BIOS

Zahra Brown, soprano and dancer, is a longtime member of the professional octet at the Church of the Resurrection in New York City and has performed as a soloist with Ex Umbris, the Vox Renaissance Consort, and the New York Baroque Dance Company. She has been featured at the Boston and Connecticut Early Music Festivals, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, the Trinity Twelfth Night Festival, the Cloisters Museum, and Le Poisson Rouge. She is a cofounder of the Parnassus historical dance ensemble and has choreographed for Juneau Lyric Opera and the New York Continuo Collective.

Christopher Morrongiello, lute, a former British Marshall Scholar, is a graduate of theMannes School of Music and the Royal College of Music. He earned a PhD at Oxford. In 1996 the Marco Fodella Foundation awarded him a scholarship for studies at the Sculola Civica di Musica of Milan, and in 2006 he was selected by the Lute Society of America to give the first Patrick O'Brien LSA Seminar Lecture. A professor in music at Hofstra University, Christopher directs the Bachelor Consort, plays tenor lute in the Venere Lute Quartet, and is a frequent guest artist with numerous early music groups. He has won praise as a director of large-scale dramatic works from the renaissance and baroque periods.

Marcia Young, soprano and renaissance harp, was cited by the Washington Post for her "elegant, dark hued soprano voice" and "winning mixture of formal restraint and emotional intensity." She has appeared at Amherst, Connecticut, Madison, Washington, and San Francisco Early Music Festivals; with Parthenia, Piffaro, the Folger, Newberry, and Bacheler Consorts; at the Metropolitan Musuem of Art, The Cloisters, the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Miami Bach Festival, and the Yale Center for British Art among many others. She is director of performance studies, Department of Music, Stern College, Yeshiva University, New York.

Judith Dansker, oboe and recorders, received the Bachelor and Master of Music Degrees from The Juilliard School of Music where she studied with renowned oboist Robert Bloom. The New York Times has said of her playing:“her lovely solo lines were very skillfully handled.” She has performed widely with many chamber music ensembles including The Galliard Woodwind Quintet, Trio Sonata, The New York Baroque Consort and is currently a member of The Hevreh Ensemble. The group has performed in Eastern Europe and recently returned from a tour to Poland. Ms. Dansker is on the faculty of Simons Rock of Bard College and is Professor of Oboe and Recorder at Hofstra University.