Sun, March 26 @ 3:00 – Baroque & Beyond

Single tickets $25

Biagio Marini’s Sonata in Ecco, op. 8 in D major
Heinrich Ignaz Biber’s Mensa Sonora Pars II in F major
Fantasias and Ricercars by Francesco da Milano with Billy Simms on Renaissance Lute
Giovanni Valentini’s Sonata a 5, no. 1 in G minor
Isabella Leonarda’s Sonata for two violins op. 16, no. 9 in C major
J. H. Schmelzer’s Serenata con altre arie
Georg Muffat’s Armonico Tributo no. 5 in G major

Noted for the beauty of her playing as well as for her versatility, violinist Allison Nyquist is one of the preeminent performers of baroque and classical violin and viola. She has been praised by The Chicago Sun Times as “impeccable, with unerring intonation and an austere beauty.” Ms. Nyquist has performed throughout North America, collaborating with many of the top baroque ensembles, including Chatham Baroque, Haymarket Opera Company and Apollo’s Fire. As a member of The Vivaldi Project, she has recorded three CDs of classical string trios for MSR Classics. She recently retired after 20 years as the concertmaster of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra with whom she hasfour CDs on Naxos. Her discography also includes recordings for the Eclectra, Delos, and Centaur CD labels. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the Peabody Institute, and studied Baroque violin with Stanley Ritchie at Indiana University. Nyquist lives in rural Warren County, Indiana where she grows onions, peppers and lots of tomatoes.

William Simms is an active performer of early music. Equally adept on lute, theorbo and baroque guitar, he appears regularly with Apollo’s Fire, The Washington Bach Consort, The Arcadia Players, IndyBaroque, The Thirteen and Three Notch’d Road. He has performed numerous operas, cantatas, and oratorios with such ensembles as The Washington National Opera, The Cleveland Opera, Opera Lafayette, and American Opera Theatre. Venues include The National Cathedral, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Library of Congress, Tanglewood, The Kennedy Center and The Barns at Wolftrap. He has toured and recorded with The Baltimore Consort as well as with Apollo’s Fire. He performed on the Grammy winning Songs of Orpheus with Apollo’s Fire and Karim Sulayman. His recording with Ronn McFarlane, Two Lutes, was the CD pick of the week on WETA in Washington DC in 2012. Mr. Simms received a Bachelor of Music from The College of Wooster and a Master of Music from Peabody Conservatory. He serves on the faculties of Mount St. Mary’s University and Hood College, and is the founder and director of the Hood College Early Music Ensemble. He has recorded for the Dorian, Centaur, Naxos and Eclectra labels.

Asa Zimmerman is a violinist and violist based in Cockeysville, Maryland. In this capacity, they perform with a number of ensembles, including The Smithsonian Chamber Players, The Washington Bach Consort, Tempesta di Mare, The Thirteen, The North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, Burning River Baroque, Musica Spira, Mallarmé Chamber Players, The Handel Choir of Baltimore, Baltimore Baroque Band, and Charm City Baroque. Asa holds Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Music degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as a Master of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma from Peabody Conservatory. They are currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Peabody.

Violist Suzanne Rousso serves as the artistic director of the Mallarmé Music, an ensemble known for its eclectic programming and as one of the region’s most diverse collectives of musicians. She previously served as Director of Operations and Education of the Portland (Maine) Symphony and Director of Education for the North Carolina Symphony. Ms. Rousso was educated at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and at New England Conservatory. She has more recently pursued Baroque viola playing and historically informed performance. She has participated in both Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals, is a member of the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra and a regular player with Duke Chapel’s Bach Cantata Series in which Mallarmé is a musical partner. She has served on the boards of the American Federation of Musicians Local #500 and Arts North Carolina, an advocacy organization for arts and arts education in NC.

Baroque & Beyond’s artistic director, Stephanie Vial, is a widely respected cellist, praised for her technical flair and expressive sense of phrasing. She is a co-director of The Vivaldi Project (based in Washington, DC) with whom she developed the recording series Discovering The Classical String Trio (MSR Classics) hailed by Gramophone as “captivating” and “highly recommended.” Additional recording can be found on the Dorian Label, Naxos, Hungaroton, and Centaur Records. She has traveled widely, giving solo and chamber music concerts, lectures, and master classes at numerous universities and institutions: The Shrine to Music Museum in South Dakota, The University of Virginia, Boston Conservatory, McGill University, and The Curtis Institute of Music. Vial holds a DMA in 18th-century performance practice from Cornell University where she studied with John Hsu. She is the author of The Art of Musical Phrasing in the Eighteenth Century: Punctuating the Classical “Period,”published by the University of Rochester Press. She currently teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.

Ethan Glattfelder is a graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill in the School of Information and Library Science, graduating with his master’s degree in May. A native of New Jersey, Ethan studied French Literature at Princeton University before moving to North Carolina. In his free time, he enjoys baking, reading, and doing the New York Times crossword. Ethan is a violist in the UNC Baroque Ensemble. At Princeton, he studied baroque viola with Nancy Wilson.