Artists

Biography:

LE BIEN-AIMÉ

Stephen Goist enjoys a multifaceted career as a violist, violinist, and viola da gamba player. He has performed throughout the United States, Europe, India, and New Zealand, and he has shared the stage with many of the world’s leading early music ensembles, including Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, The Handel and Haydn Society, The English Concert, Les Arts Florissants, and Bach Collegium Japan. Born into a musical family in Cincinnati, Ohio, Stephen began playing violin at age three with the help of his mother, a Suzuki violin and viola teacher. He attended Cincinnati’s School for Creative and Performing Arts before earning degrees from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music and The Juilliard School.

Cellist Matt Zucker appears regularly with period-instrument ensembles throughout the world. Recent engagements include Les Arts Florissants, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, The Sebastians, Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, New York Baroque Incorporated, and Bourbon Baroque. Matt spends his summers performing at festivals such as Dans les Jardins de William Christie in Thiré, France and Teatro Nuovo, a festival dedicated to historically-informed performances of 19th-century opera. Matt graduated from the Historical Performance program at the Juilliard School. He studied baroque cello with Phoebe Carrai and viola da gamba with Sarah Cunningham, and was awarded a Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant. He holds additional degrees in cello performance and music theory from the Eastman School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Michael Sponseller is recognized as one of the outstanding American harpsichordists of his generation. He has garnered prizes at the International Harpsichord Competitions of Montréal (1999), the International Harpsichord Competition at Bruges (1998, 2001) as well as First Prizes at both the American Bach Soloists and Jurow International Harpsichord Competitions. Mr. Sponseller appears regularly as harpsichordist and continuo organist with several of American’s finest baroque orchestras and ensembles, such as Bach Collegium San Diego, Les Délices, Aston Magna, Tragicomedia, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, and can be heard on over twenty recordings from Delos, Centaur, Eclectra, and Naxos et al. Sponseller has been on faculty at Longy School of Music and Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute, and is Associate Music Director of Bach Collegium San Diego.