The Early Interval

Musican Biographies

Since 1976, The Early Interval has explored and celebrated the rich history of medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music, inviting their audiences to experience a millennium of exciting sound worlds. The ensemble sings and performs on replica instruments unique to each period, including recorders, viols, violin, lutes, percussion, and many more. The group often collaborates with poets, actors, dancers, vocal ensembles, narrators, composers, and guest musicians to create and present engaging thematic programs that transport the listener to an earlier time and place.

Jim Bates began performing with The Early Interval in 2002. Before moving to Columbus, he was on the faculty of the University of Louisville School of Music, he was Music Director of the Louisville Youth Orchestra, and he directed the Louisville Mandolin Orchestra. Dr. Bates is currently Director of Orchestral Activities at Otterbein University, Principal Bass and Assistant Conductor of the Westerville Symphony and Assistant Conductor of the Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestra’s Repertory Orchestra. Dr. Bates joined the conducting staff of the Interlochen Center for the Arts in 1999 and has served as guest conductor or clinician throughout the United States. Dr. Bates serves on the national board of The Classical Mandolin Society of America. He is also honored to serve on the board of the Friends of Early Music in Columbus. While pursuing a master's degree in double bass at Indiana University, he was active in the Early Music Institute and studied with Stanley Ritchie, Thomas Binkley and Wendy Gillespie.  He also participated in the Early Music Ensemble at the University of Louisville, working closely with its director, Jack Ashworth. He received his Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Kentucky in 2002.  

Lane Champa is a violinist and violist from Delaware, Ohio. He performs in New Albany Symphony, Central Ohio Symphony, Camarata Chamber Orchestra, Worthington Chamber Orchestra, and Westerville Symphony. Champa is the Lead Teacher of ProMusica Chamber Orchestra’s Play Us Forward Program. He was Onsite Manager of Chamber Music Connection from 2015-2018, and is currently a Faculty Member. Champa was Marketing Director of New Albany Symphony Orchestra from 2016-2020. He manages a musician collective and performs on the Heather Pick Music Series at Ohio State University’s James Cancer Hospital. Champa graduated in Music, Business, and Arts Administration from Otterbein University (2016). He was concertmaster of Otterbein’s Pit Theater Orchestra from 2013-2024. He enjoys contemporary music and premiered works by Clara Rubino, Charlie Wilmoth, Rachel Epperly, and Brian Riordan. Champa is a guest artist and chamber music coach at Olentangy Summer Strings Camp and manages a private string studio teaching violin, viola, improvisation, and composition.

Pei-An Chao has been a full time member of the Columbus Symphony since 2000. She held the position of acting Assistant Principal Cello in the 2009-10 and 2015-16 seasons and was featured as a soloist in 2011. Prior to joining the CSO, Ms. Chao spent two years with the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida. She has a bachelor's degree from Manhattan School of Music and a master's degree from San Francisco Conservatory of Music where she was the concerto competition winner and graduated with distinction. Ms. Chao grew up in Taiwan and New York City. She began playing the piano at 4, cello at 9. She studied both instruments throughout her musical training. Ms. Chao has appeared in prestigious festivals such as Tanglewood, Kent/Blossom, Sarasota, Pacific, Spoleto and Colorado. She performs chamber music regularly and coaches Columbus area youth orchestras. She held teaching positions at Otterbein College, Ohio Wesleyan and Ohio University. Ms. Chao performs on a Jean Baptiste Deshayes Salomon cello made in 1760 in Paris.

Sean Ferguson has been performing with The Early Interval since 2009. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music history from The Ohio State University and a Master of Library Science degree from Kent State University. In Philadelphia, he studied guitar at the University of the Arts and was a winner of the WFLN Radio Instrumentalists Competition. He has performed extensively on guitar and lute as a soloist, accompanist, chamber musician and orchestra member, including productions for Opera Columbus, Columbus Dance Theatre, The Magpie Consort, The Ohio State University, Otterbein University, Denison University, and Ohio Wesleyan University. His Baroque opera continuo experience includes work with lutenist-conductors Lyle Nordstrom and Lucas Harris. As a librarian, he has worked at OCLC Online Computer Library Center and The Ohio State University Music & Dance Library. He is President of the Columbus Guitar Society.

Violist Eva Kennedy has had a lifelong passion for chamber music ever since playing in her very first quartet at the age of 7 in her hometown of Worthington, Ohio. As a founding member of the Callisto Quartet, she has had the opportunity to perform some of classical music’s greatest repertoire across North America and around the world. The Callisto Quartet has been internationally recognized with major prizes from the Banff, Bordeaux, Melbourne, and Fischoff competitions, and maintains an active performing schedule with appearances at venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Ravinia Festival, and many others. Eva holds Bachelor and Master of Music

degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, as well as a Master’s degree from Rice University, where she was in residence with the Callisto Quartet. She also spent a semester at the Paris Conservatory as an exchange student. Her mentors have included Deborah Price, Jeffrey Irvine, Sabine Toutain, Lynne Ramsey, and James Dunham. Alongside her passion for performing, Eva also has a great love for teaching. This year, she has found great joy in implementing a new chamber music curriculum developed by the Callisto Quartet, designed to demystify the process behind great ensemble playing for students and help them become their own best teachers. She has taught and given masterclasses for violinists, violists, and chamber ensembles at numerous music schools, festivals, and universities across the country. Eva is Canadian through her father’s side and has both American and Canadian citizenships. Outside of music, she enjoys rock climbing and traveling with her family.

With a specialty in the fusing of multiple styles and cultures, Joseph Krygier utilizes his background in classical, world, commercial and electronic percussion to create a sound that is uniquely his own. He received his undergraduate degree from the Eastman School of Music and his Masters degree in performance from Northwestern University. In addition to his position as Senior Lecturer in percussion at The Ohio State University School of Music, Krygier is a percussion accompanist with the OSU Department of Dance where he plays hand percussion and drum set for modern dance classes. Additionally, he has worked as a dance accompanist at the BalletMet Youth Academy, Interlochen Center for the Arts Summer Camp and at Ohio Wesleyan University. As a composer, Krygier has written works for percussion solo, duo and quintet, in addition to creating music for modern dance performance. Krygier spent four years as a member of the United States Air Force Academy Band (formerly the Band of the Rockies) in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he was a member of the concert band, Blue Steel (rock band), Wild Blue Country, and Stellar Brass Quintet. He was a featured marimba soloist with the concert band on one of their many tours across the country and frequently performed solo pieces on community chamber series. Additionally, he has performed with the Columbus Symphony, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic and the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound. He was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago-the training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony-and performed with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Maestro Daniel Barenboim. Krygier is an educational endorser for Grover Pro Percussion and Zildjian cymbals.

Elizabeth McConnaughey hails from Columbus, Ohio and has a passion for Baroque and early music literature, having performed the roles of Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Second Midwife in Play of Herod, the title role of Thisbe in Lampe's Pyramus and Thisbe, and covering the role of Damon Handel’s Acis and Galatea. Additionally, she has maintained a strong interest in new music and had the pleasure of premiering three characters from Chappell Kingsland’s commissioned opera for young audiences, The Firebringers, while completing her Master’s degree at Indiana University. Ms. McConnaughey maintains an active performance schedule in central Ohio working with Opera Project Columbus, The Early Interval, Lancaster Chorale, and First Congregational Church.

Jefferson McConnaughey, a native of Virginia, has been playing the organ in churches for the past 54 years. He began study in high school with Dr. Paul Hesselink at Longwood College in Farmville, Virginia. He was graduated cum laude from Mars Hill College, Mars Hill, North Carolina in 1974 with a Bachelor of Music in Performance degree, majoring in organ. While at Mars Hill, Mr. McConnaughey studied organ with Donna N. Robertson and Dr.  Marilyn Keiser. He also studied harpsichord with Eve Lynne Joan Reeve, founder of the annual Music in the Mountains chamber music festival centered in Burnsville, North Carolina. After graduation, McConnaughey continued organ study privately with the late Dr. Arthur Poister during Poister’s last years in Raleigh, North Carolina. McConnaughey served as an Assistant Organist and Choirmaster for Evensong at All Saints Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Georgia for 15 years and was organist for Northside Drive Baptist Church retiring and moving to Columbus, Ohio with his wife Kathryn, to be near their daughter and son-in-law. McConnaughey is also a graduate of the University of North Carolina’s School of Law and is licensed in Georgia and North Carolina, having been admitted to the bar in 1978.  He practiced law until his retirement in 2018.

Soprano Emily Noël concertizes throughout North America and Europe in a wide variety of repertory expanding from the medieval to the contemporary. Highlights of recent seasons include Davenant’s Macbeth at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, The Merchant of Venice with the Gabrieli Consort at the Wanamaker Theatre at Shakespeare's Globe in London, and Measure + Dido with the Folger Consort at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington DC, where she played Mariana opposite Derek Jacobi's Angelo. Other stage credits include Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto with Ente Concerti Città di Iglesias, and Nora in Vaughn Williams' Riders to the Sea at the Amsterdam Grachtenfestival. Past performances include engagements with The Folger Concert, Mountainside Baroque, and an outreach for the Santa Fe Opera Guild with early music ensemble Severall Friends. Ms. Noël serves on the faculty of Denison University, where she teaches applied voice.

Charles Austin Piper, baritone, performs opera across the Cleveland and Columbus area. He has performed with Opera Columbus, Cleveland Opera Theatre, Nightingale Opera Theatre, and The Ohio Light Opera company. Some of his major opera performances include Dick Deadeye in H.M.S Pinafore, Paul in If I Were You, Geppetto in The Adventures of Pinocchio, Top in The Tender Land, and Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus. He has been a featured bass soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana, Handel’s Messiah, and J.S Bach’s Lobet Gott in Seinen Reichen. He has his Bachelor of Music degree from Otterbein University and his Master of Music degree from Kent State University. In 2018 he placed first in his category at Ohio NATS, and also won the Herald Heiberg Liedersanger Preis in Graz Austria for outstanding lieder performance. He is currently a voice instructor and opera director at Otterbein University.

Costa Rican Baroque violinist and Columbus resident Guillermo Salas-Suárez holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Historical Performance from Case Western Reserve University, where he studied with Dr. Julie Andrijeski. In demand as a period player, he performs with several ensembles, including the Lyra and Atlanta Baroque Orchestras, Apollo’s Fire, The Newberry Consort, Lumedia MusicWorks, Bach Collegium Fort Wayne, and conducts workshops and lectures across the Americas.

Guillermo’s chamber music appetite spans from the Renaissance and early Baroque, which he explores with The Early Interval, up to the Classical and early Romantic repertoire for string quartet and clarinet with Wit’s Folly, which he co-founded. He has collaborated and trained with Malcolm Bilson, Paolo Pandolfo, Jaap ten Linden, Barthold Kuijken, Bruce Dickey, and the late Jeanne Lamon at the early music festivals in Boston, Bloomington, Amherst, Bach Oregon, Urbino (Italy), Daroca (Spain), Saintes (France), and the Stuttgart Bachwoche (Germany). As a scholar of Spanish and colonial music, he has presented his research in conferences at Boston, Indiana, and Oregon Universities, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His upcoming book for Indiana University Press translates and discusses Spanish violin treatises from the 18th century. As an educator, Guillermo is committed to the advancement of historical performance practice in Latin America. He is on the faculty at the Festival de Musica de Santa Catarina (Brazil), and has given masterclasses at the Academia de Música Antigua de Medellín (Colombia), and Instituto Nacional de Música (Costa Rica).

Guillermo started music lessons at age nine in his native Costa Rica, where he studied with Lidia Blanco, Mercedes Moreno and José Aurelio Castillo. Before switching to Baroque, he studied in the US and Bulgaria with Dr. Borislava Iltcheva, Aleksandr Iltchev, Espen Lilleslåtten, and Dr. Lin He. He shared the stage with conductors and soloists Manfred Honeck, Robert Spano, Yefim Bronfman, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Midori, Lang Lang, and Renée Fleming at the Aspen Music Festival, Severance Hall, Sala São Paulo (Brazil), and the National Theatres of Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, and Honduras. He performed with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, CityMusic Cleveland, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional and Orquesta Sinfónica de Heredia (Costa Rica). He currently serves in Early Music America’s IDEA Task Force, dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion in early music throughout the Americas. Upcoming engagements include appearances with SoundSalon, North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, and The American Baroque Opera Company. He plays on an instrument by Jason Viseltear and bows by Michelle Speller, H.F. Grabenstein, Pieter Affourtit, and James Dodd II. Outside of music, Guillermo enjoys literature, learning languages, and practicing yoga.

A Columbus native, David Stefano is currently on the faculty of Otterbein University, co-directing the Otterbein Early Music Ensemble. He holds degrees in bassoon performance from Indiana University, under the tutelage of Kim Walker, and earned his PhD in Early Music from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Australia). David previously taught at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts and coached ensembles at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. David has performed locally as a recorder soloist, and as a bassoonist with Ohio Capital Winds, the Newark-Granville Symphony Orchestra, and the Westerville Symphony. He has also performed internationally with ensembles such as Latitude 37 and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, among others. David joined The Early Interval in 2019.