Guest Artists
     2007 - 2008

Barbara Taylor Moore holds the Bachelor of Arts degree in music (piano and organ) from Mary Washington College (University of Mary Washington), the Master of Music in Performance (organ) from Baylor University and has done postgraduate work at the University of Kansas and the Summer Organ Institute in Zwolle, The Netherlands. She is active as a private teacher of piano and organ and as a member of the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Ms. Moore has accompanied the group on several occasions on the magnificent Casavant organ at First Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Amanda Balestrieri, soprano, was born and educated in England, and won two merit scholarships to Jesus College, Oxford University, where she read Modern Languages (German and French) and received her BA and MA degrees. She received diplomas from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in voice, piano (Lloyd Hartley Memorial Prize), and violin, appeared as soprano soloist in Oxford and London, and toured in Europe with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner.

Now residing in the United States, Ms. Balestrieri appears regularly as a concert and recital soloist, and has sung under the baton of Christopher Hogwood, Leonard Slatkin, and Peter Phillips. She has performed in recital at the 92nd Street Y in New York and at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, been broadcast on National Public Radio's Performance Today, appeared at the Lincoln Center with the Four Nations Ensemble, and at Merkin and Florence Gould Halls in New York.

Ms. Balestrieri received critical acclaim for her performances with the famed St. Thomas Choir and with the New York Collegium in New York and Boston, with Opera Lafayette in Washington DC, and with Santa Fe Pro Musica in New Mexico. She has also made appearances with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in works by Mozart, Vaughan Williams, and Schubert.

James Taylor returns to the stage with the Oratorio Society in Ralph Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony, having performed with the group as Germont in La Traviata in May, 2006. 

As a soloist , Mr. Taylor has performed such works as Carmina Burana, Ein Deutsches Requiem, Symphony No. 9 of Beethoven,  the Requiems of Faure and Durufle, Bach’s Johannes Passion, Magnificat, and Weinachts Oratorium, Haydn's The Creation and The Seasons, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Ravel's Don Quichotte et Dulcinee, Dona Nobis Pacem, and The Five Mystical Songs of Vaughan-Williams.  He has been a featured soloist with the National Chorale for its performances of Handel’s Messiah in Avery Fisher Hall. 

Operatic engagements have included the title role in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Marcello in La Boheme, Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, Danilo in the The Merry Widow, Figaro and the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro, Dandini in Le Cenerentol, and Mercutio in Romeo et Juliette.  Additional roles and venues include Sharpless in Madama Butterfly with the Asheville Lyric Opera, Escamillo in Carmen with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Oratorio Society of Charlottesville-Albemarle, Handel’s Messiah with the Choirs of the University of North Alabama, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Huxford Symphony, Bach’s Cantata No. 80, Ein Feste Burg, with First Presbyterian Church of Tuscaloosa, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with the Tuscaloosa Symphony and Carmina Burana with the Chattanooga Symphony. 

Upcoming performances include recital's of Schumann's Dichterliebe and Ravel's Don Quichotte in Richmond and Washington, D.C., baritone soloist in Purcell's Come Ye Sons of Art and Schubert's Mass in G with the Richmond Choral Society, baritone soloist in Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Choral Society of Durham, Germont in La Traviata with the Asheville Lyric Opera, Cantor in Bloch's Avodath Hakodesh with the combined choirs of Vienna Presbyterian and Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation, Gershwin and Friends with the New Dominion Chorale in Washington, D.C., a "Pops" concert with the St. Louis Philharmonic Orchestra, and a return to Ash Lawn Highland as Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music.

Mr. Taylor holds a Master of Music, Opera Performance, from Yale University School of Music, and a Bachelor of Arts, Vocal Performance, from Birmingham Southern-College.  He resides in Richmond, Virginia with his wife Sheridan and their two daughters Virginia and Meg.