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Amanda Balestrieri, soprano, was trained as a pianist and violinist before commencing her career as a soprano soloist. She toured Europe with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner. She has sung under Christopher Hogwood, Leonard Slatkin, Peter Phillips, and the NSO at the Kennedy Center. She has appeared in recital at the 92nd Street Y and the Phillips Collection, and in baroque opera in New York, Boston, and Washington with Opera Lafayette, Concert Royal, and New York Collegium. Her performance of Handel's cantata Lucretia at the Saratoga Baroque Festival was critically acclaimed. Recent recordings include Handel's Alexander's Feast and a recently discovered Bach aria on the Dorian label.

Chester Biscardi, composer-in-residence, is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Academy Award in Music, the Aaron Copland Award, fellowships from the Bogliasco Foundation, the Djerassi Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, and grants from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He received an M.M. in Musical Composition from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an M.M.A. and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale. He is Director of the Music Program at Sarah Lawrence College, where he currently holds the Margot C. Bogert Distinguished Service Chair.

Beth Chandler, flute, is the Associate Professor of Flute at James Madison University. She won the 1999 Flute Talk Competition and the 1999 Myrna Brown Artist Competition. She has performed at NFA Conventions in Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Orlando, Boston, and Los Angeles. Solo performances include the Dallas Chamber Orchestra, James Madison University Symphony Orchestra, Wind Symphony and the Kennedy Center. Dr. Chandler received a Bachelor of Music magna cum laude from Baylor University, a Master of Music with Academic Honors from the New England Conservatory, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Flute Performance at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.

Tenor Kim Childs is Assistant Professor of Choral Conducting and Voice at the University of Tulsa. His performance of the J. S. Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Dallas Bach Society was critically acclaimed. Recent concerts include Carissimi's Jepthe with the Oklahoma State University Concert Chorale and orchestra, the J. S. Bach B Minor Mass with the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus, and J. S. Bach Cantata 151, Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kömmt with the Bach at Bethany series. He debuted Manuel de Falla's La Vida Breve with the Dallas Opera in 2004, and has performed Handel's Jeptha with the North Texas Collegium Musicum with Graeme Jenkins, conductor.

Music director and baroque violinist Garry Clarke is one of the leading exponents of period instrument performance of his generation. Mr. Clarke is founder of Chicago's Baroque Band, and Artistic Director of the UK's 18th Century Concert Orchestra. He is on the faculty of the Music Institute of Chicago. Mr. Clarke performed with all the major period groups, including The Academy of Ancient Music, The Sixteen and The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, working with such eminent musicians as Christopher Hogwood, John Elliot Gardiner, Sir Charles Mackerras and Ton Koopman. Mr. Clarke has performed with harpsichordist Michelle Roy, the Washington Bach Consort and Opera Lafayette.

Baroque violinist Martin Davids founded and directs the Callipygian Players in Chicago, and is principal second violinist in the Baroque Band. He is concertmaster of Publick Musick and Bach Collegium of Ft. Wayne. He has performed with Music of the Baroque, Central City Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Aradia, Toronto Consort. Mr. Davids received his Performer Diploma from the Early Music Institute at Indiana University where he studied with Stanley Ritchie. He teaches violin at Loyola University Chicago and has taught master classes at the University of Michigan, Cornell, and Northwestern. He is known for his work on the electric violin with his electric Baroque ensemble Discontinuo, and in modern compositions.

Grammy-winning soprano Ilana Davidson's highlights include Mozart's Mass in C Minor, Mendelssohn's Psalm 42, Knoxville, Summer of 1915, and Lauda per la Nativita del Signore. She played the role of Young Girl in the world-premiere of Libby Larsen's Everyman Jack, and Gloria in Ernst Krenek's What Price Confidence. Ms. Davidson has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher, and Alice Tully. Among her award-winning recordings are Songs of Innocence and of Experience (with Leonard Slatkin, winner of four Grammys in 2006), Krenek lieder, John Zorn's Chimeras; and Kurt Weill's Down in the Valley. She studied at Curtis Institute of Music, Tanglewood, and Aston Magna Early Music Academy.

Laura DeLuca, clarinet, joined the Seattle Symphony in 1986, and is a co-founding member of Seattle Chamber Players. She has appeared as soloist in Seattle Symphony performances of Copland's Clarinet Concerto and Robert Starer's Rikudim (Dances) movement from Kli Zemer. Laura performed the solo clarinet on the Academy Award-winning feature-length documentaries The Long Way Home and Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport. Her performances include the Music of Remembrance series, Icicle Creek Music Festival and Methow Music Festival. Laura received her training at Northwestern University where she studied with the celebrated Robert Marcellus.

Pianist Gabriel Dobner won the special accompanist prize in the International Hans Pfitzner Lieder Competition in 1994. He has performed regularly with notable singers Cornelia Kallisch, René Kollo and Alexandra Petersamer in many European concert venues including Vienna and Zürich. He has performed in the United States, Canada and Japan. He has recorded for the Ottavo, MDG and Kannevas labels. His recording of Schubert's Die Winterreise with baritone Kevin McMillan was released in 2007. Gabriel Dobner joined the faculty at James Madison University in the fall of 2001. He earned advanced degrees from Indiana University in Bloomington, studying with James Tocco and Leonard Hokanson.

Cellist Carl Donakowski; B.M. Indiana University; D.M.A. SUNY Stony Brook; and Artist Diploma Musikhochschule Freiburg. His teachers included Timothy Eddy, Janos Starker, Gary Hoffman and Christoph Henkel. He was a prize-winner in the 1989 Mendelssohn Competition. He has been a member of the North Shore Pro Musica, the Fontana Chamber Music Society and the Orpheus Piano Trio. As a member of the West End Chamber Ensemble, he participated in the NEA/Chamber Music America Rural Residency Chamber Music Initiative. He teaches and performs at the Bay View Music Festival as a member of the Westbrook String Quartet.

Chuck Dotas is Director of Jazz Studies at James Madison University. He was on the Faculty of Jazz Studies at McGill University from 1994-1998. Dotas is an active jazz educator, adjudicator and clinician. He has been Composer-in-Residence at jazz festivals and universities throughout the United States. His music has been performed and recorded by university ensembles in Germany, Australia, South Africa, Canada, and the United States, and is published by UNC Jazz Press, Dorn Publications, Walrus Music, and Schirmer Music. Dotas studied with Ray Wright, Manny Albam, Bill Dobbins, Fred Sturm, and Samuel Adler. He holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Northern Colorado.

Bass Michael Haag trained with the Trier Boys Choir, studied at the Luxemburg Conservatory, and attended masterclasses in Salzburg, Prague, and Sion. His teachers include Ionel Pantea, Peter Schreier, Andreas Schmidt, and Theo Adam. He is a winner of the Vienna Schubert and Bayreuth Wagner competitions. Mr. Haag has a flourishing European career, singing operatic, orchestral and song repertoire. He has sung more than 30 operatic roles and is presently a member of the Essen Aalto Opera. He has appeared in concert with soprano Barbara Hendricks and in a concert for Pope John Paul II in Rome. He has recorded for the Arte Nova, Hanssler Edition, and Musique Suisse labels.

Composer John Hilliard is Professor of Music and Resident Composer at James Madison University. His works have had wide international performances in Austria, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Argentina, Brazil, Japan,the United Kingdom and in the United States at the Kennedy Center, Merkin Hall (NYC). In January 1993, he was one of two composers requested to compose music for newly elected President Bill Clinton's first inauguration. Hilliard was given a six-month residency grant to be an Artistic Fellow for the Japan Foundation in Tokyo and Nara, and he has been a Senior Fulbright Fellow. He received his doctorate in composition and conducting from Cornell University.

Violinist Claire Jolivet performs with orchestras and chamber ensembles in the New York area and has toured in South America with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared as a soloist with the Bach Aria Festival Orchestra in New York and with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. As a chamber musician, she has collaborated with Joseph Kalichstein, Paula Robison and Kathleen Battle. She has appeared with the Smithsonian Chamber Players and the Four Nations Ensemble. She began her violin studies in England with Pamela Spofforth and is a graduate of the Juilliard School where she studied with Dorothy DeLay. She has recorded on the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi and EMEC labels.

Stage director Jennifer Lane sang the role of Dejaneira in the SMF's Hercules in 2005, and directed Dido & Æneas in 2006, also singing the dual roles of the Dido/Sorceress. Her opera credits include l'Opéra de Monte Carlo, Aix-en-Provence, New York City Opera, San Francisco Opera, and The Metropolitan Opera. She has over forty recordings, many of which have won Gramophone and other awards, as has her film of Purcell's Dido & Æneas with the Mark Morris Dance Group and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. As a music faculty member at Stanford University, she produced and directed Dido & Æneas and Mozart's The Magic Flute. She currently teaches at the University of North Texas.

The Madison Singers are James Madison University's finest small choral ensemble and the SMF's chorus-in-residence. Dedicated to the art of small ensemble performance, The Madison Singers perform repertoire from medieval to contemporary; from Ockeghem to Bach to Copland. Participants in JMU's annual Contemporary Music Festival, they have performed works by Ofer Ben-Amots and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky. This is the featured ensemble at JMU's Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. For information, visit: orgs.jmu.edu/choirs.

Anthony Manzo performs in Washington with the Smithsonian Chamber Players and the National Symphony, in Chicago with the Baroque Band, and as solo bassist of San Francisco's acclaimed New Century Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Manzo played in the New World Symphony in Miami before moving to Norway to play with the Bergen Philharmonic. He spent seven years performing, recording, and touring the world with the Munich Chamber Orchestra. Chamber music collaborators include members of the Auryn Quartet, the St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Garth Newel Piano Quartet. He plays a double bass made by Jean Thibouville Lamy circa 1890. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and son.

Tenor Deepak Marwah, a New York City native, recently completed his M.M. in Voice Performance at the Chicago College of Performing Arts, where he studied with Metropolitan Opera soprano, Judith Haddon. Recent performances include the role of Mr. Owen in Argento's Postcard from Morocco, Britten's Turn of the Screw, Mozart's The Impresario, the New York City Premiere of Bruce Saylor's Orpheus Descending, and the Brooklyn Conservatory's production of Dido and Aeneas. Deepak appeared in the world premiere of Julie Mandel's Subway Suite, new productions at the Manhattan Theater Club and in Sweeney Todd. Mr. Marwah can be contacted via DeepakMarwah.com

Washington McClain, baroque oboe, recorder, obtained his Bachelor Degree from the Northeast Louisiana University. He received his Master's Degree in oboe at Northwestern University. He was the first woodwind player performing on period instrument to be featured in the specialized publication Windplayer Magazine. He has performed with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, the Aradia Ensemble, Apollo's Fire Baroque Orchestra, the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, with Ensemble Arion, the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Harpsichord in Concert and Les Idées heureuses. Mr. McClain has recorded for Sony Classical Vivarte, ATMA Records, Analekta Records, and Centaur Records.

Vladimir Mendelssohn, viola, composer-in-residence, has produced works for solo instruments, mixed choir, symphony and chamber orchestra. His chamber works include four string quartets, Nova for clarinet, string trio, piano and percussion, and Don Aldebarran for seven stringed instruments, piano and actor. He has also composed music for ballet, stage and screen. Mendelssohn is Professor of chamber music at the Paris Conservatoire. He also teaches at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen. He collaborated on a prize-winning recording of Brahms Lieder. He has performed at Gidon Kremer's Lockenhaussen and Dmitry Sitkovetsky's Wasa Festival.

Pipa player / vocalist Min Xiao-Fen, worked as a pipa soloist for the famed Nanjing National Music Orchestra. She studied with Zhou Long, Carl Stone and Chen Yi. She was featured soloist with the New York City Opera, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the vocal ensemble Chanticleer, and the San Diego Symphony. She has performed solo at the Vienna Music Festival, the Geneva Music Festival, and Lincoln Center. Collaborators include Peter Sellars, Derek Bailey, John Zorn, Randy Weston, and Björk. Min has taught master classes and was an artist-in-residence at the Juilliard School, the Boston Conservatory, the New School, and the Amsterdam Conservatory. She is founder of Blue Pipa Inc. (www.bluepipa.org).

Clarinetist Janice L. Minor performs with the Montpelier Wind Quintet, Prestige Clarinet Quartet, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Pops, Cincinnati Opera, Richmond Symphony, Roanoke Symphony, Opera Roanoke, and on soundtracks for the Discovery Channel and National Geographic. She has been a soloist with the U.S. Army Band "Pershing's Own," Northwest Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Eighteenth Century Ensemble, and was featured at the Lucca Music Festival in Lucca, Italy. Her teachers include Ronald de Kant, Larry Combs, John Yeh, Clark Brody and Robert Marcellus. Dr. Minor is the clarinet professor at James Madison University and a Buffet-Crampon performing artist/clinician.

Violinist Diane Pascal attended The Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Ivan Galamian and Jascha Brodsky. Her graduate studies were with Sandor Vegh at the "Mozarteum" in Salzburg. Ms. Pascal is currently a member of the Rosamunde Quartett Munich (ECM records) and the Da Ponte Piano Trio. She appears regularly as concertmaster with orchestras such as Camerata Salzburg, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, and is currently the Artistic Director of the Zagreb Chamber Orchestra. As Primarius of the Lark Quartet (1996-2002), she made numerous recordings for the Arabesque label.

Pianist Lori Piitz is Professor of Piano at James Madison University. She has participated in the Bach Festival at EMU, the Contemporary Music Festival at JMU and the Richmond Chamber Music Festival and has been heard in recital at the Kennedy Center. Ms. Piitz has been a guest at the Festival of the Sound in Canada, the Schleswig-Holstein and Villa Musica Festivals in Germany, and at the Mozart Bicentennial Series at Lincoln Center. Ms. Piitz holds performance degrees from Indiana University and the University of Ottawa where she was awarded the prestigious Isobel Firestone Performance Scholarship. She has studied with Menahem Pressler, Leonard Hokanson, Jean-Paul Sevilla and Helgi Fatovic.

Violinist Theresa Salomon, a native of Germany, came to New York in 1993. Her festival credits include Festival Presence, Paris; Gulbenkian Festival, Lisbon; Prague Spring Festival; Ostfriesland Festival, Germany; Connecticut Early Music Festival; and Ostrava Days for New Music, with the Janacek Philharmonic in 1993. She performs with ensembles such as the Orchestra of St Luke's, Rebel Baroque Orchestra, New York Collegium, and SEM Ensemble. She directs a chamber music series at Music under Construction, and plays for the dance branch of the Organization, Dance under Construction. Her teachers include Ulf Hoelscher, Wolfram Koenig, Philipp Hirshhorn and Todd Philipps.

SMF Artistic Director Carsten Schmidt performs a repertoire ranging from the early Baroque to new works, of which he has premiered more than 100. He has appeared at the Ravinia Festival, International Schubert Festival in Amsterdam, the German Mozart Festival, Merkin Hall in NYC, Kennedy Center, and Kaleidoscope Festival in Moscow, and he has been heard in radio broadcasts worldwide. Since 2004 he has conducted opera productions of Handel and Purcell, and a concerto program at the Kuhmo Festival in Finland. He holds Artist Diplomas from the Folkwang Institute, Indiana University, and a doctorate from Yale. Since 1998 he has been Professor of Music at Sarah Lawrence College in NY.

At home in front of a harpsichord, organ, piano, or fortepiano, David Schrader has performed with the Chicago, San Francisco, and Dallas Symphony Orchestras, as well as with Chicago's Baroque Band, The Newberry Consort, The Chicago Chamber Musicians, and the Chicago Baroque Ensemble. He performed as the Artist of the Year at the Oulunsalo Soi Music Festival in Oulu, Finland. He was the harpsichord soloist with the Nagaokakyo Chamber Ensemble under Yuko Mori and the Canadian baroque orchestra Tafelmusik. He is Professor of Music at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of the Performing Arts Music Conservatory, where he has taught both graduate and undergraduate courses since 1986.

Patrick Walders is a professional vocalist, music educator, church musician, clinician, and conductor. As the Director of Choral Activities at JMU, he directs the JMU Chorale and the Madison Singers, and oversees the Men's Chorus, Women's Chorus and Treble Concert Choir. He is Associate Conductor of the National Philharmonic Chorale, and Artistic Director of the National Philharmonic Singers at Strathmore. Patrick has sung with the Westminster Choir directed by Joseph Flummerfelt, as well as the Westminster Symphonic Choir, performing with the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra. He is a founding member of Viri Animarum, a six-voice male chamber choir.

Cellist James Wilson has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the City of London Festival, the Deutches Mozartfest in Bavaria, the Mostly Mozart Festival and the Aspen Music Festival. He has performed with violinist Joshua Bell, flutist Eugenia Zukerman, pianist Christopher O'Riley, guitarist Eliot Fisk, actress Claire Bloom, the Tokyo String Quartet, and the Mark Morris Dance Group. A resident of both Staunton and New York City, he performs with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, teaches cello and chamber music at Columbia University, and is currently the Artistic Director of the Richmond Festival of Music in Virginia.

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