Vivaldi Project

Stephanie Vial , cellist, is the Assistant Director of the Vivaldi Project. A sought-after chamber musician and soloist, Vial has performed with many of North America's period instrument ensembles including such groups as Quebec's Les Violons du Roy, the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, and the Apollo Ensemble. She has recorded for the Dorian Label, Naxos, Hungaroton, and Centaur Records. Fanfare Magazine, in a review of the Naxos recording of Quantz flute sonatas, gives "a particular bow to Stephanie Vial, who manages to make each cello intervention a delight to the ear." Vial received her training on the modern cello at Northwestern University with Alan Harris, followed by a Master's Degree at Indiana University with Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi. She holds a doctorate in 18th-century performance practice from Cornell University. Her book, The Art of Musical Phrasing in the Eighteenth Century: Punctuating the Classical “Period,” published in 2008 by the University of Rochester Press' Eastman Studies in Music Series, was praised by Malcolm Bilson as "inspired scholarship" and "essential reading." Vial has taught at Cornell University, Duke University, and is currently an adjunct faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Together with Elizabeth Field, she directs The Vivaldi Project's Institute for Early Music on Modern Instruments and is a regular guest teacher at The Curtis Institute.

One of the preeminent performers on baroque and modern violin, Allison Guest Edberg has been praised by The Chicago Sun Times as "impeccable, with unerring intonation and an austere beauty."  Currently the concertmaster of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, a founding member of the early music ensemble Olde Friends, and the education director for the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra, she has performed throughout North America with Apollo's Fire, Chatham Baroque, Ensemble Galilei, the foundling Baroque Orchestra, La Monica, the Washington Bach Consort, and the Vivaldi Project.  Frequently featured at the Bloomington Early Music Festival and the Indianpolis Early Music Festival, Edberg has served on the faculty of the Interlochen Arts Camp as well as those of DePauw University, Indiana State University, Lawrence University, and Ohio State University.  A student of Stanley Ritchie at the Indiana University Early Music Institute, Edberg received a bachelor of music degree from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and a master of music degree from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Camilla Wicks.

An active performer of early music, William Simms appears regularly with Apollo's Fire, the Bach Sinfonia, the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, the Folger Consort, and Harmonious Blacksmith.  He has been heard  with the American Opera Theatre, the Baltimore Consort, the Cleveland Opera, Opera Lafayette, the Washington Bach Consort, and Washington National Opera at the Barns at Wolf Trap, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Kennedy Center, the Libarary of Congress, and Washington National Cathedral.  Simms received a bachelor of music degree from the College of Wooster and a master of music degree from the Peabody Institute.  Formerly on the faculty at the Interlochen Arts Camp, he currently teaches at Mount St. Mary's University and Hood College, where he founded and directs the Hood Early Music Ensemble.  He has recorded for the Centaur, Dorian, and Electra labels.

Joseph Gascho harpsichord
Conductor and harpsichordist Joseph Gascho enjoys a varied career as a baroque keyboardist, performing as a soloist and collaborative artist; conducting operas, orchestras, and choirs; editing and arranging scores; and teaching and lecturing.He has won numerous grants and prizes, including first prize in the 2002 Jurow International Harpsichord Competition. Gascho earned the master of music degree from the Peabody Conservatory and will complete a doctorate from the University of Maryland later this year.
He is a founding member of Harmonious blacksmith and conducts regularly for Opera Vivente and the Magnolia Baroque Festival. He also teaches at George Washington University and directs the music program at the Towson Unitarian Universalist Church. Outside the United States, he has served as claveciniste répétiteur and directed a chamber music program at the Academie d’Art-Lyrique in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Gesa Kordes, violinist
Gesa Kordes performs with numerous chamber ensembles and Baroque Orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Washington Bach Consort, Ensemble Musical Offering, Muses’ Delight, Opera Lafayette, Ensemble Tra i Tempi, and the Rheinisches Barockorchester Bonn, as well as the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. She has toured as soloist and chamber musician in the U.S., Central America, Europe, and Israel and has recorded for NPR, harmonia mundi, FONO, Dorian, and Naxos. She performs frquently at international music festivals, such as the Bloomington, Berkeley, and Boston Early Music Festivals, the Staunton Music Festival, Troisdorf Barock, and the Carmel and Victoria Bach Festivals. Since 1998, Ms. Kordes has been increasingly in demand as teacher and as ensemble director of chamber groups and period orchestras in the U.S. and Europe. After teaching at Indiana University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she joined the faculty of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in August 2009 as the director of the newly-founded Early Chamber Ensembles.

A native Washingtonian, Leslie Nero spent many years in Ontario and Quebec performing in modern orchestras before returning to the D.C. area, where she is currently an active freelance musician on both modern and baroque violin and viola. In recent years she has performed locally with Opera Lafayette, Modern Musick, Folger Consort, the Handel Choir of Baltimore and the Washington Bach Consort, and has participated in summer early-music festivals in Oberlin, Vancouver, Boston, Toronto, and Albuquerque. In addition to her performing career, Ms. Nero teaches beginning strings for the Alexandria City Public Schools.

Pianist Andrew Willis performs in the United States and abroad on pianos of every period. Noted for his mastery of early keyboard instruments, Willis recorded several Beethoven sonatas in the first complete recording of the cycle on period instruments, a project directed by Malcolm Bilson and presented in concert in New York, Utrecht, Florence, and Palermo, in which his recording of Op. 106 was hailed by The New York Times as “a ‘Hammerklavier’ of rare stature.” He has also recorded Schubert lieder and Rossini songs with soprano Julianne Baird, early‐ Romantic song cycles with soprano Georgine Resick, and music of Rochberg, Schickele, Luening, Kraft, and Ibert with flutist Sue Ann Kahn.