Three new principal musicians will join Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society: EMI FERGUSON as principal flute, HEATHER MILLER LARDIN as principal bass, and JONATHAN HESS as principal timpani.
A native of Brookline, Massachusetts, Emi Ferguson grew up listening to the Handel and Haydn Society. She is a flutist, singer, and composer, performing with groups including the American Modern Opera Company, New York New Music Ensemble, the Manhattan Chamber Players, and with period ensembles including Tafelmusik, Les Arts Florissants, the American Classical Orchestra, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, and Juilliard415. Her debut album, Amour Cruel, described as “baroque pop” by the Washington Post, spent four weeks on the classical, classical crossover, and world music Billboard charts. She has collaborated with many contemporary composers, and is currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School and the Bach Virtuosi Festival.
As director of the Temple University Early Music Ensemble, Heather Miller Lardin leads viol and recorder consorts, voices, lutes, and Baroque ensembles. In Philadelphia, she appears with Tempesta di Mare, the Philadelphia Bach Collegium, and Brandywine Baroque. Other engagements include the Staunton Music Festival, Dark Horse Consort, the Dryden Ensemble, and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. She is founder and co-director of Night Music, an ensemble that presents chamber music from the Revolutionary and Romantic eras on instruments of the time. She directs the annual Amherst Early Music Winter Weekend Workshop and launched an in-school Suzuki double bass program at Andrew Jackson School in South Philadelphia. She serves on the faculty of the Music School of Delaware’s Suzuki Academy, the Curtis Young Artists Summerfest, and on the board of the Greater Philadelphia Suzuki Association.
Jonathan Hess is a specialist in both contemporary and historical percussion. As a chamber musician, he is a founding member of the Boston Percussion Group and has performed with Boston Musica Viva, Alea III, Dinosaur Annex, Lorelei Ensemble, A Far Cry, and Monadnock Music. He regularly performs and records with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and plays for Boston’s Odyssey Opera. In addition, he freelances with orchestras throughout New England including the Portland Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Opera Boston, and the Orchestra of Indian Hill. He is the timpanist for the Marsh Chapel Collegium and Grand Harmonie, an ensemble dedicated to Classical and Romantic repertoire on historical instruments. Hess has performed with Boston Baroque, Portland Bach Experience, Aston Magna, Canto Armonico, and Cambridge Concentus.
Posted December 21, 2018
