Featuring
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Clara Rottsolk
Soprano Soloist
Soprano Clara Rottsolk has been lauded by The New York Times for her “clear, appealing voice and expressive conviction” and by The Philadelphia Inquirer for the “opulent tone [with which] every phrase has such a communicative emotional presence.” A brilliant and accomplished concert artist, her solo appearances have taken her across the United States, the Middle East, Japan, and South America.
“With a silken voice capable of extraordinary power” (San Diego Union-Tribune), she has appeared as a soloist with orchestras including Baltimore Symphony, American Bach Soloists, Santa Fe Pro Musica, the American Classical Orchestra, Richmond Symphony, Bach Collegium San Diego, Virginia Symphony, New Mexico Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Trinity Wall Street, and Seattle Baroque Orchestra, under the direction of conductors including Grete Pedersen, Nicholas McGeegan, Jeffrey Thomas, Dinis Sousa, Stephen Stubbs, David Danzmayr, Joshua Rifkin, Ruben Valenzuela, Chia-Hsuan Lin, Timothy Nelson, and Andrew Megill.
Also dedicated to chamber and recital repertoire, she performs with ensembles including Les Délices, TENET, Piffaro the Renaissance Wind Band, Colorado Bach Ensemble, House of Time, and Pegasus Baroque. Frequently in demand as a festival soloist, her credits include Carmel Bach, Berkeley Early Music, Montréal Baroque, Spoleto USA, Winter Park Bach, Seattle Bach, St. Louis Bach, Indianapolis Early Music, Whidbey Island Music, and Boston Early Music Fringe.
Her solo recordings can be found on Chandos, Analekta, MSR Classics, and independent labels. Currently she is based in Philadelphia and teaches voice at Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges.
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Dashon Burton
Bass-baritone Soloist
Hailed as an artist “alight with the spirit of the music” (Boston Globe), three-time Grammy-winning bass-baritone Dashon Burton has built a vibrant career, performing regularly throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Burton’s 2024/25 season begins with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, led by Gustavo Dudamel. Highlights of the season include returns to the Milwaukee Symphony for his second season as Artist-in-Residence, featuring Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and later Bach’s Ich habe genug, both conducted by Ken-David Masur. He makes his Boston Symphony subscription debut with Michael Tilson Thomas’ Walt Whitman Songs, conducted by Teddy Abrams, and his Toronto Symphony debut in Mozart’s Requiem under Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Additional performances include Brahms/Glanert’s Serious Songs and Mozart’s Requiem with the St. Louis Symphony under Stéphane Denève; Mozart’s Requiem with the Minnesota Orchestra and Thomas Søndergård; and Handel’s Messiah with the National Symphony, led by Masaaki Suzuki.
During the 2023/24 season, Burton collaborated frequently with Michael Tilson Thomas, including performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the San Francisco Symphony and Copland’s Old American Songs with the New World Symphony. He also sang Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Washington Bach Consort, Handel’s Messiah with both the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and performed the title role in Sweeney Todd at Vanderbilt University. With the Cleveland Orchestra, he appeared in a semi-staged production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. As the Milwaukee Symphony’s Artist-in-Residence, Burton joined Ken-David Masur for three subscription weeks.
A multiple award-winning artist, Burton earned his second Grammy Award in 2021 for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for his role in Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison with The Experiential Orchestra (Chandos). He won his first Grammy in 2013 as an original member of the groundbreaking ensemble Roomful of Teeth for their debut album of new commissions. In 2024, he earned his third Grammy for their latest recording, Rough Magic, featuring works by Caroline Shaw, William Brittelle, Peter Shin, and Eve Beglarian.
Burton’s discography also includes Songs of Struggle & Redemption: We Shall Overcome (Acis); the Grammy-nominated recording of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road (Naxos); Holocaust, 1944 by Lori Laitman (Acis); and Caroline Shaw’s The Listeners with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. His album of spirituals received critical acclaim, with The New York Times calling it “profoundly moving…a beautiful and lovable disc.”
Burton holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College and Conservatory and a Master of Music degree from Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music. He is currently an assistant professor of voice at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.
Dashon Burton appears by arrangement with Colbert Artists Management, Inc., 307 Seventh Avenue, Suite 2006, New York NY 10001.
Forays into more varied repertoire have included his performances of Michael Tippet’s A Child of our Time at Harvard, Barber’s Dover Beach, and Hans Eisler’s Ernste Gesaenge with A Far Cry chamber orchestra in Boston, Copland’s Old American Songs with the Kansas City Symphony, Schubert’s Die Winterreise with string quartet, and performances and recording of Craig Hella Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard with the vocal group Conspirare. Last season, he premiered Paul Moravec’s new oratorio, Sanctuary Road, at Carnegie Hall and performed David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Dashon’s 2018/19 season begins with his debut at the Salzburg Festival in Salomé. He sings Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa and with the Cincinnati Symphony, Dvoark’s Stabat Mater with the Houston Symphony, Mozart’s Coronation Mass et al. with Philharmonia Baroque, the C minor Mass with the Grand Rapids Symphony, and the Requiem with the Bethlehem Bach Festival and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He sings also Haydn’s Creation and the role of Zebul in Handel’s Jeptha, the Verdi Requiem, Moussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death, and returns to the Cleveland Orchestra for a subscription week of Schubert’s Mass in E flat Major in May. December finds him performing with the contemporary vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, of which Dashon is an original member, at Paris’Théatre de la Ville in Peter Sellars’ production of Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus, un ritual de mort.
Burton returns to Trinity Wall St. for a Baroque recital this season. For his other recitals in Boston and San Francisco, the program is based on his recording Songs of Struggle and Redemption: We Shall Overcome, singled out by the New York Times as “profoundly moving…a beautiful and lovable disc” in its May 2016 Classical Play list.
Burton’s opera engagements include singing Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte in Dijon and Paris, and the role of Jupiter in Rameau’s Castor and Pollux with Christoph Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques. He has toured Europe in the St. John Passion with Christoph Prégardien’s Le Concert Lorraine, and in Italy with Maasaki Suzuki and the Yale Schola Cantorum in the St. Matthew Passion, a work he also sang on tour in the Netherlands with the NNSO.
Dashon has won prizes from the ARD international Music Competition and the International Vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, and from the Oratorio Society of New York and the Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s Competition for Young American Singers. He graduated from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and received his Master of Music degree from Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music.
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Cynthia Keiko Black
Viola
Born in Dallas, Texas, violinist and violist Cynthia Keiko Black enjoys a varied musical life across the United State and at home in the Bay Area. She has played at the Carmel Bach Festival since 2016, and this season performed with Incantare, Cantata Collective, Ars Minerva, and the Seattle Bach Festival. She teaches Baroque violin at UC Berkeley, has a studio of young students at the Crowden School, and moonlights as a church organist and music librarian. Cynthia lives in Richmond, California where she makes her home with trumpet-playing and harpsichord-building husband Dominic Favia and their young daughter.
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Marika Holmqvist
Violin
During her over quarter-century career, baroque violinist, Marika Holmqvist has appeared as concertmaster for orchestras and opera companies on three continents, directed ensembles on both sides of the Atlantic, and served as artistic co-director for groups in the USA such as Sinfonia New York (NYC) and the Boston-based ensemble, Cambridge Concentus. Currently her leadership positions include Washington Bach Consort (DC), Reykjavik International Baroque Orchestra (Iceland), Spire Ensemble (KC), Zenith Ensemble (NH), Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Fort Wayne Bach Collegium (IN), and Philadelphia based MIRYAM, among others. Marika is a dedicated and passionate educator, and has served as coach and guest leader for baroque operas at Cornell, Harvard and Rutgers Universities, and given master-classes and lectures at institutions across Europe. Alongside her master’s degree in baroque violin performance from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in the Netherlands, she also graduated with a master’s in baroque violin pedagogy—the first such degree ever granted in Europe. She is a founding member of Philadelphia’s Franklin Quartet and her 30 recordings include the Grammy-nominated Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Trinity Wall Street Choir and Baroque Orchestra.
Marika is also a dedicated and passionate educator. She has served as coach and guest leader for baroque operas at Cornell, Harvard and Rutgers Universities, and given master-classes and lectures at institutions across Europe. Alongside her master’s degree in baroque violin performance from the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague in the Netherlands, she also graduated with a master’s in baroque violin pedagogy—the first such degree ever granted in Europe.
Her 20-odd recordings include the Grammy-nominated Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Trinity Wall Street Choir and Baroque Orchestra. Marika has a Finn’s love for the outdoors and when she is not performing or teaching, you will most likely find her cross country skiing, hiking, kayaking, or gravel or mountain biking.
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Stephen Bard
Oboe
Oboist Stephen Bard performs regularly with many of the preeminent period instrument ensembles throughout North America including Portland Baroque, Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque, the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Bach Collegium San Diego, and Haymarket Opera.
His playing has been praised for “supple tone and incisive technique … at times sounding truly acrobatic in florid passagework” (Chicago Classical Review), “long, amber-tinted lines and pertly articulated phrases” (San Francisco Classical Voice), and being “especially noteworthy for its sensuous lyricism” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
He can be heard on recordings with many of these fine ensembles with the Chandos, Naxos, CBC, and ATMA Classique labels. Stephen has also made appearances at the Oregon Bach Festival and at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. He holds degrees in Music and in Computer Science from Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music and is currently based in Philadelphia.
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Cristina Zacharias
Associate Principal Second Violin
Canadian violinist Cristina Zacharias is Artistic Co-Director of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. Frequently featured in solo and chamber music repertoire, she has performed extensively across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Cristina has been part of the Carmel Bach Festival since 2006, and can be heard on over 25 recordings for the ATMA, Analekta, CBC, BIS, Naxos and Tafelmusik Media labels. As an educator, Cristina is active in Tafelmusik’s training institutes as well as at the University of Toronto.
Equally passionate about baroque, classical and modern repertoire, Cristina is a frequent collaborator, guest soloist and director with a diverse group of ensembles, including the Toronto Bach Festival, Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, and the Brandon Chamber Players. Cristina holds a Master’s degree in music from McGill University.
*photo credit Tatiana Daubek
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Jordan Frazier
Principal Double Bass
Bassist, Jordan Frazier, has performed worldwide with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra since 1993 and was appointed a member of the orchestra in 2006. He is a former member of L’Orchestra Ciutat de Barcelona, and currently is a member of the American Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, and is Principal Bass of the Westchester Philharmonic, Little Orchestra Society, and the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra in California. Jordan has also performed as Principal Bass of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, as well as the Pittsburgh and Cincinnati Symphonies, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York City Ballet, and the American Ballet Theater Orchestras. Jordan has also performed and recorded with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, both in Toronto and at the Klang und Raum Festival in Bavaria.
As a Chamber musician, Jordan has been a guest with Bargemusic, Helicon Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, Los Angeles Piano Quartet, and the Corigliano, Jupiter, Parker, and Daedalus Quartets. His recording credits include Sony Classical, Harmonium Mundi, Nonesuch, London, Decca/Argo, EMI, Koch, Musical Heritage Society, Blue Note, and Deutsche Grammophon, including the Grammy winning “Shadow Dances”, music of Stravinsky, with Orpheus and the Grammy winning Blue Note album, Emanon, with the Wayne Shorter Quartet and Orpheus. He is also a member of Gerard Schwartz’s All-Star Orchestra and has recorded 20 episodes(10DVD’s)for Naxos and PBS.
A native of Cleveland, Jordan received his musical training at the Interlochen Arts Academy and the Manhattan School of Music. He has been on the faculty of the Mannes College of Music and has given masterclasses at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Yale and Rice Universities and at the National Orchestral Institute. Jordan lives in Fredonia, NY with his wife, bassoonist Laura Koepke, and their two boys.
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Michael Unterman
Cello
Michael Unterman enjoys a busy career as a chamber musician and orchestral cellist, primarily as a core member of A Far Cry, Boston Baroque, the Cramer Quartet, and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. He was also formerly a member of the Portland Baroque Orchestra and of Five Boroughs Music Festival where he served as Artistic Director. As a frequent curator and producer of concert programs, his projects have been praised as “just the kind of imaginative artistic agenda that more groups should be prodded to try” (Boston Globe) and “gorgeous and remarkably unified” (Washington Post). Relishing a wide variety of musical roles as well, he has been praised for his “soulful and sultry solos,” “nuanced, sensitive, and wholly gorgeous collaboration” (Classical Scene), and “heroic continuo” (Parterre Box).
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Brian Giebler
Tenor Soloist
Praised for his “lovely tone and deep expressivity” by The New York Times, GRAMMY® nominated tenor Brian Giebler radiates “shine and clarity” (Opera News) in every phrase using “his high-placed tenor with great skill” (Opera Magazine). His debut solo album a lad’s love (Bridge Records, 2020) garnered high praise from significant industry publications including Gramophone, Opera News (Critics Choice), and San Francisco Classical Voice, debuted on the Billboard charts, and earned him his first GRAMMY® Award nomination for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.
Highlights of Mr. Giebler’s 2024/25 season include debuts with the Colorado Symphony and Austin Symphony (Orff Carmina Burana), Handel Messiah with the Asheville Symphony, a concert version of Handel Theodora with Ars Lyrica Houston, and return engagements with Voices of Ascension (Evangelist in Bach St. Matthew Passion), Princeton Pro Musica (Haydn Creation), and as Matthew Shepard with Conspirare in Craig Hella Johnsons Considering Matthew Shepard.
“The sweetness of Giebler’s impressive high tenor” and his “expressive and elegant phrasing” (Cleveland Classical) have been heard in diverse roles such as Apollo in Handel Semele with The English Concert and The Clarion Choir in an international tour under Harry Bicket at the Theatre des Champs-Elysées (Paris), the Barbican (London), and Carnegie Hall (New York); as Adam in REV 23 at the Prototype Festival (dir. James Darrah; cond. Daniela Candillari); as Aeneas in Purcell Dido and Aeneas with Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, and in the comedic role of Arnalta in Monteverdi L’incoronazione di Poppea with Boston Baroque. Recent highlights include Desmerest Circé and Caccini Alcina with Boston Early Music Festival under Stephen Stubbs and Paul O’Dette, Bach B Minor Mass at Carnegie Hall with the Oratorio Society of New York (Kent Tritle) and Clarion Music Society (Steven Fox), Orff Carmina Burana with the Milwaukee and Virginia Symphony Orchestras, a tour of the Ravinia and Caramoor Festivals singing Monteverdi with Apollo’s Fire and Jeannette Sorrell, Haydn Creation with Santa Fe Pro Musica, and with Mark Morris Dance Group to sing the choreographer’s iconic version of Handel L’Allegro, il Penseroso at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Erik Satie Socrate at Cal Performances.
He has performed Stravinsky with the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst; Evangelist in Bach St. Matthew and St. John Passion (Trinity Wall Street, Voices of Ascension, True Concord); Mozart at both Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center; Mendelssohn Elijah with Baltimore Choral Arts; and Bach Cantatas with the Grand Rapids Symphony and Handel & Haydn Society under Harry Christophers. Regularly engaged for Handel Messiah, he has performed the work with Music of the Baroque and Nicholas Kraemer (available on recording), internationally in South Korea with the Seoul Metropolitan Chorus, and with the Charlotte, Rhode Island, Memphis, and Virginia Symphonies, as well as at Carnegie Hall with the Oratorio Society of New York. Mr. Giebler sang and recorded the role of Iff the Water Genie in Wuorinen Haroun and the Sea of Stories with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and made his debut in France with Ensemble Correspondances under Sébastien Daucé and in Germany with Boston Early Music Festival in Charpentier Les Plaisirs and de Lalande Les Fontaines.
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Guadalupe Paz
Mezzo-soprano Soloist
Recent engagements include her debut at the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego as well as singing the role of Mercedes in Bizet’s Carmen for the San Diego Opera Company. Other operatic roles in her repertoire include the leading role of Montezuma in Montezuma by Carl H. Graun, Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Isabella in La Italiana in Algeri, Marchesa Melibea in Il Viaggio a Reims, Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Angelina in La Cenerentola, Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, Suzuky in Madama Butterfly, Olga in Eugene Onegin; Isolier in Le Comte Ory, Maddalena and Marchesa Melibea in Il Viaggio a Reims, Lucilla in L’Occasione fa il ladro, Ernestina in La Scala di Seta, La Messaggiera in L’Orfeo and Dorabella in Cosí fan tutte.
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