Ian Watson   John McGinn    Kellie Van Horn    Andrea Chenoweth    Jessica Lennick    Gigi Mitchell-Velasco

Luke Grooms    Paul Soper    Miroslav Sekera    Jessica Lizak    Clark Matthews    Krista Buckland Reisner

Rohan Gregory    Peter Sulski    Guy Fishman    Robert Nairn    Bonita Williams    Joseph Summer

Ian Watson

Ian Watson is a prominent figure at the highest levels of the international music scene, and played an important role in the British Baroque revival which brought such renowned orchestras into prominence as the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the English Chamber Orchestra, the English Baroque Soloists, the Monteverdi Choir and The Sixteen—all with whom he has performed as organist, harpsichordist, solo pianist, and/or director. Watson’s versatility is revealed in the equal ease with which he performs the roles of orchestral conductor, choir director, organist, harpsichordist, pianist, teacher, and public speaker.

 

Among Watson’s many prestigious conducting engagements are Monteverdi’s Vespers at St. James’s Palace in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen; Bach’s B Minor Mass at the Rheingau Festival with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra and Chorus; the opening concerts of the newly renovated Châtelet Theater in Paris with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Christmas Eve at the Royal Albert Hall with the Mozart Festival Orchestra; Nigel Kennedy tours and video with the English Chamber Orchestra; and assistant conductor, continuo player, and soloist for Sir John Eliot Gardiner in the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage. (back to menu)

 

John McGinn 

Composer/pianist John McGinn served as music director (now emeritus) of The Shakespeare Concerts from 2003-08. He has performed throughout the United States and Europe and appeared on more than a dozen commercial recordings including the first two Shakespeare Concerts albums (Albany), John Adams’ opera Nixon in China with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s (Nonesuch) and a critically acclaimed solo album, The 20th Century Piano (AmCam). McGinn received his undergraduate music degree from Harvard University and his doctorate in composition from Stanford University. Among his teachers are such noted composers as Jonathan Harvey, Leon Kirchner, Ivan Tcherepnin and John Adams. His own works have won several honors and been performed at colleges and festivals nationwide. Recent premieres include a Trio (2013) for clarinet, violin and piano with colleagues at Austin College; a vocal setting of Yolanda Lockett’s “It’s a Letter” in A River of Words Song Cycle (2011), a collaborative cycle commissioned by baritone Bruce Cain and guitarist David Asbury and performed at more than a dozen venues including Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress; and Score for Score (2009) for 20 players by the Inscape Chamber Orchestra of Bethesda, MD. As an arranger, McGinn has created piano reductions of several large-scale works including John Adams’ Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, Gnarly Buttons and Violin Concerto and Christopher Rouse’s Pulitzer-winning Trombone Concerto, all for publication by Boosey & Hawkes. McGinn currently serves as Associate Professor of Music (Theory/Composition) at Austin College in Sherman TX. (back to menu)

 

 

Kellie Van Horn

Mezzo-soprano Kellie Van Horn debuted with The Shakespeare Concerts in 2006 and has returned each season since then. Over the years she has premiered twelve of Joseph Summer’s works both in live performance and on recording. She is featured on the title track of Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day and can also be heard on So Many Journeys, both released by Albany Records. Since the Jordan Hall debut of The Shakespeare Concerts in 2007 Kellie has also presented her interpretations of Shakespearean settings by Berlioz, Korngold, Poulenc, Stravinsky, and Brahms.

 

Van Horn has sung with regional companies throughout the United States, including Sarasota Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Opera Colorado, and Boston Midsummer Opera. Highlights among her operatic performances have been Charlotte (Werther) and Prince Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus) in Sarasota, the title role in Carmen with Commonwealth Opera (Northampton MA), Hermia (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) in Des Moines, and Anne Lindbergh in the world premiere of Loss of Eden (Cary John Franklin) in St. Louis. She also sang the role of Dido to great critical acclaim in a semi-staged concert performance of Dido and Aeneus for the Miami-based chamber choir Seraphic Fire. Elsewhere on the concert stage, Kellie has an affinity for operetta and cross-over repertoire, having appeared with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano as the title role in La Périchole, Lois Lane in Kiss Me, Kate, and the Old Lady in Candide. Van Horn holds a Master of Music degree from Yale University where she was a student of the late contralto Lili Chookasian. (back to menu)

 

Andrea Chenoweth

Andrea Chenoweth, soprano, is a two-time regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. She has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Opera, Commonwealth Opera, Lyric Opera Cleveland, Dayton Opera, the Springfield Symphony, the Bach Society of Dayton, Mansfield Symphony Orchestra and Arcadia Players.

 

Highlights of Chenoweth's engagements include: Verdi’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall, Mozart's C Minor Mass and Exsultate Jubilate, Handel’s Judas Maccabeus, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Lucia in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Madeline in the Ohio professional premiere of Philip Glass's opera, The Fall of the House of Usher, and performances of Handel's Messiah and Bach's Christmas Oratorio in Japan.

 

An active recitalist and proponent of new music, Chenoweth has worked with many living composers including Joseph Summer, Libby Larsen, Jonathon Sheffer, and Monica Houghton. She performs regularly on The Shakespeare Concerts Series in Boston.

 

Chenoweth is an Artist-in-Residence at the University of Dayton in Dayton OH, where she currently resides. (back to menu)

 

Jessica Lennick

Jessica Lennick "is a complete package, including a terrific smile and stage presence to go along with her pleasing voice," according to the Baltimore Examiner. She has used these qualities to great effect on the opera stage, singing Adina, Giulietta, Susanna, Zerlina, Blonde, Gretel, Norina, and die Königin der Nacht for Washington Camerata of DC, Chesapeake Chamber Opera, and Center City Opera Theater, among others. She was an Annapolis Opera Competition finalist and Great Lakes Regional Finalist for the Metropolitan National Council Auditions. She covered the role of Giulietta at the Caramoor Festival, where she also appeared as soprano soloist with Roberto Abbado and the Orchestra of St. Luke's in Midsummer Night's Dream.

 

In the 2013-14 concert season she was featured in Canton Comic Opera's 10th Anniversary Gala, in Lyricfest's "Magical Musical Menagerie" (where she will be returning for their 2014-15 season), and frequently appeared with Concert Operetta Theater (most recently as the title role in Madeleine). In December she appeared for the first time with the Riverside Symphonia singing excerpts from Handel's Messiah.

 

Since 2009, Lennick has enjoyed a close relationship with composer Melissa Dunphy and has sung the world premieres of The Gonzales Cantata, Tesla's Pigeon, and the world premiere recordings of June, Tesla's Pigeon (with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra) and is thrilled to be originating the role of Ayn Rand in Ayn in 2014. Lennick has premiered many other pieces, notably A Weeping Woman (Solitro), Under the Harvest Moon (Runestad), and Honour, Riches, Marriage-Blessing (Summer) the last of which she has recorded for Albany Records. She will be appearing with the Da Capo ensemble on their forthcoming album of works by Robert Parris (Albany Records, 2015). (back to menu)

 

Gigi Mitchell-Velasco

Proclaimed “world-class in every aspect,” Gigi Mitchell-Velasco is among international artists of the world’s opera and concert stages. Protégée of Christa Ludwig, and with a voice ideally suited to the German romantic repertoire, she has been praised by the critics, colleagues and public alike for her interpretations of Mahler, Strauss, and Wagner. New York Times’ Tommasini wrote of her “dark-hued sound and elegance,” and Wall Street Journal called her “the most finished artist, sensitive to every nuance of the text.” Recent appearances include songs of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco in an international conference on his life and works at Providence's Brown University, and "Field of the Dead" from Prokofiev's film score in a silent movie viewing of Alexander Nevsky at the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts. A visit to the Philippines with concerts and voice masterclasses with her husband, tenor Noel Espíritu Velasco, a Duo Recital at St. John's Concert Series in Beverly Farms MA, and a rare appearance concurrently as organist, singer and flutist at Providence’s NecronomiCon were received with accolades and standing ovations.

 

Her extensive concert engagements include Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Second, Third and Eighth Symphonies, Verdi’s Requiem, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and St. Matthew Passion, Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mozart’s Requiem, Elgar’s The Music Makers, Dvorak’s Requiem and Stabat Mater, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis, Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony and Arias and Barcarolles, Berlioz’ Romeo et Juliette and L’Enfance du Christ, Handel’s Messiah, Ravel’s Shéhérazade, de Falla’s El Amor Brujo, Berg’s Sieben Frühe Lieder, Wagner’s Wesendoncklieder.

 

In opera, she has portrayed Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier), Carmen, Brangæne (Tristan und Isolde), Dorabella (Così fan tutte), Composer (Ariadne auf Naxos), Witch and Mother (Hansel and Gretel), Elizabeth Proctor (The Crucible), Maddalena (Rigoletto), Fricka (Das Rheingold), Orlovsky (Die Fledermaus), Federica (Luisa Miller), Parséïs (Esclarmonde) and Suzuki (Madama Butterfly).

 

She has performed with such conductors as Tilson Thomas, Helmut Rilling, Frühbeck de Burgos, Jaap van Zweden, Hans Graf, Andrew Litton, Sarah Caldwell, Dimitrij Kitaenko, Eve Queler, Robert Page, Vjekoslav Sutej, and Benjamin Zander, in Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Konzert-Haus, Prague’s Dvorak and Smetana Halls, with the symphony orchestras of  Boston, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Florida, San Diego, Orchêstre symphonic de Québec, Boston Philharmonic, Ural State Philharmonic, Martinú Philharmonic, the opera companies of Boston, Houston, Minnesota, Brauschweig (Germany), Prague, Florentine, Opera Orchestra of New York, Washington Concert Opera, the music festivals of Newport, Wolf Trap, Prague Autumn, Grant Park, Colorado and Snowshoe, the choruses of New York, Washington, Boston and Philadelphia.

 

Well-versed in many other languages, she has sung many song recitals from New York to Manila and Singapore to Russia. Her debut at Newport Music Festival included Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and 14 other concerts of various works, mostly by Poulenc.

 

She has given master classes at Columbus’ Ohio State University, Binghamton University NY and the Taylor Choral Festival in Little Rock AR, and adjudicated the 2004 Canadian Music Competitions in Toronto and the 2006 Bel Canto Vocal Scholarship Awards.

 

Ms. Mitchell-Velasco can be heard singing Korngold’s Tomorrow, Einfache Lieder and Abschiedslieder on ASV, and in Lukas Foss’ The Prairie on BMOP. A BMOP recording of Virgil Thompson's Four Saints in Three Acts is forthcoming after a concert performance last November. (back to menu)

 

Luke Grooms

Newport TN born Luke Grooms has performed many roles in both opera and musical theatre. Focusing mainly in the Bel Canto repertoire of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti and has performed the roles of Tonio, Elvino, Lindoro, Count Almaviva, Roderigo (Rossini’s Otello), Rodolfo, Il Duca in Rigoletto, Ferrando, and Nemorino just to name a few. With companies such as The Metropolitan Opera (cover artist), Glimmerglass Opera, Lyric Opera of Baltimore, Opera Orchestra of New York, New York City Opera, Mississippi Opera, Opera in the Heights, Carnegie Hall, and many others. In musical theatre, Luke has performed the role of Piangi on the final tour of the original production of The Phantom of the Opera, as well as the New York premiere of Jerry Springer: The Opera at Carnegie Hall, playing the Dual roles of Dwight/God and reprised this performance for Speakeasy Stage Company, garnering a Elliot Norton nomination for best musical performance. Recently he has been seen as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables with Skylight Music Theatre and at Red Mountain Theatre Company, and as Beadle Bamford in Sweeney Todd with Fulton Theatre, a role he will reprise in April 2015 for Hawaii Opera Theatre. In October of 2014 he will take on his first Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola with Skylight Music theatre. He can be heard on the recording Divas of a Certain Age in the role of Leon in Signor Deluso on Albany records.  For more information please go to www.lukegrooms.com (back to menu)

 

Paul Soper

Baritone Paul Soper made his operatic debut with Houston Grand Opera as the Innkeeper in Manon and has sung principal and comprimario roles with Boston Lyric Opera, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Glimmerglass Opera, Opera Naples (FL) and the National Touring Company of New York City Opera.

 

Highlights include the title roles of Don Giovanni with MetroWest Opera and Noah in Noye's Fludde with the Falmouth Chorale.  Recent debuts include Ariodate in Xerxes at the Connecticut Early Music Festival, Don Alfonso in Cosi fan Tutte with Opera Providence, Guglielmo in Cosi and Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor with Commonwealth Opera, Christus in Bach's St. John Passion with the Pioneer Valley Symphony, the Priest at SpeakEasy Stage’s critically acclaimed production of The Light in the Piazza and Baron Zeta in The Merry Widow with Cape Cod Opera.

 

In addition to working with Mr. Summer, Paul is a frequent guest soloist with Boston's Intermezzo Chamber Opera which champions new and 20th-century works. Soper is also a long time member of Opera-to-Go, New England’s interactive and improvisational opera outreach program.

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Miroslav Sekera

A child prodigy on violin and piano, Miroslav Sekera won numerous competitions on both instruments, gaining the attention of Milos Forman who cast him at the age of 6 as the child Mozart in the 1985 film Amadeus. Eventually, Sekera chose to concentrate on piano and in 1991 he won first prize in the Chopin Competitionat Mariánské Lázne. Other awards include first prizes in the National Competition of Czech Conservatories, the Baden Competition for Best Performance of a work by Leos Janacek, the 1999 Prague Academy of Music Arts, and the 2002 Johannes Brahms International Competition at Portschach, Austria. He has also given prize winning performances at the Gaillard International Piano Competition in France as well as the Nadezda-Sazinova Piano Competition. Sekera has performed solo recitals throughout the world, including Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, France, the Caribbean, and Jakarta, Indonesia. A perennial artist with The Shakespeare Concerts, he participated in both the 2003 debut season and the inaugural 2005 recording What A Piece Of Work Is Man. In his many seasons with The Shakespeare Concerts, Sekera has premiered 11 compositions by Joseph Summer, including THE DUMB SHOW in Boston in 2004. (back to menu)

 

Jessica Lizak

Flutist Dr. Jessica Lizak has rapidly established herself as one of Boston's most versatile young flutists. The Boston Music Intelligencer has described her performances as full of "youthful energy and rhythmic drive," as well as possessing "light and free precision...a nearly jazz-like casualness."  She is principal flute of the Atlantic Symphony and Marsh Chapel Collegium, as well as section flute of the Orchestra of Indian Hill, all of which she has been a concert soloist. She also performs with the Boston Pops Orchestra, Portland Symphony, Back Bay Chorale, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera, Opera Boston, Masterworks Chorale, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Collage New Music, and Zamir Chorale, among others. Nationally, she has joined the Gidon Kremer's Kremerata Baltica, New World Symphony in Miami Beach, and the Albany Symphony (NY).

 

She has been a selected fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center (MA), Music Academy of the West (CA), Domaine Forget (Canada), and Interlochen (MI). She was awarded top prizes in several competitions, including the Pappoutsakis Flute Competition, Myrna Brown International Flute Competition, Bohemians Club of the Detroit Symphony Concerto Competition, and was a multiple winner of the Boston University Departmental Award for outstanding musical achievements. She has been a soloist at both the National Flute Convention and the Greater Boston Flute Association's Flute Fair, and she has performed as a chamber musician on WGBH and WCRB. Her discography includes three commercial recordings available through the BSO website: a live performance of the American premiere of Carter's opera What Next? conducted by James Levine, the first BSO release of live performances of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and a commemorative album of Elliott Carter's works performed at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. She has also extensively recorded with BMOP, Boston's premier orchestra for newly composed and experimental orchestral works. She can also be heard on Natalie Merchant's album Leave Your Sleep, and in an upcoming children's production in collaboration with John Lithgow. To be released later in 2014 will be two more album's of chamber music selections: Navona Record's GODDESSES and POLARITIES. For more info, visit www.jessicalizak.com. (back to menu)

 

Clark Matthews

Clark Matthews is principal horn with the Indian Hill Symphony Orchestra, Discovery Ensemble, and Symphony Nova, and is a member of the Atlantic and New Bedford Symphony Orchestras. Matthews has also appeared with the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, and Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, and is a member of the critically-acclaimed Walden Chamber Players. Before arriving in Boston, he was a member of the Colorado Symphony and appeared at the Opera Festival of Manaus at the Teatro Amazonas in Brazil. Matthews enjoys a diverse career, playing contemporary music with the Callithumpian Consort, as well as the music of J.S. Bach with the Marsh Chapel Choir and Collegium and the Bach Cantata series at the Emanuel Church. An enthusiastic advocate for music in education, he participates regularly with the Discovery Ensemble and the Walden Chamber Players in presenting musical outreach to schools in the Boston area and across the country. (back to menu)

 

Krista Buckland Reisner

Krista Buckland Reisner, violin - "Things done right.."(Boston Globe), "...Excellent left hand.."(Toronto Star), "...lovely tonal bloom..."(LeDROIT), and "..heartbreaking.."(Worcester Telegram & Gazette) are words that describe the performances of violinist Krista Buckland Reisner. An artist of great diversity, she has toured across her native Canada as a recitalist, performed concertos in cities ranging from New York City to St. John's, Newfoundland, toured internationally throughout Europe, Russia, and New Zealand and has created multi-media works for herself involving dance and movement. Krista's passion for opera led her to be Principal Second Violin of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra for five years, Concertmaster of Opera Boston for eight, perform Wagner's Ring Cycle with the Arizona Opera and hold a position with the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. Also an early music lover, Krista has performed with Canada's Aradia, Boston Baroque, and is currently a tenured member of the Handel and Haydn Society. Her involvement in new music includes winning the Eckhardt Gramatté Competition for New Music, serving as Principal Second Violin of Boston Modern Orchestra Project, premiering concertos written for her by Canadian composers and developing countless collaborative relationships with living US composers like Charles Dodge, Yehudi Wyner, Theodore Antoniou, John MacDonald, Paul Moravec, Joseph Summer, Peter Child, Charles Shadle, Matthew Malsky, Mark Berger, and John Alyward. As a chamber musician, Krista was the founder/first violinist of the string quartet QX, is lead violinist of the Worcester Chamber Music Society and Alea III and a frequent player with Boston Musica Viva. She can be heard on many recording labels including Naxos, Albany, Filharmonika, BMOPsound, Telarc, CBC, and Navona Records. (back to menu)

 

Rohan Gregory

Rohan Gregory is a violinist that has cultivated a wide-ranging expertise in chamber music, new music and world music. He has played with the Apple Hill Chamber Players, the Ancora Ensemble and award-winning Boccherini Ensemble and was also a founding member for ten years of the Arden String Quartet, performing new music concerts in New York, Boston, Amsterdam, and St. Petersburg, Russia. He is a member of QX, a string quartet that has been in residence at Clark University, and has recorded for Centaur Records.

 

On the world music scene, Gregory has toured extensively. His travels have taken him to Europe with the Klezmatics, to Thailand with multi-ethnic flute player Abbie Rabinowitz, to India with the Indo-jazz group Natraj and to the United States. west coast with Sophia Bilides Greek Folk Ensemble. Recently he has played nationally and internationally with the flamenco guitarist Juanito Pascual. Locally, Gregory is a member of the Lyric Opera Company and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. He coaches chamber music for the Walnut Hill School, teaches at the College of the Holy Cross, and spends his summers coaching at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber music in New Hampshire, at Music at Port Milford in Ontario, Canada, and at the WCMS Summer Festival. (back to menu)

 

Peter Sulski

Peter Sulski, violin/viola, was a member of the London Symphony Orchestra for seven years. While in England he served on the faculty of the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music and Drama, as well as being Artistic Director of Chapel Royal Concerts, which he founded in 1993. For seven years he gave the annual Viola Master class, along with many solo recitals and chamber music concerts at the Dartington International Summer School. He gave his Carnegie Hall debut in 1999, and his first London South Bank appearance in 2001. Sulski served as Head of Strings of the National Palestinian Conservatory, Bicommunal Coordinator for chamber music for the Cyprus Fulbright Commission and Principal Violist of the Cyprus Chamber Orchestra. He is currently on the faculty as teacher of violin/viola/chamber music at Clark University, Anna Maria College, Assumption College, and College of the Holy Cross. He is a member of QX string quartet, was recently appointed Principal Violist of the Camerata New England, is a frequent performer with Boston Musica Viva, and is currently Artistic Director of the Al Kamandjati Baroque Festival and International Summer Festivals. Peter serves as Cultural Envoy to the United States Consulate in Jerusalem. Currently, Sulski is presenting a six-year cycle of concerts at Clark University featuring the entire solo works of J.S. Bach for violin and viola. He has also made guest artist appearances with the Burlington, Radius, and Chameleon Arts Ensembles; this past summer he also made his debut with the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society. (back to menu)

 

Guy Fishman

Guy Fishman is principal cellist of Boston's Handel & Haydn Society, and is in demand as an early music specialist as well as a soloist, recitalist, chamber, and orchestral musician on standard cello. Fishman has appeared with Dawn Upshaw, Gil Kalish, Mark Peskanov, Daniel Stepner, Eliot Fisk, Richard Egarr, and Natalie Merchant in recital, and performs at prestigious summer festivals as well as with orchestras such as the Albany Symphony and the Orchestra of St. Luke's. He studied with David Soyer, Peter Wiley, Julia Lichten, and Laurence Lesser, the latter at the New England Conservatory, where he earned a Doctorate. He is a Fulbright Fellow, and worked with famed Dutch cellist Anner Bylsma in Amsterdam. He has recorded for the Centaur, Coro, Telarc, Titanic, Newport Classics, and Navona Records labels. He plays a rare cello made in Rome in 1704 by David Tecchler.

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Robert Nairn

A native of Australia, Rob Nairn received his Bachelor of music with Distinction from the Canberra School of Music and a post-graduate diploma from the Berlin Musikhochschule by courtesy of a two-year DAAD German Government Scholarship.

 

Nairn's experience covers Contemporary, Jazz, traditional Orchestral, and Baroque and Classical "authentic performance" Ensembles. His teachers have included Klaus Stoll, Tom Martin, and Max McBride. He has performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, The Melbourne Symphony and the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique. He has acted as guest Principle Bassist with the Halle Orchestra, the London Mozart Players, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and held the position of Principle bass with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

 

In the Early Music world he holds the position of Principal Double Bass with the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston MA; he also works with the Washington Bach Consort, the Aulos Ensemble of NY and performs regularly in London as a member of 'Florilegium' (Baroque Ensemble-in-Residence at the Wigmore hall) and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He has performed recitals in Europe, the United States, and Australia and performed in such international festivals as Salzburg, Glyndebourne, and the London Proms.

 

Nairn is active in commissioning new works for the Double Bass and has premiered more than thirty compositions for both solo bass and chamber music featuring the bass. As a soloist he has performed several concerti with the Australian Chamber and Adelaide symphony orchestras (including Bottesini's Passiona Amoroso with Gary Karr). His first solo album is due for release shortly.

 

Nairn is Professor of Double bass at Penn State University where he also directs the University's Baroque Ensemble and is president-elect of the International Society of Bassists. (back to menu)

 

Bonita Williams

After completing her Undergraduate studies in Melbourne, Australia, Williams moved to the United States to undertake her Masters degree at Boston University, studying under BSO bassist Todd Seeber and Principal Ed Barker (Orchestral Repertoire). Williams performed regularly with professional orchestras in Australia such as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria (Melbourne's Opera and Ballet Orchestra), and has been enjoying her involvement in professional performance engagements in the city of Boston. Williams loves teaching the double bass to students of all ages and levels, and meeting new people around Boston. (back to menu)

 

Joseph Summer

My (Joseph Summer’s) operas include The Tempest, Hamlet, Hippolytus, The Tenor’s Suite, and a cycle of comedies that I’ve been working on for decades titled collectively: The Hebdomad. The cycle tells the story of the last week in the life of a 14th-century Franciscan monk, Andreuccio Cipolla, a reprobate and rake; derived from the stories of Boccaccio. (Shakespeare borrowed tales from Boccaccio’s Decameron to create All’s Well That Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, and portions of Cymbeline and The Merchant of Venice). The four completed Hebdomad operas are 1) And The Dead Shall Walk The Earth, 2) Courting Disaster, 3) Their Fate In The Hands Of The Friar, and 4) Gianetta. I am currently working on the next two operas in the Hebdomad: Also Known As and The Ignoble, The Grotesque, The Heretical. (The opera Gianetta, though complete, I will allow to be subsumed by the two I am working on, so it will cease to exist as a separate opera when I am done. This is because I have found it intriguing to carry the labyrinthine plots forward in a bifurcated pair of operas that occur on the same day, but at different locations and hours. It’s complicated, but it works. I like how the characters run in and out of scenes between the operas in a way that is logical in one perspective as well as in another, yet not comprehensible at times to the characters within the operas.) I’ve set an inordinate amount of Shakespeare in eight “books” (each of which contains many songs and scenes) which I have labeled The Oxford Songs, labeled thus because I am 90% certain that Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford is the author of the works collected under the pseudonymous attribution of Shakes-Speare (rather than the country bumpkin and wannabe William Shaxper or Shagsper or whatever lame attempt at his name the illiterate attempted.) I’ve also written cantatas and some non-vocal music such as chamber music and a horn concerto (which latter I mention because it allows me to note it won an award.) I have completed one string quartet, The Garden of Forking Paths, and am working on a second: Picasso Trigger. (back to menu)