Stephanie Vial

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 critically acclaimed series Discovering The Classical String Trio (MSR Classics). 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 and the creator of DancingwithBach.com, a video project exploring performance practice and the solo Bach cello suites. She has recorded for the Dorian Label, Naxos, Hungaroton, and Centaur Records. Vial calls Durham, NC, home, where she is a lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UNC Greensboro, and Duke University.
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English mezzo-soprano Tamsin Simmill grew up singing the traditional Anglican church repertoire. While at Oxford, singing across a wide range of musical periods, she toured Denmark, Germany, Jakarta, and Hong Kong; sang and recorded with Emma Kirkby and the Consorte of Musicke; premièred works by Arvo Pärt and by modern British composers; and recorded with The Finzi Singers on the Chandos label. On moving to Ireland she sang, toured, and recorded with the National Irish Chamber Choir and Dublin Grand Opera, and sang in Christ Church Cathedral.

Since moving to the US, she has regularly sung both in small ensembles and as a soloist for various groups including the NC Baroque Chamber Orchestra, Raleigh Camerata, and (as today) El Fuego. She has been the main alto soloist for the Bach@Duke series since its inception, and is preparing concerts of French Art Songs and selections from the American Songbook.

She lives in Durham with her husband and their 6 cats. For 32 years she has maintained a bodywork therapy business from home; she is also co-owner of Triangle Wine Company: www.trianglewinecompany.comType your paragraph here.

Beverly Biggs

Frances Fitch

Salomé Sandoval sings and plays a variety of fretted string instruments such as lutes, early and classical guitars. A native of Venezuela Salomé holds a Graduate Performance Diploma in Early Music as a voice (with Laurie Monahan) and lute major (with Doug Freundlich) thanks to a scholarship awarded by Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA; a Master’s in Arts from Middle Tennessee State University (with William Yelverton) and a Bachelor in Music from Instituto Universitario de Estudios Musicales (in Venezuela, with Luis Zea) both in classical guitar. She has played in master classes with renowned international guitarists such as Leo Brower and Alirio Diaz and lutenists such as Nigel North, Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, as well as in radio shows, theater, movie soundtracks and television. Award winner in several competitions, Salomé has sung and played early, Latin American, and contemporary music in various ensembles and choirs in Venezuela and the US. She has collaborated in many CD recordings with groups such as Camerata Renacentista y Barroca de Caracas conducted by Isabel Palacios in Caracas, VE and has two of her own: Singing with the Fire and Potions (available in Itunes) containing a variety of songs from early, Spanish, Latin- American and twentieth-century music. Salomé’s recent collaborations with Early Music Ensembles include Raleigh Camerata, El Mundo with Richard Savino, Newberry Consort with Ellen Hargis and her own group El Fuego, with repertoires that range from New World to Spanish Eighteenth Century sacred and stage music.

About the Performers

Luciana Kube

Eric Miranda’s varied singing career spans more than two decades and has included solo appearances in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, the Ravinia Festival, and in Millennium Park with the Grant Park Symphony Chorus. Graced with a “pliable warm baritone” (Chicago Classical Review), Eric has performed with Bella Voce Camerata, Tower Chorale, Chicago Arts Orchestra, and Elgin Symphony. In 2019, alongside Salomé Sandoval, Eric appeared in Antonio de Literes’s Acis y Galatea, coproduced by El Fuego and Connecticut-based ensemble, Crescendo. A regular with Newberry Consort, Chicago’s premiere early music ensemble, Eric has been featured in recent seasons, most notably in The Empress: Margarita Teresa, and A Mexican Christmas, a concert that juxtaposes sacred and popular music of the Baroque era in Mexico. He has also been featured in four critically acclaimed Haymarket Opera Company productions, and has twice appeared singing cantatas in Chicago’s Latino Music Festival. Growing up bilingual in Puerto Rico, and studying French in college has influenced Eric’s affinity for languages. Thus, in addition to performing, he is a certified Spanish medical interpreter, and is often tapped to coach choruses and individuals in diction, most recently for Chicago Lyric Opera’s production of Florencia en el Amazonas.

Matvey Lapin

Eric Miranda

Frances Conover Fitch has toured extensively in North America and Europe and
performs with prominent early music ensembles. She helped found the groundbreaking ensemble for 17th-century music, Concerto Castello, and has been described as a “delightfully inventive and compelling” continuo player. Ms. Fitch has participated in major music festivals, including Tanglewood, Aix-en-Provence, Pepsico Summerfare, Tage AlterMusik (Regensburg), the Boston Early Music Festival, and the Festival de Musica Antigua in Mexico.

Ms. Fitch has made more than a dozen recordings, including a double CD of mu-
sic by Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre.. Her playing has been noted for its “precision and delicacy of wit.”

She was a member of the faculty of the Longy School of Music for nearly three
decades, and served as Chair of its Early Music department. In 2006, Longy awarded her the George Seaman Award for Excellence in the Art of Teaching.

Ms. Fitch is on the faculties of Tufts and Brandeis Universities and The New England Conservatory. In 2012-13, she was Guest Professor at Ferris University in Yokohama,
Japan. She is co-author of the figured bass workbook, Running the Numbers. Ms. Fitch maintains a private studio in the Boston area, and is Minister of Music at St. John's Church in Beverly Farms, MA.

Salomé Sandoval

Luciana Kube is currently in her fourth year of the PhD Program in Hispanic Literature of the Modern Languages Department at Florida International University. Her dissertation research focuses on the Colonial Villancico and the syncretic genres of the Eighteenth Century through both the musical and the literary approach. FLAS Fellowship recipient 2019-2020 at the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC) at Florida International University. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Audiovisual Journalism at UCAB University in Caracas, Venezuela, and her Master of Arts in Spanish at FIU. She received the Monseñor Pellín Award for her dissertation Arte Jesuítico en América Hispánica in 1997. She studied music both in the Conservatorio Simón Bolívar in Caracas, and Conservatori del Liceu in Barcelona. Former member of the Camerata Barroca de Caracas, conducted by Isabel Palacios. Luciana received masterclasses with remarkable professors, such as David Roblou, Jordi Savall, Montserrrat Figueras and Andrew Lawrence-King. She also worked in Teatro Real de Madrid in the Subtitling and Publications department. Her publication Diarios de Venezuela (Espasa Calpe, 2002) is used as an Instructional reading book for Spanish learners all over the world. She has published two articles in the flamenco magazine La Nueva Alboreá from the Instituto Andaluz del Flamenco (2018 and 2019). Luciana is a member of Sigma Delta Pi Hispanic Honor Society.

Harpsichordist Beverly Biggs’ performances have been described as elegant, fiery, sensitive, spirited, and beautifully paced. She has collaborated with violinist Stanley Ritchie, baritone Max van Egmond, conductor Richard Sparks, lutenist Stephen Stubbs, and many other well-known musicians in the field of early-music. As co-director of both Connoisseur Concerts and Allegro (Spokane, Washington), she founded the Northwest Bach Festival, Royal Fireworks Concert, Allegro’s Viennese Ball, Music in Historic Homes, and Period Music at The Met.

Beverly has performed in concert halls from San Diego to Calgary, Canada; universities throughout the United States; the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe; and a highly interesting fortnight as artist-in-residence in the remote northeast quadrant of Montana. She founded the Triangle-based early music series, Baroque & Beyond, and was its Artistic Director from 2008-2022. She has served as a member of the continuo team for the North Carolina Symphony, NC Baroque Orchestra (where she was also a featured soloist), Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, and the NC Bach Festival. In addition to baroque and early classic repertoire, she has performed and recorded world and national premieres of contemporary harpsichord music. www.beverlybiggsharpsichord.com

Tamsin Simmill

Leia Peroutka

Violinist Leah Peroutka is known for her versatility as a performer of repertoire ranging from the 17th Century through music of today on both modern and baroque violin. She has performed with numerous ensembles across the country and in Europe, including the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, New Music Raleigh, North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, Bertamo Trio, and Ensemble Collina. With the latter she has recorded 17th Century chamber music works for violin, trombone and continuo (“Confluences”) on the Acis label. Locally, she performs regularly with the North Carolina Symphony, North Carolina Opera, Carolina Ballet, Magnolia Baroque, Mallarme Chamber Players, Raleigh Camerata and with colleagues at UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University. Ms. Peroutka served on the music faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill for 12 years. She is the coordinator for the Chapel Hill Chamber Music Workshop and is in high demand as a private teacher in the Triangle area. Her instruments include violins by Jan Hus Bursík and L. Prokop as well as bows by Ole Kanestrom, Willem Bouman, Michelle Speller, and Harry Grabenstein.