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Soprano Rebecca Choate Beasley is rapidly establishing herself as a performer of remarkable range and ability, singing opera, oratorio, art song and chamber music. Her opera roles have included Climene in L'Egisto, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, La Statue in Pygmalion, the title role in L'incoronazione di Poppea, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, and Cloris in Zéphyre with Concert Royal and the New York Baroque Dance Company. Among her musical theatre credits are Rose Maurrant in Street Scene, Julie Jordan in Carousel, and Violet Hilton in Side Show.
A specialist in early music, Rebecca has performed with such groups as Concert Royal, Dallas Bach Society, the Orchestra of New Spain, Catacoustic Consort and Mercury Baroque, and at festivals including the Boston Early Music Festival, Berkeley Early Music Festival, Vancouver Early Music Festival, Bolivia Baroque Music Festival, Connecticut Early Music Festival, and Crested Butte Early Music Festival. As a concert soloist she has been heard in Bach's Matthäuspassion, Schubert's Mass in G, Bach's B Minor Mass under Helmuth Rilling, the Handel oratorios Samson and Jeptha under the direction of Dallas Opera music director Graeme Jenkins, and the North American premier of Telemann's Der Tod Jesu. She can also be heard as soprano soloist on the 2006 CD release of Lee Johnson's Every Matter Under Heaven: An American Oratorio, with the Russian National Orchestra.
Rebecca holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in vocal performance from the University of North Texas, and is currently a member of the faculty at Tusculum College in Knoxville, TN.
Historical harpist Paula Fagerberg appears regularly at university concert halls and early music festivals throughout the United States and abroad. Active as a soloist, lecturer, chamber musician, and a continuo player in Baroque opera and chamber orchestras, she specializes in the harps, historical playing techniques, and repertoire of the late Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras.
Paula attended graduate school on full scholarship at Indiana University’s Early Music Institute, where she studied the art of continuo with lutenist Nigel North and historical harps with Andrew Lawrence-King. She also holds a Bachelor of Music degree in historical harp performance summa cum laude from Clayton State University, where she was named a Spivey Scholar and awarded the honor of The University System of Georgia Outstanding Scholar for her graduating class.
Based in Atlanta, Paula performs regularly there with local ensembles such as The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Atlanta Schola Cantorum, and New Trinity Baroque; she is a frequent guest artist with other early music ensembles around the country as well. Internationally, Paula has given solo harp performances at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm as well as at the private residence of the U.S. ambassador to Sweden, performed a concert on rare 200-year-old single-action pedal harps at Oxford University, and done a concert tour of Perú and Bolívia (including the Misiones de Chiquitos festival) of colonial Latin American music, played on the Spanish arpa de dos órdenes.
Paula’s harp playing appears on recordings that range from the music of Baroque Germany to seventeenth-century Latin America to Vivaldi; currently in the works is a duo recording with mezzo-soprano Jennifer Lane, showcasing the works of Giulio Caccini and harp solos of that period.
Mezzo soprano Dianna Grabowski, described as “glamorous” and “glowing-toned” by the Dallas Morning News, is a versatile performer experienced in a wide range of classical singing. Dianna holds a master’s degree in Vocal Performance with a related field in Early Music Performance from the University of North Texas, where she was named Outstanding Graduate Student in the vocal division. In 2006, she received one of the prestigious Early Music America scholarships, and performed in the Baroque Vocal Programme at the Vancouver Early Music Festival and the Accadamia d’Amore in Seattle, WA.
Dianna’s opera roles have included the title role in Offenbach’s La Périchole (with Opéra du Périgord in France), Diane in Rameau’s Zéphyre and Céphise in Rameau’s Pygmalion (with the Dallas Bach Society),Volupia in Cavalli’s L’Egisto, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Nancy in Albert Herring, andHansel in Hansel and Gretel. As a concert soloist, Dianna has been heard in works such as Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater (with le Violon d’Ingres, Paris), Handel’s Passion according to St. John (with the Dallas Bach Society), Oratorio de Noël (Saint-Saëns), In the Beginning (Copland), Mass in b minor (Bach), Requiem (Biber), and Vespers (Monteverdi). She sings regularly with professional choruses such as the Orpheus Chamber Singers, Dallas Bach Society, and Orchestra of New Spain.
Dianna has performed multiple times at both the Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals, as well as appeared at the Misiones de Chiquitos International Baroque Music Festival (Santa Cruz, Bolivia). Dianna recently had the honor of performing excerpts from La Périchole for the French ambassador to the United States, Pierre Vimont, at a reception for him and other dignitaries in Austin, TX.
Sarah Abigail Griffiths, soprano, is near completion of a Doctoral Degree in Performance at the University of North Texas, where she is a student of Lynn Eustis. Ms. Griffiths is passionate about choral music, and she sings regularly as soloist and chorister with such Dallas ensembles as Orpheus Chamber Singers, Dallas Bach Society, and Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church. Prior to her time in Texas, she worked with such respected New York area ensembles as Fuma Sacra, Early Music New York, and Princeton Singers.
With UNT Opera, she has performed the roles of First Lady in Magic Flute and Semele in L’Egisto. Other opera roles include Naiade in Ariadne auf Naxos with Spoleto Festival U.S.A., First Witch in Dido and Aeneas with Brandywine Baroque, and Belona in La purpura de la Rosa with Amherst Early Music Festival. She is equally versatile as an oratorio soloist, with recent performances including works by Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Respighi, Rossini, and Vaughan Williams. Ms. Griffiths made her Carnegie Weill Hall debut in 2008, performing as both soloist and chorister under the baton of Ton Koopman as a young artist in the Weill Music Institute’s Handel workshop. With UNT’s Collegium Singers, she has sung the Handel roles of Philistine Woman (Samson) and Merab (Saul), conducted by Dallas Opera Music Director Graeme Jenkins. This past spring, she appeared as the soprano soloist in the U.S. Premiere of Bob Chilcott’s Requiem, with Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church in Dallas, TX.
Lutenist and conductor Lyle Nordstrom has been one of the most influential musicians in early music in the last several decades, particularly in the area of education at the collegiate level. In the course of his college teaching career he has led the early music programs at Oakland University in Michigan, Clayton State College and University in Atlanta and, most recently, the University of North Texas, being nominated for a number of teaching awards at each institution. He has also taught lute at Indiana University and Oberlin Conservatory. In 2000 he was given the Binkley award by Early Music America for his work on the collegiate level and in 2009 the Paul Riedo Award by Dallas Bach Society for his contributions to early music in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area. He is also known for his scholarly contributions to various early music journals as well as a book about the wire-strung bandora and articles in the New Groves Encyclopedia of Music.
Lyle’s role as a committed mentor to new generations of early music performers and enthusiasts has been a hallmark of his teaching career, and graduates of his programs, both singers and instrumentalists, have populated early music organizations in both North America and Europe. In May 2010, over twenty professional alumni from all three universities came to the University of North Texas to help celebrate his career in a performance of Bach’s Mass in b minor.
He is also well known as a founder of The Musicians of Swanne Alley, a group he directed with Paul O’Dette from 1976 to 1996, performing with them at nearly every major early music festival in the US and Europe, and contributing his performing and editing talents to recordings on Focus, Harmonia Mundi and Virgin Classics. The movie Rob Roy features music edited by Nordstrom in performances by Swanne Alley. In 1997 Lyle also founded the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra and is now the Director Emeritus.
In 2010, he retired from the University of North Texas and moved to the mountains of Western Maryland where he plans on continuing his performance and research interests as well as hiking and biking the wonderful trails of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
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