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.
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.
For more information see ElizabethField.com.
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.
June Huang, violin
June Huang, violinist, studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and holds music degrees from the University of California and Oberlin Conservatory. She performs regularly with numerous orchestras at the Kennedy Center and the Music Center at Strathmore. Receiving much critical acclaim as a baroque violinist, she is concertmaster of the Washington Bach Consort and the National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra.
Ms. Huang is also a principal player with Opera Lafayette, Modern Musick, the Folger Consort and the Wolf Trap Opera Company. She is the director of the Levine School of Music String Camp/Strings Plus programs in Washington D.C. and teaches privately in Fairfax, Virginia.&
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.
Leslie Nero, viola
A native Washingtonian, 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.
Stephanie Vial, cello
Stephanie Vial is a sought after lecturer, soloist, and continuo player. She is the co-director and principal cellist of the Vivaldi Project, and has also performed with such groups as the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Apollo Ensemble, Les Violons du Roy, and the modern/ period chamber ensemble, Arcovoce. As a baroque cellist, she has recorded for Dorian, Naxos, Centaur Records, and Hungaroton. 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." Ms. Vial received her training on the modern cello at Northwestern University, followed by a Master's Degree at Indiana University. Her D.M.A. dissertation (the basis of her book) was awarded Cornell's Donald J. Grout Memorial Prize. Malcolm Bilson praises the book as "inspired scholarship" and "essential reading." Recent academic lectures include appearances at the Performing Romantic Music conference in Durham, England in July of 2008, for which she received a Music and Letters Trust award, and at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Musicological Society in Philadelphia. Ms. Vial makes her home in Durham, North Carolina where she is an adjunct faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Andrew Willis, fortepiano
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.
