Active as a choral conductor, singer, and teacher in the Boston area, SARAH HALL, PALS Music Director, holds Master’s Degrees in Vocal Pedagogy and Musicology from the New England Conservatory, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Voice Performance from West Chester University. She serves as the Director of Music at The First Church in Malden, the Artistic Director of The First Church in Malden Concert Series, and as a vocal coach for PALS Children’s Chorus of Brookline.  In addition to maintaining an active private voice studio, Sarah has served on the faculty at Assumption College, Franklin School for the Performing Arts, and Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. A member of the Cantata Singers, Sarah recently played the role of Big Cat in the Cantata Singers Chamber Series production of Hans Krása’s opera, Brundibár, for which she also acted as vocal coach.  This is Sarah’s first collaboration with the Boston Early Music Festival.

Soprano ELLEN HARGIS, Assistant to the Stage Director, Vocal & Gesture Coach, is one of America’s premier early music singers, specializing in repertoire ranging from ballads to opera and oratorio.  She appears with many renowned conductors, including Andrew Parrott, Gustav Leonhardt, Paul Goodwin, Jane Glover, and Simon Preston. She has performed with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Tragicomedia, The Mozartean Players, and Fretwork.  She has performed at many of the world's leading festivals including the Adelaide Festival in Australia, St. Petersburg Early Music Festival in Russia, Utrecht Festival in Holland, Resonanzen Festival in Vienna, Tanglewood, and the Berkeley and Boston Early Music Festivals.  With duo partner lutenist Paul O’Dette, she has performed extensively in Europe and North America, including recent tours of both Russia and Japan.  Her discography of more than fifty recordings embraces repertoire from medieval to contemporary music, and features two recital cds with O’Dette on Noyse Productions.  She is featured on a dozen Harmonia Mundi recordings, including a critically acclaimed solo recital disc of music by Jacopo Peri, and Arvo Pärt’s Berlin Mass with Theatre of Voices.  She has recorded the leading role of Æglé in Lully’s Thésée with the BEMF Orchestra and Chorus as well as the premiere recording of Conradi’s opera Ariadne, a Grammy Nominee for Best Opera Recording.  Ellen makes her home in Chicago, where she is in Residence with the Newberry Consort at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.  She teaches voice for the Historical Performance Department at Case Western Reserve University, and teaches numerous summer courses in early music, including the Longy International Baroque Institute in Cambridge, The Lute Society of America Seminars, and the Vancouver Baroque Vocal Programme.

ROBERT HARRE-JONES, alto, was a Music Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, where he sang in the cathedral choir under Simon Preston, also studying singing with David Johnston and organ with the late Nicholas Danby. He subsequently held lay clerk posts at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and Westminster Cathedral. Robert was a founding member of The Tallis Scholars, continues to sing regularly with The Orlando Consort and the Gabrieli Consort, and has been featured on award-winning recordings with all three groups. Recent solo engagements include performances of Bach cantatas in London’s Wigmore Hall and works by Haydn at the Windsor Festival. He also maintains a lifelong interest in piano and organ playing and choral directing—since 1988 he has been Director of Music at St. Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, in the City of London. He holds several teaching positions, and has been an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music since 2003.

ERIN HEADLEY, viola da gamba, grew up in a musical family, playing the ’cello and piano. Advanced musical education culminated in doctoral work in performance practice at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1978, she settled in London, where she carved out a distinctive career as a viola da gamba player. In 1987, she and Stephen Stubbs founded Tragicomedia; their innovative recordings for Teldec, EMI, Virgin, Hyperion, and Harmonia Mundi USA have won numerous prizes, the most prestigious being a Gramophone award. Since 1996, Erin has directed fully staged Baroque operas at the Malmö Academy of Music in Sweden. She also works regularly with Les Arts Florissants and Le Concert d’Astrée. Her path-breaking research on the lirone—an instrument on which she is the world authority—recently won her a three-year grant from the Arts and Humanities Council of Great Britain as a research fellow at the University of Southampton.

For the past twenty-five years, ERIC HOEPRICH, clarinet, director of Nachtmusique, has specialized in performance on historical clarinets, ranging from music of the Baroque to the late Romantic. Educated at Harvard University and the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, he is currently a professor at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique,the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, and Indiana University–Bloomington. As a founding member of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Hoeprich performs regularly with this orchestra and many of the major early music ensembles, often as a soloist. He also frequently plays chamber music concerts, and has founded two wind ensembles: Nachtmusique and the Stadler Trio (three basset horns). His dozens of recordings with various ensembles are currently available on many labels such as Philips, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, Glossa, and Decca.

After musical studies with Jan Warmink, Willem Mesdag, and Wim van Beck, JAN WILLEM JANSEN, organ and harpsichord, received the Performer’s Certificate from The Hague’s Royal Conservatory in 1977, and went on for further harpsichord studies with Ton Koopman in Amsterdam.  He then continued his studies in France with Xavier Darasse, eventually becoming a colleague at the Toulouse Conservatory, where he currently teaches organ and harpsichord.  He is also the co-founder of the Department of Early Music at the Toulouse Conservatory where, along with Michel Bouvard, he has responsibility for the Organs and Keyboards department, as well as artistic oversight for the Toulouse International Organ Festival.  He has performed with the best European Baroque ensembles, notably La Chapelle Royale (Paris), Le Collegium Vocale (Gand), Hespèrion XXI (Barcelona), Les Sacqueboutiers, Philippe Pierlot and the Ricercar Consort, and the Ensemble Baroque de Limoges, directed by Christophe Coin.  He is also the organist for the Musée des Augustins and the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Daurade in Toulouse.

LAURA JEPPESEN, viola, is a graduate of the Yale School of Music. She is the gambist of the Boston Museum Trio, principal violist of Boston Baroque, and plays with the Handel and Haydn Society, Music from Aston Magna, and The Carthage Consort. She has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Woodrow Wilson Designate, and a Fellow of the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College. Her extensive discography includes music for solo viola da gamba, the gamba sonatas of J. S. Bach, Buxtehude’s Trio Sonatas opus 1 and 2, Telemann’s Paris Quartets, and La Gamme et autres morceaux de symphonie by Marais. She teaches at Wellesley College and Boston University. In 2006, the Independent Critics of New England nominated her for an IRNE Award for the score she produced as music director of the American Repertory Theater’s staging of Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage.

PATRICK JORDAN, viola, a native of West Texas, studied with Susan Schoenfeld before moving to Boston to study with Walter Trampler.  He attended New England Conservatory and the Longy School, where he enjoyed several years of study with Eugene Lehner.  Now a resident of Toronto, Pat is a member of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, and tours with them around the world.  He is the violist of the recently formed Eybler Quartet.  He has played in the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra since 1997, is the principal violist at the Carmel Bach Festival, and has appeared with the New York Collegium and the Toronto Consort.  While living in Boston, he performed regularly with D.C. Hall’s Band, the van Swieten Quartet, and the Handel and Haydn Society.  He was a member of the Boston Quartet and the Really Eclectic String Quartet (RESQ), and has been on the faculty of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He has recorded for Sony, Sony Classical, Dorian, Newport Classic, NorthStar, Analekta, and Northeastern.

Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist SHIRA KAMMEN, viola, has spent well over half her life exploring early and traditional music. A member for many years of Ensemble Alcatraz, Ensemble Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, she has also worked with Sequentia, Hespérion XX, The Boston Camerata, The King’s Noyse, the Balkan group Kitka, the Oregon, California, and San Francisco Shakespeare Festivals, and is the founder of Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to performance on river-rafting trips. She has performed and taught in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, Israel, Morocco, and Japan, and on the Colorado, Rogue, and Klamath Rivers. Shira happily collaborated with singer/storyteller John Fleagle for fifteen years, and performs now with several ensembles, including Fortune’s Wheel and Panacea. She also collaborates with performers such as storyteller/harpist Patrick Ball, soprano Anne Azéma, and Margriet Tindemans; with many theatrical and dance productions; and has played on several television and movie soundtracks, including The Nativity Story. Her original music can be heard in a film about fans of J. R. R. Tolkien.

Baroque opera and dance have become a passion for TIMOTHY KASPER, dancer, since joining The New York Baroque Dance Company nine years ago. He has spent a lifetime travelling, teaching, performing, choreographing, costume designing, and even casting for the musical theater. Baroque dance has proven to be a natural progression, a perfect opportunity to capitalize on all these creative facets of live theater, and a tremendous learning experience. He first performed with the Boston Early Music Festival in their 2005 production of Boris Goudenow. He has worked with the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., in the annual Summer Mozart Festivals, and has participated at several Handel Festivals in Göttingen. He has often performed with Concert Royale in New York, the Dallas Bach Society, and the Connecticut Early Music Festival. He is currently a faculty member at the University of Hartford, and is Chair of Dance for the Hartt School Theater Division.

ABBIE KATZ, Associate Producer, has worked extensively in theatre, dance, and opera.  She has toured throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia with directors Robert Wilson and Meredith Monk, and with choreographer Lucinda Childs. Ms. Katz was General Manager for Anna Deveare Smith’s Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard University, and was Associate Producer for the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, Connecticut.  Most recently she was General Manager of The Market Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She teaches at Suffolk University and Emerson College.  She has been Associate Producer with the Boston Early Music Festival since 2002.

ELIZABETH KENNY, lute, has a solo repertoire ranging from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century.  She is a principal player in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and regularly appears with other leading period instrument groups.  She has devised and produced projects such as an Elizabethan pageant for the Royal Academy of Music (where she is Professor of Lute) and the City of London Festival, and a tour of Charpentier’s music for the Grand Dauphin. Elizabeth Kenny has been awarded one of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Fellowships in the creative and performing arts, at Southampton University. This summer she directs The Masque of Moments, a show springing from her work on seventeenth century sources used by professional musicians, at Aldeburgh and other Festivals in England and Germany. Her recordings include English Lute Songs with countertenor Robin Blaze, about which BBC Music Magazine said: “Recommended without reservation…one of the most outstanding recitals of its kind on disc.”

THE KING’S NOYSE, founded by David Douglass in 1988, performs violin consort repertory from the 16th and 17th centuries.  The name derives from the collective term used in Renaissance England for a group of violinists playing together, a “noise” (or “noyse”) of violins: the court ensemble was known as “The King’s Noyse.” Playing on instruments by Jason Viseltear and Robert Young of New York City, in the design and construction of those from that period, these five gifted and renowned musicians have thrilled audiences around the world with their expressive and virtuosic performances. With a variety of vocal soloists and guest accompanists, The King’s Noyse performs music from a wide range of late-Renaissance and early-Baroque European repertoires, approaching each repertory from the perspective of professional entertainers. The ensemble has recorded for harmonia mundi usa, and its cds can be found online at www.noyseproductions.com.

LISLE KULBACH, voice, winds, viola da gamba, was a Bodky Award winner as harpsichord accompanist to Sarah Cunningham’s viola da gamba performance of the music of Marin Marais. She is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music as a harpsichord major.  She has been a performer and teacher of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Country Dance music for twenty-five years. Lisle is a co-founder of Voice of the Turtle, a group that for twenty-eight years has performed Sephardic music around the world. She attended the Quadrivium School.  She is a keyboard teacher at Powers Music School, and teaches many instruments in a variety of styles at Pinewoods Camp in Massachusetts, Mountain Collegium in Georgia, and early music workshops around the country.

GIJS LACEULLE, horn, studied horn and natural horn in Amsterdam and in Dresden, after which he made the decision to concentrate his efforts on historical instruments. He plays regularly with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Netherlands Bach Society, Freiburger Barokorkester, and the Akademie der Alte Musik in Berlin. He also performs with Nachtmusique. He has toured throughout Europe and North America. He currently plays on a period horn built by Raoux in Paris circa 1800.

MARIE-NATHALIE LACOURSIÈRE, dancer, holds a Bachelor degree in Music (singing) and studied acting specializing in commedia dell’arte. In 1995, she founded and was the artistic director of Théâtre Lavallière & Jabot. She is an associate partner with l’Academie Baroque of Montréal and with Toronto Mask Theater. For over fourteen years she has worked as a Baroque dancer-choreographer, actress, and stage director for many groups, including Les Jeunesses Musicales du Canada, for which she created and performed in Barocambolesque and Folies d’Europe; also, Ensemble Arion, Les Voix Humaines, Les Idées heureuses, Ensemble Caprice, and Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal. She has staged and choregraphed the past four closing shows for Festival Montréal Baroque, and has directed several Baroque operas for McGill University and the University of Montréal opera division. Ms. Lacoursière is a professor of gesture and Baroque dance at Montreal University, and has also taught at Université du Québec à Montréal, Stanford University, and Indiana University.

Canadian bass-baritone OLIVIER LAQUERRE won prizes at the Paris and the Verviers international voice competitions, and has been in great demand as a soloist since winning the Joseph-Rouleau Prize (First Prize) in 1999. In concert, he often performs Messiah, as well as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Bach’s St. John Passion.  Mr. Laquerre is a regular guest soloist with many orchestras and ensembles, including Symphony Nova Scotia, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, and the Milwaukee, Montreal, and Quebec Symphony orchestras. On stage, he has performed Escamillo in Carmen, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Achillas in Händel’s Giulio Cesare, Andrei Shchelkalov in Boris Godunov, Oronte in Charpentier’s Médée, Ottone in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Céphée in Lully’s Persée, Haly in L’Italiana in Algeri, Angelotti in Tosca,and TheMessenger in Stravinsky’s Œdipus Rex at the Edinburgh International Festival, and in Montreal and Toronto.  He created the role of Tsar Theodorus in the Boston Early Music Festival production of Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow.

Mezzo-soprano MIREILLE LEBEL is a native of Vancouver, Canada. A current member of the Montreal Opera’s Young Artist Program, she has appeared for the company as Flora in La Traviata, Mallika in Lakmé and Lisetta in Haydn’s Il Mondo della Luna. Active in the performance of contemporary music, Mireille sang the role of Min in the world premiere of The Midnight Court Opera by Ana Sokolovic for Queen of Puddings Music Theatre, a role she reprised the following year at Covent Garden. She has also premiered works by Canadian composers Gilbert Patenaude, Michael Matthews, and Simon Bertrand. On the concert platform she has appeared as a soloist with the McGill Chamber Orchestra, the Talisker Players, and Jeunesses Musicales du Canada. Highlights for the upcoming season include Messiah with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and a recital of Schubert lieder for the André Turp Musical Society in Montreal. Her recordings include Lully’s Thésée with the Boston Early Music Festival.

PAUL LEENHOUTS, director of The Royal Wind Music, holds a Soloist Diploma from the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, where he has been on the faculty as professor for recorder since 1993. A founding member of the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet from 1978 until 2001, he has been director of the collective Blue Iguana since 2002; he is also the composer and arranger of several works for recorder. In 1986 he initiated the Open Holland Recorder Festival Utrecht, and since 1990 he has been director of the International Baroque Institute at Longy in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His special interest in Renaissance consort repertoire led to the foundation of The Royal Wind Music in 1997. In 2004, Mr. Leenhouts was director of the First European Recorder Performance Festival in Amsterdam. In addition to performing numerous concerts and coaching workshops within the early music field, he also regularly appears with contemporary and music theatre groups, such as Musikfabrik, Nederlands Vocaal Laboratorium, ZT Hollandia, and NT Gent.

Soprano CLAIRE LEFILLIÂTRE’s interest in Baroque expression prompted her to pursue her studies and to study Baroque rhetoric with Eugene Green and Benjamin Lazar. She conducted her own research in the art of ornamentation in the French and Italian music of the seventeenth century. Her thorough knowledge of this repertoire has led her to become the principal singer in the productions of Le Poème Harmonique. Since 1999, her concerts and recordings with this ensemble have been unanimously acclaimed by the press, which praises her new approach to the performance of Baroque repertoire. She played the female character in the song interludes of Moliere’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme at the Opéra d’Avignon in 2004 and at the Royal Theater of Versailles in 2005. In 2006, she played the leading part in La Vita Humana, an opera by Marazoli, at the Concertgebouw of Utrecht. In 2008, she will play Hermione in Cadmus et Hermione, an opera by Lully, at the Opéra Comique de Paris.

Countertenor JOSÉ LEMOS was the first-prize winner of the 2003 International Baroque Singing Competition in Chimay, Belgium. He has recently completed his Masters Degree at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Since his debut at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 2003, he has appeared in opera roles and in concert throughout the U.S., Europe, and South America with the Baltimore Consort, Boston Baroque, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Zürich Opera, the Cloisters Museum, Seattle Early Music Guild, National Gallery of Art, Buenos Aires Lirica, Aldeburgh Festival, and many others. Highlights of the 2007–2008 season include the role of Tolomeo in Handel’s Giulio Cesare at the Göttingen Handel Festival conducted by Nicholas McGegan, a tour of Stefano Landi’s Il Sant’Alessio with the renowned Les Arts Florissants directed by William Christie, and the release of his first cd, Romance, featuring the exquisite music of the Sephardim, with Quartetto Brio.

CATHERINE LIDDELL, theorbo, Baroque guitar, is in high demand for her skill, sensitivity, and experience as a continuo player, performing with many of America’s leading period instrument ensembles, including Boston Baroque, New York Collegium, and Apollo’s Fire.  A frequent performer in the Aston Magna Festival, she has also performed in the Boston Early Music Festival, and the Northwest and New England Bach Festivals. Pursuing her special interest in 17th-century French music, Ms. Liddell has recorded the works of Jacques Gallot for Centaur Records. She has also appeared on other projects on that label, as well as recordings for the Dorian, Titanic, Wildboar, and Musical Heritage Society labels. Her volume of Renaissance lute music, Sacred Music for Lute, has been published by Lyre Music Publications. She is a Teaching Associate at Boston University.

MATTHIJS LUNENBURG, Renaissance recorder, was born in 1981 in Nijmegen in the Netherlands. He started playing the recorder when he was ten. He won several first prizes at the Prinses Christina Concours in 1997 and 1999, and received a special commendation at the international recorder festival SONBU in 1998. In 2000, he started his studies with Walter van Hauwe at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. He received his Bachelor’s diploma in 2005, and is now the Master’s program, specializing in both improvisation techniques of the sixteenth century and contemporary music with the use of live electronics. In 2006, he was admitted to the Honnours Programme, a collaboration between the conservatories of Amsterdam and The Hague, to support young, talented musicians. He began studying cornetto with William Dongois in Paris in 2005. He joined The Royal Wind Music in 2003, has performed with ensembles such as Via Artis and Artes Liberalis, and was a guest artist with the Residentie Orkest in The Hague.

MARCO PAULO ALVES MAGALHÃES, Renaissance recorder, began his studies in the recorder at Conservatório de Musica do Porto with Pedro Couto Soares and Pedro Silva. He continued his studies with Soares while completing his music degree at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa. He has participated in many masterclasses, working with Heiko ter Schegget, Peter van Heygen, Peter Holtslag, Kees Boeke, Jill Feldman, Ku Ebbinge, and Enrico Onofri. He has performed at festivals all over Portugal, at Leiria, Porto, Vila Real, Vila Nova de Gaia, Loulé, Tomar, Faro, and Lisbon; he has also played at festivals in the Netherlands, France, and Spain. He performs with The Royal Wind Music, and is an active member of several ensembles in Portugal including A Imagem da Melancolia and Il Dolcimelo. In 2007, he recorded a cd with Sete Lágrimas on the MURECORDS label. He recently received a scholarship from Centro Nacional de Cultura in Portugal. He is studying at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Paul Leenhouts.

MARÍA MARTÍNEZ AYERZA, Renaissance recorder, was born in 1982 in Cuenca, Spain. She received her recorder diploma cum laude at the Conservatory of Seville in 2000, and then moved to Amsterdam to continue studying with Paul Leenhouts. María graduated in 2004 with a Bachelor in Music degree, and received her Master’s diploma in 2006, specializing in Renaissance consort repertoire and modern chamber music. Currently, she studies musicology at the University of Amsterdam. In November 2005, Maria was awarded the first prize and the Walter Bergmann Fund Prize at the Moeck/SRP Solo Recorder Competition in England. In February 2001, Maria joined the consort The Royal Wind Music, directed by Paul Leenhouts. In June 2004, she co-founded AeroDynamic, a trio specializing in medieval and contemporary repertoire.  María regularly performs short concerts at children’s nurseries and elementary schools in cooperation with the Memorable Moments foundation in Amsterdam. For more information, visit her web site at www.mariayerza.com.

ARNAUD MARZORATI, baritone, sang at the choir school of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles. While there, he took part in masterclasses with James Bowman, Noël Lee, Martin Isepp, and Sena Jurinac. He went on to study at the Paris Conservatoire, where he was awarded a Premier Prix. He appears with ensembles such as Les Talens Lyriques, directed by Christophe Rousset; Il Seminario Musicale, directed by Gérard Lesne; Les Arts Florissants, directed by William Christie; Le Parlement de Musique, directed by Martin Gester; La Simphonie du Marais, directed by Hugo Reyne; and Le Poème Harmonique, directed by Vincent Dumestre. He recorded a cd of cantatas on the theme of jealousy by composer Jean-Baptiste Stuck, with tenor Jean François Novelli—it is due for release on the Alpha label in May 2007. In 2008, he will be taking the role of Arbas in Lully’s opera Cadmus et Hermione, directed by Benjamin Lazar, at the Opéra Comique in Paris.

WASHINGTON McCLAIN, Baroque oboe, is a native of Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. He holds degrees in musicology from Northeast Louisiana University and in oboe performance from Northwestern University. A specialist on Baroque and Classical oboes, Mr. McClain has performed with many groups in the United States including Apollo’s Fire, Washington Bach Consort, and Opera Lafayette in Washington, D.C. In Canada, Mr. McClain has performed with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, serving as core oboist for seven years, and is currently principal oboist of Ensemble Arion and Le Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal. He can be heard on recordings on the Sony Classical, ATMA, Analekta, Naxos, Centaur, and CBC Records labels, and currently teaches at The Early Music Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington. Washington makes his home in Montréal, Canada.

JASON McSTOOTS, tenor, has been celebrated as one of the “new generation of New England singers” and “particularly outstanding” with “a perfect light-opera voice,” “finely articulated diction,” and “sweet, appealing tone and real acting ability.”  In Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea with the Early Music Guild of Seattle he was acclaimed by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as “a born comic.” As the Madwoman in Britten’s Curlew River, McStoots was called “heartbreaking” by The Boston Phoenix,which declared the production Boston’s Best Staged Opera 2006.  He has sung with groups around the U.S., including Boston Lyric Opera, Handel Choir of Baltimore, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Emmanuel Music, Granite State Opera, and OperaProvidence; and has performed recitals with Tanglewood Music Center, MIT Recital Series, and Boston French Library.  His most recent appearance with the Florestan Recital Project was hailed by The Boston Globe as “at least as polished as it is promising.” His web site is at www.jasonmcstoots.com.

One of America’s leading historical string players, ROBERT MEALY, leader of the BEMF Orchestra, violin, viola, has been praised for his “imagination, taste, subtlety, and daring” (Boston Globe); The New Yorker called him “New York’s world-class early music violinist.” He has recorded over fifty cds on most major labels, ranging from Hildegard of Bingen with Sequentia, to Renaissance consorts with the Boston Camerata, to Rameau operas with Les Arts Florissants. In New York, he is a frequent leader and soloist with the New York Collegium, ARTEK, Early Music New York, and the Clarion Society. He also regularly appears as guest concertmaster and director with the Phoenix Symphony and the Colorado Music Festival. A devoted chamber musician, he is a member of the medieval ensemble Fortune’s Wheel, the Renaissance violin band The King’s Noyse, and the seventeenth-century ensemble Spiritus Collective. He directs the Yale Collegium and the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra; in 2004 Mr. Mealy received Early Music America’s Binkley Award for outstanding teaching at both institutions.

KATHRYN MONTOYA, haute-contre d’hautbois, Baroque oboe, is completing a doctorate at Indiana University, where she studied historical oboes with Washington McClain and recorder with Eva Legêne.  She holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Indiana University. Ms. Montoya has performed with many ensembles, including Ensemble Arion, the Cleveland Orchestra, Tafelmusik, Apollo’s Fire, the Washington Bach Consort, Musica Angelica, and Portland Baroque Orchestra, and tours internationally with the Celtic group Ensemble Galilei. She is a recipient of the prestigious Performers Certificate at Indiana University and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany. Ms. Montoya has given master classes at Northwestern University, Eastern Illinois University, and has taught on faculty at Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute. Her interests extend to Renaissance and medieval repertoire where she has performed on recorders, shawms, and sordune with Hesperus and the Newberry Consort. Kathryn records for the Naxos label.

DAVID MORRIS, basse de violon, is a member of Musica Pacifica, The King’s Noyse, and the Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, and has performed with Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, the Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle Baroque Orchestras, Musica Angelica, and the Mark Morris Dance Company.  He was the founder and musical director of the Bay Area Baroque opera ensemble Teatro Bacchino, and has produced operas for the Berkeley Early Music Festival and the San Francisco Early Music Society series.  Mr. Morris received his M.A. in Music from the University of California at Berkeley, and has been a guest instructor in early music performance practice at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Mills College, and Oberlin College.  He has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, New Albion, Dorian, New World Records, NPR’s St. Paul Sunday (with The King’s Noyse), and New Line Cinema.

PETRA MÜLLEJANS’s performance on the Baroque violin combines authentic period style with emotional spontaneity. After studying in Düsseldorf, New York, and Freiburg, she completed her studies in performance with Rainer Kußmaul in Freiburg. She has also studied with Helga Thoene and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The sound of the Baroque violin has always fascinated her. She was a founding member of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, and has performed for many years as leader of the Orchestra, and as a soloist and chamber musician. She plays 17th- and 18th-century music with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra Consort; her recordings with the Consort have received top recording awards, including the Diapason d’Or. Her extraordinary and spontaneous musicality is particularly evident when she performs Klezmer, tango, and czardas music. For her, these “escapades” are not at variance with Baroque music: on the contrary, they are a vital contribution to her musical development. Petra Müllejans teaches the Baroque violin at the Freiburg Conservatory and is professor for Baroque violin at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main.