Eric Love is a New York City based theatre director specializing in magical plays and epic musicals. From 2016-2022 he served as Director of Education & Associate Artistic Director for Northern Stage, a LORT-D regional theatre in White River Junction, Vermont. While at Northern Stage, Love championed the Youth Ensemble Studio, a troupe of 32 actors from 12-18 years old performing three productions a year. Love was also the Director of Boot Camp, a scholarship pre-college training program for juniors and seniors in high school who are passionate about pursuing a career in the arts. Each year, Love directed legendary Summer Musical Theater Intensives, whose titles include School of Rock, The Drowsy Chaperone, James and the Giant Peach, Urinetown, and Legally Blonde. Love also directed the main stage holiday productions of Matilda and The Railway Children, a world premiere musical which he co-adapted and co-directed with Artistic Director Carol Dunne.
Eric is a Durham native and is also an excellent cellist!

Praised for her “ethereal coloratura” and “clear, powerful, expressive voice,” lyric coloratura soprano Alissa Roca is a fearless and multifaceted performer who brings passion, precision, and imagination to every stage she graces. Whether interpreting classic coloratura roles, shaping new works from the ground up, or reimagining what opera can be, she is an artist defined by curiosity and authenticity.   Alissa is especially known for her work in contemporary music, where she has carved out a unique space as both an interpreter and creator. She has premiered dozens of works, including full-length operas, concert dramas, and art songs—some of which feature her own poetic texts. Her collaborations with living composers such as Joseph Thalken, Jesper Koch, Michael Daugherty, Rachel Dean, Marissa Simmons, Dana Kaufman, and Akshaya Tucker reflect her commitment to vibrant, forward-thinking musical storytelling.
She has appeared as a soloist with ensembles and companies across the country, including the Dallas Opera, Dallas Symphony, Dallas Winds, Opera on the James, Opera Fayetteville, Voices of Change, Mallarmé Music, Durham Symphony, the Miami Bach Society, Capital Wind Symphony, University of Texas New Music Ensemble, and Duke University. Equally at home on operatic stages, Alissa has portrayed roles including The Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute), Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Susannah (Susannah), Mabel, Josephine, Yum-Yum, Patience, Angelina and Rose Maybud (Gilbert & Sullivan), among many others.
   A dedicated advocate for accessible and relevant opera, Alissa is the founder and Artistic Director of Paradox Opera, a North Carolina-based company focused on playfully irreverent, emotionally rich opera experiences. Under her leadership, PXO has produced inventive performances that blend rigorous musicianship with a fresh theatrical approach. She recently originated the role of The Seraph in Don Giovanni (Abridged!), a cheeky English-language adaptation that premiered in the Raleigh Fringe Festival and was streamed live online to a global audience.
   Her passion for opera education and outreach has been a central part of her career. She spent three seasons starring in The Dallas Opera’s touring productions, bringing fully staged operas like Bastien and Bastienne and Pépito to thousands of young people across Texas—an experience that deepened her commitment to making opera inviting and relevant to new audiences.
   Alissa began her musical journey in choirs and studied piano and flute before discovering her love of opera through her work with Opera Naples. She holds a Master of Music and Performer’s Diploma from Southern Methodist University, and a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music.
   Whether performing a Mozart aria, premiering a brand-new score, or creating an entirely new operatic experience, Alissa brings a rare blend of vocal brilliance, theatrical insight, and visionary leadership to her work.

Jacqueline Saed Wolborsky is Principal Second Violin of the North Carolina Symphony and a Lecturer of Violin at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was previously a member of the Charleston Symphony and an Adjunct Professor of Violin at the College of Charleston. She has been a featured soloist with the North Carolina Symphony, Brussels Chamber Orchestra, and South Carolina Philharmonic, and was honored with the Russell Award at the Coleman International Chamber Music Competition.

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.

Cellist Nathan Leyland 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. 

 Violinist Tiffany Kang joined the North Carolina Symphony at the start of the 2023–2024 season and the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in the summer of 2024. A Southern California native, she earned both her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Colburn Conservatory of Music, studying under renowned violinist Martin Beaver.

During her time at Colburn, Tiffany served as concertmaster of the Colburn Orchestra in a dynamic performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall under the baton of Maestro Stéphane Denève. She also curated and performed in a program with the Colburn Baroque Ensemble, collaborating with harpsichordist and musicologist Dr. Ian Pritchard. A 2019 winner of the LACO–Colburn Conservatory Strings Mentorship Mock Audition, she went on to perform a full concert cycle with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Jaime Martín.

Tiffany is a passionate chamber musician and has shared the stage with esteemed artists including Marc Coppey, the Takács Quartet, Andy Akiho, David Geber, Rachel Podger, and Martin Beaver. She has performed with Frank Morelli at the Sarasota Opera House and with Scott St. John in Colburn’s Beethoven 250 series. At Colburn, she was a dedicated member of the Colburn Baroque Ensemble and a frequent performer with Kontrapunktus, an ensemble specializing in Baroque repertoire.

She has appeared in recital at the Gindi Auditorium at American Jewish University, and her solo accolades include third prize at the 2013 Schoenfeld International Competition, finalist honors at the 2011 Mondavi Young Artists Competition, and a performance at Carnegie Weill Hall as a winner of the American Protégé International Strings Competition.

Outside of music, Tiffany enjoys teaching violin, cooking Korean cuisine, taking long walks, and humorously embracing her love of golf—especially when it involves double, triple, or quadruple bogeys.

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.

Cellist Sophie Shao, winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and top prizes at the Rostropovich and Tchaikovsky competitions, is a versatile and passionate artist whose performances the New York Times has described as “eloquent, powerful,” the LA Times noted as “impressive” and the Washington Post called “deeply satisfying.” Shao has appeared as soloist to critical acclaim throughout the United States and has commissioned Howard Shore’s cello concerto Mythic Gardens, performing the premiere with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra, the UK premiere with Keith Lockhart and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and European premiere with Ludwig Wicki and the 21st Century Orchestra. She also premiered Richard Wilson’s The Cello Has Many Secrets and Shih-Hui Chen’s multimedia concerto Our Son is Not Coming Home to Dinner.

Ms. Shao has given recitals in Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Middlebury College, Phillips Collection, University of Notre Dame, Lyric Society of New York, at Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, and the complete Bach Suites at Union College. Her dedication to chamber music has conceived her popular “Sophie Shao and Friends” groups and performs in festivals around the country such as Chamber Music Northwest and Festival Mosaic. She has attended the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute, and a member of Chamber Music Society Two, a young artist residency of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She is a dedicated music educator, presenting a lecture “Why Bach is Still Relevant in the 21^st Century” and recital at the National Gallery of Art, artist-in-residence at the Zeta Charter Schools in the Bronx, masterclasses at University of Michigan, Juilliard, Indiana University, and on faculty at the University of Connecticut, where she teaches cello, chamber music, and organizes an annual UConn Cello Day. She has previously been on the faculty of Vassar College, Princeton University, and Bard Conservatory.

Ms. Shao’s recordings include the Complete Bach Suites, Andre Previn’s “Reflections” for Cello and English Horn and Orchestra on EMI Classics, Richard Wilson’s Diablerie and Brash Attacks and Barbara White’s My Barn Having Burned to the Ground, I Can Now See the Moon on Albany Records, Howard Shore’s original score for the movie The Betrayal on Howe Records, Marlboro Music Festival’s 50th Anniversary on Bridge Records, Herschel Garfein’s The Layers on Asic Records, and Howard Shore’s Mythic Gardens on Sony Classical. Her new solo album, CanCan Macabre, has just been released on Centaur Records.

A native of Houston, Texas, Ms. Shao began playing the cello at age six, and studied with Shirley Trepel, the principal cellist of the Houston Symphony.  At age thirteen she enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, studying cello with David Soyer and chamber music with Felix Galimir. After graduating from the Curtis Institute, she continued her cello studies with Aldo Parisot at Yale University, receiving a B.A. in Religious Studies from Yale College and an M.M. from the Yale School of Music, where she was enrolled as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow.  

Composer/performer Jennifer Curtis has been described as a “multi genre maverick” by the San Diego union tribune. Her second solo concert in Carnegie Hall was described by the New York Times as “one of the gutsiest and most individual recital programs,” and she was celebrated as “an artist of keen intelligence and taste, well worth watching out for.”

     As a violinist Jennifer has won the milka-astral grand prize for violin, Juilliard concerto competitions and competed in Austria at the international Brahms competition.

     She has appeared as a soloist with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra in Venezuela, performed her own mini concerto with the Knights Chamber Orchestra, been presented as a soloist at Carnegie’s Weil Hall, Philadelphia‘a Kimmel center and Academy of music, given world premieres at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center; collaborated with composer John Adams at the Library of Congress;  appeared at Giverny international festival de musique de chamber, Spoleto Festival, El Festival de las Artes Esénias in Peru, and many other festivals worldwide. 

     An improviser, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, Jennifer was a member of the acclaimed new music group; International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) for 14 years.

     She appears on many recordings such as Invisible Ritual with Tyshawn Sorey, for which pitchfork magazine wrote that “Curtis’s range as a soloist is a revelation.” Other recordings such as Routes of Evanescence with Ariana Kim, include her compositions.

     Currently, Jennifer is finishing up an album of rarely heard repertoire by violinist/composer George Enescu. She has given American premeires of his solo violin works and performed many times in Romania in his honor.

     As a composer, Jennifer has been in residence at Cornell, composed in India for classical dance and been presented at Spoleto Festival Italy and Verbier, where she joined the Curtis Orchestra during their residency. She has been part of multiple residencies at the Baryshnikov arts center in New York City as composer/performer and improviser.

     An educator with a focus on music as humanitarian aid, Jennifer has also collaborated with musical shamen of the Andes, improvised for live radio from the interior of the Amazon jungle, and taught and collaborated with Kurdish refugees in Turkey. She has given her  masterclass on the Art of Interpretation through improvisation and applied music theory at Oberlin Conservatory, San Francisco Conservatory, Cornell and more. 

     Jennifer teaches violin at Duke University, performs regularly with the North Carolina Symphony and plays on a 1777 Vincenzo Panormo violin. Her formidable teachers were Robert Mann, Itzhak Perlman and Don Weilerstein.

Baroque & Beyond’s artistic director, Stephanie Vial, is a widely respected cellist, praised for her technical flair and expressive sense of phrasing. She is a co-director of The Vivaldi Project (based in Washington, DC) with whom she developed the recording series Discovering The Classical String Trio (MSR Classics) hailed by Gramophone as “captivating” and “highly recommended.” Additional recording can be found on the Dorian Label, Naxos, Hungaroton, and Centaur Records. She has traveled widely, giving solo and chamber music concerts, lectures, and master classes at numerous universities and institutions: The Shrine to Music Museum in South Dakota, The University of Virginia, Boston Conservatory, McGill University, and The Curtis Institute of Music. Vial holds a DMA in 18th-century performance practice from Cornell University where she studied with John Hsu. She is the author of The Art of Musical Phrasing in the Eighteenth Century: Punctuating the Classical “Period,”published by the University of Rochester Press. She currently teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.

Gabriel Richard has been First Violin at the Orchestre de la Garde Républicaine, Violin Soloist at the Opéra de Lyon, and First Violin at the Paris Orchestra, as well as First Violin of the Thymos String Quartet. He tours regularly in Japan, Korea, China, America, and Europe. With the Thymos Quartet, Richard has performed four times at the Paris International String Quartet Biennial and has toured Europe, the USA, Brazil, and Japan. The Quartet’s recording of Dvorak on the AVIE label won the Editor’s Choice Award from Gramophone magazine in 2012. The Washington Post described the Thymos Quartet’s performance at the Kennedy Center as “detailed down to the last atom, and overflowing with human experience.” Gabriel Richard is Associate Research Professor in the Department of Romance Studies at Duke University, where he also teaches in the Music Department’s Chamber Music Program.

Soprano Jolle Greenleaf is one of today’s foremost figures in the field of early music. She has been hailed by The New York Times as a “golden soprano” and “a major force in the New York early music-scene.” Ms. Greenleaf was named artistic director of TENET Vocal Artists in 2009, where she sings and directs the ensemble in repertoire spanning the Middle Ages to the present day. Her flair for imaginative programming has been lauded as “adventurous and expressive,” and “smart, varied and not entirely early” (The New York Times). She is a celebrated interpreter of the music of Bach, Buxtehude, Handel, Purcell and, most notably, Claudio Monteverdi. Ms. Greenleaf has performed in venues throughout the U.S., Scandinavia, Europe, and Central America for Vancouver Early Music Festival, Denmark’s Vendsyssel Festival, Cambridge Early Music Festival, Costa Rica International Music Festival, Puerto Rico’s Festival Casals, Utrecht Festival, at Panama’s National Theater, and San Cristobal, the Cathedral in Havana, Cuba.

A brilliant and accomplished concert artist, “resplendent” soprano Clara Rottsolk has appeared as a soloist with orchestras including American Bach Soloists, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Pacific MusicWorks, the American Classical Orchestra, St. Thomas Fifth Avenue, Richmond Symphony, Bach Collegium San Diego, Virginia Symphony, New Mexico Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Trinity Wall Street, and Seattle Baroque Orchestra. , With “sophisticated mastery of the nuances of the libretto: with perfect diction and expressive delivery” (Cleveland Classical), she performs chamber and recital repertoire with Les Délices, ARTEK, Les Canards Chantants, Folger Consort, Piffaro, Byron Schenkman and Friends, Colorado Bach Ensemble, and as a soloist at festivals including Carmel Bach, Berkeley Early Music, Montréal Bach, Spoleto USA, Indianapolis Early Music, Philadelphia Bach, Whidbey Island Music, and Boston Early Music Fringe. Currently she is based in Philadelphia and teaches voice at Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr colleges.

Keyboardist and conductor Jeffrey Grossman specializes in vital, engaging performances of music of the past, through processes that are intensely collaborative and historically informed. As the artistic director of the acclaimed baroque ensemble the Sebastians, Jeffrey has directed Bach’s Passions and Handel’s Messiah in collaboration with TENET Vocal Artists. Recent seasons also include his leading Monteverdi’s Vespers with the Green Mountain Project in New York and Venice; conducting operas of Haydn and Handel for Juilliard Opera; and a workshop of a new Vivaldi pastiche opera for the Metropolitan Opera. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he holds degrees from Harvard, Juilliard, and Carnegie Mellon University; he teaches performance practice at Yale University.

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Violinist Nicholas DiEugenio has been heralded for his “excellent…evocative” playing (The New York Times), full of “rapturous poetry” (American Record Guide). Nicholas is in-demand as a soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble leader, creating powerful shared experiences in music ranging from early baroque to contemporary commissions. His award-winning album “Unraveling Beethoven” with pianist and wife Mimi Solomon was released in 2018 by New Focus Recordings, and other recordings include the complete Violin Sonatas of Robert Schumann (Musica Omnia) as well as a tribute to Pulitzer prizewinner Steven Stucky (New Focus). Nicholas is a core member of the Sebastians as well as Associate Professor of Music at UNC Chapel Hill. Nicholas plays a J.B. Vuillaume violin (1835) as well as a Karl Dennis baroque violin (2011).

Inara Zandmane is one of the leading collaborative pianists of North Carolina. She has performed with such artists as Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Augustin Hadelich, Ray Chen, Sergei Antonov, Yura Lee, Martin Storey, Paul Coletti, Ian Clarke, and Branford Marsalis, in addition to regularly performing with Blue Mountain Ensemble and in duos with saxophonist Susan Fancher and violinist Fabián López. In 2008, Ināra teamed up with Latvian violinist Vineta Sareika on a tour leading them to Boston, Cleveland, and Toronto, before culminating in an invitation-only performance at the Kennedy Center arranged by the Latvian Embassy in the United States. In 2012, Ināra stepped in on a short notice to perform with violinist Ray Chen at the Aspen Music Festival, followed by a recital in Lima, Peru. In 2014, she was invited to the International Saxophone Symposium and Competition in Columbus, Georgia to present a recital with Vincent David.

Ms. Zandmane is frequently invited to serve as an official accompanist at national conferences and competitions, among them the North American Saxophone Alliance conference and MTNA National competition since 2005. She is the accompanist in residence for the South Eastern Piano Festival that takes place in Columbia, SC every June. Ināra Zandmane is the staff accompanist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she performs with students and faculty more than fifty different programs per year.

Ināra Zandmane’s solo recordings include the piano works by Maurice Ravel, recorded together with her husband Vincent van Gelder, and the complete piano sonatas by Alexander Scriabin. Ināra Zandmane has collaborated with leading Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, giving Latvian premieres of his piano works The Spring Music and Landscapes of the Burnt-out Earth and recording the latter one on the Conifer Classics label. She also can be heard in various chamber music collaborations on Navona Records and Centaur Records.

Praised for her “boundless energy and rapier definition” (New York Concert Review) and “transforming performance” (Classical Voice of North Carolina), cellist Grace Lin Anderson is a soloist and chamber musician with performances in the Americas and Europe. She has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician at the Weill Recital Hall at
Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center of New York City, the Kennedy Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the
Aspen Festival, and in international festivals abroad, in Canada, France,
Germany, Croatia, and the Netherlands.
In 2023-24, Grace had performed as soloist with the National University
Orchestra in the Cathedral of Arequipa, Peru. She had also performed in
Germany Bach’s Solo Cello Suites and her arrangement of Bach’s Goldberg
Variations for and with cellist Alan Black as part of WDAV’s tour In the
Footsteps of Bach. Her performances took place in venues where J.S. Bach
had worked and lived, including the historical Köthen Castle in Anhalt and
St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.
In North Carolina, Grace is a frequent chamber music collaborator. In
recent years, she has performed with Mallarmé Music, Music for a Great
Space, the Eastern Music Festival, UNC Chapel Hill, UNC School of the Arts,
Queens University of Charlotte and Wake Forest University.
As an artistic director and an educator, Grace had established and directed
the Triad Chamber Music Society concert series and the Young Performers
Chamber Music Workshop, for which she was twice nominated for the
Swalin Outstanding Music Educator Award by the North Carolina
Symphony. She has taught at UNC-Chapel Hill and UNCSA summer
chamber music programs and appeared as a guest artist at Appalachian
State University and East Carolina University. She is currently an adjunct
instructor of cello at Queens University of Charlotte.
She received her B.A. from Harvard University, M.M. The Juilliard School,
and D.M.A., UNC Greensboro

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, David Zinman, Eighth Blackbird, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance company, the Hamburger Kammeroper, My Brightest Diamond and the Red Clay Ramblers.

Equally at home 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 Higdon’s Cold Mountain. An accomplished concert soloist, she has garnered particular acclaim for her interpretations of the Bach Cantatas and German Lieder, at venues including the Teatro Colon, Baltimore Lieder Weekend, Duke Chapel, and Richard Tucker Foundation.

Andrea’s commitment to voices from her native North Carolina has led her to commission, premiere, and perform composers including Kenneth Frazelle, Daniel Thomas Davis, Sue Klausmeyer, Robert Ward, and numerous others. She produced, premiered, and developed Family Secrets: Kith and Kin with North Carolina Opera, and is especially proud to feature this new work as her debut recording.

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.

Andrea performs full time, teaches privately and, with her husband owns two restaurants: Alley Twenty Six in Durham and James Beard “American Classic” Crook’s Corner Chapel Hill, NC.

Isaac Pyatt is a percussionist and composer who specializes in contemporary chamber & solo music. Isaac serves as Artistic Director and Percussionist for the contemporary chamber ensemble Catchfire Collective. He also performs regularly with Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Salisbury Symphonies, North Carolina Brass Band, and Elon Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. His performance highlights include the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Bang on a Can LOUD Weekend, and Smetana Hall, and as a soloist with the UNC-Greensboro and Michigan State symphony orchestras. Isaac was a prize winner in the 2019 Great Plains International Marimba Competition, and winner in multiple statewide Percussive Arts Society competitions. An active composer, his music is available through Tapspace Publications and APAKA Music. Isaac received an MM in Percussion Performance from Michigan State University, and a BM in Percussion Performance & Music Composition from UNC-Greensboro. 

Flutist Carla Copeland-Burns enjoys an active teaching and performing career based in North Carolina. Noted as a flexible and versatile player, Carla currently performs with the Greensboro, North Carolina, and Salisbury Symphonies as well as the North Carolina Opera, Carolina Ballet, Blue Mountain Ensemble, Flute4, Mallarmé Chamber Players, and with the performer-composer collective Blue Mountain/Forecast.  Enthusiastic about new works, Carla has been a member of commissioning projects and premiere performances with all of her chamber ensembles and as a soloist. She is equally comfortable performing as an orchestral player, chamber musician, soloist, and playing contemporary music in alternative settings.

Carla teaches at Duke University, Meredith College, and through her home studio. Previously she served for eight years as Instructor of flute at Radford University, and has also been a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Mars Hill College, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Preparatory Department.  Guest artist-teacher appearances include schools such as the New Zealand School of Music, Auckland University, University of Southern Maryland, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and Florida State University. She has been a featured performer at National Flute Association Conventions and at several International Double Reed Society Conferences in the US, Canada, and Australia. In summers she has been associated with the New England Music Camp, Eastern Music Festival, and the InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy and Germany. She taught at the Clazz International Music Festival in Summer 2018 in Italy and looks forward to returning to Arcidosso soon! Carla’s students have successfully auditioned into festivals, competitions, and music schools throughout the US and abroad with many currently working as music educators, music therapists, arts administrators, and performers.

 She has recorded with ensembles on the Albany, Centaur, and Klavier labels and has been heard on several editions of NPR’s Performance Today. Mentors include Charles DeLaney, Lois Schaefer, Carol Wincenc, and Nadine Asin and her degrees are from Florida State University, New England Conservatory, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).

Dr. Copeland-Burns is a Yamaha Performing Artist

An active performer, Bassoonist Michael Burns enjoys roles as a soloist, in chamber groups, and orchestrally with numerous recent performances at International Double Reed Society conventions, recitals and masterclasses throughout North America, Germany, Italy, China and the South Pacific. He performs as principal bassoon with the Asheville Symphony and the North Carolina Opera and as bassoonist in the EastWind Ensemble and Blue Mountain Forecast.

He also performs regularly with regional groups such as the Greensboro, Charlotte, and North Carolina Symphonies and as a guest with the Ciompi Quartet and Mallarme Chamber Players.

He has recorded for the Centaur, CAP, Telarc, EMI, Klavier, and Mark labels and his solo CD Primavera: Music for Bassoon and Piano by Bassoonists, was released to critical acclaim on the Mark Masters label. A new CD Glass Ghosts is scheduled for release in 2020.

He performed extensively with the Cincinnati and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and he held Principal positions with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and the Midland/Odessa, Richmond, and Abilene Symphonies.

Burns plays on a Moosmann 222CL 5SC Thin Wall bassoon.