Les Délices is quickly establishing its reputation for polished, expressive, and dynamic performances of masterpieces and little-known works from the French Baroque. Founded by baroque oboist Debra Nagy, Les Délices is comprised of some of the nation’s top early music specialists, each with notable careers as soloists, chamber musicians, and teachers. In addition to touring engagements, Les Délices presents two to three concert sets per year in Northeast Ohio in intimate settings that encourage cooperation and mutual interest between local visual and performing artists.

Les Délices' performances on period instruments allows them to explore the rich tapestry of tone colors available in this repertoire, and the group's name conveys their approach to the music of this era: a delight, a fine delicacy, sumptuous, and exciting. Audience members have called their performances “exquisite,” “superb,” and “breathtakingly gorgeous,” while the Cleveland Plain Dealer has lauded the ensemble’s “rhythmic buoyancy, suave phrasing and seamless interplay.” Les Délices has been delighting audiences with regional concerts in the midwest since 2006, made their Boston recital debut in June 2009, has had live performances featured on WKSU’s In Performance, and will have their new recording featured as part of the Audio-guide for an upcoming exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (Watteau, Music, and Theater).

Left to right: Emily Walhout, Scott Metcalfe, Lisa Goode Crawford, Debra Nagy (photo: Beth Segal)

Debra Nagy, baroque oboe and director, performs frequently with baroque ensembles and orchestras in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Cleveland, Denver, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. In addition, Debra performs on shawms and recorders with Ciaramella, a group devoted to fifteenth-century music, and has been a guest with Piffaro, the Newberry Consort, and Blue Heron. She received her doctorate in Early Music at Case Western Reserve University in 2007, where she currently directs the Collegium Musicum. A graduate of Oberlin, Debra was the first-prize winner in the 2002 American Bach Soloists Young Artist Competition, and spent 2002-2003 researching Renaissance double reed instruments in Brussels and Amsterdam as the recipient of a Belgian American Educational Foundation Grant. Debra can be heard on the Capstone, Bright Angel, Naxos, Hänssler Classics, and ATMA labels and has had live performances featured on CBC Radio Canada, Klara (Belgium), WQXR (New York City), WCLV (Cleveland), WKSU (Kent), and WGBH Boston. She loves cooking, gardening, and commuting around Cleveland by bike from her home in the heart of the historic Tremont neighborhood. Debra is a 2010 Creative Workforce Fellow. The Creative Workforce Fellowship is a program of the Community Partnership for Arts & Culture, generously funded by Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. to top>

Scott Metcalfe is a specialist in music between 1400 and 1750 whose career as a violinist and conductor has taken him all over North America and Europe. He directs Blue Heron, a vocal ensemble based in Boston that specializes in music from about 1400-1600; the group’s first CD, featuring music by Guillaume Du Fay, was released in March, 2007, to wide critical acclaim. He also directed the Renaissance choir Convivium Musicum from 1996 through 2007. As a baroque violinist, Metcalfe is concertmaster of the Trinity Consort in Portland, Oregon (dir. Eric Milnes), plays French baroque music with the ensemble Les Délices (dir. Debra Nagy), and is becoming an active member of Montreal’s flourishing early music scene, working with Montréal Baroque, Arion, Les Boréades, Les Voix humaines, and other groups. Metcalfe was a founding member of the 17th-century ensemble La Luna and of the Renaissance violin band The King’s Noyse; he played regularly with Toronto’s Tafelmusik between 1987 and 1998 and in every Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra from 1989 through 2003. In recent years he has also taken up the medieval fiddle and will appear with the Boston Camerata in several programs this season. Besides playing and directing, Metcalfe keeps busy writing, teaching, translating, and editing; at present he is at work on a new complete edition of the songs of Binchois, in collaboration with Sean Gallagher of Harvard University. Metcalfe received a bachelor’s degree in 1985 from Brown University, where he majored in biology, and in 2005 completed a master’s degree in historical performance practice at Harvard. to top>

Recently llauded for her "invigorating verve and imagination" by the Washington Post, Julie Andrijeski is among the leading baroque violinists in the U.S.  Her unique musical performance style is greatly influenced by her knowledge and skilled performance of baroque dance, and she often combines these two mediums in the classroom, on stage, and at workshops. Ms. Andrijeski is a full-time Lecturer in the Music Department at Case Western Reserve University where she teaches early music performance practice, baroque dance, and directs the Case/CIM Baroque Orchestra and chamber ensembles. This year she is also Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin College. Before joining the Case faculty, Ms. Andrijeski was a full-time member of the early-music trio Chatham Baroque. Now, in addition to her teaching, Ms. Andrijeski regularly appears with many baroque groups including, among others, Quicksilver, Cleveland's Apollo's Fire, the New York State Baroque Orchestra, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Cecilia's Circle, Spiritus Collective, and the King's Noyse. She has been on the faculties of the Baroque Performance Institute at the Oberlin Conservatory and the Madison Early Music Festival for over a decade, and joined the faculty of the Vancouver Early Music summer festival this year. Ms. Andrijeski received her Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in Early Music from Case Western Reserve University in May 2006. Previous degrees include a B.M. in Violin Performance from the University of Denver (1985) and an M.M. in Violin Performance from Northwestern University (1986).  Her recordings can be found on Dorian Recordings (with Chatham Baroque), Centaur, and Musica Omnia. to top>

Emily Walhout grew up playing the cello, but discovered her love for baroque bass lines at Oberlin Conservatory, where she took up the baroque cello and the viola da gamba, thus launching an active career in early music. Ms Walhout was a founding member of La Luna, and was a member of The King's Noyse from 1987 through 2004. Ms Walhout has played viola da gamba or principal cello for the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Seattle Baroque, Portland Baroque, Les Boreades, Les Violons Du Roy, New York Collegium, and Trinity Consort (Portland, OR). She has toured as a chamber musician throughout North America and Europe, and she has recorded extensively with the Boston Camerata, La Luna and The King's Noyse. A resident of Waterown, MA, Ms Walhout maintains a small studio of private students and coaches several devoted viol consorts. to top>

Cited for his "stylish and soulful playing" Josh Lee leads a mixed up musical life performing on viols and double bass with some of the world's leaders in early music. An alum of the Peabody Conservatory and the Longy School of Music, he studied double bass with Harold Hall Robinson and viols with Ann Marie Morgan and Jane Hershey. Josh is the founder of the ensemble Ostraka, and has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Carmel Bach Festival, Musica Pacifica, Boston Early Music Festival,, Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Musica Angelica, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Josh's performances have been heard on Performance Today and Harmonia, and he has recorded for Dorian Sono Luminus, Reference Recordings and Koch International. A resident of San Francisco, Josh is director of the Viola da Gamba Society of America Young Players’ Weekend. to top>

Viol player Zoe Weiss is much in demand as a soloist and continuo player. Currently based in Boston, she has recently performed with the Boston University Baroque Orchestra (led by Martin Pearlman), Long & Away, Exsultemus, L’Academie, The Sun's Darlings, and Cambridge Concentus (with whom she just completed a tour of Japan under the baton of Joshua Rifkin). Originally from Ithaca, NY, she discovered her love of early music while studying modern cello at the Oberlin Conservatory and switched majors to study viol and Baroque cello with Catharina Meints.  She recently completed a Master's degree at Boston University studying viol with Laura Jeppesen and Baroque cello with Sarah Freiberg Ellison.  In addition to performing, she has taught extensively and directed several concerts, including a staged adaptation of Purcell's The Fairy Queen.   to top>

Lisa Goode Crawford, harpsichord, was educated at Harvard and taught at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1973 to 2005. In 1968 she was one of the first winners of the Erwin Bodky Award for performers of early music, and since then has given solo recitals and ensemble performances throughout the U.S. and in Europe and Japan. Ms. Crawford has edited the keyboard music of Pancrace Royer for Heugel (Paris), has recorded solo works of Royer and Rameau for Gasparo, and has participated in ensemble recording projects for Vox, Gasparo, and Smithsonian Recordings. With Mitzi Meyerson, she has recorded the harpsichord music of Gaspard Le Roux, arranged for two harpsichords (Harmonia Mundi France, 1998). One of the most respected harpsichord teachers in the U.S., Ms. Crawford conducts master classes and is frequently asked to adjudicate performance competitions. In 1996-97 she was named to the honorary NEA Conservatory Challenge Professorship at Oberlin Conservatory. For the 2000-1 academic year she was awarded Research Status by Oberlin and was appointed chercheur associé at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV). She produced and directed Royer’s ballet héroique, Le Pouvoir de l’Amour (1743), at Oberlin in February 2002, to critical acclaim. Her edition of the opera will be published this year by the CMBV. to top>

Michael Sponseller has appeared throughout Europe and North America with critical acclaim as a soloist, conductor, and chamber musician. Winner of the American Bach Soloists Competition (1998) and the Jurow International Harpsichord Competition (2002), he holds the distinction of being a two-time prizewinner at the Festival of Flanders International Harpsichord Competition (Bruges), as well as taking prizes in Montréal and Kalamazoo. Mr. Sponseller has performed and recorded frequently with the Handel and Haydn Society, Smithsonian Chamber Players, American Bach Soloists, New York Collegium, Apollo’s Fire and recently, the Carmel Bach Festival. In addition to holding degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, Mr. Sponseller was a teacher of harpsichord at the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music. To continue to explore his interest in vocal and chamber music on period instruments, he founded Ensemble Florilege in 2007. Mr. Sponseller can also be heard on several recordings from Electra, Vanguard Classics, Naxos, Delos and Centaur. to top>

Lucas Harris has been pleased since 2004 to call Toronto the home base for his activities as a freelance lutenist.  In addition to his work there with Aradia, the Toronto Consort, and Tafelmusik, he has also worked with The Harp Consort, Apollo’s Fire, New York Collegium, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Les voix humaines, the Boston Early Music Festival orchestra, and many other ensembles.  He is also an eager teacher and coach, serving on faculty for several summer Baroque workshops (Oberlin, Longy, Amherst, and Tafelmusik) as well as being the founder of the Toronto Continuo Collective, a weekly class and performing ‘pluck band’ dedicated to the art of seventeenth-century accompaniment.  Beyond continuo work, other recent projects include a concerto program for CBC radio’s Young Artist Series, a solo recital for the Minnesota Guitar Society, and a staged production of Cavalli’s La Calisto at Ohio State University for which he served as musical director.  Upcoming project include a solo recording, an outreach tour of Nunavut with soprano Ann Monoyios, and an invitation to direct the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in Vancouver.  Lucas also has an ongoing duo recital project with Chinese pipa virtuoso Wen Zhao; the two have received an Ontario Arts Council award and will be featured on the Montreal Baroque Festival this summer. to top >

Kathryn Montoya earned her degrees at Oberlin Conservatory and Indiana University School of Music, Bloomington. She has performed with many ensembles, including the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Ensemble Arion, the Cleveland Orchestra, Tafelmusik, Chicago Opera Theatre, Aradia Ensemble, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Musica Angelica, Apollo's Fire, and the Washington Bach Consort among others. Ms. Montoya is a recipient of the prestigious Performers Certificate at IU and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany. Her interests extend to medieval and renaissance repertoire where she has performed on shawms, recorders, and sordune with Hesperus and the Newberry Consort. She is currently professor of recorder and baroque oboe at University of North Texas and has taught master classes at Northwestern University, Eastern Illinois University, and appeared on faculty at Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute. Kathryn has been broadcast on NPR's Performance Today and can be found on the Naxos, CPO, and NCA labels. to top>

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