Aileen Chanco made her stunning debut with the San Francisco Symphony at the age of thirteen, followed by an engagement with the Boston Pops. Aileen was named a Presidential Scholar of the Arts and presented with a medal at the White House by the President, following which she made her debut at the Kennedy Center.
She studied with Herbert Stessin at the Juilliard School where she received both her Bachelors and Masters degrees in Music. Aileen has received numerous awards and honors including first place in the Young Keyboard Artist International Competition, the Pepsi-Cola Young Artist Competition, and the Seventeen Magazine-General Motors National Concerto Competition. She was recipient of the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts Award.
She has appeared as soloist, recitalist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. Concerts have included performances in New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Cultural Center for the Performing Arts in the Philippines. She has performed with orchestras including the Shreveport, Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque, York Symphony Orchestra, Lima Symphony Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, Manila Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, among others.
Aileen resides in California with her husband, double bassist Bill Everett. She is both founder and Artistic Director of Music at the Mission Concert Series whose performances are held in one of California’s famous historic missions, Mission San Jose. Her passions are traveling, hiking fencing.
Her most current CD was released in October of 2005 “Images of Three Centuries” and was recorded under the Con Brio Recordings label.
One of the most versatile and respected musical artists of his generation—renowned as conductor, violinist, violist, and concertmaster—Guillermo Figueroa is the Principal Conductor of The Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra & Chorus. He also serves as the Music Director of the Music in the Mountains Festival in Colorado, Music Director of the Lynn Philharmonia in Florida, and is the founder of the highly acclaimed Figueroa Music and Arts Project in Albuquerque. Additionally, he was the Music Director of both the New Mexico Symphony and the Puerto Rico Symphony. With this last orchestra, he performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall in 2003, the Kennedy Center in 2004, and Spain in 2005.
Guillermo Figueroa has collaborated with many of the leading artists of our time, including Itzhak Perlman, YoYo Ma, Hilary Hahn, Placido Domingo, Joshua Bell, Olga Kern, Janos Starker, James Galway, Midori, Horacio Gutierrez, the Emerson and Fine Arts String Quartets, Ben Hepner, Rachel Barton Pine, Pepe and Angel Romero, Elmar Oliveira, Vadim Gluzman, and Philippe Quint.
A renowned violinist as well, Figueroa’s recording of Ernesto Cordero’s violin concertos for the Naxos label received a Latin GRAMMY® nomination in 2012. He was Concertmaster of the New York City Ballet, and a Founding Member and Concertmaster of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, making over fifty recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, a German classical record label, and the oldest surviving established record company. Also accomplished on the viola, Guillermo Figueroa performs frequently as guest of the Fine Arts, American, Amernet, and Orion string quartets.
Figueroa has given the world premieres of four violin concertos written for him: in 1995 the Concertino by Mario Davidovsky; at Carnegie Hall in 2007 the Double Concerto by Harold Farberman, with the American Symphony at Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center; in 2008 the Violin Concerto by Miguel del Aguila, commissioned by Figueroa and the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra; and in 2009 ĺnsula, Suite Concertante, by Ernesto Cordero with the Solisti di Zagreb in Zagreb.
He has appeared at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music in the Vineyards in California, Festival Groba in Spain, and Music from Angel Fire. Figueroa has recorded the Three Violin Sonatas by Bartók for the Eroica Classical label, with pianist Robert Koenig, and an album of virtuoso violin music by for the NMSO label, with pianist Ivonne Figueroa. https://santafesymphony.org/
Martha Hsu is a long-time resident of Ithaca NY, where she worked as a librarian in the Cornell University Library for 38 years. After some years of fielding reference questions from graduate students, she moved to collection development where she was the North European Studies Bibliographer, selecting materials for Cornell in literature and history from Germany and adjacent germanic areas. Several times she was called upon to fill in when supervisory positions were temporarily vacant. The last such post was as Music Librarian.
John Hsu, her husband of almost fifty years, was a professor in the Cornell Music Department, and Martha relished the exposure to the wealth of music-making in their lives. They both retired in 2005 and began to spend time (mostly winters for a while) in Chapel Hill NC. Before John died in 2018, they collaborated on a book about his life and work: It’s All About Music, a Memoir.
Music has been an absorbing interest for most of her life, Martha is currently learning to realize figured bass on the harpsichord, studying with Jennifer Streeter. Martha welcomes this opportunity to support the activities of the Vivaldi Project.
Barthold Kuijken is a Belgian flautist and recorder player, known for playing baroque music on historical instruments and particularly known for pioneering this manner of performance with his brothers, cellist and viol player Wieland Kuijken and violinist Sigiswald Kuijken, and the harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt.
He studied the modern flute at the Bruges Conservatory and the Royal Conservatories of Brussels and The Hague. For playing early music he originally turned to the recorder. Research on authentic instruments, frequent collaboration with various flute and recorder makers, and assiduous study of sources of the 17th and 18th centuries helped him to specialize in the performance on original instruments.
For many years he played in the baroque orchestras Collegium Aureum and La Petite Bande. He plays chamber music concerts all over the world, extending his repertoire to early 19th-century music, and has recorded extensively.
He taught baroque flute at the Royal Conservatories of Brussels and The Hague, and in 2007 he became the first musician in Belgium to obtain the Doctorate in Arts ("Doctor in de Kunsten") at the VUB (Free University of Brussels). His dissertation, which was later published as a book, was called, The Notation is not the Music - Reflections on more than 40 years intensive practice of Early Music.
Harpsichordist Charlotte Mattax Moersch has performed worldwide as a soloist and chamber musician. Since capturing First and Third Prizes in basso continuo and solo playing in the International Harpsichord Competitions in Paris, France and Bruges, Belgium, she has appeared in solo recitals in New York, London, Edinburgh, Rome, Geneva, Paris, and Amsterdam, and at historic venues, among them Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Mozarteum, and the Palazzo della Cancelleria. Called a “nonpareil harpsichordist” by Early Music America, she has received critical acclaim for her playing, at once “dashing yet intelligent” (Classical Times, London), and “fluent and expressive” (Fanfare Magazine).
The recipient of several important awards and prizes, she was honored with a Solo Recitalist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship for study in Paris. She is a specialist in seventeenth-century French music; her book, Accompaniment on Theorbo and Harpsichord: Denis Delair’s Traité of 1690, is published by Indiana University Press.
She has recorded for Koch, Dorian, Amon Ra, Newport Classic, Analekta, and Centaur Records. Her solo harpsichord discography includes J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, W.F. Bach’s sonatas, and the complete Pièces de clavecin of Jean Henry D’Anglebert, Armand-Louis Couperin, Charles Noblet, and Pierre Février. The Bach Legacy, her most recent recording, features sonatas and polonaises of C.P.E., J.C.F., and W.F. Bach.
Professor Mattax directs Illinois' period instrument ensemble Concerto Urbano, which she founded in 1998. At Illinois’ Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, she has directed fully staged period performances of Baroque operas, including Rameau’s Zéphyre, Purcell’s Fairy Queen, Monteverdi’s Poppea, Cavalli’s La Calisto, Handel’s Acis and Galatea, and Lully’s Armide with Baroque dance choreography by UI Professor of Dance Phillip Johnston.
Nancy November is an Associate Professor in musicology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Combining interdisciplinarity and cultural history, her research centers on chamber music of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, probing questions of historiography, canonization, and genre. Recent publications include Beethoven’s Theatrical Quartets: Opp. 59, 74, and 95 (Cambridge University Press, 2013); a three-volume set of fifteen string quartets by Emmanuel Aloys Förster (A-R Editions, 2016); and Cultivating String Quartets in Beethoven’s Vienna (Boydell Press, 2017). She is the recipient of a Humboldt Fellowship (2010-12); and two Marsden Grants from the New Zealand Royal Society. She is currently editing a book on Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press, 2019), and publishing a broad range of chamber music from the nineteenth century in modern editions. The editions include a new practical edition of Beethoven's middle-period string quartets for Beethoven Werke, and a three-volume set of fifteen string quartets by Beethoven’s contemporary Emmanuel Aloys Förster.
She also has a significant interest in teaching and learning in higher education, with an emphasis on developing student-centred history pedagogies across the disciplines. She is the recipient of teaching-related research grants from Ako Aotearoa, NZ Fulbright. Her current project, funded by the NZ Teaching and Learning Research Initiative, is entitled: Historical Literacy Aotearoa: Fostering Effective Pedagogies for Māori and Pasifika Students in the Historical Disciplines.
Dr. Ronit Seter studies twentieth-century music and specializes in Israeli art music. She served on the faculties of the Peabody Conservatory, the George Washington University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and American University, Washington, DC. A contributor to the Grove Music Online (12 entries), she has published in the Musical Quarterly, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Jewish Women Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Judaica, Tempo, Notes, Min-Ad, Musica Judaica, Journal of the American Musicological Society and Journal of Musicological Research. Her “Israeli Art Music” was published on Music - Oxford Bibliographies in 2019, and two books on Israeli composers are in progress.
Dr. Seter earned her Ph.D. at Cornell University in 2004. She has presented her work in colloquia and international conferences in the US, Europe, and Israel, among them the American Musicological Society, International Musicological Society, Music Since 1900, World Congress for Jewish Studies, and Israel Musicological Society, including invited presentations in Budapest, 2017, and Weimar 2019 (forthcoming). Her 2009 and 2012 Library of Congress presentations are available as webcasts (links below). Seter was honored with grants from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, Dan David Scholarship, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. Living in Fairfax, VA, where she teaches piano privately, she has served as a Council Member of the American Musicological Society and a co-founder, with Klára Móricz, of the AMS Study Group: Jewish Studies and Music. Seter is a research affiliate at the Jewish Music Research Centre, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Brent Wissick (Professor) has taught cello, viola da gamba, and chamber music at the University of North Carolina since 1982. A member of Ensemble Chanterelle and principal cellist of the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, he is also a frequent guest with American Bach Soloists, Folger Consort, Boston Early Music Festival, Concert Royal, Dallas Bach Society, Vancouver Early Music Festival and Collegio di Musica Sacra in Poland. With these ensembles has recorded for the Centaur, Albany, Koch, Radio Bremen, Bard and Dux labels as well as in the soundtrack for the Touchstone film Casanova. His online video article, “The Cello Music of Bononcini” can be viewed in the peer-reviewed Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music and several of his teaching videos are posted on the website of the Viola da Gamba Society of America. He served as president of that society from 2000 through 2004 and chaired its international Pan-Pacific Gamba Gathering in Hawaii during the summer of 2007.
In addition to teaching cello at UNC, he directs its Cello Choir, Viol Consort and Baroque Ensemble; he also teaches classes in Historical Performance Practices and String Methods for Music Education Students as well as a First-Year Seminar in the Physics of Music with Laurie McNeil, chair of the Physics Department. He has served as mentor of the Kenan Music Scholars and is chair of the String Area.
His current research and performance interests include the cello music of Benjamin Britten, Chopin’s Cello Music on period instruments and French Gamba Music. A graduate of the Crane School of Music at Potsdam College in NY and of Penn State (MM cello, 1978), he also studied with John Hsu at Cornell University and was an NEH Fellow at Harvard in the 1993 Beethoven Quartet Seminar. He has taught at the College of St Scholastica in Minnesota (1978-82), Chautauqua Institution and the 1997 Aston Magna Academy at Yale; and has presented lectures, master classes and recitals at schools, colleges and workshops throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.