Cynthia Roberts is one of America’s leading baroque violinists, appearing as soloist, concertmaster, and recitalist throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. She is a faculty member of the Juilliard School, and toured this spring with the Juilliard 415 baroque orchestra to India, and as concertmaster under Masaaki Suzuki to New Zealand. She also teaches at the University of North Texas and the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute and has given master classes at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Indiana University, Eastman, the Cleveland Institute, Cornell, Rutgers, Minsk Conservatory, Leopold‐Mozart‐Zentrum Augsburg,Shanghai Conservatory, Vietnam National Academy of Music, and for the Jeune Orchestre Atlantique in France. She appears regularly with the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Tafelmusik, and the Boston Early Music Festival and is a principal player in the Carmel Bach Festival. In Europe, she has performed as concertmaster of Les Arts Florissants and appeared with Orchester Wiener Akademie, the London Classical Players, and the Taverner Players. She was featured as soloist and concertmaster on the soundtrack of the Touchstone Pictures film Casanova and toured South America as concertmaster for a production featuring actor John Malkovich. Ms Roberts made her solo debut at age 12 playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Grant Park Symphony of Chicago. Her recording credits include Sony, CPO, and Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.
French-American violinist Lydia Becker unites historical performance practices with creativity and curiosity, engaging diverse audiences through explorative music-making. Lydia currently serves as concertmaster for La Forza delle Stelle, and has held concertmaster positions for Juilliard415, the Boston Early Music Festival Young Artists program, and the Eastman Collegium Musicum. As a core member of Juilliard415, Lydia toured the Netherlands and Germany, and has performed with Rachel Podger, Reggie Mobley, William Christie, and Lionel Meunier, among others. She has appeared as a soloist with Juilliard415 (under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki), Publick Musick, and the Eastman Collegium Musicum (with Christel Thielmann and Paul O’Dette). She is a founding member of the Berwick Fiddle Consort, an ensemble that explores historical fiddling traditions of the British Isles. Equally at home on modern violin, Lydia regularly teaches and performs at Rencontres Musicales Internationales des Graves (France) where she has premiered new works by composers such as François Rossé and collaborated with Maxim Vengerov. Lydia is a Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant recipient and a Mercury-Juilliard Fellow. She is also a former Presser Scholar, Morse Teaching Artist fellow, and a member of Pi Kappa Lambda. Lydia holds degrees from the Juilliard School, the Eastman School of Music, and the Conservatoire de Bordeaux.
Phoebe Carrai, a native Bostonian, completed her post-graduate studies in Austria with Nikolaus Harnencourt, after studying with Lawrence Lesser and receiving her B.M. and M.M. at New England Conservatory of Music. She became a member of Musica Antiqua Köln in 1982, making over 40 recordings for Deutsche Gramophone and touring the world. Ms. Carrai’s teaching career in historical performance started at the Hillversum Conservatory in the Netherlands and spending 16 years on the faculty of The University of the Arts in Berlin, Germany. She is presently on the faculties of The Juilliard School and The Longy School of Music. She started “New Years Resolution Baroque Cello Bootcamp” 15 years ago and it is still one of her greatest joys each year! In the summers, when not at her favorite spot on Cape Cod, she can be found teaching at Amherst Early Music, Aria Camp, The Bach Cello Suites Workshop and at Juilliard sponsored courses in Montisi, Italy and Brugge, Belgium. Along with her solo and chamber music concerts, she directs Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra and performs regularly with Philharmonia Baroque, The Arcadian Academy, Juilliard Baroque, The Boston Early Music Festival and the Göttingen Festival Orchestra. Ms. Carrai has released recordings of the Bach Solo Cello Suites, a duo recording of Frederich August Kummer, and has now also released “Out of Italy” for Avie Records. She has also recorded for Decca, Deutsche Gramophone, Aetme, Telarc and BMG. She plays on an Italian cello from ca. 1690.
Reviewers have hailed award-winning harpsichordist Adam Pearl’s playing has been hailed by reviewers as “virtuosic”, “daringly original”, “fresh and right”, “blistering”, and “dexterous”. He has been principal harpsichordist for Tempesta di Mare since 2005 and performs on occasion with Chatham Baroque, the Folger Consort, the Catacoustic Consort, the American Bach Soloists, the Bach Sinfonia, and Opera Lafayette. As music director of American Opera Theater, Dr. Pearl has directed numerous productions from the keyboard, including Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Cavalli’s La Calisto and La Didone, Charpentier’s David et Jonathas, and Handel’s Acis and Galatea and fully staged productions of Messiah and Jephtha. Dr. Pearl is a member of the Early Music faculty at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University; he also teaches at the Amherst Early Music Festival and the Madison Early Music Festival. Pearl holds the degrees of BM in piano performance and DMA in harpsichord performance from the Peabody Conservatory, and he is a laureate of the 2001 Jurow and 2004 Bruges international harpsichord competitions.
Adrienne Hyde is a multi-instrumentalist specializing in historical performance practice on the baroque cello, bass viol, lirone, and bass violin. She graduated from the Eastman School of Music in 2020 and in 2023 she completed her Master’s degrees in Baroque Cello and Viola da Gamba at the Juilliard School on full scholarship. At Juilliard she was a Morse Teaching Artist, a Music Advancement Program Fellow, and a Gluck Community Service Fellow, through which she taught in NYC public schools and mentored young cellists, while providing musical service to her community. Currently she works in Baltimore City Public Schools as a teaching artist with the Baltimore Symphony OrchKids program, and as an Education Assistant in the Baltimore Symphony Community Engagement Department. In 2022-23 she joined the Carmel Bach Festival as a Young Artist and performed with the American Baroque Orchestra, Trinity Wall Street Baroque Orchestra and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. She also appeared in concert with Repast Baroque, the Sebastians, and in recital at the Helicon Foundation. In the summer of 2023 she made her Boston Early Music Festival main festival debut with the Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, and joined the Vancouver Early Music Festival as a subscription artist. Adrienne is deeply committed to equity. She is a passionate artistic administrator for the Valissima Institute, a conducting training program for young women committed to gender equity in classical music. Three years ago she co- founded Open Source Baroque, a consort dedicated to playing the music of women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ composers. She is also a regular volunteer at the Mt. Sinai Psychiatric hospital, where she plays weekly in a high acuity locked ward for patients.