Artists

Juan A. Mesa

HARPSICHORD, ORGAN

A native of Puerto Montt, Chile, Dr. Juan A. Mesa holds a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance and composition from Western Connecticut State University, as well as a Master of Music degree in organ performance and a Ph.D. in music theory from Indiana University. His teachers include Stephen Roberts and Christopher Young (organ), Elisabeth Wright (harpsichord and continuo), and Todd Wilson and Jeffrey Smith (organ improvisation). Dr. Mesa has performed solo recitals as an organist and harpsichordist across the United States, Canada, Chile, and Argentina. He has collaborated with numerous ensembles, including the Indiana-based Exordium Baroque Ensemble, the Choirs of Trinity Episcopal Church in Indianapolis, MYRIAM, In Stile Moderno, Crescendo, and the University of Notre Dame’s Children’s Choir. A first-prize winner in the AGO Regional Competition for Young Organists, he has also performed at regional and national AGO conventions and competitions.

Dr. Mesa currently serves as College Organist at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts and Music Minister at the First Church of Christ, Congregational in Farmington, Connecticut.

Judith Dansker

RECORDER

BM, MM, Juilliard School of Music. Ms. Dansker is a solo and chamber musician who has performed at the Frick Museum, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Library of Congress. She is a founding member of the Galliard Woodwind Quintet, faculty/artist member of the Kent/Silver Bay Music Festival, director of the Ariel Chamber Series. She performed with the Hevreh Ensemble,with tours to Germany, The Czech Republic, Poland,  Austria, The Netherlands and Iceland. Winds in the Wilderness and the Salisbury Four (lute, voices and Baroque Dance). She is also a member of DUO Galliard, a new collaboration with the jazz guitarist, Joe Belmont. She has also played with the New York Baroque Consort, Beethoven Festival, New York Kammermusiker, Linda Skernick & Friends, International Chamber Artists, and Columbia Festival Orchestra Chamber Players. She has taught at Bard College at Simons Rock, is Director of Classical Music studies at The Indian Mountain School and is Professor of Recorder and Oboe at Hofstra University where she also directs the Recorder Ensemble.

Alice Robbins

VIOLA DA GAMBA, VIOLONCELLO

Alice Robbins performs regularly with Arcadia Viols and the Oberlin Consort of Viols, and serves as principal cellist and violist for Arcadia Players in western Massachusetts, an ensemble she helped found. Over the course of a distinguished career in historical performance, she has appeared with numerous acclaimed ensembles, including the Folger Consort, Four Nations Ensemble, Washington Bach Consort, Studio der frühen Musik (Early Music Quartet), Smithsonian Chamber Players, Boston Camerata, Opera Lafayette, and the Handel+Haydn Society. She was also a founding member of Concerto Castello, an international quintet specializing in early seventeenth-century repertoire.

A graduate of Indiana University and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland—where she studied with Hannelore Mueller—Alice currently teaches in the Five College Early Music Program at Mount Holyoke and Smith Colleges.

Emily Hale

BAROQUE VIOLIN

Audiences have described violinist Emily Hale’s performances as animated, intuitive and elegant. Fueled by a sense of curiosity and discovery, Emily performs old and new music on period instruments and creates inventive, interdisciplinary events, such as PrintWorks: Making Music. In Boston, Emily is a co-founder of 17th c. band Ardenza, and collaborates regularly with the fast-rising Arpeggione Ensemble. She has performed with The Sebastians, Teatro Nuovo and Four Nations Ensemble in New York, at the Royal Festival Hall with Florilegium, in the London Handel Festival and Valletta International Baroque Music Festival. Other opera and choral performances range from San Diego’s Opera Neo to Miami’s GRAMMY-nominated vocal ensemble Seraphic Fire. Emily’s recording credits include performing with the Early Opera Company on BBC Channel 4, and serving as assistant producer for Ensemble Origo’s upcoming album (2026).