Tahanee Aluwihare
About
Sri Lankan-American mezzo soprano Tahanee Aluwihare is regularly sought out for her unique vocal timbre and vibrant stage presence. She portrayed Dido in The Boston Camerata’s Dido and Aeneas: An Opera for Distanced Lovers and returns to the role in 2023. She made her debut with the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka at the age of seventeen and has since performed in Asia, Europe, and North America. In previous seasons, Ms. Aluwihare has performed with Tri-Cities Opera, Opera Memphis, Opera Idaho, Charlottesville Opera, City Lyric Opera, and Opera del West among others.
Ms. Aluwihare earned her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College with concentrations in Music and Anthropology, and her M.M. in Vocal Performance from the Longy School of Music of Bard College.
Ms. Aluwihare earned her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College with concentrations in Music and Anthropology, and her M.M. in Vocal Performance from the Longy School of Music of Bard College.
Michael Barrett
About
Michael Barrett is a Boston-based conductor, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and teacher. He serves as music director of The Boston Cecilia and Convivium Musicum. Michael also teaches conducting and European music history at the Berklee College of Music, and was recently appointed as Interim Director of the Five College Early Music Program, where he directs the Five College Collegium. Michael has performed with Blue Heron, The Boston Camerata, the Huelgas Ensemble, Vox Luminis, the Handel & Haydn Society, Netherlands Bach Society, Seven Times Salt, Schola Cantorum of Boston, and Nota Bene, and can be heard on the harmonia mundi, Blue Heron, Coro, and Toccata Classics record labels.
Phillip Bullock
About
Phillip K. Bullock, a native of Washington DC, has been featured in operas, recitals and concerts throughout the United States and Europe. He made his Camerata debut recently in We’ll Be There! Phillip had the pleasure of performing the role of Jake in Porgy & Bess in Dresden, and he recently made his debut with Atlanta Opera (Gounod’s Roméo & Juliette) and Cincinnati Opera (Puccini’s Tosca). Equally at home in gospel and pop music as well as classical music, Phillip is a proponent of new American works and performs in both productions and workshops celebrating fusions of these styles.
Joel Cohen, Music Director Emeritus
About
Joel Cohen led the Boston Camerata from 1969 to 2008. He trained as a composer at Harvard University with Randall Thompson and spent two years in Paris under the tutelage of Nadia Boulanger. Among his many awards are the Edison Prize (Netherlands), the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France) and the Georges Longy Award (United States). His interest in oral traditions and folklore have informed many of his early music projects, recorded and live. Mr. Cohen’s work with Shaker music includes both extensive archival research, and active collaboration with the remaining Shaker community in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. He is the Music Director of the Camerata Mediterranea, an international, intercultural institute of musical exchanges, devoted to research, dialogue, and pedagogy involving the diverse musical civilizations of the Mediterranean basin, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim. Joel Cohen’s recent lecturing and research activities include presentations at University of Indiana, at the Baroque Music Festival of São Luís, Brazil, for the BBC and for French national radio, and at the Sorbonne, Paris.
Libor Dudas
About
Regular Camerata collaborator Libor Dudas began his piano studies at the age of 8. A native of Croatia, his professional career began at age 14 when he gave his first organ recital in his hometown of Osijek. He studied organ and liturgical music at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna and holds an MM from the University of Notre Dame and a DMA in organ performance from New England Conservatory. He has also studied fortepiano with Peter Sykes and harpsichord with Darlene Catello and Edward Parmentier. He has served as Organist and Choir Director at Old North Church since 1998. He is active on the faculty of Longy School of Music of Bard College and Boston Conservatory.
Corey Dalton Hart
About
Corey Dalton Hart, tenor is an active performer of opera, oratorio, and song repertoire as well as an eager chamber musician. With a passion for American song, he is a regular recitalist along the east coast, having premiered new works in both New York City and Boston. He performs with the Boston Camerata, Boston Baroque Ensemble, Renaissance Men, The Ashmont Bach Project, the VOCES8 Scholars Program, and the renowned choir at the Church of the Advent. Corey holds degrees from Furman University and the Bard College Conservatory of Music and is currently working on his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in vocal performance and pedagogy from the New England Conservatory of Music.
Craig Juricka
About
Boston-based baritone Craig Juricka’s versatile performance career has brought him to concert, opera and musical theatre stages around the nation. He has been featured as an Apprentice Artist with Des Moines Metro Opera and sings regularly with The Boston Camerata and the choruses of Handel & Haydn Society, Odyssey Opera, Boston Baroque, and Emmanuel Music. As a Choral Scholar at Marsh Chapel, he has performed as a soloist in various Bach cantatas, large concert works, and new music. As an advocate for the pedagogy behind a versatile mechanism, Craig’s approach to singing is routed in his cross-trained background as a singer.
Shira Kammen
About
Multi-instrumentalist, occasional vocalist, composer & arranger Shira Kammen has spent well over half her life exploring the worlds of early and traditional music. A frequent collaborator with Anne Azéma and The Boston Camerata, Ms. Kammen was a member for many years of the early music Ensembles Alcatraz, Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, and has also worked with Sequentia, Hesperion XX, Anonymous IV, among many others. She has performed and taught in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Israel, Morocco, Latvia, Russia and Japan, and has provided music for rafting trips on the Colorado, Rogue, Green, Grande Ronde, East Carson and Klamath Rivers. She has enjoyed working with students in many different settings, ranging from summer music workshops in the woods, coaching students of early music at Yale University, Case Western, the University of Oregon at Eugene, as well as working at specialized seminars at the Fondazione Cini in Venice, Italy and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland.
Liza Malamut
About
Liza Malamut appears as a trombonist, teaching artist, and presenter throughout the United States and abroad. She has performed with Boston Baroque, Tafelmusik, Opera Atelier, Opera Lafayette, the Handel & Haydn Society, Trinity Wall Street, Boston Camerata, Apollo’s Fire, Dark Horse Consort, Mercury Chamber Orchestra, Piffaro, and many other ensembles. Her playing can be heard on the Musica Omnia, Naxos, Hyperion, and George Blood Audio labels. A passionate teacher and researcher, her academic work was supported by an American Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the American Association of University Women. Liza holds degrees in trombone performance from the Eastman School of Music and Boston University, and she completed her doctoral work in historical performance at Boston University, where she studied with Greg Ingles. Liza is a founder and Co-Artistic Director of Incantare, an ensemble of violins and sackbuts specializing in music of lesser-known and marginalized populations in early modern Europe, and she has succeeded Ellen Hargis and David Douglass as Artistic Director of The Newberry Consort.
Eric Martin
About
Equally at home in classical and traditional music, violinist and violist Eric Martin brings joy, whimsy, and passion to every genre of music he encounters. As a classical violist, Eric has performed with numerous chamber and symphonic ensembles across the northeast. As a traditional dance musician, Eric can be found playing for festivals, concerts, camps, balls and other dance events across the United States, Canada, and Europe with a variety of bands and ensembles. He performs regularly with The Boston Camerata. Eric holds performance degrees from Ithaca College and the University of Limerick, Ireland.
MaKayla McDonald
About
Soprano MaKayla McDonald is an active performer of opera, art song, and new works who recently made her Camerata debut in We’ll Be There! Last Spring, MaKayla worked with the American Opera Project + NYU/Tisch for their Opera Lab. In June, she joined ChamberQUEER’s Pride Festival at National Sawdust. Most recently, MaKayla joined Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre as a guest artist singing a Juneteenth recital. MaKayla currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. She is an adjunct Lecturer for the Borough of Manhattan Community College Music and Art Department and a soprano in the Compostela Choir at St. James on Madison.
Allison Monroe
About
Allison Monroe performs on vielle, rebec, medieval harp, violin, viola, and sings with such ensembles as the Newberry Consort, Les Délices, Alkemie, Apollo’s Fire, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, and the Washington Bach Consort. She directs the Collegium Musicum at Case Western Reserve University, from which she also holds a D.M.A. in Historical Performance Practice. Allison won Early Music America’s 2017 Barbara Thornton Memorial Scholarship. Her research interests include medieval song accompaniment, self-accompaniment, and early seventeenth-century violin bands. She is also a co-founder of Trobár, a small band of voices and instruments dedicated to bringing medieval music to modern audiences.
Camila Parias
About
Colombia native Camila Parias, a regular collaborator with the Boston Camerata, is also a frequent soloist with La Donna Musicale and a core member of the Choir of the Church of the Advent, Handel+Haydn Society, and The Broken Consort. In recent seasons she appeared with Rumbarroco, a group focusing on Latin American and Baroque music. Her international appearances include solo performances with Colombian chorus La Escala throughout Italy, France, and Spain, and touring Europe with the Camerata in Borrowed Light. She can be heard on Camerata’s most recent CDs, Free America! and A Medieval Christmas – Hodie Christus Natus Est. She holds a B.M. in Vocal Performance from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and a M.M. in Early Music Performance from the Longy School of Music of Bard College.
Christa Patton
About
Camerata regular Christa Patton, historical harpist and early wind specialist, has performed throughout the Americas, Europe, and Japan with many of today’s premier early music ensembles including Piffaro the Renaissance Band, The King’s Noyse, Folger Consort, Newberry Consort, Apollo’s Fire, Parthenia and ARTEK. As a baroque harpist specializing in 17th century opera, Christa has performed with New York City Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Tafelmusik. She is presently on the faculty of Rutgers University and the Graduate Center at CUNY. She is also musical director of the Baroque Opera Workshop at Queens College, specializing in the works of early 17th century composers.
Jordan Weatherston Pitts
About
Tenor Jordan Weatherston Pitts made his principal artist debut as the queen Renata in Iain Bell and Mark Campbell’s world premiere of Stonewall with New York City Opera. He assumed prominent roles in The Boston Camerata’s Play of Daniel (2014–2020) and The Night’s Tale (2016–2020). He continues an active performance schedule of romantic and lyric repertoire. Recent roles include Roméo in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette with the Hawaii Opera Theatre, The Magician (Nika Magadoff) in Menotti’s The Consul with Opera Saratoga, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Achille in La Belle Hélène, Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi, Alfredo in La Traviata, Younger Thompson in Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, and MacDuff in Verdi’s Macbeth.
Deborah Rentz-Moore
About
Mezzo-soprano Deborah Rentz-Moore enjoys a multi-faceted solo career, specializing in early music while equally at home in classical and contemporary repertoire. She appears frequently with The Boston Camerata, Emmanuel Music, and Aston Magna, as well as other celebrated ensembles such as The Boston Early Music Festival, Handel+Haydn Society, Tapestry, Voices of Music and Magnificat Baroque. She has appeared at Lincoln Center, the Paris Philharmonie, Utrecht Early Music Festival, Prague Spring Festival, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall and Tanglewood. Her recordings on Musica Omnia, Centaur, Meridian and Harmonia Mundi span genres and eras, from Monteverdi, Cozzolani and Bach to early American, Shaker and 21st-century works. She appears on video with Voices of Music, Emmanuel Music, The Boston Camerata and the University of New Hampshire, where she is Resident Artist in Voice. Ms. Rentz-Moore is featured on The Boston Camerata’s critically-acclaimed Free America and Hodie Christus Natus Est recordings.
Ian Saunders
About
Virginia native Ian Saunders enjoys an exciting career as a sought-after bassist who has performed with major ensembles, including The Boston Camerata, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, and The Sphinx Symphony. In 2017, Dr. Saunders won a prestigious diversity fellowship position with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where he studied with his mentor Owen Lee, the CSO’s principal bassist. Outside of the classical world, he has played in orchestras backing Bootsy Collins, Kansas, and hip-hop artist Thee Phantom. He can also be seen in the nationally televised special Cherish the Ladies: An Irish Homecoming, with the Irish supergroup Cherish the Ladies, which was nationally syndicated on PBS in 2013.
Luke Scott
About
A frequent performer with The Boston Camerata, bass-baritone Luke Scott is a graduate of the Hartt School of Music and Bel Canto Scholarship Foundation grant winner. Mr. Scott has performed with orchestras and opera companies in the United States and Canada. His opera credits include performances with Opera on the Avalon, Salt Marsh Opera, Opera Theatre of CT, Taconic Opera, Boston Opera Collective, and Opera Western Reserve. In addition, he has performed with the Newburyport Chorale Society, the Connecticut Virtuosi Orchestra, Cape Cod Symphony, and was a winner of the New England Concerto competition. Mr. Scott has earned many awards including those from the Martina Arroyo Foundation, The American Prize in Opera, the Chautauqua Institute, and was named the Shreveport Opera Singer of the Year.
Mildred Walker
About
Mildred E. Walker is a vocalist, keyboardist, choir director,
and music educator. A native of Boston, she is currently employed as an Elementary Music Educator in the Brockton Public Schools. Mildred is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth with a degree in Music with a concentration in Music Education. Mildred is also a principal soloist in the National Center for Afro-American Artist’s production of Langston Hughes’s Black Nativity as well as a member of the Boston Pops Gospel Choir, performing at Boston Symphony Hall as part of the Gospel Night at the Pops concert annually.
and music educator. A native of Boston, she is currently employed as an Elementary Music Educator in the Brockton Public Schools. Mildred is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth with a degree in Music with a concentration in Music Education. Mildred is also a principal soloist in the National Center for Afro-American Artist’s production of Langston Hughes’s Black Nativity as well as a member of the Boston Pops Gospel Choir, performing at Boston Symphony Hall as part of the Gospel Night at the Pops concert annually.
Hon. Milton Wright
About
Milton Wright is a retired Judge of the Boston Municipal Court. He is a graduate of Morehouse College, where he was a member of the famed Morehouse College Glee Club, and of Boston University Law School. He also studied Arabic at Princeton University and Harvard University and voice with Donna Roll at Longy School of Music. He was a member of the New England Spiritual Ensemble and this is his thirty-sixth year in Boston’s Black Nativity where he now serves as Musical Director. He has recorded three albums, Friends and Buddies, Spaced, and Judgement Day. He has also written and produced a musical, Jobe The Musical, and has appeared throughout the U.S. and in Europe, including with the Landmarks Orchestra in Boston. He is also the co-founder of “The Butterfly Project” a music program for emerging young talent, that specializes in training youthful vocalists to sing, develop their instrumental, poetry and songwriting skills. He comes from a family of musicians, including his legendary GRAMMY winning sister, Betty Wright.