BRENT WISSICK (violoncello and viola da gamba) performs with many of America's premiere early music ensembles including the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Chanterelle in Boston, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Folger Consort in Washington DC, Dallas Bach Society, Concert Royal in New York, Portland Baroque Orchestra, and Collegio di Musica Sacra in Poland. A graduate of the Crane School of Music at Potsdam College, NY and Penn State University (MM violoncello, 1978) he also studied with John Hsu at Cornell University and was an NEH Fellow at Harvard in the 1993 Beethoven Quartet Seminar. He has taught at the College of St Scholastica in Minnesota (1978-82), Chautauqua Institution, and the 1997 Aston Magna Academy at Yale. He is currently President of the Viola da Gamba Society of America. He has taught cello and chamber music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 1982, including string quartets, trios, baroque ensembles, ‘cello choir, and viol consorts. He also teaches the string methods classes for music education students and a first-year seminar on the Physics of Music. Mr Wissick has a special interest in music, instruments, and performance practices of the 17th and 18th centuries, but also gives regular performances of 20th century works such as the Britten Suites as well as 19th century variations on opera melodies by cellist composers. A founder of the UNC faculty group Ensemble Courant, his concerts and teaching have taken him throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. He can be heard on several record labels including Koch International, Albany, and Titanic.