Martha Bishop, former Music Director of the VdGSA Conclave,is a cellist, viola da gamba player and composer in the Atlanta area. She performs with New Trinity Baroque and the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra and is an artist faculty member at Emory University. She often teaches at early music workshops. She has a number of pieces published by PRB Publications (viols), by Fountain Park Music Publishing (modern instruments), and she self-publishes many didactic works for viol and cello. During 2010, she anticipates 5 premieres of commissions/newly written works. Some of these works were written at Hambidge Center for the Arts where Martha is a fellow.

Marie Dalby recently returned to the west coast after over a decade in New York and Connecticut where she regularly performed with numerous ensembles. She was a member of the New York Consort of Viols and the baroque ensemble Flying Forms, and has taught at workshops and given concerts nationally. While finishing a master's degree at Yale, she was on the teaching faculty of the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, CT, and founded and directed the Yale Temperament Consort. She is currently the Vice President of the VdGSA. By day, she works in the Publications Department of the San Francisco Symphony.

John Dornenburg teaches the viol at Stanford University, and lectures in music history at California State University, Sacramento. He has performed as soloist in Europe, Turkey, New Zealand, Australia, and the USA, and has recorded solo music by J.S. Bach, Marais, C.P.E. Bach, Abel, St. Colombe, and others, primarily for the Centaur and Meridian labels. He directs the Sex Chordae Consort of Viols and Archetti Baroque Strings, and also performs with Music's Re-creation, Magnificat, American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and others. He studied with Wieland Kuijken in The Hague and Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Salzburg.

Wendy Gillespie, teaches early bowed strings, performance studies, and reading from early notation at Indiana University, Bloomington. She has played with many ensembles and has participated in more than 80 recordings for hmUSA, EMI, Virgin Classics, BIS, Channel Classics, Avie, and others. As a member of the viol consorts Fretwork and Phantasm, Gillespie has toured the globe performing concerts and appearing on radio and television. She has shared three Gramophone awards, several Gramophone and Grammy nominations, many "Recordings of the Month,"and a French Grand Prix du Disque with her colleagues. Gillespie is much in demand for workshops and seminars in early music performance in the United States and Europe. She is a member of the Medieval Studies Institute at Indiana University and President of the Viola da Gamba Society of America.

Jane Hershey has performed on viol and violone around New England since her return from her studies in The Hague with Wieland Kuyken. She plays all types of viol repertoire, from new works to Renaissance and baroque. Early in her career, she toured and recorded with the Boston Camerata; currently she is a member of Arcadia Players, Charivary and the Carthage Consort. Last season, she performed with Musicians of the Old Post Road, Crescendo, the CT Early Music Festival, Arcadia Viol Consort, & Fanfare Consort. The Carthage Consort's 2010 program, "Music from the Time of Henry VIII" delighted the Cambridge Society for Early Music audiences. Ms. Hershey teaches at the Powers Music School, Longy School of Music, directs the Tufts Early Music Ensemble, co-directs the World Fellowship (NH) Early Music Week and serves on the VdGSA Board of Directors.

During her 33-year love affair with the viol, Julie Jeffrey has developed a career on the instrument that has taken her all over the world, performing, recording and teaching. At home in the San Francisco Bay Area Ms. Jeffrey plays with Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, is the creative mastermind of the acclaimed trio Wildcat Viols, embodies half of the viol duo Hallifax & Jeffrey, and co-directs Barefoot Chamber Concerts. A devoted proponent of all things viol, Ms. Jeffrey is a co-founder and active member of the Viola da Gamba Society-Pacifica Chapter, and currently serves on the VdGSA board of directors.

Lawrence Lipnik has performed with many acclaimed ensembles from Anonymous 4 and ARTEK to the Waverly Consort. He is a member of the New York Consort of Viols and founding member of the viol consort Parthenia and vocal ensemble Lionheart. His recent edition of Francesco Cavalli's "La Calisto," was commissioned by Juilliard and performed by the San Francisco Opera. He has also prepared a new score for a production of Monteverdi's "Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria" at Wolf Trap and is editing an upcoming edition of the original songs from the plays of William Shakespeare. In addition to performing, he currently serves on the board of VdGS/NY and is co-director of the New York Recorder Guild, enjoys a busy teaching schedule which has included national and international festivals. Larry has recorded for numerous labels including EMI, Angel, Nimbus, Virgin, Sony, Koch International and Cantaloupe.

Sarah Mead, Conclave Music Director, lives and works in the Boston area. She was the 2007 winner of the Thomas Binkley Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Collegium Director from Early Music America. An Associate Professor of the Practice of Music at Brandeis University, she directs the Early Music Ensemble and is a frequent guest choral conductor. She is the author of the Renaissance Theory chapter in A Performer's Guide to the Renaissance, published by Indiana University Press. Sarah has taught at Tufts and Northeastern Universities as well as at Trinity College of Music in London and is a regular guest lecturer at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge. She serves on the Boards of the VdGSA and EMA, and is former Program Director for Early Music Week at Pinewoods Camp.

Catharina Meints has been one of the outstanding performers and teachers of the viola da gamba for a generation. She has played concerts all over the world with a number of ensembles including the Oberlin Baroque Ensemble and the Oberlin Consort of Viols. She has played solo recitals at Carnegie Recital Hall and the Smithsonian Institution and has made well over a dozen solo and chamber music recordings of baroque music on the Gasparo, Vox and other labels. She is a founding faculty member of the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, which her late husband James Caldwell established, and with him amassed one of the most important collections of antique viols in private hands. She recently retired after many years as a cellist with the Cleveland Orchestra and is enjoying being able to focus all her energies on her position as Associate Professor of Viola da Gamba, Baroque Cello and Cello at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music where she teaches all three instruments, consort classes, coaches baroque ensembles and orchestral excerpt classes.

Rosamund Morley has performed on all the viols and their medieval ancestors with early music ensembles as diverse as Piffaro, ARTEK, The Boston Camerata, Sequentia, and Les Arts Florissants, and she has toured worldwide with the Waverly Consort. She is a member of Parthenia, with whom she performs and records both early and new music, and My Lord Chamberlain's Consort which specializes in Elizabethan music. Her summer teaching schedule includes workshops in Canada, the UK and Italy as well as the USA. She directs Viols West, the summer workshop at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA and teaches viol at Columbia University and for the Yale Collegium Musicum.

David Morris is a member of Musica Pacifica, The King's Noyse, the Galax Quartet, Quicksilver, the Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, Parlor Tango and New York State Early Music Ensemble. He has performed with The Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Tragicomedia, Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, New Albion, Dorian, New World Records, Drag City Records and New Line Cinema.

John Mark Rozendaal directs The Viola da Gamba Dojo of New York, a program teaching viol to young children and amateur players of all ages. As founding Artistic Director of Chicago Baroque Ensemble, he led seven seasons of subscription concerts, educational programs, radio and television broadcasts. Rozendaal served as principal cellist of The City Musick, and Basically Bach, and has performed both solo and continuo roles with many period instrument ensembles, including the Newberry Consort, the King's Noyse, BEMF Orchestra, Parthenia, and The NY Consort of Viols, among others. He performs as a member of Trio Settecento with violinist Rachel Barton Pine and harpsichordist David Schrader; and with Repast Baroque Ensemble. Rozendaal's playing has been praised as "splendid" (Chicago Tribune), and "breathtaking" (Sun-Times). Recordings are available on the Cedille and Centaur labels.

Mary Springfels is former Musician-in- Residence at the Newberry Library where she founded and directed the Newberry Consort. A veteran of the early music movement, she has performed and recorded with such ensembles as the NY Pro Musica, the Waverly Consort, Concert Royal, Sequentia, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, Musica Sacra, the Marlborough Festival, the NYC Opera, and Chicago Opera Theater, where she also serves as an artistic advisor. She served as a Senior Lecturer at both the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, and is much in demand as a teacher and player in summer festivals throughout the US, among them the San Francisco, Madison, and Amherst Early Music Festivals, and the Conclave of the Viola da Gamba Society of America. In 2004 she delivered the keynote address to the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition for Early Music America. She can be heard on over two dozen recordings, ten of which are critically acclaimed Newberry Consort projects.

Lisa Terry practices, performs and teaches viola da gamba and cello in New York City, where she is a member of Parthenia, the consort of viols; she is also a longtime member of the Dryden Ensemble, a group that offers baroque recreations based in Princeton. A chamber music specialist, Lisa regularly appears in orchestra concerts, operas, and as a soloist in the remarkable Passions of J.S. Bach, with a wonderful variety of artists and conductors throughout the country. She teaches privately and at the French-American School of Music in Manhattan, and at workshops across the country. Lisa enthusiastically enjoys English Country Dancing.

Margriet Tindemans has performed, recorded, and taught early music on four continents. A 2005 Grammy Nominee, she was named "Best asset to Seattle's Classical Music scene" in the Seattle Weekly's 2004 "Best of Seattle" issue. She has been called a rare combination of charismatic performing and inspiring teaching, a scholar with a profound knowledge of music, poetry and art of the Middle Ages– "a national treasure." As a student of Wieland Kuyken, she was awarded the Prix d'Excellence with honor. A player of early stringed instruments (medieval fiddle, rebec, baroque viola and viola da gamba), she performs and records with Medieval Strings, Seattle Baroque Orchestra and Pacific Operaworks. Margriet was a founding member of Sequentia and the Huelgas Ensemble of Belgium. Margriet plays frequently with the Folger and Newberry Consorts, among others. She directs the Medieval Women's Choir of Seattle, maintains a private studio and directs and teaches at many workshops. She works closely with the Northwest Puppet Center, for whom she arranges and directs operas, including "The Magic Flute" and "Don Giovanni."

Brent Wissick is Professor of Viola da Gamba and Cello at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a member of Ensemble Chanterelle, BEMF, the Folger Consort, Concert Royal, Dallas Bach Society, and Collegio di Musica Sacra (in Poland). An active teacher/performer in the US and abroad, he is Past President of the VdGSA.

Shanon Zusman is adjunct professor of violone and viola da gamba at the University of Southern California and Claremont Graduate University. He holds a D.M.A. in Early Music Performance from the USC Thornton School of Music, where he studied three years with James Tyler. Shanon became interested in early music and the history of the gamba in particular while studying with José Vázquez in Vienna on a Fulbright grant. He has performed with Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, Camerata Pacifica Baroque, Los Angeles Bach Society, Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, and the San Diego Bach Collegium, as well as coached the Viols/West crew, our southern California-based branch of the society.