Additional Bios & Credits

David LaMarche (Music Director and Conductor) has been working as a conductor in the dance field for over forty years.  He served as Music Director for the Dance Theatre of Harlem from 1993 to 1998. As a guest, he has conducted for New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, The Joffrey Ballet, Houston Ballet, L’Opera di Roma, and Het National Ballet. The orchestras he has directed include the Houston Symphony, the Lyric Opera Orchestra of Chicago, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, The Paris Opera Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Moscow Radio Orchestra, and the Orchestre Lamoreux.

Mr. LaMarche is the Music Director of American Ballet Theatre and the Paul Taylor Dance Company, and an Adjunct Faculty member of collaborative piano at the Juilliard School. Mr. LaMarche is a graduate of Boston University and resides in New York City.

Tara Simoncic (Principal Guest Conductor) is thrilled to enter her second season as the Principal Guest Conductor for the Paul Taylor Dance Company.  Ms. Simoncic has the distinguished honor of being the first woman to conduct with the American Ballet Theatre.  She has worked extensively with the New York City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Ballet Estable at Teatro Colón, Compañía Nacional de Danza, Cincinnati Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, and Ballet West where she served as Music Director from 2015-2018. She has been a guest conductor with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, Orquestra Jovem do Sãu Paulo, and the Houston Ballet.  Ms. Simoncic’s love of opera has led her to work with the Piccolo Opera Festival in Italy and the SNG Opera Ballet Theatre in Maribor, Slovenia. This season, Ms. Simoncic will make her debut with the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany, as well as her debut at the MET Opera House with the American Ballet Theatre. She has been serving as Music Director of the Louisville Ballet since 2018 and the Flexible Orchestra since 2001.

John Mackey (Composer) has written for orchestras (Brooklyn Philharmonic, New York Youth Symphony), theater (Dallas Theater Center), and extensively for dance (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Parsons Dance Company, New York City Ballet), but the majority of his work for the past decade has been for wind ensembles (the fancy name for concert bands), and his band catalog now receives annual performances numbering in the thousands.

Recent commissions include works for the BBC Singers, the Dallas Wind Symphony, military, high school, middle school, and university bands across America and Japan, and concertos for Joseph Alessi (principal trombone, New York Philharmonic), Christopher Martin (principal trumpet, New York Philharmonic), and Julian Bliss (international clarinet soloist). In 2014, he became the youngest composer ever inducted into the American Bandmasters Association. In 2018, he received the Wladimir & Rhoda Lakond Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He resides in New York City, with his spouse, A. E. Jaques, a philosopher who works on the ethics of artificial intelligence for MIT, and also titles all of his pieces; and their cats, Noodle and Bloop.

Jennifer Tipton (Principal Lighting Designer) is well known for her lighting for theater, opera, and dance. Her recent work in theater includes To Kill A Mockingbird in London, all of Richard Nelson’s Rhinebeck plays and L.S.D. (…Just the High Points…) – Renovation for The Wooster Group. Her recent work in dance includes Helen Pickett’s Crime and Punishment for American Ballet Theatre.  Among many awards she has received the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 2001, the Jerome Robbins Prize in 2003, and in 2008 she was awarded the USA “Gracie” Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship.  She has lit the works of the Paul Taylor Dance Company since her beginnings.

James F. Ingalls (Principal Lighting Designer) has designed the lighting for Lauren Lovette’s stim , Larry Keigwin’s Drum Circle, Omar Román De Jesús’s If You Could Swallow the Sun, and 11 dances by Paul Taylor, including Brief Encounters, Sea Lark, Dilly, Dilly, The Open Door and Concertiana. Other recent designs for dance: Twyla Tharp Dance Diamond Jubilee Tour; Alexei Ratmansky’s The Fairy’s Kiss and David Dawson’s Anima Animus, both for Dutch National Ballet and Stanton Welch’s Bespoke at Houston Ballet. Work for Mark Morris Dance Group includes Layla and Majnun, L’Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato, and The Hard Nut. Designs for opera include One Morning Becomes an Eternity for Salzburg Festival, Ruinous Gods by Layale Chaker at Spoleto Festival USA, five world premieres by John Adams and three by Kaija Saariaho. For the LA Master Chorale: Music to Accompany A Departure, Lagrime di San Pietro. For DRUID in Galway: many productions including this season’s A Moon for the Misbegotten and Endgame. He often collaborates with The Wooden Floor Dancers in Santa Ana, California and is on the board of directors of Coiscéim Dance Theatre, Dublin.

Santo Loquasto (Principal Set & Costume Designer) is known as a designer for theater, film, dance, and opera. His work in New York theater won him Tony and Drama Desk Awards for his set design of Café Crown in 1989, his costume design for The Cherry Orchard in 1977 and Grand Hotel in 1990, and an additional 15 Tony nominations. He has collaborated with Woody Allen on 30 films. He received Academy Award nominations for production design for Radio Days and Bullets Over Broadway and for costume design for Zelig. Mr. Loquasto has worked with most major international dance companies and has collaborated with Mark Morris, Jerome Robbins, Glen Tetley, Helgi Thomasson, Agnes de Mille, James Kudelka, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Dana Reitz, Lila York, Alexei Ratmansky and Twyla Tharp. For the Taylor Company, he has designed costumes and/or sets for 52 of Mr. Taylor’s works. Recent New York designs include Fences, The Assembled Parties, Bullets Over Broadway, A Delicate Balance, and Shuffle Along. He received the Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration in 2002, was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2004, and received the Pennsylvania Governor’s Award for the Arts in 2006, the Robert L.B. Tobin Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2007 and the Breukelein Institute Gaudium Awards 2013.

Alex Katz (Principal Set & Costume Designer) was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Queens, and studied at Cooper Union and The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In the early 1960s, influenced by films, television, and billboard advertising, he began painting large-scale works, often with dramatically cropped faces. In the years following, he began alternating these with large-scale environmental landscapes. His paintings have been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions, including museum exhibitions in New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Seoul, and Madrid.

In 2022, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York presented a seven-decade overview of Katz’s career, filling the entire Frank Lloyd Wright structure and, in 2024, the Museum of Modern Art in New York presented Alex Katz : Seasons, an exhibition of the artist’s recent environmental paintings. In October 2026, The Musée Matisse in Nice will present Henri Matisse – Alex Katz The Silence of Painting.

Katz began designing sets and costumes for choreographer Paul Taylor in the early 1960’s, and has collaborated on the productions of Meridian; Scudorama; Private Domain; Sunset; Lost, Found and Lost; and Last Look, among others.

William Ivey Long (Principal Costume Designer) For Paul Taylor, William has designed Concertiana, The Open Door, Equinox, …Byzantium, Roses, Kith and Kin, and Danbury Mix. William is currently represented on Broadway, on tour, or internationally by Chicago (now in its 30^th year on Broadway!) and Beetlejuice: The Musical. In addition to his countless design credits for opera, ballet, modern dance, theatre, television, and film, he has been nominated for 18 Tony® Awards, winning 6 times. He was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2005. www.williamiveylong.com

Brandon Sterling Baker (Lighting Designer) is a Tony Award-nominated lighting designer working internationally. His work can be seen on many of the world’s most celebrated stages, including Broadway, Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, New York City Ballet, Paris Opera, Australian Ballet, Hong Kong Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Park Avenue Armory, San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Houston Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet. Baker’s collaborations include over 30 premieres for choreographer Justin Peck and extensive designs for William Forsythe, Jamar Roberts, Pam Tanowitz, and Tiler Peck. Baker received a Tony Award nomination for his lighting of ILLINOISE on Broadway, a Knight of Illumination Award for his work in ballet, and Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, and Outer Critics Circle nominations for his work in theatre.

Mark Eric (Set & Costume Designer) is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area and now resides in New York City, where he designs costumes and made-to-order creations. He trained as a fashion designer at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where he was recognized as the Critics’ Choice among his graduating class. After years of designing in the New York City fashion industry, he discovered his passion for costuming and started his eponymous studio MARK ERIC design in 2017, where he focuses on designing and styling for the stage.

Mark Eric is a New York City-based theater creative whose work has appeared on stages around the world. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, he trained at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Following a successful career in fashion design, he founded MARK ERIC design in 2017, focusing on costume design for dance and live performance.

Mark Eric has collaborated with an acclaimed roster of choreographers, including Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Amy Hall Garner, Sidra Bell, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Gustavo Ramírez Sansano, Lauren Lovette, Jamar Roberts, Robert Battle, Rennie Harris, and Marguerite Donlon, among others. His designs have been featured by leading companies such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Houston Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Paul Taylor Dance Company, BalletX, Ballet Hispánico, Hubbard Street Dance and the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company.

Mark Eric has recently expanded his creative practice to include set design and fine art, extending his distinctive visual language beyond costume into broader theatrical and artistic environments.

Sarah Crowner (Set Designer) works across a variety of media (painting, sculpture, installation, and set design). Her art points to an expanded field of painting, investigating the relationship between the element and the whole, and how parts build an entirety. Crowner’s recent solo exhibitions were held at the Bass Museum of Art (2025), SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, (2025), Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri, USA, Hill Art Foundation, New York, USA (2023) and The Instituto Bardi / Casa de Vidro & auroras, São Paulo, Brazil (2023); as well as a site specific installation at the Chianti Foundation in Marfa, Texas in 2022, a participation in the 57th Edition of Carnegie International (2018); and a solo exhibition at MASS MoCA, North Adams (2016). Crowner’s work has also been featured in a number of group exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial 2010, New York; Abstract Generation: Now in Print, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013); Painter Painter, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2013); and the Carnegie International Exhibition, 57th Edition (2018).

Harriet Jung and Reid Bartelme (Costume Designers) met in 2009 while pursuing fashion design degrees at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. They began designing collaboratively in 2011 and have focused their practice primarily on costuming dance. They frequently design costumes for works by Pam Tanowitz, Kyle Abraham, and Justin Peck. They have devised costume centric performances for commissions from the Museum of Art and Design and Guggenheim Works & Process in New York City, and have designed costumes for Broadway shows ILLINOISE (2024) and Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ (2023). Reid and Harriet have completed research fellowships at NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Anne Patterson (Set & Costume Designer) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Her body of work consists of theater design and direction, paintings, sculptures, and installations. As a synesthete (when she hears sound, she sees color and shape), Patterson seeks to create an experience where viewers’ senses can overlap, producing a constructed synesthesia. She is known for her large-scale immersive installations.

Anne’s theatrical and symphonic partnerships have included major venues across the United States: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Arena Stage, the Wilma Theater, the Kennedy Center, Alliance Theater, and orchestras throughout the country (Atlanta, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle). Her work has been exhibited at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida, at Sarasota Art Museum and at the Trapholt Museum in Denmark. Her installations have hung in Grace Cathedral (San Francisco), the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (New York), at Milan Fashion Week in collaboration with Zegna, and at Capital One World Headquarters in Virginia. She is the recipient of multiple CODA awards as well as a 2008 Creative Capital Award. She is a graduate of Yale University (BA in Architecture) and the Slade School of Art in London (MFA in Theater Design). She is a fellow of the Hermitage Artist’s Retreat.

VIOLIN

Krista Bennion Feeney has enjoyed an unusually varied career much in demand as a soloist, chamber musician, music director, and concertmaster. Krista has been a member of the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble (serving for eight years as director of chamber music) and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s since 1983, where she performs frequently in the roles of concertmaster and violin soloist. She is currently involved in rediscovering and reviving a musical sound world from the past as the founding first violinist of the Serenade Orchestra and Quartet, playing music of the late-18th and early-19th centuries on historic instruments with original instrumental configurations. From 1999-2006, she was the music director of the unconducted New Century Chamber Orchestra based in San Francisco.

She has made several solo appearances with the San Francisco Symphony (making her debut in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in e minor at age 15), with the St. Louis Symphony, the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra in the world premiere of SolTierraLuna (a concerto written for her by Terry Riley), the Mostly Mozart Festival, and the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and at the Kennedy Center, in addition to several historic instrument ensembles.

Highlights of the 2016-2017 season included performances of Lou Harrison’s Suite for Violin and American Gamelan, in which The New York Times review stated “…the violinist Krista Bennion Feeney spun out beguiling figurations and subtle melodic twists…” and Nardini’s e minor violin concerto and Paganini’s La Campanella on historic violin with the American Classical Orchestra. Of her performance in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, she was described by The Times as “…the superb violin soloist…”

She is the founding first violinist of the DNA Quintet, Loma Mar Quartet, and Ridge String Quartet (1979-1991), which, along with pianist Rudolf Firkusny, won the Diapason d’Or and a Grammy Award nomination in 1992 for its RCA recording of Dvorak’s Piano Quintets. The DNA Quintet, comprised of the Loma Mar Quartet with the addition of bassist John Feeney, has released world-premiere recordings of string quartets and quintets of Domenico Dragonetti on historic instruments to critical and popular acclaim, bringing this uniquely beautiful music to light after being hidden for more than 165 years in the British Library. The Loma Mar Quartet has also recorded original works written for the ensemble by Paul McCartney for EMI, and its members were recently featured as soloists in Arnold Schoenberg’s Concerto for Quartet and Orchestra with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, and with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s for Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance performances. Krista studied violin with Anthony Doheny, then Isadore Tinkleman and Stuart Canin at the San Francisco Conservatory, working later at the Curtis Institute with Jaime Laredo, Felix Galimer and Mischa Schneider.

In May 2014, The Times praised Krista’s playing of a violin sonata by Jean-Marie Leclair saying: “Her deep notes were rich and melancholy … there was a tender exuberance in both tumbles of notes and sustained phrases … a dramatic interplay of ferocity and light slyness.”

A native of San Diego, violinist Alex U Fortes is recognized for his versatility and warmth. Recent orchestral and chamber music performances have included concerts throughout Europe, Indonesia, South America, and North America with groups such as the Henschel, Dalí, Amphion, Attacca, Argus, Franklin, and Momenta Quartets; Toomai String Quintet, the Knights, A Far Cry, Quodlibet Ensemble, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. His playing is featured on A Far Cry’s 2014 and 2018 Grammy-nominated albums, as well as on Law of Mosaics, which The New Yorker’s Alex Ross hailed as one of the top ten albums of 2014. Fortes has performed frequently with OSL since 2010.

Emma Frucht

Laura Lutzke earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Juilliard School and a Master of Music with Distinction from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Since 2006, she has participated in festivals throughout the US, Europe, the UK, and Asia, including Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove, Big Ears, Classical Tahoe, Musikfest Bremen, Beethovenfest Bonn, Dark Mofo, Enescu Festival, SXSW, and Festival Berlioz. She collaborates regularly with diverse artists and ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, American Classical Orchestra, Berkshire Bach Society, Beirut, Björk, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Gabriel Kahane, the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, The Knights, Max Richter, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Paul McCartney, The Metropolitan Opera, The National, Roomful of Teeth, Seraphic Fire, Sigur Rós, and Theatre of Voices. She is currently a member of the critically-acclaimed American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) and Leader of Teatro Nuovo, Wordless Music Orchestra, and Co-Leader of Le Cercle de l’Harmonie classical orchestra in France.

VIOLA

David Cerutti

Called “intense, precise, and full of personality,” Caeli Smith is one of New York City’s most sought-after chamber musicians and educators. She is a member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and has performed with these groups across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
Known among students and colleagues for her exuberance and curiosity, Caeli (pronounced “Chay-lee”) is on the faculty of Bard College and Conservatory, Montclair State University, the Heifetz International Music Institute, and Kinhaven Music School. Caeli holds a bachelor’s degree in violin performance and a master’s degree in viola
performance from The Juilliard School. Upon graduating, she received the William Schuman Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music. She holds a Masters in Education from Harvard, with a concentration in Arts and Learning. Caeli is an alum of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect.

New York City–based Venezuelan violist Ramón Carrero-Martínez is a versatile orchestral musician, chamber musician, and educator whose work spans a wide range of musical settings. He is a recently appointed member of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and New Jersey Symphony, and performs regularly with ensembles including The Philadelphia Orchestra, New York City Ballet, and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. A former member of the award-winning Terra String Quartet, he has performed extensively throughout the United States and internationally. His work has been recognized with prizes at the Fischoff, Melbourne, and Osaka International Chamber Music Competitions. ramoncarreromartinez.com

CELLO

Myron Lutzke

Daire FitzGerald

FLUTE

Elizabeth Mann

OBOE

Melanie Feld

HARP

Victoria Drake has been an active freelance harpist in New York for over 40 years. She performs regularly with the American Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and for over 20 years has been 2 nd harp and principal sub at the New York City Ballet. She has worked with American Ballet Theatre, American Symphony, Bard Music Festival, New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York Pops, and Orpheus. She was acting principal harpist with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra from 2008-2018. Tori has made four solo recordings. She was featured at the 2014 World Harp Congress in Sydney, Australia, and presented a solo recital at the 2017 World Harp Congress in Hong Kong. More information is available at www.victoriadrake.com