Karen Burciaga earned a Master of Music in Early Music Performance from the Longy School of Music studying Baroque violin with Dana Maiben and viol with Jane Hershey. She holds a Bachelor of Music from Vanderbilt University, where she began playing viol. She has performed with The King's Noyse, Newport Baroque, Arcadia Players, and other period ensembles, as well as appearances at the Boston, Bloomington, and Amherst Early Music Festivals. Karen is a founding member of Seven Times Salt, a broken consort specializing in 16th-century English music and ballads. She teaches on the string faculty of the Texas TOOT, where she also leads the baroque ensemble The Killer Bees. Other musical interests include traditional Scottish fiddle and dance, American shape-note music, and Italian Renaissance dance.

Tobi Szuts was studying and playing cello during his undergraduate studies at Reed College in Portland, Oregon when he first came across the viol. His first question was, "Why does it need frets?" After a brief interlude with jazz bass, he returned home to Boston – ostensibly to study Neuroscience – and began to play the viol in earnest, studying with Jane Hershey. He now embraces frets for the chordal style of playing they facilitate, and urges any composers reading this to include chords in their works for viol. He has had the pleasure of playing at Renaissance dances, weddings, funerals, and with the Harvard Early Music Society, the Brandeis University Chorus, Rialto Arts, and Les Bostonades. He directs the Mather House Consort at Harvard University.

Anne Legene studied cello with Jean Decroos at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Netherlands, her native country. She performs chamber music regularly with harpsichordists Larry Wallach and Mariken Palmboom. Anne conducts the orchestra and teaches cello at Bard College at Simon's Rock and maintains a full teaching studio. She also teaches at the Early Music Week at World Fellowship Center near Conway, NH. Anne has played with ensembles including the Foundling, Les Inégales, Crescendo, the Berkshire Bach Society, the Harvard Choir and Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra. She holds a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Longy School, where she studyied viola da gamba with Jane Hershey and baroque cello with Phoebe Carrai.

Zoe Weiss performs extensively on Baroque cello and viola da gamba in the greater Boston area and beyond. Originally from Ithaca, New York, she fell in love with early music at Oberlin Conservatory where she studied viol and Baroque cello with Catharina Meints. She recently completed a Master of Music degree at Boston University studying with Laura Jeppesen and Sarah Freiberg. At Oberlin, she taught many beginning viola da gamba group classes and continues to teach privately in Boston. She is much in demand as a soloist and continuo player and has performed with Exsultemus, L’Academie, Les Délices, The Buxtehude Consort and Cambridge Concentus (with whom she toured Japan under the direction of Joshua Rifkin). She is a founding member and co-artistic director of Consort Conspiracy and co-directed the masque Cupid & Death last April in Boston.

Rachel Cama performs on viola da gamba and baroque cello throughout the Midwest and East Coast regions. Active as both a soloist and continuo player, Rachel has collaborated with a variety of chamber ensembles including Music for a While and The Sprightly Companions. She is a founding member of Cascata, an ensemble specializing in seventeenth-century music for voice, bowed strings and continuo. Increasingly in demand as a teacher, Rachel has instructed viola da gamba at workshops in New England, Toronto, at the Amherst Early Music Festival, at Brandeis University and currently directs the Case Western Reserve University Viol Consort. She recently finished Graduate Diploma studies in Early Music at the Longy School of Music and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Early Music Performance at Case Western Reserve University where she studies viola da gamba with Catharina Meints. She also holds a master's degree in Musicology from Brandeis University.

Peter Geiersbach is a Rhode Island native and graduate of Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio, where he studied baroque cello and viola da gamba with Catharina Meints and modern cello with Peter Reijto. Following a several-year layoff in which he devoted his energies to a medical career, he returned to the Boston area to continue graduate studies at the Longy School of Music. Peter is a baroque cello student of Phoebe Carrai at the Longy School of Music and remains an active performer on both cello and viola da gamba with appearances throughout the Boston area. He is currently member of the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra.

Jane Leggiero is a gambist and baroque cellist currenlty based in Austin, TX. She holds a bachelor's degree in music from Oberlin College and a master of music degree from Boston University. She has performed with ensembles across the country including the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra under Jeannette Sorrell, the Boston University Baroque Orchestra under Martin Pearlman, Seraphic Fire, La Follia Austin Baroque, the Buxtehude Consort, and L'Academie. She has also appeared as a soloist with the Boston University Baroque Orchestra and Cambridge Concentus. An avid chamber musician, she has been an active member of ensembles in Boston, including Les Pommes et les Roses and Rossignol. She has performed with the Boston University Consort of Viols and is co-artistic director and founding member of Consort Conspiracy.

Joshua Schreiber Shalem studied cello at Bennington College with Maxine Newman, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts. While at Bennington, he was a member of the Early Music Ensemble, where he first became acquainted with the viol. Chronic hand pain necessitated a hiatus in his playing activities, until he discovered the Feldenkrais Method. Now a Guild-Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, Josh maintains a private practice with an emphasis on functional movement for musicians. Josh holds a Master’s degree in Early Music Performance from the Longy School of Music where he studied with Jane Hershey. He is also a founding member of ensembles Seven Times Salt and Musica Nuova. In addition to his performance and Feldenkrais activities, Josh is active in Boston's Jewish community as an educator and cantorial soloist.

Collaborators

Michael Barrett, tenor  

Tracy Cowart, mezzo-soprano

Anney Gillotte, soprano

William Good, theorbo

Barbara Hill, soprano

Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, mezzo-soprano

Emily Lau, mezzo-soprano

Daniel Meyers, recorder, percussion and baritone

Ari Nieh, baritone and countertenor

Charles Weaver, lute

Brenna Wells, soprano