Musician Voices: Baroque Reflections

Coming soon!

An active performer on cello, baroque cello, and viola da gamba, Lara Turner enjoys a varied career performing music ranging from contemporary to baroque.

Lara has held the position of Principal Cello with the South Bend Symphony since 2004. She has been a featured soloist with the symphony performing Milhaud’s Concerto No. 1, Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, Saint-Saens’ Concerto No. 1, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, and most recently, the first movement of Haydn’s Concerto No.1 in Alastair Presents: Seeking Haydn. As a chamber musician, Lara is a member of Claricello, a clarinet and cello duo co-founded with her husband, Jason Gresl, focusing primarily on contemporary classical music written for this unusual combination. They have performed in Canada, Italy, Holland, Ireland, and across the United States, and their performance of “Dust” by Belinda Reynolds can be heard on her CD, Cover.

Passionate about performing early music on period instruments, Lara has been the principal cellist of the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado since it was founded in 2005. She is a core member of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra and was the principal cellist of Bourbon Baroque (Louisville, KY) for 13 years until the group disbanded in 2023. In addition, Lara has been a featured soloist on viola da gamba in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival, and has frequently performed with other early music ensembles including Fort Wayne Bach Collegium, NYS Baroque, Three Notch’d Road, and North Carolina Baroque Orchestra.

A dedicated teacher, Lara has enjoyed many opportunities both in the United States and abroad. She has taught cello lessons and coached chamber music ensembles at the National Music Camp for Youth in Panama and as part of a Fulbright project in Bolivia. Currently, she maintains private cello studios in South Bend and Berrien Springs, serves as adjunct cello faculty at Saint Mary’s College and Andrews University, and coaches Fischoff Chamber Music Academy ensembles and the cello section of the South Bend Youth Symphony.

Lara holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory where she studied with Andor Toth, Jr. and Catharina Meints. At the San Francisco Conservatory she earned a Master of Music degree studying with Bonnie Hampton.

Nicola Canzano is a composer, harpsichordist and organist recognized for his expertise in historical composition and improvisation. His compositions in baroque style have been commissioned and performed by groups all over the world, including the musicians at Thiré, the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Denver, Juilliard415, as well as many individual performers. While a student at Juilliard in 2021, Nicola founded Nuova Pratica, a period ensemble which composes all of its own repertoire, with his classmates. He can still be found at Juilliard where he teaches a course on improvisation and plays as studio accompanist for Historical Performance. Nicola was adjunct faculty (harpsichord) at Michigan State University from 2022-25 and a panelist at the First International Conference on Historical Improvisation in 2022. He teaches improvisation and composition privately in New York City where he resides, and maintains a busy performance schedule as a continuo player with ensembles throughout the US, most recently joining the Musicians of the Old Post Road based in Boston, as well as presenting on improvisation and pedagogy at universities both at home and abroad. Nicola has a little beagle-mix named Riley which is his greatest pride and joy.

Brooklyn based violinist Rafa Prendergast is an active performer of works dating from the early 17^th century through the present day. Rafa is a guest concertmaster with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, and performs frequently with Handel and Haydn Society, Twelfth Night, Theotokos, Nuova Pratica, New York Baroque Incorporated, and ARTEK, among many others.

Rafa was featured in a social media campaign for ABC’s The Bachelor. Residencies and visiting Guest Artist engagements include Avaloch Farm Music Institute, the University of Michigan’s School of Music, and Michigan State University. Rafa has performed as part of Carnegie Hall’s Well-Being Concerts, Death of Classical series, Boston Early Music Fringe Festival, Aston Magna Music Festival, and WQXR’s Midday Masterpieces series.

Rafa holds a Bachelor of Music Degree from Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music, and a Master of Music Degree from The Juilliard School where he was a recipient of the full tuition Historical Performance Scholarship.

Brian Kay is a modern-day troubadour. He is the Artistic Director of the early music meets early theater group THEATRO, and oversaw their international recording of music from the plays of William Shakespeare. He won a GRAMMY® Award for his work on Apollo’s Fire’s Songs of Orpheus album. He works as a recording artist for the Netflix music lab and is a featured soloist on the soundtrack of their original series The Witcher and The Decameron. He also created arrangements of Russian folk songs for their upcoming Guillermo del Toro film Frankenstein. He has performed throughout the world at venues such as the National Concert Hall of Dublin, Belfast Castle (Ireland), Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Folger Theater. His live radio appearances include NPR, Baltimore’s WYPR, Baltimore’s 98ROCK, Boston’s WGBH, and Cleveland’s WCLV. He has recorded with labels Avie and Sono Luminus and has appeared on releases which include original, early music, folk, traditional sephardic, chamber and orchestral. He is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, arranger, and a traditional and historical music specialist.    

Brian is a founding member of THEATRO and Twa Corbies, and regularly performs with Hesperus, The Folger Consort, Early Music Access Project, and Trio Sefardi.

Brian is on the faculty as teacher of historical plucked instruments at Cleveland Institute of Music and Case Western Reserve University. He has lectured on music and history at Yale University, The Peabody Conservatory, Johns Hopkins University, The Folger Theater, The Kennedy Center, and Baldwin-Wallace College. He was Artist in Residence at the Cushman School in Miami and has done outreach for elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges, and prisons across the country.