A veteran North Shore actor, Gordon Baird is the co-founder and 25 year publisher of Billboard's Musician Magazine. He founded the West End Theater of Gloucester, the Gloucester Kids' Theater Club and the cable TV comedy show Gloucester Chicken Shack. He is an Equity actor and singer, has appeared in multiple musicals at North Shore Music Theater, Boston's Lyric Stage, Reagle Players and Seacoast Rep and currently plays in the band, The Tide. A native New Yorker and an everyday sailor, Gordon writes a humor column for the Gloucester Times and lives on a seaside farm with three kids, a patient wife, an old tractor, 3 goats, 17 chickens and a very personable pig.

Stephen Bates has recently retired from the Opera Orchestra of the Kennedy Center, in Washington DC, where he played clarinet and bass clarinet since 1973. The Opera Orchestra of the Kennedy Center performed for the Washington National Opera and the visiting ballet companies. During his stay with the orchestra, he performed in 70 different opera productions and performed for all the major ballet companies of the world. Mr. Bates co-founded the Contemporary Music Forum in 1973 where he played solo clarinet for seven years performing the work of only living composers in over 50 different concert programs. In 1980 he co-founded a chamber orchestra in which he played solo clarinet and performed concertos of Copland, and Neilson as well as works for solo clarinet and orchestra by Joan Tower, and Eugene Kurtz.

Mr. Bates also developed a career in art showing his paintings at The Watergate Gallery and the Parish Gallery. He is interested in the phenomenon of synesthesia and has painted impressions of music by Scriabin and Stravinsky.

Violinist Maria Benotti founded Music at Eden’s Edge, the North Shore’s own resident chamber music ensemble, in 1982. As its Artistic Director, she has shaped its programs and artistic vision while performing for 30 seasons. Active in Boston’s vibrant musical scene, she is a member of the faculty of the New England Conservatory Preparatory School, where she has taught violin, chamber music and Sonata Duo class since 1977, as well as a course in string pedagogy in the School for Continuing Education.

Ms. Benotti has performed frequently with the Handel & Haydn Orchestra on early violin, and she is a founding member of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston. She appeared for years as concertmaster and chamber performer on modern violin with the St. John’s Concert Series in Beverly Farms. She has performed in numerous recitals and chamber concerts throughout New England, including a Jordan Hall solo recital, the Enchanted Circle Series at Jordan Hall, the Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival, the Monadnock Music Festival and the Music at Noon Series at Northeastern University and has recorded for Friedrich von Huene and composer Howard Rovics.

A graduate of Oberlin College and New England Conservatory of Music, Ms. Benotti studied with Eric Rosenblith, Dorothy DeLay, Masuko Ushioda, Günter Pichler and Valeria Kuchment. Her chamber music studies included such master teachers as Josef Gingold, Eric Rosenblith, Donald Weilerstein, David Wells, and Michael Schnitzler, with whom she studied while a special student at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria.

Mark Berger completed his undergraduate studies in violin at Boston University with Roman Totenberg and viola with Steven Ansell. He has performed in the Thayer Festival, the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Tanglewood Music Center as violist for the New Fromm Players. He is very active Boston area freelance violist and violinist and has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Boston, Emmanuel Music, Boston Musica Viva and ALEA III Contemporary Music Ensemble. Mr. Berger is a founding member of the Worcester Chamber Music Society and Trio Mosaic.

As a composer, Mr. Berger studied at Boston University and Brandeis University with Lukas Foss, Theodore Antoniou, David Rakowski, Martin Boykan and Eric Chasalow. Mr. Berger’s compositions have been heard throughout the USA and internationally in Russia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Greece. His music has been performed by ensembles such as the New York New Music Ensemble, Lydian String Quartet, Dinosaur Annex, ALEA III, QX String Quartet, the Harvard Group for Contemporary Music, New Music Brandeis, Ensemble Permutaciones (Mexico), NODUS Ensemble, Studio New Music (at the Moscow Conservatory), the Third Coast Percussion Quartet, and the Hellenic Ensemble of Contemporary Music. Mr. Berger teaches composition, theory and electronic music and is on the music faculty of Wellesley College, Clark University and Middlesex Community College.

Charlyn Bethell, oboe, plays recitals and chamber music throughout the New England area. She has performed with Monadnock Music, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Emmanuel Music, New Hampshire Symphony, and the Opera Company of Boston. She was the oboist with New Art Winds (woodwind quintet), which made its New York debut in Carnegie Recital Hall in 1985. She is a founding member of the wind quintet Solar Winds, which recently commissioned and recorded The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship by John Kusiak. She is also an active member of Kaleidoscope Chamber Ensemble. Ms. Bethell has performed world and local premieres by several composers including Thomas Oboe Lee, Andy Vores, and Francine Trester. She has recorded for CRI.

She has degrees in oboe performance from Western Washington State University, and Det Jydsk Musikkonservatorium in Aarhus, Denmark. Her teachers include Ole-Henrik Dahl, Laurence Thorstenberg, Fredric Cohen, and Stuart Dunkel.

A native from Caracas, Venezuela, Orlando Cela studied at DePauw University under the tutelage of Anne Reynolds, as well as classical improvisation with Eric Edberg. He also studied in Vienna with Barbara Gisler-Haase, professor at the Hochschule for Musik und Darstellende Kunst, before moving to Boston, where he studied with Paula Robison at the New England Conservatory. At NEC, Orlando also studied conducting under Tamara Brooks and Frank Battisti. Orlando was the conductor of the UMass Dartmouth Chorus and Chamber Chorus and assistant conductor of the Newton Symphony Orchestra; he has guest conducted the Marquette Symphony Orchestra, Northern Michigan University Orchestra, Brandeis New Music Ensemble and the Scituate Choral Society and is currently the music director of Willow Flute Ensemble.

Orlando plays flute often with the Gardner Museum Chamber Orchestra, Music at Eden’s Edge, Williams College’s I/O New Music Ensemble and the Anemoi Quintet, he also plays cuatro with a trio called “Las Paraulatas Bostonianas,” created to foment the performances of typical Venezuelan music. He has taught at SUNY Fredonia, UMass Dartmouth, All Newton Music School, Carlisle Public Schools, Brookline Music School, and the Governor’s School of North Carolina, Escanaba Schools and Ishpeming Schools, and he is now faculty at College of the Holy Cross, as well as a Northern Shaolin Kung Fu and Yang Tai Chi instructor at WuDao Kung Fu and Tai Chi of Cambridge.

Neil Fairbairn studied bassoon in Boston and London. A freelance musician in Britain for twenty years, he toured regularly with the London Opera Group and the Phoenix Wind Quintet. He also worked extensively with the Royal National Theater, accompanying productions on British, European, and North American Tours.

In the field of music publishing, Neil was associate editor of The Music Makers, a biographical encyclopedia of musicians. He also co-authored Royal Collection, an anthology of music composed by members of the British royal family.

Neil currently lives in Belmont, Massachusetts, where he is a freelance bassoonist and writer. He plays with the wind quintet Solar Winds and teaches bassoon and chamber music at Phillips Andover Academy.

Sarah Freiberg is a principal cellist of the Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Baroque. She has performed with the New York Collegium, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (San Francisco), Portland Baroque (Oregon), Seattle Baroque, the Boston Early Music Festival and Arion (Montreal). As a corresponding editor for STRINGS magazine, she has contributed numerous articles to that publication. Sarah edited the Guerini cello sonatas for both PRB Productions and Broude Brothers, and recorded them and Laurenti sonatas for Centaur. She teaches in the Historical Performance Department of Boston University and is Chair of Strings and Chamber Music at the Powers Music School in Belmont, MA. Sarah received her D.M.A. and M.M. degrees from S.U.N.Y. at Stony Brook, and holds degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory, Brown University and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Ms. Freiberg can be heard on numerous recordings, including as soloist on a recent release of Boston Baroque performing works by Vivaldi and Geminiani.

Lynn Nowels, cellist, performs in Boston with groups including The Cantata Singers & Ensemble, Emmanuel Music, & Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra. She was a founding member of the Artemis String Quartet which specialized in the quartets of Shostakovich. She is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Music where she studied cello & chamber music with Eva Heinitz, Denes Zsigmondy, & Donald McInnes. She was awarded a fellowship to the Blossom Festival Chamber Music School where she worked with Josef Gingold & Leonard Rose. Recent appearances include concerts in Nebraska with the Emmanuel Trio and in Maine with Winsor Music. She looks forward to returning to the International Musical Arts Institute this July. Ms. Nowels has taught at Wheaton College and the Lexington Waldorf School and has recorded for the CRI label.

Born in New York City, Paul Orgel has concertized throughout the United States, Eastern Europe, and China as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, and chamber musician. Critics have praised his playing for its “subtlety and attention to nuance” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “rare pathos” (New York Times), and “brilliant technique, sense of humor and fantasy” (Bridgeport Post).

A versatile musician with wide-ranging interests and an extremely varied repertoire, Orgel can be heard on recordings of music by Louis Moyse (Works for Flute and Piano) on the CRI (now New World) label, a 2003 Grammy nominee, and on Capstone (Keyboard Fantasies by Curt Cacioppo). His solo recording, Music of the Holocaust featuring music by Karel Berman, Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, and Viktor Ullmann, was released on the Phoenix USA label in 2005.

Orgel was educated at Oberlin, the New England Conservatory and Boston University. He holds a doctorate in piano performance from Temple University. Among his piano teachers were Russell Sherman, Lillian and Irwin Freundlich, and Harvey Wedeen. He is currently a member of the music faculty at the University of Vermont and is director of the Humanities Program Concert Series at Saint Michael’s College. He is on the faculty of the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival and reviews recordings for Fanfare magazine.

Since moving to Boston in 2001, Mrs. Poeschl-Edrich has played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Classical Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn Society, Providence Singers, Collage New Music, the Tanglewood Music Center, Boston Cecilia Society, Boston Musica Viva, Boston Camerata, Harvard Baroque Orchestra, Blue Heron Renaissance Choir, as well as many orchestras in New England. As a soloist, Mrs. Poeschl-Edrich appeared with Newport Baroque, the Symphony Pro Musica, the Lexington Symphony, the New England String Ensemble, and in 2004, with the Boston Classical Orchestra, performing the Harp Concertos by Handel and Debussy on a five days notice, filling in for Ann Hobson Pilot. While continuously expanding her repertoire and searching for an authentic sound, she also plays an Italian Baroque triple harp, a Renaissance double-row harp and a Gothic single-row harp.

Mrs. Poeschl-Edrich has recorded with La Donna Musicale and Aston Magna. Her recently released CD “The Magic of Wild Birds” is a collaboration with poet and radio host Ray Brown, harp solo music and bird narration by Ray Brown. In December 2010, this CD was featured on Boston’s 99.5 All Classical.

Mrs. Poeschl-Edrich has earned degrees in Salzburg and London. In 2005, she graduated from Boston University with a Doctor of Musical Arts. She is on the faculty of Boston University.

Howard Rovics is a Professor Emeritus of Music, having retired in 2000 from 33 years of full-time college teaching at the School of the Arts on the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. He devotes his time to composing concert music, freelancing as an organist throughout Fairfield County and Co-directing the Christina Rovics Vocal Studio in Bethel Connecticut . In 1974, he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant during the Nation’s bicentennial. He has received other grants and awards from the American Composers’ Alliance, the New York State Council on the Arts, The Bruce Museum of Greenwich, Connecticut, Long Island University , The Long Island Guitar Festival, and the Connecticut Music Teachers Association. His music is represented on CDs on the North/South Consonance label, Musicians Showcase Recordings, and Capstone. CD Baby on the Web has many of his recordings both as a composer and pianist.

Robert Schulz serves as principal percussionist for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, and the Opera Boston Orchestra. He works as well with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Boston Ballet Orchestra, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston and the Boston Chamber Music Society. As a timpanist, mallet specialist and multi-percussionist, he has been a featured soloist with the Celebrity Series of Boston on numerous occasions.

In 2004, Mr. Schulz received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Small Ensemble Performance on Yehudi Wyner’s The Mirror (Naxos). That year he also gave the Boston premiere of Tan Dun’s Water Concerto with BMOP. He has led his own group, BeatCity Art Ensemble, in performances for the Celebrity Series, Lincoln Center, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. He has toured nationally and internationally with pipa virtuoso Wu Man and was the featured recitalist for the 2006 CrossSound Festival in Juneau, Alaska.

Also an experienced drummer in virtually all contemporary styles, Bob has performed with Dave Brubeck at the Newport Jazz Festival, jazz violinist Leroy Jenkins, guitar legend Jim Hall, the San Antonio Symphony, Boston Pops and countless jazz combos, big bands, rock bands and original music groups.

Daniel Stepner has performed and recorded a wide range of music on period and contemporary instruments. He has been first violinist of the Lydian String Quartet, in residence at Brandeis University, for 21 years; he is also a founding member of the Boston Museum Trio, resident at the Museum of Fine Arts; and is Artistic Director of the Aston Magna Festival, a summer series in the Berkshires. He served as concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society for 24 years, and is a Preceptor in Music at Harvard University, where he team-teaches a course in chamber music with Robert Levin. For six years, he played as assistant concertmaster and frequent soloist with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, based in Holland. He plays frequent recitals in the Boston area.

His recorded repertoire includes sonatas of Bach, Vivaldi, Buxtehude and Telemann, and Marais; chamber music of Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, William Schuman, Vincent Persichetti, Lee Hyla, Peter Child, Martin Boykan Yehudi Wyner, and John Harbison; and the complete violin sonatas of Charles Ives, with pianist John Kirkpatrick. He has also conducted recordings of Handel’s The Triumph of Time and Truth and Monteverdi’s Orfeo (on Centaur). Mr. Stepner studied with Steven Staryk in Chicago, Nadia Boulanger at Fontainebleau, France; and Broadus Erle at Yale, where he earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree.

Pianist Naoko Sugiyama, a native of Japan, is active as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Japan and around the Boston area. She has appeared with the Boston Chamber Music Society, Bargemusic in New York, and the Chestnut Hill Concerts in Connecticut. She has been heard at Jordan Hall (Boston), Goethe Institute (Boston), Suntory Hall (Tokyo), and on WGBH-FM Boston. Ms. Sugiyama was a 2005 prize winner in the Krenek Competition of the Virginia Waring International Piano Competition (formerly the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition). In 2007, she performed the world premiere of “Lullaby” by the eminent American Composer Ned Rorem at the Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York. Between 2001-2008, she served as a member of the faculty at Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine. Ms. Sugiyama holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music (Tokyo Geidai), a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Longy School of Music, and a Master of Music degree and Graduate Diploma with Distinction in Performance from New England Conservatory. She has studied with Randall Hodgkinson, Martin Canin, Mieko Harimoto, and Ayako Kanazawa. Ms. Sugiyama is currently a faculty member at Longy School of Music. For her future concert schedule, please visit: naokosugiyama.com.