Our 2024-25 Board of Directors
*Amy Domingues, Executive Director
Leslie Nero, Secretary
*Carol Marsh, Treasurer
*John Moran
*Jessica Powell Eig
*Tina Chancey
Doug Poplin
Risa Browder
Heather Spence
*Instructor who offers viol lessons
Amy Domingues, Executive Director
Amy performs on the cello and viola da gamba. After orchestral playing fell short of captivating her creative senses, she honed her ensemble skills as a session cellist, recording and touring with rock and experimental bands in the US, Europe, and Japan. Later, armed with a strong interest in music history, Amy turned her focus to the viola da gamba. Following several years of study, including masterclasses with Wieland Kuijken, Paolo Pandolfo, and Philippe Pierlot, she earned a Master’s Degree in Early Music from Peabody Conservatory. Amy has enjoyed
an ambitious career as a historically-informed musician, performing on baroque cello and viola da gamba with
groups as varied as The Folger Consort, Hesperus, and The Washington Bach Consort. Amy is a founding member of Sonnambula (Ensemble-in-Residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art 2018-2019), and co-founder of Corda Nova Baroque. She is an avid educator and maintains a private studio of cello and gamba students. Amy has served as faculty at the Madison Early Music Festival, the Conclave of the Viola da Gamba Society, and appears on over 70 albums, most recently Sonnambula’s world premiere of Leonora Duarte’s Sinfonias (Centaur Records 2019). She resides in Washington, DC.
Leslie Nero, Secretary
A native of Washington, DC, Leslie was professionally active for 15 years in Ontario and Quebec, Canada, playing in several orchestras. Upon returning to the Washington, DC area, she began playing as a freelance violinist and violist with modern and baroque ensembles. She often performs with Opera Lafayette, Modern Musick, the Folger Consort, Vivaldi Project, Bach Sinfonia, and Washington Bach Consort. She also enjoys teaching violin to many eager fourth- and fifth-grade students in the Alexandria City public schools.
John Moran
John performs across the world with the Smithsonian Chamber Players and Orchestra, Folger Consort, Washington Bach Consort, New York Collegium, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Les Musiciens du Louvre, The Consort of Musicke, and English Baroque Soloists. He is a member of REBEL, Violins of Lafayette, Capriole, Mensa Sonora, and Trio Riot, and his recording credits include Dorian, Virgin Classics, Deutsche Grammophon, Erato, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, and Musica Oscura. John contributed to the revised New Grove Dictionary of Music and authored a monograph on the history of cello playing for Yale University Press. He earned a MusB from Oberlin Conservatory, a Soloist Diploma in Baroque Cello from the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland, and a PhD from King's College in London.
Jessica Powell Eig
Jessica is a freelance musician based in Washington, DC. Praised for her “natural expressiveness” (Montpelier Times Argus), she has crafted a dynamic and varied career specializing in double bass, violone, and viola da gamba. In recent seasons, she has appeared with Washington Bach Consort, National Cathedral Camerata, New Orchestra of Washington, American Bach Soloists, REBEL, and Seraphic Fire, among others. In 2018, she joined the faculty of Bennington Chamber Music Conference. In 2010, Jessica completed a DMA in double bass performance at SUNY-Stony Brook. She received her earlier training at Cincinnati College-Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music, and The Juilliard School.
Tina Chancey
Tina is the director of Hesperus. She plays medieval and traditional fiddles, viola da gamba, and pardessus on roots music from Sephardic and Irish to Machaut and Joanie Mitchell. Her particular specialty is the pardessus de viole; with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, she presented pardessus debut concerts at Carnegie Recital Hall and the Kennedy Center, and she has released four pardessus recordings, most recently Couperin Concerts Royaux.
Her most recent project was Fêtes Galantes, a two-CD set of French and Italian baroque solo and chamber music for treble viol and five- and six-string pardessus.
Tina was the director of an international pardessus conference, consisting of scholarly papers, lecture demonstrations, and concerts, that took place at the 2017 Boston Early Music Festival. A member of Ensemble Toss the Feathers and Trio Sefardi, she is a former member of the Folger Consort, the Ensemble for Early Music, New York Renaissance Band, Blackmore’s Night, and QUOG. Tina teaches, performs, improvises, produces recordings, composes and arranges, writes popular and scholarly articles, and directs both SoundCatcher workshops on playing by ear and improvisation, and What’s That Note: Tune-Up workshops for amateur choruses. Tina received a Special Education Achievement Award from Early Music America and four Wammies for best classical instrumentalist from the Washington Area Music Association.
Doug Poplin
Doug performs in venues throughout the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area as a recitalist, chamber musician and ensemble member. Never content with standing still, he has pushed his artistic flexibility to include both early music--performing and recording on the Dorian label with The Bach Sinfonia as well as concertizing with The Washington Bach Consort on baroque violoncello--as well as experimental music on electric cello with the avant-garde ensemble BLK W/BEAR and his recent collaboration with Rich Morel, :(. Doug received his Bachelor of Music from the University of Minnesota and undertook graduate studies at the University of
Maryland, where he was an Orchestra Fellow and worked with the Guarneri String Quartet. His teachers include Kenneth Slowik of the Smithsonian Institution, Evelyn Elsing, and Harvey Shapiro of the Juilliard School.
