News
Debut CD Recording: The Tastes Reunited
Les Délices successfully completed recording sessions for our first CD - a program of works by Couperin, Chauvon, Clérambault and others - in July 2008. We are thrilled to have lutenist Lucas Harris join us for this project. Stay tuned for updates, or email us if you would like to pre-order your own copy of the disc! We expect to release the recording in the fall of '08.

Fiscal Sponsorship through Fractured Atlas
Fractured Atlas, an organization that supports artists and musicians, has offered Les Délices fiscal sponsorship status, which allows us to accept tax-deductable donations to support the production of our début CD. Click here to learn more about how you can support Les Délices.

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Debra Nagy, baroque oboe and director, is in demand as a soloist and collaborative musician on both coasts, performing frequently with baroque ensembles and orchestras in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Cleveland, Denver, Boston, and New York. In addition, Debra performs on shawms and recorders with Ciaramella, a group devoted to fifteenth-century music, and has been a guest with Piffaro, the Newberry Consort, and Blue Heron. She recently completed her doctorate in Early Music at Case Western Reserve University, where she is director of the instrumental Collegium. A graduate of Oberlin, Debra was the first-prize winner in the 2002 American Bach Soloists Young Artist Competition, and spent 2002-2003 researching Renaissance double reed instruments in Brussels and Amsterdam as the recipient of a Belgian American Educational Foundation Grant. Debra can be heard on the Capstone, Bright Angel, Naxos, Hänssler Classics, and ATMA labels and has had live performances featured on CBC Radio Canada, Klara (Belgium), WQXR (New York City) and WGBH Boston. to top>

Scott Metcalfe is a specialist in music between 1400 and 1750 whose career as a violinist and conductor has taken him all over North America and Europe. He directs Blue Heron, a vocal ensemble based in Boston that specializes in music from about 1400-1600; the group’s first CD, featuring music by Guillaume Du Fay, was released in March, 2007, to wide critical acclaim. He also directed the Renaissance choir Convivium Musicum from 1996 through 2007. As a baroque violinist, Metcalfe is concertmaster of the Trinity Consort in Portland, Oregon (dir. Eric Milnes), plays French baroque music with the ensemble Les Délices (dir. Debra Nagy), and is becoming an active member of Montreal’s flourishing early music scene, working with Montréal Baroque, Arion, Les Boréades, Les Voix humaines, and other groups. Metcalfe was a founding member of the 17th-century ensemble La Luna and of the Renaissance violin band The King’s Noyse; he played regularly with Toronto’s Tafelmusik between 1987 and 1998 and in every Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra from 1989 through 2003. In recent years he has also taken up the medieval fiddle and will appear with the Boston Camerata in several programs this season. Besides playing and directing, Metcalfe keeps busy writing, teaching, translating, and editing; at present he is at work on a new complete edition of the songs of Binchois, in collaboration with Sean Gallagher of Harvard University. Metcalfe received a bachelor’s degree in 1985 from Brown University, where he majored in biology, and in 2005 completed a master’s degree in historical performance practice at Harvard. to top>

Emily Walhout grew up playing the cello, but discovered her love for baroque bass lines at Oberlin Conservatory, where she took up the baroque cello and the viola da gamba, thus launching an active career in early music. Ms Walhout was a founding member of La Luna, and was a member of The King's Noyse from 1987 through 2004. Ms Walhout has played viola da gamba or principal cello for the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Seattle Baroque, Portland Baroque, Les Boreades, Les Violons Du Roy, New York Collegium, and Trinity Consort (Portland, OR). She has toured as a chamber musician throughout North America and Europe, and she has recorded extensively with the Boston Camerata, La Luna and The King's Noyse. A resident of Waterown, MA, Ms Walhout maintains a small studio of private students and coaches several devoted viol consorts. to top>

Lisa Goode Crawford, harpsichord, was educated at Harvard and taught at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1973 to 2005. In 1968 she was one of the first winners of the Erwin Bodky Award for performers of early music, and since then has given solo recitals and ensemble performances throughout the U.S. and in Europe and Japan. Ms. Crawford has edited the keyboard music of Pancrace Royer for Heugel (Paris), has recorded solo works of Royer and Rameau for Gasparo, and has participated in ensemble recording projects for Vox, Gasparo, and Smithsonian Recordings. With Mitzi Meyerson, she has recorded the harpsichord music of Gaspard Le Roux, arranged for two harpsichords (Harmonia Mundi France, 1998). One of the most respected harpsichord teachers in the U.S., Ms. Crawford conducts master classes and is frequently asked to adjudicate performance competitions. In 1996-97 she was named to the honorary NEA Conservatory Challenge Professorship at Oberlin Conservatory. For the 2000-1 academic year she was awarded Research Status by Oberlin and was appointed chercheur associé at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV). She produced and directed Royer’s ballet héroique, Le Pouvoir de l’Amour (1743), at Oberlin in February 2002, to critical acclaim. Her edition of the opera will be published this year by the CMBV. to top>

Lucas Harris has been pleased since 2004 to call Toronto the home base for his activities as a freelance lutenist.  In addition to his work there with Aradia, the Toronto Consort, and Tafelmusik, he has also worked with The Harp Consort, Apollo’s Fire, New York Collegium, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Les voix humaines, the Boston Early Music Festival orchestra, and many other ensembles.  He is also an eager teacher and coach, serving on faculty for several summer Baroque workshops (Oberlin, Longy, Amherst, and Tafelmusik) as well as being the founder of the Toronto Continuo Collective, a weekly class and performing ‘pluck band’ dedicated to the art of seventeenth-century accompaniment.  Beyond continuo work, other recent projects include a concerto program for CBC radio’s Young Artist Series, a solo recital for the Minnesota Guitar Society, and a staged production of Cavalli’s La Calisto at Ohio State University for which he served as musical director.  Upcoming project include a solo recording, an outreach tour of Nunavut with soprano Ann Monoyios, and an invitation to direct the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in Vancouver.  Lucas also has an ongoing duo recital project with Chinese pipa virtuoso Wen Zhao; the two have received an Ontario Arts Council award and will be featured on the Montreal Baroque Festival this summer. to top >