachron Award in 2013. Kathryn’s soprano duo Les Sirènes was one of 6 finalist groups in Early Music America’s 2012 Baroque Performance Competition.
A strong advocate for new music, Kathryn co-commissioned Reena Esmail’s “The History of Red” – a concerto-length work for soprano and orchestra based on Chickasaw writer Linda Hogan’s powerful poem of the same name – along with Santa Fe Pro Musica, ROCO, Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, and The Knights. Kathryn also gave the world premiere of Ananda Sukarlan’s song cycle Love and Variations, commissioned for her vocal-piano ensemble, the Swara Sonora Trio. The Swara Sonora Trio followed that successful premiere with a 3-week benefit tour across Indonesia, raising funds for UNICEF’s Indonesia Country Office.
Kathryn was born in San Francisco, and began her musical studies at an elevation of 7,000 feet in the White Mountains of Arizona. Her first solo performance was “Away in a Manger” in church, at age seven. She got her first pro gig – a section leader position at a church in Providence – during high school in Rhode Island, continued her vocal studies as an undergraduate at Brown University, and then earned a Masters degree in vocal performance from the University of Arizona. Kathryn lives in Raleigh, NC with her husband (NCSU choir director Nathan Leaf) and two spirited young children. She belongs to Beyond Artists, a coalition of musicians who donate a percentage of their concert fees to organizations they care about. She supports the Poor People’s Campaign through her performances.
Jeffery Beam, Poet
(Life of a Bee)
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Jeffery Beam’s work hailed for its “transcendent, lush beauty, its minimal sacrament, simplicity and physicality” fuses through Gnostic intention the physical and spiritual worlds, creating a conversation between the natural world, the body, and the spirit. For more go to https://jefferybeam.com/about/
Beverly Biggs Harpsichord
(Baroque A,B,C’S)
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is a freelance harpsichordist based in Durham, North Carolina. She was the founder of Baroque & Beyond, a period-music concert series based in Chapel Hill. A North Carolina native, Biggs lived for many years in the Pacific Northwest, returning to North Carolina and settling in the Triangle in 2005.
Bev has served as a member of the continuo team with the North Carolina Symphony, North Carolina Bach Festival, and NC Baroque Orchestra, and she plays with various early music groups, including concerts with her trio, Zephyr (under the Book Us tab).
While based in Spokane, Washington, she performed, made recordings, toured in the U.S. and Canada, and served as artistic director of two period music organizations. A founding director of both Connoisseur Concerts and Allegro, she specializes in baroque period music. Accomplishments include founding the Northwest Bach Festival, the Royal Fireworks Festival & Concert, Allegro’s Viennese Ball, Music in Historic Homes, and Period Music at The Met.
Bev’s primary concert instrument is a double manual French harpsichord built in 1972 by David Dutton. It is a replica of the 1769 Pascal Taskin harpsichord found in the Yale University collection.
Beverly Biggs earned her Bachelor of Music degree in performance from Oberlin Conservatory and a Master of Music degree from Southern Methodist University. Post-graduate study was done with harpsichordists Margaret Irwin-Brandon and Alan Curtis in the United States, and with the late Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam.
