Click here to stream this concert.

Early Music America scholarship recipient Jessica Korotkin has been featured at the Montréal Baroque Festival, Vancouver Bach Festival, Bloomington Early Music Festival, Portland Bach Festival, Cleveland Bach Festival and with the American Bach Soloists Academy. She specializes in the baroque cello, and also plays a number of historical bowed bass instruments including the viola da gamba, violone, and bass violin. Based in Montreal, Ms. Korotkin has performed with ensembles such as the Broken Consort, Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Les Boréades de Montréal and L’Harmonie des saisons. She has been featured as a soloist on a number of albums including Mark Maarder’s Contemplation for Strings, and the Broken Consort’s Isle of Majesty. Ms. Korotkin served as a summer faculty member at the Cornish College of the Arts where she taught a baroque improvisation workshop. Before moving to Montréal to pursue a DMus at McGill in historical performance, she held a position as section cellist with the Firelands Symphony Orchestra, led by Carl Topilow. Ms. Korotkin earned her BM at the Peabody Institute and MM from Oberlin’s Historical Performance Masters Program. In addition to performing, Ms. Korotkin is an active composer who specializes in arranging historical music and writing baroque inspired music. Her recent accomplishments include a publication with the American Composers Alliance, and the “Music from Silence” premiere where she is featured as a composer/performer with Earth World Collaborative.

_______________

Alexander Belser is a Montréal based musician who specializes in the serpent and ophicleide, bass wind instruments that are the ancestors of the tuba and euphonium. Alex is currently pursuing a DMus at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music in the field of Historical Performance. Before moving to Montréal, Alex received a MA at the Royal Academy of Music in London, United Kingdom, and a BM at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York where he also earned an additional distinction in the form of a Performer’s Certificate. Alex’s main research interests involve the rediscovery and dissemination of the musical activities of the religious orders of Québec in the 17th and 18th centuries where they pertain to serpent performance.