Elizabeth Field, violin
Elizabeth Field is the founder and Director of the Vivaldi Project and concertmaster of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. She has served as concertmaster for leading period instrument ensembles such as the Washington Bach Consort and Opera Lafayette as well as acting as both concertmaster and performance-practice coach for modern orchestras such as The National Philharmonic and the Washington Chamber Symphony.
She is currently a member of the modern/period chamber ensemble, Arcovoce and is a frequent guest artist with the 4 Nations Ensemble, Hesperus and Harmonious Blacksmith. She has performed with leading period instrument ensembles such as the Handel & Haydn Society, The New York State Early Music Association, and the Classical Band. A former member of Brandywine Baroque, Ms Field was also a founding member of the Van Swieten Quartet. As a Baroque violinist, she has recorded for Hungaroton, Naxos and the Dorian label. Along with cellist Stephanie Vial, she directed her first Modern Early Music Institute (Historical Performance Practice for modern players) in June of 2009. As a modern violinist, she performs frequently with the Washington National Opera and with her husband Uri, is a member of the Novella Chamber Players (http://novellachamberplayers.com/).
Ms. Field's modern training was done with Oscar Shumsky and Joseph Silverstein. From 1982-1991, Ms. Field performed and recorded extensively for Deutsche Grammophon with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and also performed with leading New York ensembles such as The St. Lukes Ensemble, The Brooklyn Philharmonic and the New York City Opera. Ms. Field has coached student & professional performers throughout the U.S. including at the Universities of Maryland, Illinois and Iowa, and the University of Washington. She has held professorships at Sacramento State University of California, the University of California at Davis, and is an adjunct professor at George Washington University. She is currently working on a collaborative DVD with fortepianist Malcolm Bilson, exploring the Historical performance Practice of 18th-century violin/piano repertoire. back to top
Barbara Opper, President
Barbara Opper is former Senior Manager of Financial Policies and Projections at the World Bank. As Senior Advisor on sabbatical from the World Bank, she wrote “Roadmap to Efficient Health Care Markets”. That work is background for “The Health Care Conundrum” , recently published by The American Interest Magazine. Since leaving the World Bank, Barbara Opper has consulted, mainly advising countries on their sovereign debt risk management. She is the principal author of “Sovereign Debt Risk Management”, a publication of the U.S. Treasury Office of Technical Assistance. She also was an Economist and Senior Economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where she authored the annual Federal Reserve Bulletin articles on commercial bank profitability. She was an analyst at Connecticut General Insurance Company (now CIGNA) and the Life Insurance Association of America (now ACLI), and held positions with the Travelers Insurance Companies and Krambo Corporation, an investment banking firm.
She has a BA from Connecticut College in New London and an MA in economics from The University of Michigan. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. >From 1993 to 2001 she was a member of the Society of Actuaries Task Force on Banks and Financial Institutions. She is a member of the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC, is former Board Chair of the Washington Bach Consort, and has served on the Board of the Bank Fund Staff Federal Credit Union for many years. back to top
Stephen Borko, Friend
Stephen Borko has managed nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC for 40 years and has served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations during that time.
During 28 years as administrative Director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG), an association of area local governments, Mr. Borko provided staff support to the board and represented COG before local, state and federal committees. He also was chief of staff for the Center for Public Administration and Service (of which COG was a founding member) during the construction of their headquarters building and for the 8 years after construction when it became the home for a dozen nonprofit organizations. Mr. Borko provided staff support to the board of the Public Welfare Foundation while serving as a consultant for one year in their move from the Watergate to a 100 year old renovated building in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC. He also was Executive Director for 4 ½ years of The Washington Bach Consort, a 30 year old performing arts organization based in Washington, DC. He currently is the Deputy Director for Administration for The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Mr. Borko is the First Vice President of the Maryland Federation of Art and also is Vice President of the Board of The Vivaldi Project. He was a member of the board of the metropolitan chapter of the American Institute of Wine and Food (AIWF) for five years and was board chair for 2 years. He also served on the AIWF national board for just under two years and led that board through its first strategic planning exercise. back to top
Martin Block, Secretary
Martin Block is president of Kesem Technology, a computer and network technology services company headquartered in Maryland. The company provides technical and logistical support to small businesses and not-for-profit orgaizations, working primarily to be the single source of support and advice in the appropriate use of technology for the smaller concern. He has been contiluously employed in the computer technology segment for over 30 years, working variously as instructor, programmer, technician, manager, and for the last 10 year, owner and entrepreneur.
Marty became interested in classical music performance when his son, at age five, asked if he could learn to play the violin. Eleven years later, both father and son are involved in classical music, with each doing what they do best, his son contiuing violin performance and study, and Marty supports classical music through involvement with The Vivaldi Project.
Marty has previously served as Secretary and then Treasure of the publicly held Greenbelt Cooperative inc, once the largest consumer cooperative in the United States with sales in excess 24 million dollars. He presently serves on the the Board of a commmercial condominium association. back to top
Kim Narcisso, Treasurer
Kim Narcisso is a senior financial and accounting consultant with over 25 years of experience. He is currently Senior Partner of his own financial services firm, Acumen Financial Services, which provides accounting and financial services to a number of smaller nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC. Mr. Narcisso graduated from the University of New Mexico with a degree in accounting in 1982 and began his career as an auditor with Touche Ross & Co. He received his Certified Public Accounting credentials in 1984, and moved into the private sector in 1986. He was formerly the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Environmental Products Corporation in Fairfax and Chantilly, Virginia before starting his own company with his wife Deborah in 2001. Mr. Narcisso is currently on the Board of Directors of Laurie Mitchell Employment Center in Springfield, Virginia. back to top
Joy Dunkerley, Member
Joy Dunkerley, a consulting economist in the field of Energy Economics, has degrees from the London School of Economics, and, as a Fulbright Fellow, from Clark University, Worcester, Mass. She also studied at Stanford University.
Her professional activities over much of the past 30 years have centered on a wide range of energy issues, particularly in developing countries. These activities include, at Resources for the Future Inc., the development of an economics based policy research program on energy in the developing countries and co-authorship of the RFF book Energy Strategies for Developing Nations. As a Senior Analyst at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment she directed an assessment on Energy Technologies for Developing Countries, whose findings were published in two reports Energy in Developing Countries (1991), and Fueling Development (1992), and contributed to an assessment of energy technologies for the former east bloc. She has consulted on rural energy supplies in India and Tunisia for the World Bank, global prospects for civilian nuclear power for the Atlantic Council, energy policies and economic development for UNESCO, and numerous energy issues for the African Energy Policy Research Network (AFREPEN).
She has published widely; served on the Committee for Research Grants of the US National Academy of Sciences; led a delegation of energy economists to the P.R. of China; and was President of the International Association for Energy Economics in 1983. She received the 2000 US Association for Energy Economics Adelman-Frankel Award for Unique and Innovating Contributions to the field of Energy Economics. She is a member of the Cosmos Club, in Washington DC, and has served as a Board member of the National Rehabilitation Hospital and the America Friends of the London School of Economics.
Arjun Makhijani, Member
Arjun Makhijani is President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland. He has run this non-profit for over two decades. Its goal is the to democratize science and to produce excellent technical and scientific studies on energy and environmental issues. A recognized authority on energy issues, Dr. Makhijani is the author and co-author of numerous reports and books on energy and environment related issues. He was the principal author of the first study of the energy efficiency potential of the US economy published in 1971. He is the author of Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy (2007). In 1989 he received The John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism of the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, with Robert Alvarez; was named a Ploughshares Hero, by the Ploughshares Fund (2006). In 2007, he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has many published articles in journals such as The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and The Progressive, as well as in newspapers, including the Washington Post. He has loved Western classical music since his teenage days in Bombay/Mumbai; it is a passion that had endured and grown over time.
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