About

Doug Balliett is a composer, instrumentalist and poet based in New York City. The New York Times has described his poetry as “brilliant and witty” (Clytie and the Sun), his bass playing as “elegant” (Shawn Jaeger’s In Old Virginny), and his compositions as “vivid, emotive, with contemporary twists” (Actaeon). Popular new music blog I Care if You Listen has critiqued Mr. Balliett’s work as “weird in the best possible way” (A Gnostic Passion) and “light-hearted yet dark…it had the audience laughing one minute and in tears the next…” (Pyramus and Thisbe). He is a tireless performer of new music, and is professor of baroque bass and violone at the Juilliard School. With a constant stream of commissions, a weekly show on New York Public Radio, and nearly 200 performances per year, Mr. Balliett has been identified as an emerging voice for his generation.

Kivie Cahn-Lipman holds degrees from Oberlin, Juilliard, and the University of Cincinnati. Praised in the New York Times for his versatility, he is the founder and lironist of baroque string band ACRONYM, founder and cellist of Scottish period-instrument ensemble Makaris, and co-founder and gambist with the viol consort LeStrange. Kivie appears on more than fifty recordings on over a dozen labels, and his recording of the complete Cello Suites of J.S. Bach was praised for its "eloquent performances," "fresh thinking," and "energy and zeal" (The Strad). As a chamber musician, he has performed frequently in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and other major venues on five continents. Kivie served on the faculties of Smith and Mount Holyoke Colleges and The College of New Jersey, and he is an Associate Professor at the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University. He has taught at the Cortona Sessions for New Music since 2012, and he has been a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble since its first concert in 2002.

Zoe Weiss leads a diverse and busy life as a performer, teacher, and scholar. She is currently based in Ithaca, NY where she is a PhD candidate in musicology at Cornell University working on a dissertation exploring experimental compositional practices in Elizabethan viol consort music. Zoe is also an active performer on both viola da gamba and Baroque cello, performing with the Smithsonian Consort of Viols, the Oberlin Consort of Viols, and LeStrange Viols, of which she is a founding member. Zoe is a dedicated viol evangelist and has taught beginning viol at Oberlin Conservatory, Harvard University, and Cornell University where she currently directs the Cornell Consort of Viols. She also teaches regularly at workshops for the Viola da Gamba Society of America and its chapters. Her playing can be heard on several albums on the New Focus label, including LeStrange's recording of consort music by William Cranford which was picked by Alex Ross as a notable recording of 2015. A new album of Elizabethan consort music with LeStrange Viols based on Zoe's research into a music manuscript from 1578 will be released April 2018.

A versatile, genre-crossing multi-instrumentalist based in northeast Ohio, Caitlin Hedge is an award-winning fiddler, baroque violinist and violist d'amore, orchestral violist, and singer-songwriter. Featured on 20+ recordings of varying musical genres, her most recent album with Scottish historical performance band Makaris was released in July 2022, and her debut solo album is expected in 2023. A Young Artist Apprentice and featured soloist with Apollo's Fire, Ms. Hedge appears frequently with early music ensembles, collaborating most recently with Alkemie, Science Ficta, Freelance Nun, and members of ACRONYM. She performs regularly with Youngstown Symphony, Wheeling Symphony, Ashland Symphony, Mansfield Symphony, and Opera Western Reserve. She holds degrees in music performance from Youngstown State University and Baldwin Wallace University, and is currently pursuing a second master's degree in Historical Performance Practice at Case Western Reserve University, studying baroque violin with Julie Andrijeski and voice with Ellen Hargis. She has served on faculty at Youngstown State University’s Dana School of Music, teaching viola and chamber music, and is a member of the Dana Faculty Ensemble.

Loren Ludwig is a performer and music historian based in Baltimore, MD. He is a co-founder of critically acclaimed ensembles LeStrange Viols, the 17th-century string band ACRONYM, and Science Ficta. Current projects include the reconstruction of a lost tradition of ensemble string playing in New England c1800 and archival work in VA and MD uncovering evidence of the participation by African American musicians in colonial musical culture. Recent projects include “Bach, the Viola da Gamba, and Temperament in the Early Eighteenth Century” (BACH: Journal of the Riemenscheider Bach Institute 53), and Making Art and the Fight for Freedom, an article that chronicles the early music activism of civil rights luminary Bayard Rustin. An essay on the intertwined histories of Minimalism and early music revivalism in post-war New York is forthcoming in Exploring the Performance Practices of Early and New Music (Routledge, 2023). Loren’s ongoing research on New England viols and the rich culture of vernacular stringed instrument building and music making is (sporadically) chronicled in this blog. Loren studied viola da gamba at Oberlin Conservatory and the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague, Netherlands, and holds a PhD in Critical and Comparative Studies in Music from the University of Virginia.