Dr. Alexandra Snyder Dunbar is an award-winning harpsichordist, pianist, and pedagogue. She holds degrees from the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and Interlochen Arts Academy. She received a full scholarship as a resident in the C.V. Starr Fellows Program as a Doctoral Candidate at Juilliard in the harpsichord studio of Lionel Party. Solo performances with orchestra have included Orchestra 54, Dorian Baroque Orchestra, The Memphis Chamber Music Society, The Symphony of Westchester, and The Chamber Orchestra of New York. Dr. Dunbar has collaborated on performance projects with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Astralis Ensemble, and The New York Philharmonic. Dr. Dunbar is on the music faculty at the University of North Georgia and Athens Technical College, and she regularly concertizes and maintains a private teaching studio. She is an instructor of Music Theory and Harpsichord at the world-renowned Interlochen Arts Camp in Interlochen, Michigan. Currently she serves as Organist at Madison United Methodist Church and is harpsichordist and co-artistic director for Amethyst Baroque Ensemble.
Recorder player Jody Miller is widely known as a recorder pedagogue, a conductor, and a performer on Renaissance and Baroque woodwind instruments. Miller’s musical studies began with trumpet and French horn, but his discovery of the recorder led him to pursue studies with Steve Rosenberg, Eva Legêne, Aldo Abreu, and others. He credits his mentor and harpsichord teacher Dr. Dana Ragsdale for the inspiration and encouragement to make music on early instruments. As a freelance musician, Miller has performed with Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, New Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Bach Festival Orchestra, Cincinnati Opera, and a host of other orchestras and chamber ensembles. He is a regular member and Co-Director of Amethyst Baroque Ensemble; Sol Divino 17th Century Ensemble; and Eclectic Collective. As a proponent of new music for old instruments, Miller has commissioned solo and chamber works by Timothy Broege, Martha Bishop, and Gregory Hamilton.
Miller is Music Director for Lauda Musicam of Atlanta, a community-based Renaissance ensemble that performs several concerts each year. Miller is also Director for Mountain Collegium Early Music and Folk Music Workshop, and he also teaches at other workshops throughout the country. His teaching and performing schedule can be found at www.fippleflute.com.
Adrin Akins is a native of Dalton, Georgia. He has been a frequent recitalist, guest soloist, and chamber singer in the Atlanta area for over 20 years, and has performed as a soloist with the Atlanta Choral Guild, Atlanta Schola Cantorum, Lauda Musicam of Atlanta, and RepsirOpera of Athens (GA), as well as many Atlanta area churches. He made his European debut with the Saarburg Festival in Saarburg, Germany, as well as Canada with the Vancouver Baroque Festival. Formerly a professional French horn player, he made the transition into voice in his thirties while studying music therapy. He has studied voice with Dr. Stephanie Tingler at the University of Georgia at Athens and with Daniel Moody, and he has received additional coaching with George Darden, Gary DiPasquasio, and Kevin Zakresky. He holds a BA in French Horn performance and is a founding member of Amethyst Baroque. He serves on the Board for the Atlanta Early Music Alliance. Akins is a staff singer at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church of Atlanta, the music teacher at the Atlanta Speech School, and a freelance piano and voice teacher.
Marcy Jean Brenner had a musical childhood prompted by her mother, who taught cello and music theory. After many years of lessons on various instruments with excellent teachers in the Lehigh Valley, she went to National Music Camp in Interlochen, MI, where she was introduced to the harpsichord. This experience, together with her five years at Oberlin Conservatory, led to a career in Early Music. A Fulbright Scholarship brought her to Vienna, Austria, where she spent most of two decades freelancing, mostly on viola da gamba. Since returning to the States, she has been active in New England, Florida, Georgia, and now her home State of South Carolina. Charleston is a good base for traveling to her gigs in Savannah, Jacksonville, and the Atlanta area. She is thrilled to be a member of Amethyst Baroque, the premier chamber music ensemble performing on period instruments in Georgia.
She founded The Spartina Ensemble with colleagues David Hunt (viol) Susan Conant (recorder/baroque flute) and Julia Harlow (harpsichord) in Charleston in 2022 and was immediately invited to perform in the series Piccolo Spoleto and the North Charleston Arts Festival.