This recital for Two Violas d'Amore and Harpsichord features such famous pieces as Partia VII for Two Violas d’Amore and Basso by Biber. The audience will also have a rare opportunity to hear lesser-known compositions by Franz Simon Schuchbauer, Anton Huberty, and Henri Casadesus. Elena Kraineva (viola d’amore) and Michael Unger (harpsichord) will be joined by guest artist Thomas Georgi (Toronto, Canada; viola d’amore).

Tickets are not required for this event.

Elena Kraineva holds a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University where she studied with Atar Arad and Stanley Ritchie. She actively performs internationally and in the US as a soloist on the viola d’amore and modern viola with various chamber music groups, including Harmonie Universelle (USA), Musical Offering and Duo Vitruviani. She also appeared as a soloist with Soli Deo Gloria Bach Project with conductor John Nelson. Her recording of the trio sonatas by Graupner with Harmonie Universelle (USA) was released in 2016. Dr. Kraineva studied with Michael Kimber (USA), Michael Terian and Giorgy Bezrukov (Moscow) and holds her Bachelor of Music Degree from the Glinka Conservatory where she studied with Yuri Mazchenko. She is a winner of the Moscow Viola Competition and performed solo recitals in the Grand Hall of the Gnesin Institute and Glinka Museum in Moscow. She was a concertmistress with the Moscow Ensemble of Violists, a principal violist with Topeca Symphony, Lawrence Chamber Players. An active educator, Dr. Kraineva has given masterclasses in the US, Austria, Canada, Brazil, and Russia.

After studying at Cornell University and SUNY at Stony Brook, Thomas Georgi moved to Australia, where he was a violinist in the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. Since moving to Canada to join Tafelmusik in 1989, he has broadened his musical horizons to include the viola d’amore, performing on that instrument all over as often as possible and not often enough! His website,  www.violadamore.com , promotes a wider understanding of the instrument.

Hailed for his “broad musicianship and superb technical mastery” (The American Organist), Canadian-born Michael Unger is a multiple award-winning performer who appears as a soloist, orchestral and chamber musician in North America, Europe, Japan, and South Korea. Since 2013, he is Associate Professor of Organ and Harpsichord at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He is a First Prize and Audience Prize winner of the National Young Artists’ Competition of the American Guild of Organists (NYACOP), a First Prize winner of the International Organ Competition Musashino-Tokyo, and a Second Prize and Audience Award winner of the International Schnitger Organ Competition on the historic organs of Alkmaar, the Netherlands. Recent solo recitals include performances for national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, Organ Historical Society, and Historical Keyboard Society of North America; ‘Five Continents – Five Organists’ Festival at Sejong Center, Seoul, South Korea; International Festival of Organ, Choral and Chamber Music Gdańsk, Poland; Internationale Orgelwoche Nürnberg – Musica Sacra; and numerous international and regional recital series. Harpsichord and organ collaborations include Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Opera, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Vocal Arts Ensemble, Collegium Cincinnati, Incantare and Publick Musick.He holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts with Performers’ Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, and is also a Gold Medal graduate of the University of Western Ontario. Formerly the Director of Music at the Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word in Rochester, New York, he currently serves as organist of Cincinnati’s historic Isaac M. Wise – Plum Street Temple, and is a volunteer chorister in the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal), Cincinnati.