Trevor David Pinnock is a British harpsichordist and conductor.
Hille Perl is a German virtuoso performer of the viola da gamba and lirone.
Lisa Beznosiuk is an English flautist of Ukrainian and Irish descent, specializing in period performance of baroque and classical music on historical flutes.
Vittorio Ghielmi is an Italian musician, conductor, composer. Compared by critics to Jasha Heifetz ("Diapason") for his virtuosity, and described as "An Alchemist of sound" for the intensity and versatility of his musical interpretations, Vittorio Ghielmi attracted notice while still very young for his new approach to the viola da gamba and to the sound of early music repertoire. His multifaceted training has made him an appreciated and creative musician as well as a sought-after conductor and coach for modern orchestras or orchestras with original instruments. He is Professor for viola da gamba and Head of the Department für Alte Musik at the Mozarteum Universität Salzburg and visiting professor at the Royal College of London. He is graduate at the Università Cattolica di Milano. He was born in Milan, Italy, where as a child he began his study of music with the violin, the double bass and later the viola da gamba and composition. In 1995 he was the winner of the "Concorso Internazionale Romano Romanini per strumenti ad arco" (Brescia). His fieldwork within old musical traditions surviving in forgotten parts of the world and bringing new perspectives to the interpretation of European "early music" led to him being presented the "Erwin Bodky Award" . He studied the viol with Roberto Gini, Wieland Kuijken and Christophe Coin (Paris). Associations with instrument maker, engineer and humanist Luc Breton (CH) as well as with many musicians of non-European traditions have been fundamental to his musical career, creating a deeper reflexion on the nature of sound used in early and modern European tradition . As viola da gamba soloist or conductor, he has appeared with many of the world's most famous orchestras in the fields of both classical and ancient music. He performs since youth recitals in duos with his brother Lorenzo Ghielmi and with the lutenist Luca Pianca, in the most important halls. As soloist or chamber musician, he has shared the stage with artists such as Gustav Leonhardt (duo), Cecilia Bartoli, Andràs Schiff, Thomas Quasthoff, Mario Brunello, Viktoria Mullova, Giuliano Carmignola, Christophe Coin, Reinhard Goebel, Giovanni Antonini, Ottavio Dantone, Enrico Bronzi etc. He is one of the few viola da gamba players regularly invited to appear as a soloist-conductor with orchestra. He has been invited to play in the world première of many new compositions, many of which have been dedicated to him . From 2007 to 2011 he was assistant to Riccardo Muti at the Salzburg festival. In 2007 he conceived with the Argentinian singer Graciela Gibelli and conducted a show, based on Buxtehude's "Membra Jesu Nostri", with the American film maker Marc Reshovsky (Hollywood) and the Swedish choir "Rilke Ensemble" (G.Eriksson); the project was produced by the Semana de musica religiosa de Cuenca (Madrid) and brought later to the Musikfest Stuttgart in 2010. Over three nights in 2009, he gave a performance of Forqueray's complete works for viola da gamba at De Bijloke, Ghent (B). He has been artist in residence at Musikfest Stuttgart 2010, the Segovia festival 2011, and the Bozar Bruxelles 2011. In 2012 he conducted Handel's Water music at the Portogruaro Festival (Venice) with a spectacle on the river Lemene conceived by Monique Arnaud. In 2018 he conducted the Opera Pygmalion by Rameau at the Drottningholms Slottsteater (Stockholm), with the régie of Saburo Teshigawara.; the new conception of this spectacle was so described in the Financial Times : "In their new production for Drottningholm Slottsteater, the Japanese dancer and choreographer Saburo Teshigawaraand Italian conductor and viola da gamba player Vittorio Ghielmi create a genuine masterpiece which combines exquisite music-making with experimental dance and modern lighting effects with the theatre’s unique 18th-century stage technology. Indeed, it is some time since the theatre has been so marvellously and innovatively put to use.“
John Moran is an American musician and musicologist. He specializes in historically informed performance of music from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries on the cello and viola da gamba. He studied cello and baroque cello at the Oberlin Conservatory, baroque cello at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, and musicology at King's College London. He has performed and recorded with numerous groups in Europe, including Les Musiciens du Louvre, The Consort of Musicke, English Baroque Soloists. Since 1994 he has lived in the Washington, D.C., area. He is a regular member of REBEL, a New York based baroque ensemble and the music director of Modern Musick, a Washington period-instrument ensemble. He has also appeared with Opera Lafayette, the Washington Bach Consort, the Folger Consort, the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Players. He teaches viola da gamba and baroque cello at the Peabody Conservatory, where he is also co-director of the Baltimore Baroque Band. He served as President of the Viola da Gamba Society of America (2020–2024) and is currently Past President of that organization.
Nigel North is an English lutenist, musicologist, and pedagogue.
Jaap ter Linden is a Dutch cellist, viol player and conductor. He specialises in performance of baroque and classical music on authentic instruments.
Laurence Dreyfus, FBA is an American musicologist and player of the viola da gamba who was University Lecturer and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Charles Medlam is an English conductor and cellist also known for his performances on viola da gamba.
Desmond John Dupré was an English lutenist, guitarist, gambist and a prominent figure in the 20th century revival of early music. He was known particularly for his recordings on lute and viola da gamba, notably with counter-tenor Alfred Deller.
Kenneth Slowik is an American cellist, viol player, and conductor. Curator of Musical Instrument Collection at the National Museum of American History and Artistic Director of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society. He took an interest in music and organology from an early age. He studied at the University of Chicago, the Chicago Musical College, the Peabody Conservatory, the Salzburg Mozarteum and, as a Fulbright Scholar, the Vienna Hochschule für Musik, guided by Howard Mayer Brown, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Antonio Janigro, Edward Lowinsky, and Frederik Prausnitz.
August Wenzinger (1905–1996) was a prominent cellist, viol player, conductor, teacher, and music scholar from Basel, Switzerland. He was a pioneer of historically informed performance, both as a master of the viola da gamba and as a conductor of Baroque orchestral music and operas.
John Tseng-Hsin Hsu was a viol player, barytonist, cellist, and conductor. He was a leading specialist in French baroque viol music and a professor of music at Cornell University.
Richard John Campbell was an English classical musician, best known as a founder member of the early music ensemble Fretwork and for his newer association with the Feinstein Ensemble, specialising in historically accurate performance of 18th-century music.
Markku Luolajan-Mikkola is a Finnish baroque cellist and viol player. Born in Helsinki, he studied cello with Arto Noras at the Sibelius Academy, where he received his diploma in 1983. Later, an interest in baroque music led him to summer courses with Laurence Dreyfus, and afterwards he went on to Royal Conservatory of The Hague where he studied viola da gamba with Wieland Kuijken and baroque cello with Jaap ter Linden, receiving postgraduate diplomas in viola da gamba and baroque cello in 1992.
Amy Domingues is an American viola da gamba player and cellist.
Christophe Coin is a French cellist, viola da gamba player and conductor active in the field of historically informed performance. He is the cellist of the Quatuor Mosaïques and is the director of the Ensemble Baroque de Limoges.
Myrna Herzog is a Brazilian-born Israeli musician, conductor, teacher and early music researcher. She is a player of the viol, viola da gamba and baroque cello.
Judith Davidoff was an American viol player, cellist, and performer on the medieval bowed instruments. She was considered the “Grande Dame of the viol”, "a master of the viola da gamba and other stringed instruments" and "a central part of the early-music scene." Her recorded performances reflect her wide range of repertoire and styles, including such works as Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht and 13th-century monody. She is responsible for the catalog of 20th- and 21st-century viol music.
Siegfried Pank is a German cellist and viol player. He was a member of the Gewandhausorchester in Leipzig from 1962 to 1980, and toured with the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum. He turned to playing the viol in historically informed performance, and lectured cello and viol at the Musikhochschule Leipzig from 1984, as professor from 1988 to 2001. He was a co-founder of the International Telemann Association in 1991, serving as its president from 2012.
