GUEST ARTISTS 2024-25
rosemary heredos
Soprano Rosemary Heredos is a specialist in Early Music with a particular emphasis on Gregorian chant. She holds bachelors degrees in music and English literature from Kent State University, and an MA in Ritual Chant and Song from the University of Limerick, where she studied the Irish sean-nós style with Nóirín Ní Riain, and medieval chant and song with Catherine Sergent.
A church musician since her youth, Rosemary has cantored at Catholic churches around the world, and is currently the Coordinator of Liturgical Music at St. Anselm Church in Chesterland, Ohio. She is also a doctoral student at Case Western Reserve University, pursuing a DMA in Historical Performance Practice. Additionally, she teaches part-time in the Ethnomusicology department at KSU. Her research interests include medieval Marian imagery, adiastematic chant notation, Aquitanian chant, and vernacular devotional music of England and Ireland.
SHAWN KEENER
Trained as a music historian, Shawn Marie Keener is an editor, indexer, and graphic designer based in Chicago. Her scholarly work examining the intersection of vernacular song and cultural memory in 16th-century Venice was supported by a Fulbright grant (Italy, 2007–08) and a Harper Dissertation-Year Fellowship at the University of Chicago. Since 2012 she has curated and designed projections for live performance and concert videos that are visual extensions of historically informed performance. She has collaborated with the Newberry Consort (Chicago), Les Délices (Cleveland), Blue Heron (Boston), and Severall Friends (Santa Fe). Before launching Keener Editorial in late 2019, Shawn worked for several years at the Newberry Library in Chicago and was for three years a staff editor in the Recent Researches series at A-R Editions (Middleton, WI), the leading North American publisher of scholarly editions of music.
naomi grace mcmahon - Trobar's 2024-25 Apprentice
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Soprano Naomi Grace McMahon (they/them) finds their home in San Antonio, Texas. From 2019-2023, they regularly performed with Opera San Antonio as a member of the chorus (Romeo et Juliet, Pagliacci, Tosca) and with the company's educational outreach program. Most recently, in 2024 they were one of 9 singers invited to participate in the Amherst Early Music Festival’s Medieval Program, coached by Benjamin Bagby. In the summer of 2017, Naomi was selected to perform Sister Rose in the south Florida premiere of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking at the Miami Music Festival. While pursuing their first Master of Music degree, they performed with the Texas Christian University Opera Studio as Nella in Gianni Schicchi and Zina in the Texas premiere of Nico Muhly's Dark Sisters. Naomi's operatic credits include Der Königin die Nacht (Die Zauberflöte), Susannah (Susannah), Laetitia (The Old Maid and the Thief), and The Mother (Amahl and the Night Visitors) with the Abilene Christian University Opera.
Ms. McMahon holds a Master of Music in Voice Performance from Texas Christian University and a Bachelor of Music from Abilene Christian University. During the Covid-19 pandemic, they began to foster a long-time love for early music from the medieval to baroque periods, and are currently working toward a Master of Musical Arts in Historical Performance Practice at Case Western Reserve University.
Debra Nagy
Debra Nagy has been called a “musical polymath” (San Francisco Classical Voice) for her accomplished performances as a singer and historical wind player. She is the founder of the Cleveland-based ensemble Les Délices and plays principal oboe with Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society, Apollo’s Fire, and many other ensembles. Inspired by a creative process that brings together research, composition in historical styles, improvisation, and artistic collaboration, Debra creates programs that “can’t help but getting one listening and thinking in fresh ways” (SAN FRANCISCO CLASSICAL VOICE). During the pandemic, Debra reimagined Les Délices’ traditional concert series for the virtual space and created an acclaimed webseries variety show called SalonEra. Other recent projects have included critically-acclaimed multimedia productions of Machaut's medieval masterpiece Remede de Fortune, music from the Leuven Songbook (c. 1470), and an acclaimed CD combining jazz and French Baroque airs called Songs without Words, and The White Cat, a pastiche Baroque opera for singers and chamber ensemble with puppetry and projections based on the Countess D’Aulnoy’s 1690s feminist fairytale. She has recorded over 30 CDs with repertoire ranging from 1300-1800 on the Chandos, Avie, CPO, Capstone, Bright Angel, Naxos, and ATMA labels, and has had live performances featured on CBC Radio Canada, Klara (Belgium), NPR’s Performance Today, WQXR (New York City) and WGBH Boston. www.debranagy.com
ALLEN OTTE
Allen Otte was a co-founder of the historic Blackearth Percussion Group and of Percussion Group Cincinnati, and toured for decades throughout the world performing new and experimental music created for him and his colleagues. Otte regularly presents his own creative work—solo and collaborative performances (The Innocents Project/John Lane; the improvisation trio Vaster Than Empires), often in residencies centered around the theme of performing social justice. He is Professor Emeritus, University of Cincinnati, and in 2017 was inducted into the International Percussion Arts Society Hall of Fame. He has appeared with Trobar since 2018.
SIAN RICKETTS
Sian Ricketts (vocals, winds) enjoys a multi-faceted career as a singer and period woodwinds specialist. She performs medieval, Renaissance and baroque chamber music and orchestral repertoire with ensembles such as Bach Collegium Fort Wayne (IN), Apollo’s Fire (OH), Dallas Bach Society, Piffaro (PA), Forgotten Clefs (VA), and Labyrinth Baroque (NY). Sian is also a co-founding member and co-managing director of the medieval ensemble Alkemie. In addition to her interest in early music, Sian also regularly performs 21st-century repertoire as both an instrumentalist and singer, and has collaborated with composers such as Elliot Cole, Fiona Gillespie, Jonathan Dawe, and Gregory Spears. Sian was a Visiting Medieval Fellow at Fordham University from 2019-2020, and is co-director of Fordham University's Collegium ensemble. Sian holds a D.M.A. in historical performance practice from Case Western Reserve University with concentrations in voice and baroque oboe.
photini downie robinson
Photini Downie Robinson is in national demand as a cantor, ensemble artist, teacher, writer, speaker, and workshop leader. She is a tonsured Cantor in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and currently serves as Protopsáltria at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Portland, Oregon. Photini is one of the core artists in the internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble Cappella Romana. She holds Bachelor’s degrees in Vocal Performance and Computer Science from DePauw University (Greencastle, IN) and a Certificate in Byzantine Music from the Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology (Brookline, MA). Photini is the Founding Director of Yphos Studio and has served on the faculty of the Liturgical Arts Academy, the Trisagion School of Byzantine Music, the Synaxis of Orthodox Women Byzantine Cantors, the Koukouzelis Institute, and the Artefact Institute. Her work has been featured by Axia Women, Ancient Faith Radio, and the GOA Metropolis of San Francisco. Photini is passionate about the intersection of liturgical music and pastoral theology, and she strives to incorporate spiritual care and theological education into her music ministry. She especially loves working with older adults and families affected by memory loss. To that end, Photini is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity at Holy Cross Seminary in Boston with the goal of becoming a Board Certified Chaplain.
Chris SzaJbert
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Chris Szajbert is a writer, director, performer, filmmaker, and longtime artist-resident of Cleveland. Since 2001, she has created over 50 original productions, including solo works and world premiere plays co-created with diverse casts of professional artists, youth, and community artists. Szajbert works across media, developing theater that combines live acting with pre-recorded film, live-feed video, found-object puppetry, heightened movement, and/or original music. She has worked with many of the region’s professional theaters (most notably Cleveland Play House, Karamu House, and as a resident artist of Cleveland Public Theatre for over a decade). Szajbert’s work has garnered support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, Center for Performance and Civic Practice, SPACES, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, IngenuityLabs Incubator Program, and the Creative Workforce Fellowship, a program of CPAC (now Assembly for the Arts) funded by Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.
nadia tarnawski
Nadia Tarnawsky spent much of 2017 and 2018 in Ukraine as a recipient of a Fulbright award. In 2011 she received a Traditional Arts Fellowship from Artist Trust and an Artist Support Residency from Jack Straw Productions. She served as guest conductor for Cappella Romana for a program of Ukrainian wedding music which was recorded and released on Cappella Records in 2024. Nadia sang under the tutelage of Yevgeny Yefremov with Ensemble Hilka of New York in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster in Ukraine. A recording of this repertoire was released on the Smithsonian Folkways label. She has taught and sung traditional Ukrainian folk songs in many venues in North America and Europe, and has performed with Cappella Romana, Trobár, Apollo's Fire, the Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble and Ukrainian Village Voices among others.
Karin Weston
Soprano Karin Weston specializes in the performance of early music, with repertoire ranging from troubadour songs to Handel opera. Karin is a founding member of Trobár, and has sung with the medieval ensembles Per-Sonat, Dialogos, Ensemble Parlamento, Moirai, Concordian Dawn, Rubens Rosa, Contre le Temps, and Memor. In 2019 she was a recipient of Early Music America’s Barbara Thornton Scholarship. Her ensembles achieved success in the 2023 Van Wassenaer Competition, with Memor receiving the first prize and Contre le Temps receiving second prize and the audience award. She can be heard on Moirai’s album Wa funde man sament so manic liet, and Concordian Dawn’s albums Fortuna Antiqua et Ultra and Medieval Song from Aristotle to Opera, the latter of which was the accompanying CD for scholar Sarah Kay’s book of that title. Also dedicated to baroque music, Karin has sung the roles of Mirtillo (Handel’s Il Pastor Fido), Orazio (Handel’s Muzio Scevola), and Clorinda (Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda), amongst others, with ensembles such as the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra and was a Young Artist with the Boston Early Music Festival. Currently based in Basel, Switzerland, she has an MA in Historical Performance Practice from Case Western Reserve University, where she studied with Ellen Hargis, and an MA in medieval and Renaissance music from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where she studied with Katarina Livljanić.