Board of Directors

Jeffrey P. Barnett is a partner and Chief Operating Officer of Granite Point Capital, a Boston-based money management firm. He is responsible for all aspects of the firm's business, including investor relations, marketing, human resources, systems, and trading. Earlier in his career, Mr. Barnett worked in alumni relations, fundraising and program development at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the University of Minnesota School of Music. Mr. Barnett is a graduate of Saint John's University (Minnesota) and received an M.B.A. from Stanford University. Mr. Barnett is also a professional lyric tenor and has performed with many early music and modern orchestras, including Apollo's Fire, American Bach Soloists, California Chamber Symphony, and an all-Bach recital with members of Philharmonia Baroque. Currently, he performs at Boston's Emmanuel Church, famous for its Bach Cantata series. He is also a member of the Board of Overseers of the New England Conservatory of Music.

Rebecca A. Baltzer, PhD, is a professor of musicology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a specialist in medieval music, especially that of the Notre-Dame School and Ars Antiqua. She also has interests in the Delta blues tradition of her native Mississippi. She is a past recipient of the American Musicological Society's Alfred Einstein Award and is widely published, including articles in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. She edited Volume 5 of a seven-volume critical edition of the Magnus liber organi (Monaco, 1995), co-edited The Union of Words and Music in Medieval Poetry (Texas, 1991), and co-edited The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages (Oxford, 2000), which won an award from the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers. One of the founders of UT's Medieval Studies program, she also served for four years as an Associate Dean of the Graduate School.

Barry Bauguess is one of North Americas most sought-after Baroque trumpet concert and recording artists. He frequently appears with many of Americas finest period ensembles including the Portland Baroque Orchestra, Chatham Baroque, Apollo's Fire, Chatham Baroque, Tafelmusik, The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Magnolia Baroque Festival, The Washington Bach Consort, Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, and Opera Lafayette, and was a member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra for fourteen years. He is currently on the faculty of the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin Conservatory and is the owner of The Baroque Trumpet Shop in New Bern, North Carolina.

Following a career as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Bernice Chen has spent the past 25 years in various capacities in association with the Boston Early Music Festival, and has served as President of the Board for the past 10 years. She attended the first Festival in Boston in 1981 as a volunteer selling posters in the lobby, and her involvement grew along with the field of Early Music.

She has also been an active amateur musician studying the recorder, harpsichord, and viola da gamba as well as enthusiastic attendee for 28 years of the Amherst Early Music workshops.

Recorderist and teacher Natalie Michaud joined the Baroque music society Les Idées heureuses in 1990as co-artistic director. While in this ensemble, which is now in its 19 th season, her contribution has been characterized by her poetic and colorful programming: “ Promenade in Naples” (May 2000) featuring soprano Karina Gauvin, received an Opus Prize for best Baroque music concert of the year from the Conseil Québécois de la musique. Renaissance music concerts such as “ Chansonnier pour une presque reine – music around 1500” (October 2001) and “ Quattrocento amoureux – musique of the Fifteenth Century” (April 2002) show the approach Ms. Michaud has taken towards earlier repertoire. Contemporary music also remains important in her activities: in 1991, she was selected by the American Recorder Society to perform the Canadian première of a quintet for recorder and strings written by Ezra Laderman. Since then, Canadian composers such as Martin Arnold and John Rea have written works for her.

Natalie Michaud teaches recorder and chamber music at McGill University and at the Music Conservatory of Mc Gill. She is well-known in summer music academies such as CAMMAC and Amherst Early Music. She has recorded numerous concerts for Canadian Radio, as well as CDs on Atma, Dorian and Analekta labels. Her most recent recordings with Les Idées heureuses are Christoph Graupner’s Ouverture and Concerto for recorder and strings. Photo by Didier Bertrand.

Florence Peacock, soprano, received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Hollins College and her Master of Music degree from Yale University. She has performed as a soloist in oratorio, recitals, and opera throughout the United States and in Canada, England, Japan, Indonesia, and Russia. A regular soloist at Oberlin College's Baroque Performance Institute, Florence also performed at the Franz Schubert Institute in Austria. She has broadcast songs by Stephen Foster on NPR's "Performance Today." Florence received critical acclaim for her solo performances with the Atlanta Symphony. Her Chapel Hill performance in Handel's "Israel in Egypt" was cited as "one of the year's most thrilling moments!" (John Lambert, critic). In May 2004 Florence was the featured soloist with the Atlanta Pops Orchestra in Georgia. Florence teaches singing at her voice studio in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Laurence B. Sutter been a member of one or more performing ensembles as an instrumental musician or vocalist for most of his life, including the 199th Army Band (The Governor’s Own), New York Army National Guard; Pro Arte Double Chorale; The Dessoff Choirs; Amor Artis Chamber Chorus and Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble. A graduate of NYU School of Law, he specializes in First Amendment and communications law at Penthouse Media Group Inc. in New York City.