CHRISTOPHE TELLART, hurgy-gurdy, flute, is a harpsichord player—he is a continuist—and also a hurdy-gurdy and a bagpipe player (Scottish highland bagpipe, Medieval pipes, and the bagpipes of central France). His musical repertoire includes the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and traditional styles. He is a member of the following ensembles: Le Poème Harmonique, directed by Vincent Dumestre; Real, directed by Pascal Coté; Convivencia, directed by Bernard Revel; Hespèrion XXI, directed by Jordi Savall; and Perceval, under the direction of Guy Robert. He performs in France and abroad, especially in Germany, Spain, Italy, the U.K., Switzerland, Sweden, the U.S., Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Venezuela, Argentina, Canada, and Australia. He works with French composer Philippe Hersant, and with French choreographer Kader Belarbi from the Opéra Garnier & Bastille in Paris. In February and March of 2002, he performed in the world premiere of Hersant’s opera-ballet, Hurlevent, at Opéra National de Paris Bastille & Palais Garnier.

A native of California, DOMINIC TERESI, Baroque bassoon, is principal bassoon of Tafelmusik,shares leadership of Chiaroscuro, and has also played with Le Concert d’Astrée, Toronto Consort, Spiritus Collective, Arion, Chatham Baroque, and Apollo’s Fire,among others.  In demand on dulcian and Baroque and classical bassoons, Dominic’s Vivaldi concerto playing has been described as “lively and graceful” (New York Times) and “dazzling” (Toronto Star), “reminding us of the expressive powers of the bassoon” (The Globe and Mail).  He was a featured artist this season on CBC Radio’s Music Around Us.  Dominic’s recent recordings include a Fasch concerto on Tafelmusik’s Concerti Virtuosi, and 17th-century musicwith Chatham Baroque.  He teaches at Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute and has taught at Amherst Early Music Festival. Dominic holds an MM and AD in modern bassoon from Yale University, a medaille d’or from the Conservatoire National de Region in Bordeaux, France, and is completing doctoral work at Indiana University–Bloomington.

JOHN THIESSEN, Baroque trumpet, appears as soloist and principal trumpet with early music ensembles in the U.S. and Canada, including Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, and Boston Baroque. During the 2006–2007 season, he performed Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, Christmas Oratorio, and New Year’s Cantatas; Handel’s Messiah, Balshazzar, and Solomon; Vivaldi’s Gloria; and Purcell’s King Arthur; and presented Baroque trumpet masterclasses at Juilliard and University of Texas. Thiessen is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, and King’s College, University of London, and the recipient of grants from the Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council for studies in the U.K. Thiessen has recorded extensively for Sony Classical Vivarte, Telarc, EMI, BMG, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, London Decca, Analekta, CBC, and Denon.

Praised for his “elegant style” and “consummate artistry,” baritone SUMNER THOMPSON is quickly becoming a top-tier favorite in the early music world. Recent appearances include the St. John Passion with Tafelmusik, Messiah at St. Thomas Church with the Concert Royal, and concerts with Les Boréades, Tragicomedia, The King’s Noyse, Boston Baroque, Les Voix Baroque, the Memphis and Charlotte Symphonies, and Emmanuel Music. He has also performed with the Boston Early Music Festival in Conradi’s Ariadne and Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow. He has upcoming performances with the Richmond Symphony, the Memphis Symphony, Apollo’s Fire, the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, Les Voix Baroque, and Tafelmusik. He has recorded for ATMA, Dorian, harmonia mundi usa, and Plectra.

With its unique constellation of leading continuo and solo players, TRAGICOMEDIA has been an important influence in the field of early music since 1987, when Stephen Stubbs and Erin Headley co-founded the group. Their common interest was in rediscovering and realizing the musical riches of the basso continuo era. In 1600, Agostino Agazzari described the enormous palette of instrumental color—including lutes, chitarrones, harps, keyboards and lirones—necessary for the effective realization of an accompaniment. This—and “tragicomedia” as an important seventeenth-century genre and aesthetic principle representing dramatic contrast—was the inspiration for the group. In repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to Bach, Tragicomedia has explored every musical genre from lute song to fully-staged Baroque opera. Many of the group’s recordings for EMI, Teldec, Virgin, Hyperion, and Harmonia Mundi USA have won prestigious prizes. Tragicomedia has been the continuo team for the Boston Early Music Festival since 1997 in productions of Cavalli, Rossi, Lully, Conradi, and Mattheson operas, and in Vancouver Early Music’s Monteverdi cycle. The group has returned to Leiden annually since 1997 to perform Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 at the Pieterskerk in the Netherlands. In 2002 they made a live recording for ATMA Classique of the performance, which was chosen as Record of the Month by Das Alte Musik Aktuel. Many of their award-winning Teldec recordings have been re-issued on Warner’s APEX label.

MILOŠ VALENT, violin, viola, attended the Academy of Music in Bratislava, studying violin under Professor Warchal. His interest in Baroque music led to joining the Baroque orchestra Musica Aeterna Bratislava, and he performed with them in many concerts, festivals, and CD recordings between 1982 and 1998, often as a featured concerto soloist. He first performed with Tragicomedia in 1993, and in 1997 became the concertmaster of the Baroque orchestra Teatro Lirico. He has also been a featured member of the ensembles Fiori Musicali (as concertmaster), Tiramisu, and Musica Florea, and has performed with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra since their Utrecht production of Cavalli’s Ercole Amante in 1999.  Miloš Valent has taught Baroque violin and chamber music at the Musik Hogskolan in Malmö, the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva, the Hochschule fur Künste in Bremen, and the Tynska skola in Prague.  In 1995, he founded Solamente Naturali, which has released three recordings: Joseph Umstatt: Concerti, Vladimír Godár: Mater, and Tabulatura Miscellanea, a collection of seventeenth-century Slovak music.

DAGMAR VALENTOVÁ, known to her friends as Dasha, studied violin and viola at the Teplice Conservatory of Music in the Czech Republic, during which time she began performing in various Baroque ensembles including Musica Antiqua Praha and Musicalische Compagney; she is the concertmaster and a founding member of Musica Florea. After graduating from the Teplice Conservatory, she received a grant to study Baroque violin at the Krakow Academy in Poland, and then studied for two more years with Enrico Gatti in Milan. Dagmar continues to play both violin and viola, and collaborates with numerous international Baroque ensembles including Tragicomedia, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Solamente Naturali, Orlandi Bremen, Göttingen Festival Orchestra, and the Hilliard Ensemble. Her solo playing has been featured in the Academy-Award-nominated film Divided We Fall, as well as on the brand-new recording of The Brandenburg Concertos by Musica Florea. In recent years, she has been singing traditional folk music as part of Solamente Naturali’s program of Slovakian Baroque Music.

Soprano YULIA VAN DOREN was born in Moscow and trained in voice and piano by her Russian mother and American jazz-pianist father. While still an undergraduate at the New England Conservatory of Music she was awarded the grand prize in the International JS Bach Vocal Competition, third prize in the American Bach Soloists’ Competition, and performed a series of concerts as guest soloist with ensemble Teatro Lirico. This season she made her professional operatic début as Poppea in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea to rave reviews, which described her as having “the perfect baroque voice” (Seattle Times). She also makes débuts at the Bach Festival of Philadelphia, the Boston Early Music Festival, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and at Tanglewood, where she will sing Belinda in the acclaimed Mark Morris Dance Group production of Dido and Aeneas. Yulia is a first-year Master of Music candidate at Bard College in a new graduate vocal program directed by soprano Dawn Upshaw.

DOMINIQUE VISSE, countertenor, director of Ensemble Clément Janequin, founded Ensemble Clément Janequin in 1978; the ensemble subsequently made a series of benchmark recordings of French polyphonic chansons of the 16th century. In 1979, he became one of the founding members of Les Arts Florissants, and edited much of the ensemble’s initial repertoire. Since that time, Dominique Visse has become one of the most popular lyric artists in the world of Baroque opera, working with the premier early music conductors at major opera houses and festivals around the world. He also sings later repertoire—he has sung in Offenbach’s Les Brigands, directed by Jérôme Deschamps, has recorded the role of La Marquise in Poulenc’s Le Gendarme incompris, and frequently performs contemporary music. His forthcoming opera performances include Giulio Cesare directed by René Jacobs, and L’Incoronazione di Poppea directed by Emmanuelle Haïm at Glyndebourne. Dominique Visse performs recital programs of music ranging from Machaut to Berio, via Dowland, Schubert, Offenbach, Massenet, Satie, Poulenc, and Takemitsu. He has made more than fifty recordings, principally for harmonia mundi.

Hailing from Mystic, Connecticut, soprano TERESA WAKIM enjoys an internationally successful career as both soloist and chorister in opera and oratorio. The Boston Globe, Early Music America, and Goldberg Magazine all praise her for her work. She has performed with such renowned ensembles as the Handel and Haydn Society, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, Boston Baroque, Back Bay Chorale, and Seraphic Fire. Recent dramatic roles include Morgana in Alcina, Belinda in Dido and Aeneas, Zaide in L’Europe Galante, and Ninfa in L’Orfeo. Oratorio performances include Handel’s Messiah and Saul, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, J. S. Bach’s St. John Passion and St. Matthew Passion, and Mozart’s Requiem. She has sung at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Ton Koopman, and is also regularly heard on NPR radio station WBUR as a soloist with the Boston University Marsh Chapel Choir under the direction of Scott Allen Jarrett. Last fall she recorded Lully’s Thésée with the Boston Early Music Festival.

ANNA WATKINS, Costume designer & supervisor, is delighted to be returning to the Boston Early Music Festival for the fifth time; this is her second festival as costume designer, having previously designed the costumes for BEMF’s 2005 operatic centerpiece, Boris Goudenow. She studied textile design at college in London and then went to the Slade at University College to study theatre design. She has over thirty years experience organizing the production of costumes for theatre, opera, and ballet in the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. She lives in South London, and when there is time, enjoys her small garden that seems to thrive in spite of neglect; she loves feeding the birds.

ALEXANDER WEIMANN, harpsichord, organ, fortepiano, has become one of the most sought-after directors, soloists, and chamber music partners. He has recorded over one hundred cds and is regularly heard on radio stations worldwide. He has recently started the first comprehensive recording of Alessandro Scarlatti’s keyboard works. Mr. Weimann was born in Munich where he studied organ, church music, musicology, theater, medieval latin, and jazz. He won first prize at Concorso Bonporti in 1997. He taught musical theory and improvisation at Munich Musikhochschule, and has subsequently given masterclasses in performance practice at several European and American universities and festivals. He works at the Université de Montréal as vocal coach and director of the semi-annual Baroque opera performance. Lately, he resumed an active interest in jazz, preparing several recordings and a video.

Originally from Washington state, soprano BRENNA WELLS has performed operatic and oratorio roles ranging from Bach and Handel to Mozart, Britten, and Orff. She holds B.M. and M.M. degrees in vocal performance and a Post-graduate Diploma with distinction from the Royal College of Music in London.  In 2005, she made her Carnegie Weill Hall Debut with Duo Bello as a winner of the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition.  Known for her critically acclaimed performances of early music, she has sung with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Vox Consort, Seraphic Fire, Britten-Pears Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, and appeared as Venus in Campra’s L’Europe Galante at the Amherst Early Music Festival.  She has participated in many festivals including Songfest, Vermont Art Song Festival, London Handel Festival, and Aldeburgh Festival.  This season she performs with the Handel and Haydn Society, Opera Boston, Marblehead Festival Chorus, and the BBC Proms, and will be studying in England this summer with The Parley of Instruments’ Handel in Italy program.

CALEB WERTENBAKER, Set Designer, grew up in Connecticut where he graduated from the Choate Rosemary Hall School. He received his BA from Oberlin College and his MA in Scenography from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, during which he studied at DAMU in Prague. Upcoming designs include Cendrillon for Central City Opera. Past designs include The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny for Opera Boston; Don Giovanni for Central City Opera; Orpheus in the Underworld, Les Mamelles de Tiresias, Little Women, Cendrillon, The Turn of the Screw, The Magic Flute,and La Calisto for New England Conservatory; The Rape of Lucretia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Akhnaten, The Good Woman of Szetzuan, The Gondoliers, The Turn of the Screw, and The Construction of Boston for Boston Conservatory; Winter’s Tale and All’s Well That Ends Well for Actor’s Shakespeare Project; Johnny Guitar and Elegies for Speakeasy Stage Company; Love’s Labor’s Lost, Women of Troy, The Idiot, Lie of the Mind, Donnie Darko, and Mud for the ART Institute; and Shel’s Shorts and Swimming in March for The Market Theater. He was the Production Manager for the Boston Early Music Festival in 2003 and 2005.

ERWIN WIERINGA, horn, studied horn with Hans Dullaert at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague. Since then he has become a member of the Freiburger Barock Orchester, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, and the Netherlands Bach Society. He is also a member of the chamber wind ensemble Nachtmusique. He possesses a collection of fine horns dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and plays regularly on instruments by the well-known Parisian makers, Raoux and Courtois.

ZACHARY WILDER, tenor, originally from Los Angeles, completed his undergraduate degree in 2006 at the Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of John Maloy and Robert Swensen. His favorite roles include Lucano and Valetto in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea, George Lowndes in Robert Ward’s Claudia Legare, King Ouf I in Chabrier’s L’étoile, Momo and Vecchia in Luigi Rossi’s L’Orfeo, and Ugone in Händel’s Flavio. Most recently, Zach appeared on the stage as Leon in Corigliano’s Ghosts of Versailles and Paulino in Cimarosa’s The Secret Marriage. Currently, he is working on his Master’s Degree at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, studying with Katherine Ciesinski.

DOUGLAS WILLIAMS, bass-baritone, has sung as a soloist under Sir David Willcocks, Sir Neville Marriner, Bruno Weil, and Helmuth Rilling. In the fields of early music and oratorio he has performed with the Handel and Haydn Society, Emmanuel Music, Concerto Palatino, Exsultemus, and the Carmel Bach Festival where last summer he sang the role of Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas. This is his third Boston Early Music Festival, having appeared previously in Ariadne and Boris Goudenow. He studied at the New England Conservatory, Yale School of Music, and Yale Institute of Sacred Music, where he sang and toured internationally with the Yale Schola Cantorum directed by Simon Carrington. He can be heard as a soloist on several critically-acclaimed Schola Cantorum recordings, including Biber’s Vesperae, Bertali’s Missa Resurrectionis, and Bach’s Johannes-Passion (1725 version). In addition to a wide classical repertoire, Doug is equally comfortable crooning American standards, and has produced a handful of one-man shows in collaboration with pianist Ted Taylor.

BRENT WISSICK, basse de violon, is Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he teaches ’cello, viola da gamba, and early music ensembles.  A member of Ensemble Chanterelle and the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, he is a frequent guest with American Bach Soloists, Folger Consort, Concert Royal, Musica Angelica, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Boston Early Music Festival, Dallas Bach Society, and Collegio di Musica Sacra in Poland. He was an NEH Fellow at Harvard and has taught at the Aston Magna Academy at Yale. He has performed and taught at many of the important schools, workshops, and festivals in North America, Australia, Europe, and Asia. His recording of sonatas and cantatas by Bononcini was released by Centaur, and his online video article about them has been published by the Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music. He has also recorded for Albany, Titanic, Dux, and Koch International. He served as President of the Viola Gamba Society of America from 2000 through 2004.

JAVIER ZAFRA, bassoon, first studied bassoon in his native Alicante, and subsequently at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, where he specialized in playing the historical bassoon. He is a member of Freiburg Barock Orchester, and continues to perform throughout Europe in ensembles such as Nachtmusique, the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, Al Ayre Español, and La Chamber Philharmoniquein Paris,where he resides. He teaches at the Sommer-Akademie in Freiburg, and plays on a bassoon by F. Triebert, Paris, from circa 1800.

A multi-instrumentalist specializing in the medieval and Renaissance periods, TOM ZAJAC, recorder, bagpipes, percussion, is a member of the wind band Piffaro as well as his own group Ex Umbris.  He has recorded and performed in the U.S. and throughout the world as a member or guest with many of America’s leading early music ensembles.  He performed in the East Wing of the White House during the Clinton administration, played serpent in a piece by P.D.Q. Bach on A Prairie Home Companion, and his bagpipe (on a recording, of course) awoke the astronauts every morning on a 2001 space shuttle mission.  This winter, he played in a 13th-century music-theater project, Le Tournoi de Chauvency, with the French-American company Ensemble Aziman, giving performances in France, Luxembourg, and the U.S.  His most recent interest is in learning the beautiful repertory of Ottoman court music, performing with the Boston-based group Dünya.  He teaches at Wellesley College.