Praised by the New York Times for her “splendid playing,” Natalie Rose Kress is a period violinist based in Washington, D.C.. Following three summers as a Tanglewood Fellow, she was awarded the Jules C. Reiner Violin Prize from the Tanglewood Music Center and performed with Yo-Yo Ma at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors, honoring Seiji Ozawa. Recent highlights include winning the 2022 English Concert in America Fellowship, the 2021 Mercury Chamber Orchestra Fellowship, as well as performing the World Premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s “Music for String Quartet” at The Tanglewood Music Center in 2021 with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She can be heard on the premiere recording of Bernstein’s quartet paired with the rarely performed, "Elegies" for violin and viola by Aaron Copland, to be released this September by Parma Records. She performs as a core member of Quartet Salonnières, Relic Ensemble, Repast Baroque Ensemble, and Musicivic Baroque and is concertmaster of La Grande Bande. Natalie plays regularly with The Handel and Haydn Society, the Washington Bach Consort, The Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, The English Concert, Opera Lafayette, and the Staunton Music Festival. An alumni of Stony Brook University and The Juilliard School, she is currently a Doctorate student at the University of Maryland and lives with her husband, Jonathan Davies, and dog, Henry, in Greenbelt, MD.

A curiosity in the cultural background behind the music she plays led Sarah Stone to baroque cello and viola da gamba. "The show is not over... Questlove keeps spinning into the early morning. Sir Patrick Stewart has been reading a Shakespeare sonnet everyday. Sarah Stone, who plays cello and viola da gamba, has stuck to her “Bach Everyday” performances...Since March 19, she’s done a Bach Chorale each day.” (Geoff Edgers, The Washington Post, 2020). At the start of the pandemic Sarah created Everyday Bach, recording multi-instrumental Bach everyday for a year, featured in the Washington Post, The Greene Space (WNYC), and Early Music America. Sarah is Associate Artistic Director of New York Baroque Incorporated and a core member of Repast Baroque. She performs with The Sebastians, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Seraphic Fire, Washington National Cathedral, Apollo’s Fire, The Thirteen, and Baroque Music Montana. Sarah holds degrees from The Juilliard School, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Rice University. www.sarahabigaelstone.com

Harpsichordist Gabe Shuford performs throughout North America and abroad, and is the recipient of several awards, including the 2011 Baron Prize from Stony Brook University and second prize at the 2007 Mae and Irving Jurow International Harpsichord Competition. He is a member of Repast Baroque Ensemble and has been a frequent guest of others, including A Far Cry and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The New York Times called his performance with Speculum Musicae of Elliott Carter’s Sonata “assured, polished and beautifully nuanced.” Gabe earned a doctorate from Stony Brook University, where he studied with harpsichordist Arthur Haas. He has served on the faculties of Luther College and Sarah Lawrence College.

 Aisslinn Nosky was appointed Concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society in 2011. With a reputation for being one of the most dynamic and versatile violinists of her generation, Nosky is in great demand internationally as a director and soloist. Recent collaborations include the New World Symphony, Holland Baroque, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the New Zealand Symphony.

From 2005 through 2016, Aisslinn was a member of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. Aisslinn has served on faculty at the Banff Centre for the Arts and at Mount Holyoke College.

www.aisslinn.com

Milwaukee native and Grammy award-winning violinist, Ravenna Lipchik, thrives in a musical life shared between the worlds of modern and historical performance practices.

Ravenna received her training at the San Francisco Conservatory and the Juilliard School, where she is a graduate of both their modern and Historical Performance programs. Her upcoming season includes performances with ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants, The English Concert, Ensemble Pygmalion, and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, as well as an album release of Schumann Piano trios with Trio Ilona, a group dedicated to the exploration of 18th/19th c performance practice. 

Violinist Carmen Lavada Johnson-Pájaro, native of Birmingham, Alabama, is a community-based artist living in New York City. Raised in a family of music lovers, Carmen began her musical studies with jam sessions in the living room and eventually found her way to the world of historical performance. She’s had the opportunity to work with renowned early music figures such as Masaaki Suzuki, William Christie, Reggie Mobley, Raphaël Pichon, Jonathan Cohen, Rachel Podger, Richard Egarr, Lionel Meunier, among many others. Carmen’s upcoming season includes performances with Twelfth Night, Arcangelo, the Handel & Haydn Society, Apollo’s Fire, Repast Baroque, CMSCVA, Washington Bach Consort, Staunton Music Festival, and more. Beyond performing, Carmen’s commitment to community engagement has led to years of nonprofit work for organizations and work in schools, shelters, hospitals, and detention centers across the world. Carmen holds degrees from The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, and the Eastman School of Music, where she was a Lois Rogers and Links Scholar. Carmen is also known for being a serious popcorn addict, podcast junkie, dog lover, and gym rat!

In demand throughout North America as a performer and teacher on historical oboes, Margaret Owens has seen much of the country in her travels to play with groups spanning from San Francisco to Boston. She is on faculty in the historical performance institutes of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University; at both institutions, her work centers around broadening the study of historical oboes, from playing the instruments to exploring the performance practices specific to the 18th century. Margaret earned degrees in oboe performance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the Manhattan School of Music, and the City University of New York.

A native of Eastern North Carolina, Margaret lives in Northern Virginia and is an active participant in the musical life of the Washington, DC, where she plays in the area’s numerous period-instrument orchestras. Her summers are spent onstage at the Charlotte Bach Festival, the Staunton Music Festival, and teaching at the Amherst Early Music Festival.

Early music artist Adam Cockerham specializes in theorbo, lute and baroque guitar. Beginning his performance career as a classical guitarist, he then gravitated toward historical plucked strings, preferring the collaborative opportunities of chamber music from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. As an accompanist and continuo player, Cockerham has performed with numerous ensembles in North America. He founded voice and plucked string duo Jarring Sounds with mezzo-soprano Danielle Reutter-Harrah.

Beyond chamber music, Cockerham concentrates on 17th-century Italian vocal music. He is the Associate Music Director of the Academy of Sacred Drama and has been involved in numerous modern world premiere performances with companies such as Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik and Ars Minerva. Cockerham received his doctorate from the Juilliard School where he was awarded the Richard F. French Prize for best dissertation.

Rebecca Nelson is a songwriter from Germany. After earning two degrees as a violinist, Rebecca diverged from her classical training, diving head first into Historical Performance and through her new love of baroque music and old love of folk and bluegrass, Rebecca found her voice as a composer. Since graduating from The Juilliard School’s Historical Performance program, she has joined and co-founded ensembles including Relic and Nuova Pratica and released an album called Do Not Lament.

Margot Rood, hailed for her “sterling, gleaming tone and magnificent control” by The Washington Post, performs a wide range of repertoire. 2024/2025 concert performances include return appearances with Washington Bach Consort, Blue Heron, and Handel & Haydn Society. Debuts in the 2024/2025 season include those with Folger Consort and Repast Baroque. Recent solo appearances include those with Toronto’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Edinburgh’s Dunedin Consort, Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Philharmonia Baroque, New Jersey Symphony, and Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.

Notable recordings include Blue Heron’s Ockeghem Songs, Vol. 1 & 2, and Blue Heron’s world premiere recording of Cipriano de Rore’s 5-voice madrigals. Margot recorded the role of La Paix in Charpentier's Les Arts Florissants with Boston Early Music Festival (CPO). She has recorded repertoire from the medieval to the 21st-century with Coro, Reference, Albany Records, Blue Heron, BMOP Sound, Toccata Classics, and Sono Luminus. 

Kevin C. Devine brings fresh repertoire to music lovers in non-traditional venues and guides audiences on joyous journeys through music of the medieval, renaissance and baroque eras. You can likely find him on the subway, hauling his organetto or hurdy-gurdies all over NYC. He is currently the Music Director at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Brooklyn and Assistant Director of Concert Services for GEMS. Devine holds degrees from San Francisco State University, Boston University, Stony Brook University, and the Juilliard School.

Sonya Headlam is a versatile soprano whose repertoire spans from the Baroque era to the present. Recent solo debuts include appearances with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and she performs regularly with Apollo’s Fire. For over five years she contributed to the music ministry of the historic Trinity Church in downtown Manhattan, as a member of the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, where she remains an auxiliary member. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she received the Michael Fardink Memorial Award.