Northern Lights

Pablo Kennedy is a Boston-based multi-instrumentalist with a love for historical performance on double bass, theorbo, and other lute-family instruments. He earned his Bachelor of Music in Performance from Boston University, studying double bass with Edwin Barker and lutes with Catherine Liddell.

Pablo’s recent ensemble experience includes collaborations with the Ashmont Hill Bach Project, Cappella Clausura, the Marsh Chapel Collegium, and the Worcester Chorus. He frequently also performs as a recital accompanist with plucked strings.

While studying at Boston University, Pablo was awarded the Musicology and Ethnomusicology Departmental Award for his studies on the theorbo. He has participated in various festivals and classes, such as the American Bach Soloists Academy, the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, and the Amherst Baroque Academy Opera Project.

John McKean is a harpsichordist and musicologist based in Boston, where he serves on the faculty and is chair of the Historical Performance Department at the Longy School of Music of Bard College. Frequently in demand as both a soloist and continuo player, he has performed extensively throughout Europe and North America, with concert engagements bringing him to venues as far afield as the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Fondazione Cini (Venice), Museu da Música (Lisbon), St. Martin-in-the-Fields (London), Norðurljós Hall (Reykjavík, Iceland), and the Philips Collection (Washington, DC). Critically acclaimed for his “intelligent” and “precise” playing (The Washington Post) as well as his “sonorous brilliance and thrilling, dance-like energy” (Allgäuer Zeitung), John performs with leading American and European ensembles, including Apollo’s Fire, Emmanuel Music, the Catacoustic Consort, Camerata Vocale Freiburg, Habsburger Camerata, and has appeared with the Jacksonville, Naples, Portland (Maine), and Pittsburg symphony orchestras (among others). He counts among his live radio broadcasts performances on NPR, BBC Radio 3, and Deutschlandradio Berlin.

John holds degrees in German Studies and Harpsichord Performance from Oberlin College/Conservatory and an advanced performance diploma from the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg (Germany), where he studied with Lisa Crawford/Webb Wiggins and Robert Hill respectively. He received additional instruction over the years from some of the greatest modern masters of historical keyboards, including Arthur Haas, Jacques Ogg, Skip Sempé, Jesper Christensen, Ketil Haugsand, Mitzi Meyerson, Richard Egarr, and Gustav Leonhardt. He also holds an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in historical musicology from the University of Cambridge (U.K). His master’s thesis unearthed new details concerning the life and works of French harpsichord composer Gaspard Le Roux, while his doctoral dissertation examined the development of keyboard technique during the German Baroque. For several years he served as an assistant editor of the Oxford University Press journal Early Music. Beyond his musicological work and performing career, he also maintains an active interest in instrument building (he regularly performs on a 17th-century style Flemish harpsichord of his own making), music publishing, typography, and exploring the remote corners of his home state of Maine.

Described as an “arresting” (Boston Globe) and “strikingly beautiful” (Miami Herald) musician, Catherine Weinfield-Zell is a busy performer and teacher in the New England area and beyond. Having held positions with the both the Hawaii Symphony and the Florida Grand Opera, she has also performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera, the San Diego and Charleston Symphonies, the Portland Symphony, the Naples Philharmonic, the new-music ensembles Alarm Will Sound and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Boston Philharmonic, the Boston Lyric and Odyssey Opera Companies, the Boston Festival Orchestra, and Emmanuel Music. Additionally, she has also performed at the Strings, Opera North, Lake George, Opera in the Ozarks, Breckenridge, Spoleto FestivalUSA, Aspen, Sitka, Alaska, Kent/Blossom, and Britten-Pears Aldeburgh World Orchestra summer music festivals. As a dedicated teacher, Ms. Weinfield-Zell is currently on faculty at Longy Conservatory, Northeastern University, Phillips Exeter Academy, and Bridgewater State University, and formerly held positions at the University of New Hampshire, Williams College and Brookline Music School. She is also the also the co-founder with her husband, percussionist Michael Weinfield-Zell, of Music at the Substation, a chamber music series that performed regularly at the Turtle Swamp Brewery in Boston during the 2018-2020 seasons, as well as presented a full season of virtual concerts during the Corvid-19 pandemic. Ms. Weinfield-Zell’s principal teachers include Elaine Douvas at Mannes College of Music in New York City, John Mack and Frank Rosenwein at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Ray Still at Northwestern University.