Meet the Artists 2008
Maria Benotti, Violin
Artistic Director
Violinist Maria Benotti founded Music at Eden’s Edge, the North Shore's own resident chamber music ensemble, in 1982. As Artistic Director, she has shaped its programs and artistic vision while performing for 25 seasons. Active in Boston's vibrant musical scene, she is a member of the faculty of the New England Conservatory Preparatory School, where she has been teaching violin, chamber music, and Sonata Duo class since 1977. She has taught a course in string pedagogy in the NEC School for Continuing Education.
Ms. Benotti performs frequently with the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra on period violin, and as concertmaster and chamber performer on modern violin with the St. John’s Concert Series in Beverly Farms. She is a founding member of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston.
She has appeared in numerous recitals and chamber concerts throughout New England, including a Jordan Hall solo recital, the Enchanted Circle Series at Jordan Hall, the Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival, the Monadnock Festival, and the Music at Noon Series at Northeastern University and has recorded for Friedrich von Huene and composer Howard Rovics.
A graduate of Oberlin College and New England Conservatory of Music, Ms. Benotti studied with Eric Rosenblith, Dorothy DeLay, Masuko Ushioda, and Valeria Kuchment. Her chamber music studies included such master teachers as Leonard Shure, Josef Gingold, Donald Weilerstein, David Wells, and Michael Schnitzler, with whom she studied while a special student at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria.
Mark Berger, Viola and Composer
Mark Berger attended Boston University as a Trustee Scholar where he studied violin with Roman Totenberg and viola with Steven Ansell. Mr. Berger has performed in numerous summer festivals including the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and Tanglewood. A strong advocate of new music, Mr. Berger has been a returning member of the New Fromm Players, an ensemble in residence at the Tanglewood Music Center devoted entirely to the performance of contemporary works. Mr. Berger is a highly active violist and violinist in the Boston area and has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Lyric Opera, ALEA III Contemporary Music Ensemble, New World Symphony, and the Vermont and Albany Symphonies. As a composer, Mr. Berger received his master’s degree Boston University where he studied with Lukas Foss and Theodore Antoniou. Mr. Berger’s compositions have been heard internationally in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia, Athens, Greece, and San Jose, Costa Rica. His music has been performed by ensembles such as ALEA III, the Harvard Group for Contemporary Music, New Music Brandeis, the Hellenic Group for Contemporary Music (Athens), and Studio New Music (in residence at the Moscow Conservatory). Mr. Berger is on the faculty of Middlesex Community College in Bedford, MA and is currently a PhD candidate at Brandeis University where he studies with David Rakowski.
Joan Ellersick appears with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Cantata Singers, Emmanuel Music, Auros, Alea III, Boston Symphony and Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. An active chamber musician, she is a member of the Van Swieten Quartet, in residence at Longy School of Music, and Music at Eden's Edge. She was a founding member of the Somerset Quartet and Mackinac Trio. Ms Ellersick teaches at St. Mark's School in Southboro, MA, the Community Music Center of Boston, and coaches the viola sections of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras. Ms Ellersick was assistant principal viola of the Grand Rapids Symphony for 14 years before returning to her native Boston. She studied at Indiana University with Georges Janzer and at Boston University with Bernard Kadinoff.
Pascale Delache-Feldman, Double Bass
French double bassist, Pascale Delache-Feldman was a prizewinner at the Prague International Chamber Music Competition and received first prize for double bass at the Paris Conservatory with honors. As a soloist, she has performed with the Merrimack Valley Philharmonic, North Shore Philharmonic, Greensboro Festival Orchestra, Longy Chamber Orchestra and others. New Music Connoisseur described her playing from a recent concert as having “technical certainty and musical imagination” and by the Phoenix as “ a gifted colorist ….who produced an entire range of orchestral effects”.
An avid chamber musician, she has collaborated with violinists Midori, Joel Smirnoff, pianists Virginia Eskin, Victor Rosenbaum, Randall Hodgkinson, the Borromeo and St. Petersburg String Quartets, members of the Lark String Quartet, Fidelio and with soprano Dawn Upshaw. She has recorded chamber works with the Albany, Archetype, Arsis, AFKA and CRI labels. As co-founder of Cello e Basso (formerly the Axiom Duo) with cellist Emmanuel Feldman, they have concertized both here in the US and in Europe where the duo has toured in France, Germany, Austria and Hungary. Cello e Basso’s first CD was released on Synergy Classics in January 2002. Since 2001, Ms. Delache-Feldman has been the founder and artistic director of the Boston Bass Bash, an international festival dedicated to the double bass. A second-generation bassist, she studied with her father Jean-Claude Delache at age 10 at the Toulouse Conservatory, later studying with Jacques Cazauran and Frédéric Stochl at the Paris Conservatory where she earned her Bachelor of Music. Ms. Delache-Feldman came to the US to study with Roger Scott at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she received her Artist Diploma. She teaches double bass at the Longy School of Music, Brown and Tufts Universities, Rivers School of Music and privately.
Neil Fairbairn studied bassoon in Boston and London. A freelance musician in Britain for twenty years, he toured regularly with the London Opera Group and the Phoenix Wind Quintet. He also worked extensively with the Royal National Theater, accompanying productions on British, European, and North American Tours. In the field of music publishing, Neil was associate editor of The Music Makers, a biographical encyclopedia of musicians. He also co-edited Royal Collection, an anthology of music composed by members of the British royal family. Neil currently lives in Belmont, Massachusetts, where he is a freelance bassoonist and writer. He plays with the wind quintet Solar Winds and teaches bassoon and chamber music at Phillips Andover Academy.
Hailed by John Williams, Grammy award winning composer and conductor as “an outstanding cellist and truly dedicated artist”, Emmanuel Feldman enjoys an active career as a soloist and chamber musician. With a repertoire ranging from Bach to Ligeti, Mr. Feldman has concertized throughout Europe and North America. He has performed as soloist with the Boston Pops, Nashville Chamber Orchestra, New England String Ensemble and many others. An avid chamber musician, he was invited to participate in the Marlboro Music Festival and has collaborated with fellow artists Gilbert Kalish, Robert Levin, Joy Cline Phinney, Yehudi Wyner, the Borromeo String Quartet, and soloed with pop and jazz artist Bobby McFerrin. In the Boston Globe Richard Dyer wrote “Feldman was superb” in his recent Celebrity Series debut. He has CD’s on the Naxos, Arsis and Zimbel labels and the New York Times called his CD of Virgil Thomson’s Cello Concerto on Albany Records an “excellent recording…the concerto sounds exhilarating in this bracing and confident performance”. A consummate advocate of new music, he has premiered cello works by composers Aaron Kernis, David Diamond, Gunther Schuller, and many others. Co-founder of Cello e Basso with bassist Pascale Delache-Feldman, they have been called “a musical Lewis and Clark” by NPR’s Ron Schacter. He has performed at the Pablo Casals, Schlesswig Holstein, Yellow Barn, Killington, and Summit Music Festivals. A Curtis Institute graduate with studies at the Paris Conservatory, Mr. Feldman currently is on the cello faculty at Tufts and Brown Universities and New England Conservatory.
Cellist Sarah Freiberg is a member of the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque and the Freeman/Freiberg Duo. She has performed with the New York Collegium, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (San Francisco), Portland Baroque (Oregon), Seattle Baroque, the Boston Early Music Festival and Arion (Montreal). As a corresponding editor for STRINGS magazine, she has contributed numerous articles to that publication. Sarah has edited the six cello sonatas of Guerini for both PRB Productions and Broude Brothers, and recorded them and Laurenti sonatas for Centaur. She teaches in the early music program at Boston University as well as at the Powers Music School in Belmont. Sarah received her D.M.A. and M.M. degrees from S.U.N.Y. at Stony Brook, and holds degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory, Brown University (in American Civilization) and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Ms. Freiberg can be heard on numerous recordings, including as soloist in Mozart's Concertone.
Leningrad State Conservatory. Former Assistant Professor at Sverlovsk State Conservatory, Soviet Union. After emigrating to the U.S., performed as soloist at Mechanics Hall with symphony orchestras. "Making Music together," 1988. Frequent guest artist on NPR's "Morning Pro Musica". Awards: Laureate of the Latvian Republic Competition, the Best Accompanist Award in All-Union Competition, the Second Prize in the International Piano Competition, Michigan. Currently co-chair of piano faculty at Longy School of Music and VP of MMTA.
Lynn Nowels, cellist, performs in Boston with groups including The Cantata
Singers & Ensemble, Emmanuel Music, & Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra. She was
a founding member of the Artemis String Quartet which specialized in the
quartets of Shostakovich. She is a graduate of the University of
Washington
School of Music where she studied cello & chamber music with Eva Heinitz,
Denes Zsigmondy, & Donald McInnes. She was awarded a fellowship to the
Blossom Festival Chamber Music School where she worked with Josef Gingold &
Leonard Rose. Recent appearances include concerts in Nebraska with the
Emmanuel Trio and in Maine with Winsor Music. She looks forward to
returning
to the International Musical Arts Institute this July. Ms. Nowels has
taught
at Wheaton College and the Lexington Waldorf School and has recorded for
the
CRI label.
Born in New York City, pianist Paul Orgel has concertized hroughout the United States as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, and chamber musician. He has given notable concerts in such venues as New York's Merkin Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Jordan Hall and the Gardner Museum in Boston, the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, and the San Francisco Conservatory. Critics have praised his playing for its "subtlety and attention to nuance" (Philadelphia Inquirer), "rare pathos" (New York Times), and "brilliant techniques, sense of humor and fantasy" (Bridgeport Post). A versatile musician with wide-ranging interests and an extremely varied repertoire, Orgel has been associated with many composers including Messaien, Cage, Rochberg, and T.L.Read. He can be heard on recent recordings of music by Louis Moyse on the CRI label (a 2003 Grammy nominee) and on the Capstone label (Piano Fantasies by Curt Cacioppo). He has specialized in Czech music, performing programs of the complete piano music of Janacek and chamber music from Terezin, and, as a scholar of classical performance practice, Orgel has given recitals of Haydn and Beethoven on the Viennese fortepiano. As a chamber musician, Paul Orgel has been associated with the Yellow Barn Festival, was a founding member of the Interlochen Trio, an original member of Music at Eden's Edge (an ensemble based on Boston's North Shore), and has collaborated with such artists as Jaime Laredo, the Chicago String Quartet, and the Quartetto di Venezia. Orgel was educated at Oberlin, the New England Conservatory, and Boston University. He holds a doctorate in piano performance from Temple University. Among his piano teachers were Russell Sherman, Lillian and Irwin Freundlich, and Harvey Wedeen. He is currently a member of the music faculty at the University of Vermont and is Artist-in-Residence in the Humanities at St. Michael's College.
Violinist Joshua Peckins began violin studies at the age of five, and first performed as soloist with orchestra at age 11, playing the Bach Concerto in A minor with the Essex County Symphony in Hamilton, MA. Two seasons later, he played the Haydn Concerto in C Major with the same orchestra. The Merrimack Valley Philharmonic has repeatedly engaged him as guest soloist to perform works by Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Sarasate at the Rogers Center for the Performing Arts in North Andover, MA.
Mr. Peckins has performed as chamber musician at Jordan Hall (Boston), Cité Universitaire (Paris), and Riverbend Centre (Austin). He has participated in the Yellow Barn Festival Youth-Intensive Program (Putney, VT), the Heifetz International Music Festival (Wolfboro, NH), and the Musicorda Festival (South Hadley, MA).
As an orchestral musician, Joshua Peckins has performed at Carnegie Hall, and in Boston at Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall. Last season, he played in two concert series with the Boston Philharmonic. He has toured South and Central America and Europe, performing in Panama, Venezuela, Cuba, and Guatemala with the NEC Youth Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Benjamin Zander, and in Italy with the NEC Youth Symphony Orchestra under conductor Aaron Kula.
His principal teachers include Syoko Aki, Maria Benotti, Lynn Chang, Marylou Churchill, and Nicholas Kitchen. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, and is currently pursuing Master of Music degree in violin performance at the Yale University School of Music. He has been the recipient of a From the Top Merit Scholarship, the Abbot and Dorothy Stevens Foundation Scholarship, and the Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Society Scholarship.
Barbara Poeschl-Edrich grew up in Germany, between Munich and Salzburg. She has performed in recitals throughout Germany, Austria, Italy, England, Japan, and the United States. Since moving to Boston in 2000, Mrs. Poeschl-Edrich has played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Classical Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Cantata Singers, Collage New Music, Providence Singers, the Tanglewood Music Center, as well as many orchestras in New England.
Mrs. Poeschl-Edrich appeared as a soloist with the Lexington Sinfonietta, the New England String Ensemble, and in 2004, with the Boston Classical Orchestra, performing Handel's Harp Concerto and Debussy's Danses for Harp and Strings on just five days notice, filling in for Ann Hobson Pilot.
As a member of the Historical Harp Society, Mrs. Poeschl-Edrich also plays a Bavarian single-action harp, a small Celtic harp, and an Italian Baroque triple harp. She has earned degrees in Salzburg and London. In 2005, she graduated with a Doctor of Musical Arts from Boston University, where her principal teacher was Ann Hobson Pilot. She is a faculty member at both the Brookline Music School and Boston University.
Percussionist Robert Schulz has become a familiar face to Boston audiences, known for his multi-faceted performances with many of the area’s premier ensembles. The Boston Globe has referenced his virtuoso work as "subtle, with cat-like alertness," his musicianship as "dazzling" and his performance as "spellbinding.” Highly sought after by instrumentalists, composers and conductors alike for his collaborative skills, his percussive expertise extends through the traditional symphonic repertory, contemporary solo and chamber ensemble works to jazz, improvisational forms and world music.
He is principal percussionist for the Andover Chamber Music Series, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Musica Viva, Dinosaur Annex, the Fromm Players at Harvard and Music at Eden's Edge. He works with the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, Boston Ballet, and Pro Arte Chamber Orchestras and has collaborated with the Boston Chamber Music Society, Collage New Musicians Firebird Ensemble on several occasions. Additionally, he has been a featured soloist and ensemble member with the Bank of America Celebrity Series numerous times. In 2004-05 he was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Small Ensemble Performance for his work on Yehudi Wyner's The Mirror and gave the Boston premier of Tan Dun's Water Concerto with Boston Modern Orchestra Project. He has led his own group, the Beat City Art Ensemble, in performances for the Celebrity Series, Lincoln Center and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He has toured across the United States and Canada as well as to venues in Paris, Athens and Tokyo.
Originally from Buffalo, N.Y., Mr. Schulz's first teachers were John Rowland and Lynn Harbold of the Buffalo Philharmonic and later Jan Williams at SUNY Buffalo, where he earned his Bachelor's Degree (1989). After moving to Boston in 1990 for study at the New England Conservatory, he completed a Masters in Jazz Studies with Fred Buda(1992) and was offered successive fellowships to the Tanglewood Music Center while pursuing a Graduate Diploma in Solo Percussion with Frank Epstein of the Boston Symphony (1994).
A gifted teacher and mentor to many, current affiliations include Brandeis, Harvard and Tufts Universities. His work at these institutions includes private lessons, ensemble coaching and conducting, musician contracting, and compositional seminars.