Chamber music concerts with internationally acclaimed artists

Artistic Director Ariadne Daskalakis leads an international career as violin soloist, baroque violinist and renowned pedagogue. She has collaborated with fine orchestras like the English Chamber Orchestras, the Athens State Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Munich, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Dortmund Philharmonic and the New Artistic Director Ariadne Daskalakis leads an international career as violin soloist, baroque violinist and renowned pedagogue. She has collaborated with fine orchestras like the English Chamber Orchestras, the Athens State Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Munich, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Dortmund Philharmonic and the New Bedford Symphony. As soloist and leader she also collaborated with the Prague, Cologne and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestras and with Ensemble Oriol Berlin. As baroque violinist she has led projects with the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin, the Norwegian Baroque Orchestra, Concerto Köln and Barokkanerne Oslo. Prizewinner in the International Competition of the ARD Munich and the St. Louis Symphony Young Artists Competition, she also received awards from the Harvard Music Association, the New England Conservatory and the Dortmund Mozart Society.  Born of Greek parentage in Boston, she studied violin with Eric Rosenblith at the New England Conservatory Prep School and with Szymon Goldberg at the Juilliard School. She holds degrees with honors from Harvard College and the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. She has recorded numerous CD’s including concertos by Tartini and Kalliwoda, the complete Sonatas of Faure, Raff and Handel and the cycle of Rosary Sonatas by Biber. She is Professor of Violin at the Cologne Conservatory. In 2015 she became Artistic Director of the European Academy of Music and Art “Palazzo Ricci” in Montepulciano, Italy.For more information please visit

https://www.ariadne-daskalakis.com

Cellist Beiliang Zhu (featured in August) won 1stPrize and the Audience Prize at the XVIII International Bach Competition in Leipzig in 2012 as the first string player to receive this honor playing on a baroque instrument. Further prizes awarded to Beiliang include the Arthur Foote Prize of the Harvard Musical Association, 2ndPrize in the Holland America Music Society Int’l Competition and the 2010 Henry I. Goldberg Young Artist Prize at the American Bach Soloists Academy. Beiliang commands a wide range of repertoire and roles – as a modern cellist, baroque cellist and viola da gamba player. She earned degrees at the Eastman School of Music and at the Early Music Division of the Juilliard School, where her mentors included Phoebe Carrai (baroque cello) and Sarah Cunningham (viola da gamba). She is currently pursuing her Doctoral of Musical Arts at the Eastman School under the guidance of cellist Steven Doane, as well as a Master of Arts in Ethnomusicology. Beiliang has given solo performances at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Bach Festival Leipzig, the Helicon Foundation, the Portland Bach Virtuosi Festival and the Seoul Bach Competition, among others, and has performed alongside internationally acclaimed artists including William Christie, Masaaki Suzuki, Monica Huggett, Paul Odette, Stephen Stubbs, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. 

English-American performer and composer Emi Ferguson (featured in our August concerts) is an unusual artist who stretches the boundaries of what is expected of modern-day musicians. Emi can be heard live in concerts and festivals around the world as well as at home in New York City, where she is a member of AMOC*, the New York New Music Ensemble, NYBI, Argento Ensemble, New Vintage Baroque, and the Manhattan Chamber Players. She has spoken and performed at several TEDX events and has been featured on media outlets including the Discovery Channel and TouchPress apps talking about how music relates to our world today. Her debut album Amour Cruel spent 4 weeks on the Billboard Charts and was released by Arezzo Music. Emi is currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School teaching Ear Training in the Evening and Pre- College divisions. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York City. For more information please visit www.emiferguson.com

The German conductor, composer, and violinist/violist Sebastian Gottschick (MLEW composer in residence) was born in Duesseldorf. He studied violin and composition in Cologne and Berlin, and conducting in Hamburg and at the Juilliard School in New York. He was Artistic Director of the Ensemble Oriol Berlin from 1993 through 1999, and Musical Director of the Neue Opernbühne Berlin from 1994 until 2001. Recent guest appearances as conductor include the State Theatre Saarbruecken, Teatro Sao Carlos Lisbon, Teatro La Fenice Venice, Theater Basel and Theater Bern, as well as the Radio Orchestras of Frankfurt, Berlin, Stuttgart, Munich, and Warsaw, and contemporary ensembles such as the Klangforum Vienna, the Ensemble Modern, the Musikfabrik Cologne, and the Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen. He is regular guest of the Ensemble for New Music Zurich. A CD with his adaptations of Charles Ives songs, released in 2012, won great critical acclaim. His arrangements of works for the renowned Alliage Saxophone Quintet were recorded in 2013 and 2016 for the Sony Classics label and received an ECHO award. He continues to perform regularly as violinist and violist and teaches at the Cologne Conservatory. This past season saw the premiere of his concerto for bassett horn at the Festival for 

Contemporary Music in Zurich.

Arthur Haas (featured in our August concerts) is one of the most sought-after performers and teachers of Baroque music in the United States today. He received the top prize in the Paris International Harpsichord Competition in 1975 and then stayed in France for a number of years as an active member of the growing European early music scene. While in Paris, he joined the Five Centuries Ensemble, a group acclaimed for its performances and recordings of Baroque and contemporary music. He is a member of the Aulos Ensemble, one of America’s premier period instrument ensembles, whose recordings of Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, and Rameau have won critical acclaim in the press, as well as Empire Viols, and the exciting new group, Gold and Glitter. He has recorded harpsichord music of Jean-Henry D’Anglebert, Forqueray, Purcell and his contemporaries, Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, François Couperin, and most recently the three books of Pièces de Clavecin of J.P. Rameau. Annual summer workshop and festival appearances include the International Baroque Institute at Longy, Portland (ME) Bach Festival, and the Amherst Early Music Festival, where he served as artistic director of the Baroque Academy from 2002 to 2011. Haas is professor of harpsichord and early music at Stony Brook University, where he leads the award-winning Stony Brook Baroque Players, and is a founding faculty member of Juilliard’s historical performance program. In fall 2012, he joined the distinguished faculty of the Yale School of Music.

Cellist Paige Riggs (featured in our July concerts) returns to Music from Land's End for the 7th consecutive year from her home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she is an active teacher and performer.  She serves as principal cellist of the Westmoreland and McKeesport Symphonies, and has been principal cellist and soloist with the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival for the past 14 years.  Currently on the music faculty of Slippery Rock University, Dr. Riggs has also taught at the University of Virginia and Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.  A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Indiana University and the State University of New York at Stony Brook her major teachers include Paul Katz, Janos Starker, and Timothy Eddy.  While a student she received fellowships from the Spoleto Festival, the Bach Aria Festival and the Tanglewood Music Center, which awarded her the C. D. Jackson 

memorial prize.

Martha McGaughey, viola da gamba (featured in our August concerts), studied in Basel, Switzerland, with Jordi Savall and in Brussels with Wieland Kuijken.  She was for many years a member of the Paris-based Five Centuries Ensemble, known for its performances of both early and contemporary music.  A founding member of Musical Assembly, whose recording of the chamber music of François Couperin received critical acclaim, Ms. McGaughey is also a founding member of Empire Viols, in residence at New York's Second Presbyterian Church since 1997. She has performed with many of the New York Baroque groups, and collaborated with the British viol consort, Phantasm, in several concerts and a CD of the consort music of William Byrd.  She has recorded for the Fonit Cetra and Erato labels, as well as for EMI.  Ms. McGaughey taught at the Ecole Nationale de Musique in Angoulême (France), and at Stanford University. Since 1986 she has been on the faculty at The Mannes College of Music.  She has twice been a Regents' Lecturer at the University of California, and teaches regularly at Amherst Early Music and other summer workshops. In the 2016-2017 season she was a featured soloist with the China National Symphony in Beijing, and has given several master classes in France.

Violinist Seowon Kim (featured in August) has performed extensively in North America, Europe, and South Korea as a soloist and a chamber musician. A graduate of the New England Conservatory, where she studied with James Buswell and Lucy Chapman, Seowon is continuing her studies as a graduate student at the Cologne Conservatory of Music and Dance with Ariadne Daskalakis. Other mentors include pianist Anthony Spiri and baroque violinist Richard Gwilt. Seowon has also given concerts at Chamber Music Falmouth, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Banff Music Centre, the Bowdoin International Music Institute, the Portland Bach Festival, the Great Mountains Music Festival and the Heifetz International Music Institute.

A Cape Cod native, violist Carly Scena (featured in August) performs extensively throughout New England and the San Francisco Bay Area.  She is the founder and artistic director of Chamber Music Falmouth, an emerging artists residency on Cape Cod, for which she received the New England Conservatory’s Spark Award for entrepreneurship. Carly worked closely with the Colorado Quartet at their summer quartet institute on Cape Cod, “Soundfest.” She regularly participates in the San Francisco chapter of Music for Food, a musician-led initiative founded by Kim Kashkashian to combat food insecurity. She has performed alongside acclaimed artists such as Bonnie Hampton, Ian Swenson, Kim Kashkashian and Geoff Nuttall, and participated at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and Encore Chamber Music. Carly has worked intensively to perform new music, including the Boston premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Quintet for Strings and Horn and performances with the Callithumpian Consort. She also performs as a contemporary and jazz vocalist and improviser. Carly earned her Bachelor of Music degree from the Boston Conservatory with Rictor Noren, and her Masters Degree at the New England Conservatory with Dimitri Murrath, with whom she currently studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. There she also studies baroque performance techniques with Elizabeth Blumenstock.