Featured Artists

Teresa Wakim • Soprano

With “a gorgeous, profoundly expressive instrument,” and as “a bejeweled lyric soprano with an exquisite top register,” American soprano Teresa Wakim is perhaps best known as “a perfect early music voice.” Upon completion of her studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, Wakim was soon named a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow at Emmanuel Music in Boston, and won First Prize in the International Soloist Competition for Early Music in Brunnenthal, Austria. The last several seasons have seen her make solo debuts at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Boston Symphony Hall, Grand Théâtre de Provence, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Opéra Royal at Versailles. Ms. Wakim has appeared with many of the nation’s premier orchestras. She has sung Bach’s Wedding Cantata Weichet nur betrübte Schatten and Mendelssohn’s Hear My Prayer with The Cleveland Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the Charlotte, Tucson, Alabama and San Antonio Symphonies, and Bach’s Missa Brevis with the San Francisco Symphony. In addition, Wakim’s affinity for the Baroque has brought her much success as a frequent soloist with many of the world’s best period instrument ensembles, including the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Wiener Akademie, the Handel & Haydn Society, and the Boston Early Music Festival. She has portrayed and recorded multiple operas from Monteverdi to Mozart, specializing in operas of the French Baroque with the Boston Early Music Festival, and sang the roles of Flore, Aréthuse, and Daphne on their 2015 GRAMMY-Winning Best Opera Recording of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs. She can also be heard on numerous recordings with the Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Early Music Festival, Musik Ekklesia, and Seraphic Fire.

Clare McNamara • Alto

Praised for her “lushly evocative mezzo” and “attentive and precise” musicianship, Clare McNamara is a soloist and ensemble musician with a passion for early and new music. Her affiliations include Lorelei Ensemble, Skylark Vocal Ensemble, Handel & Haydn Society, Cut Circle, and several other prestigious vocal ensembles with which she sings throughout the United States and abroad. In recent seasons, Clare been featured in several Lorelei concerts in the Boston area, has appeared on the group’s first two commercial recordings, and has participated in Lorelei’s professional residencies at Pittsburg State University and Mt. Holyoke College. Clare is in her second season as an active member of the performing roster of the prestigious Handel & Haydn Society in Boston. Clare has also performed with Skylark Vocal Ensemble as a soloist in a series of successful concerts blending Poulenc’s notoriously difficult and rarely-performed cantata “Figure Humaine” with American Civil War songs, in addition to recording the group’s second album, “Crossing Over.” Solo engagements from past seasons include a critically-acclaimed Jordan Hall debut with Boston Cecilia in J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor, and featured alto for both Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien with Newton Choral Society and for Boston Cecilia’s winter concert “The Miraculous Rose.” On the baroque opera stage, Clare has sung Antippo in Telemann’s Der Geduldige, Socrates with Amherst Early Music Festival, and Athamas in John Eccles’ Semele with Harvard Early Music Society, among others. In the recording studio, Clare most recently provided solo vocals for “On the Nature of Things,” commissioned by the internationally-recognized modern dance troupe Pilobolus Dance Theatre from composers Michelle DiBucci and Ed Bilous. Clare earned her Masters of Music in Early Music (Vocal Performance) from Longy School of Music and her Bachelor of Arts in Music from Princeton University. She currently resides in Boston.

Jason McStoots • Tenor

Grammy-nominated, award-winning, and critically acclaimed, Jason McStoots is a tenor soloist performing music of all eras but specializing in early music. As comfortable singing Mozart, Bach or Britten as he is singing renaissance polyphony or medieval chant, McStoots is a versatile artist moving easily between styles and genres. While an experienced concert soloist, he is no stranger to the stage, making some of his most acclaimed performances in opera and musical theater where he is prized as an integrated singing actor. A sought after ensemble artist for his musicality and sensitivity, he is a core member of the up-and-coming renaissance vocal ensemble, Blue Heron, and works frequently in this chamber music milieu with the acclaimed NYC ensemble TENET. His career also includes his private voice studio at Brandeis University and his burgeoning side career as a stage director. He garnered critical accolades with his recent performances with the Cleveland based ensemble, Les Délices. The Cleveland Plain Dealer described his singing as “exquisite” and saying that he “easily filled the room with a sound both rich and dulcet, commanding ears with what one suspected was one-tenth of his potential.” He has appeared with such groups as Boston Lyric Opera, Pacific MusicWorks, Boston Camerata, Handel Choir of Baltimore, New Haven Symphony, Tragicomedia, and the Tanglewood Music Center. His renaissance ensemble credits also include his work with Ensemble Origo, under the direction of Eric Rice. In addition he has been featured on the Grammy-nominated recording of Lully’s Pysché and on the newly released discs of works of Charpentier and John Blow with the Boston Early Music Festival on the CPO label. Described by critics as “a gifted young tenor with wonderful comedic talents” and as having an “alluring tenor voice” and “bright, clear and fully-fledged tenor sonority,” Jason McStoots has performed around the world and the US.

Thomas Jones • Bass

Baritone Thomas Jones has appeared with orchestras, opera companies, choral ensembles and on recital series throughout North America, Europe and the West Indies. Richard Buell of The Boston Globe calls the vocal and stage presence of Thomas Jones “irresistible.” Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times proclaims that Mr. Jones sings “with plush sounds and musical vigor.” Solo engagements include Santa Fe Symphony, The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society, The Apollo Chorus of Chicago, The San Francisco City Chorus and Orchestra, The Vancouver Chamber Choir and The Canadian Broadcast Orchestra, The Phoenix Bach Choir, The Phoenix Chamber Orchestra, New York’s St. Cecilia Orchestra, Baltimore Choral Arts Society, The Pacific Chorale and The Pacific Symphony in Southern California, The Louisville Bach Society at The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, The Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra of Washington, DC, The Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic Orchestra, The Bucks County Choral Society and The Philadelphia Festive Arts Orchestra under conductor Robert Page. Festival appearances include Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Berkshire Choral Festival, The Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, Great Waters Music Festival and Monadnock Music. Opera companies include Boston Lyric Opera, The Harrisburg Opera Company of Pennsylvania and Opera New England. In the Boston area, appearances include The Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Boston Civic Orchestra, The Back Bay Chorale, Coro Allegro, The Worcester Symphony, The Nashua Symphony. The Masterworks Chorale, and Cape Cod Symphony. Mr. Jones has appeared with well over 150 choruses throughout the US, appearing under the baton of notable maestros such as Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan, Thomas Dunn, John Alexander, Jon Washburn, Daniel Beckwith, Joel Revzen, Robert Page, John Oliver, Tom Hall, Gerald Mack, Jung-Ho Pak, and Stephen Simon. In the summer of 2000, Mr. Jones sang a concert tour of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, including performances at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.

Kristina Nilsson • Violin

Concertmaster and violinist Kristina Nilsson has played regularly in the first violin sections of the Boston Pops Esplanade and Boston Ballet orchestras for over 20 years. She has appeared as a soloist with both the Esplanade Orchestra (under John Williams) and the Boston Ballet (in Vaughan-Williams’ Lark Ascending), and with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Newton, Brookline, Brockton, and Quincy Symphony Orchestras, Boston Lawyers’ Orchestra, and the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, of which she is a co-founder. She has co-soloed for Pro Arte with both Joseph Silverstein (former Concertmaster of the Boston Symphony) and artistic advisor/violinist Arturo Delmoni, with whom she premiered a work by Leonard Ciampa for Two Violins and Orchestra. Holding the position of Concertmaster with the Newton Symphony, Brockton Symphony, and the orchestras of Chorus Pro Musica, MIT Chorus, and Coro Allegro, she has also served in that capacity with Harvard Chamber Orchestra, Harvard Collegium, and Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus. As a member of the American Schubert Institute String Quartet and of the Lavazza Chamber Ensemble, Ms. Nilsson has performed numerous chamber music works in the New England area, including the Boston premiere of Schubert’s Conzertstucke for violin and orchestra with Pro Arte. She served as concertmaster for Pro Arte and the Back Bay Chorale for a recording of Robert Kyr’s The Passion According to Four Evangelists (New Albion Records). Kristina Nilsson holds a B.A. summa cum laude from Connecticut College, an M.M. from New England Conservatory, and J.D. cum laude from New England School of Law.