Baroque and Classical Academy

Peter Hanson, Festival Concertmaster

Peter has been Concertmaster of Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique since 1992, when they recorded their first complete set of Beethoven symphonies. He appeared as its Concertmaster soloist for European and U.S. tours of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, a 2017 BBC Proms performance of Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust, and in 2018, major European and U.S. tours of Berlioz. In 2020, they performed all the Beethoven symphonies in Barcelona and U.S. including sold-out concerts at the Carnegie Hall, New York.

Peter formed The Eroica Quartet in 1993 with colleagues from the world of period instrument performance. The group immediately attracted attention with their vision of a revived Romantic approach to the string quartet literature, from Beethoven to Debussy. The Eroica quickly became established, and toured extensively in the United Kingdom as well as making visits to France and the U.S. Their American debut was in Washington, D.C. and the New York debut was in February 2001, at the Frick Collection.

Peter is a concertmaster of the Carmel Bach Festival in California. His role includes chamber music performances, directing the string orchestra and appearing as Concertmaster for most of the Festival Orchestra concerts.

Peter also appears as Director elsewhere; recent engagements include projects with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Kymi Sinfonia from Finland and Orquesta da Camera in Spain. He was recently Guest Concertmaster with the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the Stockholm Radio Symphony Orchestra, and in 2017 was Guest Concertmaster for a Beethoven and Gade project with Concerto Copenhagen in 2019. He returned to Singapore for a new project in 2021.

Cynthia Roberts, Principal Second Violin

Cynthia Roberts is one of America’s leading period instrument violinists, appearing as soloist, concertmaster, and recitalist throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. She is a faculty member of the Juilliard School. She specializes in classical chamber music performance with historic keyboards and has performed throughout the world with fortepianist Christoph Hammer. She appears regularly with the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Tafelmusik, and the Boston Early Music Festival. She has performed as concertmaster of Les Arts Florissants with William Christie and appeared with Orchester Wiener Akademie, the London Classical Players, and the Bach Collegium Japan. She was featured as soloist and concertmaster on the soundtrack of the Touchstone Pictures film Casanova, and accompanied soprano Renee Fleming on Late Night with David Letterman.

Ms. Roberts 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.

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.