Michael Taylor — countertenor

Celebrated by critics for his "great virtuosity," his "vocal radiance," and his "outstanding voice," Michael Taylor has sung leading operatic roles worldwide, from the Baroque to the modern era. The young Canadian countertenor Michael Taylor learned his first instrument, the violin, at the age of three. Despite a (presumably Sherlock-Holmes-like) enthusiasm for Bach's solo partitas and the Devil's Trill, he soon discovered his true instrument when, at the age of nine, he began his vocal training as a soprano at St. Michael's Choir School, where he would go on to sing more or less daily for the next ten years. After a brief interlude in which he earned a degree in physics and neuroscience at McGill University, Michael resumed his vocal studies in Germany, focusing on opera and early music under the guidance of Jeanne Piland and some of Europe's most talented early-music specialists, including Andreas Scholl, Sara Mingardo, and Michael Hofstetter. He is a prizewinner of the Gürel International Singing Competition in Istanbul and the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg International Singing Competition, and a scholarship holder of the Jacqueline Desmarais Foundation for young Canadian opera singers. Highlights of his wide-ranging operatic repertoire include Oberon in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream in Norfolk (2013), Goffredo in Handel's Rinaldo at Staatstheater Mainz (2014), Corindo in Cesti's Orontea at the Hamburg State Opera (2014), Liscione in Scarlatti's La Dirindina with L'Arte del Mondo (2014/15), Adriano in Pergolesi's Adriano in Siria (2015) and Alceste in Hasse's Demetrio (2016) with Opera Settecento, Artemis in Henze's Phaedra at Oper Halle (2015), Ariel in Purcell's The Tempest with Montreal Baroque, Argone in Handel's Sosarme and Ormonte in Handel's Elpidia at the Handel Festival Halle (2016), a revival of Porpora's L'Agrippina with Barber Opera (2017), two new chamber operas for the Biennale di Venezia (2017), Sciarrino's Luci mie traditrici at the National Opera of Ukraine (2018), and his hometown debut with Opera Atelier in Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (2018). He is also much sought after as a concert and oratorio singer, performing regularly with outstanding ensembles worldwide, including Handel's Messiah with the Grammy-nominated Trinity Choir at Lincoln Center New York (2012) and with the Juno Award-winning ensemble L'Harmonie des Saisons (2017), Bach's St Matthew Passion with the Telemann Baroque Orchestra at Izumi Hall in Osaka (2015) and at the Maison Symphonique de Montreal (2018), as well as a series of Bach cantatas with Montreal Baroque, now available on Atma Classique. Michael is a permanent member of the Berlin-based soloist ensemble Phønix16, which specializes in performing contemporary and experimental vocal works; he has appeared at several major festivals, including MaerzMusik and Ultraschall Berlin, performing works by Ferneyhough, Xenakis, Stockhausen, Grisey, and Vivier, as well as new works by Pryzbylsky, Bumsteinas, and Fure. As founder and co-director of the Baroque ensemble The Dansant, his debut album To Die, To Sleep, featuring operatic arias by Handel, Vivaldi, and Graun accompanied by period instruments, has been released.

www.countertaylor.com

Vanessa Chartrand — viola da gamba

Berlin-based Canadian conductor Vanessa Chartrand is a laureate of the Opera Awards Foundation 2020 and a Royal Philharmonic Society London Fellow. Drawing on her solid background as a classical singer and gambist, her conducting spans symphonic works, contemporary music, Baroque music, and opera. Upcoming highlights of the 25/26 season include Vanessa's debuts with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra at the Berlin Philharmonie, with a program of Kodály, Vaughan Williams, Dukas, and Gershwin's Piano Concerto. Also premiering will be Dear IRIA, a new film by Finnish director Janna Kyllästinen, for which she composed the music. In recent seasons, Chartrand has worked with orchestras such as the Danish Philharmonic, the Orchestre National d'Auvergne, the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, the Cascais Chamber Orchestra, London's Chroma Ensemble, Ensemble UnitedBerlin, Zafraan Ensemble, Mosaik Ensemble, and Phoenix16. Vanessa spent two years as assistant to Vladimir Jurowski at the Royal Opera House in London on a production of Jenůfa, as well as with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. She conducts a wide repertoire from the Baroque to the present – Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartók, Haydn, Zemlinsky, Mendelssohn – and is a pioneer of new music. As a singer and conductor, she has appeared at Germany's leading festivals for new music: MaerzMusik, MIKROMUSIK Festival for Experimental Music and Sound Art, ULTRASCHALL Festival, documenta 14, Ruhrfestspielhaus Recklinghausen, and Duisburger Akzente. She also gave the premiere of Lisa Bielawa's Mauer Broadcast for double choirs, ensemble, and soloist for the celebrations marking the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a passionate opera conductor, Chartrand built up extensive stage experience – first as an opera singer (Carmen, Hermia, Cesare, Dorabella, Cherubino, Charlotte, to name only a few), but also as a gambist, leading works such as Orlando, Monteverdi's Orfeo, and The Fairy Queen from the continuo. She worked with small opera companies in Berlin, conducting Don Giovanni, Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Carmen, L'Elisir d'amore, and Le Nozze di Figaro. As a composer, Vanessa has received considerable recognition for her work on stage and screen. Highlights of her work include the GAIA-Cyborg opera, nominated by Nachtkritik for best production of 2021. Her most recent soundtrack, A Body Like Mine, a documentary by Maja Classen, won numerous awards, including Best German Documentary at DOC.BERLIN 2023. Vanessa's music is known for its remarkable emotional depth, creating a sense of openness and breathing space. Across a wide range of genres, she explores sound, texture, and movement. Her music is deeply moving and tends toward minimalism, focusing on the core of an emotion in its rawest form. In 2018, she founded the OpusXX Orchestra, a Berlin-based chamber orchestra celebrated for its rich sound and distinctive repertoire, which shines a light on forgotten women composers and champions new works by women composers. Vanessa was born in Québec, Canada. After completing her voice studies with distinction at McGill University, she earned a master's degree in viola da gamba at the Université de Montréal before moving to Germany to continue her opera studies with Ks. Jeanne Piland. Vanessa's conducting mentors include Vladimir Jurowski and Jessica Cottis. She has also worked with Luigi Gaggero, Hervé Niquet, Jay Bernfeld, Skip Sempé, Alexander Schmalcz, Michael McMahon, Falk Struckmann, and Xenia Meijer.

vanessachartrand.com

Pedro Alcàcer Doria — lute

Born in 1982 in Mexico City, Pedro Alcàcer Doria began his musical training early on, shaped by the influence of his father, the Catalan jazz musician Francesc Alcàcer, and grew up in a creative family. He studied jazz guitar with Francisco Lelo de la Rea and subsequently took up classical guitar and composition with Hector Ramos. He completed his classical guitar studies at the renowned "Escuela Nacional de Música-UNAM" and went on to study with distinguished teachers such as Isabelle Villei, Eloy Cruz, and Antonio Corona, specializing in Renaissance and Baroque repertoire. In 2006 he moved to Barcelona, Spain, where he earned the "professional title" for Renaissance and Baroque plucked instruments at the Conservatory of Girona under the renowned teacher Xavier Diaz-Latorre. He then continued his studies at the Bremen University of the Arts, where he studied lute with Joachim Held and Lee Santana and graduated. As a passionate musician, he went on to further his instrumental training with Evangelina Mascardi in Italy while working intensively as a soloist and continuo player. He has worked with prominent conductors such as Gabriel Garrido, Alessandro di Marchi, Marco Mencoboni, Paolo Faldi, Riccardo Doni, Horacio Franco, Cristoph Hammer, Carlos Aranzay, Gerhard Oppel, Burak Özdemir, and others, and has performed at renowned festivals and forums in Italy, Germany, Spain, France, the Czech Republic, Belgium, the Netherlands, Brazil, and Mexico. He currently lives in Berlin and works with various early-music ensembles across Europe.

pedroalcacer.com