The Musicians
Peter Sulski, Artistic Director, violin/viola, was a member of the London Symphony Orchestra for seven years. While in England he served on the faculty of the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music and Drama, as well as being Artistic Director of Chapel Royal Concerts, which he founded in 1993. For seven years he gave the annual Viola Master class, along with many solo recitals and chamber music concerts at the Dartington International Summer School. He gave his Carnegie Hall debut in 1999, and his first London South Bank appearance in 2001. Peter served as Head of Strings of the National Palestinian Conservatory, Bicommunal Coordinator for chamber music for the Cyprus Fulbright Commission and Principal Violist of the Cyprus Chamber Orchestra. He is currently on the faculty as teacher of violin/viola/chamber music at Clark University, Anna Maria College, Assumption College, and College of the Holy Cross. He is a member of QX string quartet, was recently appointed Principal Violist of the Camerata New England, is a frequent performer with Boston Musica Viva, and is currently Artistic Director of the Al Kamandjati Baroque Festival and International Summer Festivals. Peter serves as Cultural Envoy to the United States Consulate in Jerusalem. Currently, Peter is presenting a six-year cycle of concerts at Clark University featuring the entire solo works of J.S. Bach for violin and viola. He has also made guest artist appearances with the Burlington, Radius, and Chameleon Arts Ensembles; this past summer he also made his debut with the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society.
Tracy Kraus, Executive Director/flute – “Supple and riveting…. elegant and adroit playing…dazzling” (Worcester Telegram) eloquently describe the playing of “the girl with the golden flute”. Ms. Kraus, Executive Director/flute of the Worcester Chamber Music Society, has performed solo and chamber music in the United States and Europe. She has been featured on several live concert/interview radio broadcasts on WICN in Worcester, MA, WGBH in Boston, and has appeared at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York.
An active chamber musician, Ms. Kraus was the founder/artistic director of the New England based Abbott Chamber Players, who had been the recipients of several grants from the Massachusetts Council of the Arts and Humanities to promote chamber music in the Worcester public schools. She performs with the Brown Bag for Kids Ensemble and the Meet the Musicians Woodwind Quartet, both sponsored by TD Banknorth. Ms. Kraus has toured the United States successfully as a soloist, featuring the music of American and Russian composers and has appeared at both the Aspen and Tanglewood festivals. She is a member of the Mendocino Music Festival Orchestra (CA).
Currently, Ms. Kraus is on the faculties of the College of the Holy Cross, Clark University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Maria Ferrante, soprano – has become familiar to audiences world over in recital, oratorio and in over 15 leading operatic roles. A winner of the Mario Lanza Voice Competition, she has received praise by numerous critics including the Washington Post and the Boston Phoenix. Richard Dyer of The Boston Globe has called her “a true singing actress… Maria Ferrante broke my heart last night.” Maria’s performances have delighted audiences from New York to the Virgin Islands, to Prague, Japan and London. She appeared live on WGBH-TV in Verdi’s Aida. She was invited to commemorate Boston’s Goethe Institute 250th Gala Celebration with Xavier de Maistre, (Vienna Philharmonic). Ms. Ferrante has recorded for Naxos, Albany and AFKA labels and also has four solo CDs to her credit, which received rave reviews from the Boston Herald: [Ms. Ferrante] known for her lilting soprano voice and probing mind…brings a supple and colorful approach to a broad variety of repertoire.” The Boston Globe said: “Superb”.
Maria has appeared with The Mohawk Trial Concerts, the Boston Ballet, New England String Ensemble, The Ensemble for the Romantic Century (NYC), the Charleston, Delaware, Queens (NY), Enid (OK), and Florida Northwest Symphony and Cape Cod Symphony Orchestras as well as The Concert Society Chamber Orchestra (CT), The Lane Concert Series (VT), and The Great Waters Music Festival (NH), The Newell Concert Series (FL), Lake Biwa Concert (Japan), The Shakespeare Concert (Boston/Prague) and The National Museum of Women in The Arts (Washington, DC). By special invitation, she received lessons from the renowned soprano, Elly Ameling and studied with Franco and Loretta Corelli. In 2007 she continued her studies in Beijing to discover aspects of bel canto with Master, Jiang Jou. An engaging, enthusiastic teacher and coach, Maria has taught Vocal Master Classes throughout and New England and New York.
Krista Buckland Reisner, violin – “Things done right..”(Boston Globe), “…Excellent left hand..”(Toronto Star), “…lovely tonal bloom…”(LeDROIT), and “..heartbreaking..”(Worcester Telegram & Gazette) are words that describe the performances of violinist Krista Buckland Reisner. An artist of great diversity, she has toured across her native Canada as a recitalist, performed concertos in cities ranging from New York City to St. John’s, Newfoundland, toured internationally throughout Europe, Russia and New Zealand and has created multi-media works for herself involving dance and movement. Krista’s passion for opera led her to be Principal Second Violin of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra for five years, Concertmaster of Opera Boston for eight, perform Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” with the Arizona Opera and hold a position with the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. Also an early music lover, Krista has performed with Canada’s Aradia, Boston Baroque, and is currently a tenured member of the Handel and Haydn Society. Her involvement in new music includes winning the Eckhardt Gramatté Competition for New Music, serving as Principal Second Violin of Boston Modern Orchestra Project, premiering concertos written for her by Canadian composers and developing countless collaborative relationships with living US composers like Charles Dodge, Yehudi Wyner, Theodore Antoniou, John MacDonald, Paul Moravec, Joseph Summer, Peter Child, Charles Shadle, Matthew Malsky, Mark Berger and John Alyward. As a chamber musician, Krista was the founder/first violinist of the string quartet QX, is lead violinist of the Worcester Chamber Music Society and Alea III and a frequent player with Boston Musica Viva. She can be heard on many recording labels including Naxos, Albany, Filharmonika, BMOPsound, Telarc and CBC. Currently, Krista enjoys studying business and is an MBA candidate at Babson College.
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Amy Rawstron, violin – is a well known performer. In addition to a busy and varied career as a violinist, she maintains a private teaching studio, and coaches and conducts string ensembles at the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School, Notre Dame Academy and Bryant University.
Alongside positions with Worcester Chamber Music Society, Arcadia Players and Rhode Island Philharmonic as Principal Second Violin, Amy has taken part in concerts and recordings with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Barry White, Opera Providence, Boston Classical Orchestra, Rod Stewart, Boston Opera, Johnny Mathis, Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Aretha Franklin, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Josh Grobin, Commonwealth Opera, Sarah Brightman, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, amongst many others. She recently appeared as Guest Concertmaster for the Rhode Island Philharmonic in their 2010 Summer Concert Series and also made appearances with the Key West Symphony Orchestra in Florida.
Amy began her violin studies at the age of eight, and soon began playing with the Young Performers program at the Longy School of Music, and at Apple Hill and Kneisel Hall Summer Programs as one of their youngest participants. She was first Principal Second, and later, Concertmaster of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. After graduating from the Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Amy earned a BA in Violin Performance from the Mannes College of Music, studying with Sally Thomas, Robert Koff and Roman Totenburg. She participated in masterclasses with Dorothy Delay, Glenn Dicterow, Julius Levine and Paul Doktor and continued her studies at the Meadowmount School of Music, and the Aspen, Tanglewood and Spoleto Music Festivals.
Rohan Gregory, violin – Rohan Gregory is a violinist that has has cultivated a wide-ranging expertise in chamber music, new music and world music. He has played with the 
Apple Hill Chamber Players, the Ancora Ensemble and award-winning Boccherini Ensemble and was also a founding member for ten years of the Arden String Quartet, performing new music concerts in New York, Boston, Amsterdam and St. Petersburg, Russia. He is a member of QX, a string quartet that has been in residence at Clark University, and has recorded on for Centaur records.
On the world music scene, Rohan has toured extensively. His travels have taken him to Europe with the Klezmatics, to Thailand with multi-ethnic flute player Abbie Rabinowitz, to India with the Indo-jazz group Natraj and to the U.S. west coast with Sophia Bilides Greek Folk Ensemble. Recently he has played nationally and internationally with the flamenco guitarist Juanito Pascual. Locally, Rohan is a member of the Lyric Opera Company and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. He coaches chamber music for the Walnut Hill School, teaches at the College of the Holy Cross, and spends his summers coaching at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber music in New Hampshire, at Music at Port Milford in Ontario, Canada, and at the WCMS Summer Festival.
Mark Berger, resident composer/violist– has performed with many of Boston’s finest ensembles, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Esplanade, Emmanuel Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Opera Boston, and Boston Lyric Opera. An avid chamber musician with a particular interest in performing new music, he is a member of Music at Eden’s Edge and has a duo partnership “The Two Composers” with pianist/composer Ketty Nez. Mark has recently performed with the Lydian String Quartet, Radius Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva and Ludovico Ensemble. Mark also maintains an active career as a composer, having received awards from the League of Composers/ISCM and ASCAP. The New York New Music Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, ALEA III, the Worcester Chamber Music Society, Xanthos Ensemble, Music at Eden’s Edge, QX String Quartet, and the Lydian String Quartet have presented his works locally. He is currently on the music faculty at Boston College, UMass Lowell and Middlesex Community College.
David Russell, cello – Hailed as a “superb cellist” in the Boston Globe, David Russell maintains a vigorous schedule both as soloist and as collaborator in the U.S. and Europe. He was appointed to the teaching faculty of Wellesley College in 2005 and currently serves as Director of Chamber Music. He is a regular performer with several Boston-area ensembles such as Emmanuel Music and Cantata Singers and Ensemble and served as Principal Cello with Opera Boston from 2005-2011.
A strong advocate and performer of new music, Mr. Russell has performed with such ensembles as Firebird Ensemble, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Entelechron, Phantom Arts Ensemble for American Music, Dinosaur Annex, Collage New Music, Music on the Edge, AUROS Group for New Music, and the Fromm Foundation Players at Harvard. He has performed and taught at SICPP at New England Conservatory, the Composers’ Recording Institute at Cleveland State University and the Icicle Creek Center for Chamber Music. Recent projects include solo recordings of works by Roger Zahab with Enelechron, Chen Yi’s Suite for Cello and Chamber Winds with BMOP, Eric Moe’s Mud Wrestling at the OK Corral for cello and piano and Donald Crockett’s Scree with Firebird Ensemble; premieres of a new cello concerto by Laurie San Martin, a new concerto for quintet and orchestra by Derek Hurst with the Firebird Ensemble and Boston Modern Orchestra Project, new works for solo cello by Sam Nichols, Roger Zahab and Andrew Rindfleisch, residencies at the University of California-Davis, the Boston Conservatory and the Icicle Creek Center for Chamber Music and, with Firebird, recordings of works by Lee Hyla and Tamar Diesendruck. He teaches at the Cello Seminar, a summer program for study of contemporary cello music associated with Music from Salem and developed by Rhonda Rider. He has recorded for the BMOPSound, Albany Records, New World Records, Centaur Records and Composers Recordings labels.
The cellist Joshua Gordon has won acclaim from audiences, critics, colleagues, and composers for his dramatic music making and rich tone. An experienced soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, orchestra player, and educ
ator, he is the cellist of the Naumburg Award winning Lydian String Quartet, principal cellist of the Boston based New England String
Ensemble, a member of the music faculty of Brandeis University, and resident cellist at the annual Wellesley Composers Conference. He has performed across the United States,
Canada, Australia, Europe, Japan, and South America. He was a member of the New York Chamber Soloists, the Group For Contemporary Music, and the New Millennium
Ensemble, and has been a guest of the Cassatt, Juilliard, and Ying Quartets, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Fromm Players at Harvard University, Kowmung Music Festival (Australia), New York Festival of Song, North Country Chamber Players, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Williams College Players, and with Speculum Musicae and Emmanuel Music, where he recently performed on Emmanuel’s Bach cello suite retrospective series. In 2007 Joshua Gordon and Randall Hodgkinson were awarded a Copland Fund grant for their critically acclaimed CD from New World Records, “Leo Ornstein: Complete Works For Cello and Piano,” named one of the top 10 classical recordings of 2007 by the All Music Guide and the Star-Ledger (NJ). In 2009 they celebrated Elliott Carter?s centennial birthday in concerts at Brandeis and at Bargemusic in New York City; in February they premiered Scott Wheeler’s “Spirit Geometry” at Brandeis along with works by Koechlin, Fauré, and Chopin. As a Lydian, Gordon can be heard on Centaur Records in the four quartets of Vincent Persichetti and on a new release of John Harbison’s Third and Fourth Quartets; he is also featured on recordings from Albany Records, CRI, Cala, Koch International Classics, Naxos, and Tzadik.
Ian Watson, harpsichord/piano – Described in the British national press as a performer with “virtuosic panache and brilliantly
articulated playing”, and “a world-class soloist”, Ian Watson is a prominent figure at the highest levels of the international music scene. Artistic Director of the acclaimed period-instrument ensemble Arcadia Players and Chorus, Music Director of Commonwealth Opera, Principal Guest Conductor of Karlstad Baroque in Sweden and Music Director of the Cathedral of St. Paul, Worcester, Ian’s versatility is revealed in the equal ease with which he performs the roles of orchestral conductor, choir director, organist, harpsichordist, pianist, teacher and public speaker.
Born in England in the Buckinghamshire village of Wooburn Common, Ian won a scholarship to the Junior School of the Royal Academy of Music in London, at the age of 14. He later won all the prizes for organ performance and others for piano accompaniment as well as the coveted Recital.
Diploma, the highest award for performance excellence and completing his studies with Flor Peeters in Belgium. As a distinguished graduate, he was honored in 1993, with an Associateship of the Royal Academy of Music, in recognition of his services to music and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. Ian’s first major appointment was as Organist at St. Margaret’s, Westminster Abbey, at the age of 19, a position he held for ten years and he has also held a number of prestigious positions in London including Organist of St. Marylebone Parish church, and Music Director of the historic Christopher Wren Church, St. James’s Piccadilly.
Among Ian’s many prestigious conducting engagements are: Monteverdi’s Vespers at St. James’s Palace in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen; Bach’s B Minor Mass at the Rheingau Festival with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra and Chorus; the opening concerts of the newly renovated Châtelet Theater in Paris with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and assistant conductor to Sir John Eliot Gardiner in the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage performing all Bach’s Cantatas on the correct liturgical day in places where he lived and worked. He has appeared as organ, harpsichord and piano soloist or conductor with the London Symphony, London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, Scottish Chamber, English Chamber, Polish Chamber and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestras, Bremen Philharmonic, Rhein-Main Symphony, Orchestra, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Handel and Haydn Society, English Baroque Soloists, and The Sixteen amongst many others. He has also being featured on more than 200 recordings and film soundtracks including Amadeus, Polanski’s Death and the Maiden, Restoration, BBC‘s David Copperfield, and an award-winning CD with Renee Fleming.
Ian has had a career -long passion for opera, working first as a vocal coach and conductor at Glyndebourne, and subsequently conducting countless performances and productions throughout England, and internationally Sadler’s Wells, The Royal Festival Hall, Bremen Opera, Giessen Opera, the Komische Opera, Berlin, houses in France and Scandinavia, and as a Principal Conductor with the Darmstadt State Opera in Germany in repertoire from Monteverdi’s Orfeo to Richard Strauss‘s Elektra.
Highlights of the upcoming 2012-13 season include recordings for Parma Records, performances of Mozart Fortepiano Concerti and concerts in Northampton, Worcester, Lincoln and Jordan Hall. Boston with Arcadia Players, directing concerts with the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston and Connecticut, and conducting the Bach Society Houston in the US premier of a new edition of Bach’s St Mark Passion.
William Ness, piano and organist – is currently the Minister of Music and Arts at First Baptist Church, an American Baptist Church, of Worcester, Massachusetts where he conducts three singing choirs and two bell choirs. He has two degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has done further study at the University of Iowa. His organ teachers have been Jennie Satre, Robert Speed, Robert Clark, Robert Glasgow, and Delbert Disselhorst. While at the University of Michigan he won the Graduate Concerto Competition in 1971. Mr. Ness taught at Andrews University from 1979 to 1982 as a sabbatical replacement for C. Warren Becker. Following that position he and his wife were Co-Directors of Music at First Presbyterian Church, Ottumwa, Iowa where they chaired the National Undergraduate Organ Competition.
Upon moving to Massachusetts he assumed the position of Minister of Music at The College Church at Atlantic Union College, South Lancaster in fall 1987. Other churches he served during this time were Village Congregational of Whitinsville and First Baptist of Lexington. He remained at The College Church until January of 2001 when he became Minister of Music & Arts at First Baptist Church of Worcester. While at the College Church he developed five vocal choirs and two bell choirs.
Mr. Ness has performed on Iowa Public Television, 3ABN, National Public Radio as well as in Australia, Europe and the Caribbean. As an accompanist he has performed with many choral organizations. During 2003-2004 he completed a three recital series of 20th century organ music at First Baptist of Worcester and also performed Howard Hanson’s Concerto for Organ and Harp with the Atlantic Union College Orchestra under the direction of Stephen Tucker. William is a part of Synergy – a flute, harp and organ trio. Together they have performed several commissioned works by and for this combination by composers Gary Shocker, Lynn Trapp, and Peter Matthews. Mr. Ness appears on the recent 2CD set of Great Organs of Worcester.
In November 2012 he premieres an organ and brass performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 5 at First Baptist Church with WPI Brass and percussion ensemble directed by Douglas Weeks. He teaches organ at the Pakachoag Music School of Greater Worcester.
