The Consort

Rebekah Ahrendt (tenor & bass viol) performs in the United States and Europe as a soloist and with ensembles including Disperata, Les Violettes, and Het Internationaal Collectief Oude Muziek (ICOM). Rebekah accidentally discovered the viola da gamba while a student at San José State University. She began lessons with John Dornenburg, then won a Rotary Club Ambassadorial Fellowship to continue her studies with Anneke Pols at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague (1998-2002). Rebekah has taught workshops for the Viola da Gamba Society of America and the San Francisco Early Music Society. Rebekah holds the Ph.D. in musicology from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at Tufts University.

Karen Burciaga (treble viol) earned an MM in Early Music Performance from the Longy School of Music studying Baroque violin with Dana Maiben and viol with Jane Hershey. She holds a BM from Vanderbilt University, where she began playing viol. She has performed with The King's Noyse, Newport Baroque, Arcadia Players, Cambridge Concentus, Exsultemus and other period ensembles. Karen is a founding member of Seven Times Salt, a broken consort specializing in 16th-century English music and ballads. She has taught on the string faculty of the Texas TOOT, and currently serves on the board of the Viola da Gamba Society, New England chapter. Karen enjoys playing 1920s songs on the ukulele and has secret plans to acquire a nyckelharpa.

Anne Legêne (treble & bass viol) was born into a family of musicians and studied cello 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 Foundling, Les Inégales, Crescendo, the Berkshire Bach Society, the Harvard Choir and Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra. She obtained a Graduate Performance Diploma at the Longy School, studying viola da gamba with Jane Hershey and baroque cello with Phoebe Carrai.

Colleen McGary-Smith  (bass viol) enjoys an active performing career on both modern and baroque cello as well as viola da gamba. Currently based in Boston, she preforms with Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, L'Academie, Music at Eden's Edge and Tutti Bassi.  She has recently appeared with other ensembles such as Boston Cecilia, Exsultemus, Newton Baroque, Newport Baroque and Cambridge Concentus.  Colleen began her cello studies at the age of 5 with pre-college studies at the Eastman School of Music Preparatory Department.  Colleen holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Boston University.  She is a dedicated  educator and enjoys a full studio of cellists ranging in age from 4 to 95! Outside of her busy music career, Colleen enjoys spending time with her husband, 2 young boys and competing in triathlons.

Zoe Weiss (bass viol) is much in demand as a soloist and continuo player on viola da gamba and Baroque cello. Based in Boston, she has performed with Exsultemus, L’Academie, Les Délices, Sonnambula, Musical Offering, Newton Baroque and Cambridge Concentus. Zoe is a founding member and co-artistic director of Consort Conspiracy, a viol consort that collaborates with poets, contortionists, and actors to craft unique performances. She holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Boston University. Zoe's passion for baroque opera has led her to direct staged performances of Purcell's The Fairy Queen and the Masque of Cupid & Death. She co-founded Helios Early Opera whose first production, Marc-Antoine Charpentier's David et Jonathas, was performed in Boston in January 2012.  

Recent Guests

Tobi Szuts (tenor viol)  recently moved to the Bay Area from Boston, where he co-founded the viol consorts Long & Away and quaver. He studied with Jane Hershey at the Longy School of Music and has played with Les Bostonades, the Harvard Early Music Society, and with the duo Hallifax and Jeffrey. He has performed Clerambault’s French cantatas in Versailles, France, played lirone in Cavalli’s opera L’Ormindo, and participated in the Consort Cooperative program at the Viola da Gamba Society of America’s summer Conclave. For quaver, which specializes in nontraditional repertoire, Tobi has arranged pieces by Piazzola, Ligeti, and Sousa. He coached the Mather Viols, an undergraduate consort, at Harvard University. Tobi also studies psychoacoustics, dances tango, and makes very tasty soup.

Elizabeth Weinfield (tenor viol) is the founder of New York-based viol consort Sonnambula and has appeared as a baroque violist and viol player with such ensembles as Anonymous 4, The Buxtehude Consort, Lionhart, The New York Consort of Viols, Siren Baroque, Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Festival, Parthenia and others. Currently she is a PhD candidate in historical musicology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and she holds a Master’s degree in music from Oxford University. She designed an exhibition of baroque plucked strings at the Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments; currently she is the content editor of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. She has taught at the City College of New York, Oxbridge's L'Académie de Paris, Yeshiva University, and is currently adjunct faculty in music at Fordham.