Jim Bates began performing with The Early Interval in 2002. Before moving to Columbus, he was on the faculty of the University of Louisville School of Music, he was Music Director of the Louisville Youth Orchestra, and he directed the Louisville Mandolin Orchestra. Dr. Bates is currently Director of Orchestral Activities at Otterbein University, Principal Bass and Assistant Conductor of the Westerville Symphony and Assistant Conductor of the Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestra’s Repertory Orchestra. Dr. Bates joined the conducting staff of the Interlochen Center for the Arts in 1999 and has served as guest conductor or clinician throughout the United States. Dr. Bates serves on the national board of The Classical Mandolin Society of America. He is also honored to serve on the board of the Friends of Early Music in Columbus. While pursuing a master's degree in double bass at Indiana University, he was active in the Early Music Institute and studied with Stanley Ritchie, Thomas Binkley and Wendy Gillespie.  He also participated in the Early Music Ensemble at the University of Louisville, working closely with its director, Jack Ashworth. He received his Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Kentucky in 2002.  

Sean Ferguson has been performing with The Early Interval since 2009. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music history from The Ohio State University and a Master of Library Science degree from Kent State University. In Philadelphia, he studied guitar at the University of the Arts and was a winner of the WFLN Radio Instrumentalists Competition. He has performed extensively on guitar and lute as a soloist, accompanist, chamber musician and orchestra member, including productions for Opera Columbus, Columbus Dance Theatre, The Magpie Consort, The Ohio State University, Otterbein University, Denison University, and Ohio Wesleyan University. His Baroque opera continuo experience includes work with lutenist-conductors Lyle Nordstrom and Lucas Harris. As a librarian, he has worked at OCLC Online Computer Library Center and The Ohio State University Music & Dance Library. He is President of the Columbus Guitar Society.

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Harris Ipock serves as Director of Choral Activities at Denison University. He has previously served as conductor of the Conservatory Choir at Shenandoah Conservatory, the Harvard Glee Club at Harvard University, and has conducted choral ensembles at Boston University, Clayton State University, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. In addition to his teaching schedule, Harris enjoys an active career as a soloist and professional chorister. As a member of Conspirare, he served as a section leader on the GRAMMY winning album Sacred Spirit of Russia. He has also appeared with Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Yale Choral Artists, Publick Musick, Cambridge Concentus, La Donna Musicale, Voices, Vox Lumine, Virginia Chorale, Norfolk Chamber Consort, and North Carolina Symphony Baroque Choir. His credits as a soloist include Dover Beach (Victoria Bach Festival), St. Matthew Passion (Conspirare), Monteverdi’s Vespers (Cambridge Concentus), JS Bach’s Magnificat (Back Bay Chorale), and Haydn’s Paukenmesse (Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus). Harris recently served as choirmaster for Odyssey Opera’s debut performance of Wagner’s Rienzi, and held the Male Choir Chair of the Massachusetts ACDA. Harris holds a DMA in choral conducting from Eastman School of Music, MM degrees in choral conducting and vocal performance from East Carolina University, and BM and BA degrees in vocal performance and economics from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

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With a specialty in the fusing of multiple styles and cultures, Joseph Krygier utilizes his background in classical, world, commercial and electronic percussion to create a sound that is uniquely his own. He received his undergraduate degree from the Eastman School of Music and his Masters degree in performance from Northwestern University. In addition to his position as Senior Lecturer in percussion at The Ohio State University School of Music, Krygier is a percussion accompanist with the OSU Department of Dance where he plays hand percussion and drum set for modern dance classes. Additionally, he has worked as a dance accompanist at the BalletMet Youth Academy, Interlochen Center for the Arts Summer Camp and at Ohio Wesleyan University. As a composer, Krygier has written works for percussion solo, duo and quintet, in addition to creating music for modern dance performance. Krygier spent four years as a member of the United States Air Force Academy Band (formerly the Band of the Rockies) in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he was a member of the concert band, Blue Steel (rock band), Wild Blue Country, and Stellar Brass Quintet. He was a featured marimba soloist with the concert band on one of their many tours across the country and frequently performed solo pieces on community chamber series. Additionally, he has performed with the Columbus Symphony, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic and the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound. He was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago-the training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony-and performed with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Maestro Daniel Barenboim. Krygier is an educational endorser for Grover Pro Percussion and Zildjian cymbals.

Elizabeth McConnaughey hails from Columbus, Ohio and has a passion for Baroque and early music literature, having performed the roles of Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Second Midwife in Play of Herod, the title role of Thisbe in Lampe's Pyramus and Thisbe, and covering the role of Damon Handel’s Acis and Galatea. Additionally, she has maintained a strong interest in new music and had the pleasure of premiering three characters from Chappell Kingsland’s commissioned opera for young audiences, The Firebringers, while completing her Master’s degree at Indiana University. Ms. McConnaughey maintains an active performance schedule in central Ohio working with Opera Project Columbus, The Early Interval, Lancaster Chorale, and First Congregational Church.

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Justin Meyer has pursued a freelance professional choral singing career for over a decade. Justin started his choral training as a tenor in the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, singing under the direction of Richard Marlow and Stephen Layton. Justin has performed and recorded with other award-winning groups, such as the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, Conspirare, Resonance Ensemble, and Lancaster Chorale. Justin is a published social scientist and urban planning scholar. He leads research as a co-principal investigator on two National Science Foundation grants, and has the position of Senior Lecturer in City and Regional Planning at Ohio State University. Justin holds degrees from the University of Cambridge (MPhil), Stanford University (BSE), and received his PhD and Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Michigan.

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Soprano Emily Noël concertizes throughout North America and Europe in a wide variety of repertory expanding from the medieval to the contemporary. Highlights of recent seasons include Davenant’s Macbeth at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, The Merchant of Venice with the Gabrieli Consort at the Wanamaker Theatre at Shakespeare's Globe in London, and Measure + Dido with the Folger Consort at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington DC, where she played Mariana opposite Derek Jacobi's Angelo. Other stage credits include Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto with Ente Concerti Città di Iglesias, and Nora in Vaughn Williams' Riders to the Sea at the Amsterdam Grachtenfestival. Past performances include engagements with The Folger Concert, Mountainside Baroque, and an outreach for the Santa Fe Opera Guild with early music ensemble Severall Friends. Ms. Noël serves on the faculty of Denison University, where she teaches applied voice.

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Costa Rican Baroque violinist and Columbus resident Guillermo Salas-Suárez holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Historical Performance from Case Western Reserve University, where he studied with Dr. Julie Andrijeski. In demand as a period player, he performs with several ensembles, including the Lyra and Atlanta Baroque Orchestras, Apollo’s Fire, The Newberry Consort, Lumedia MusicWorks, Bach Collegium Fort Wayne, and conducts workshops and lectures across the Americas.

Guillermo’s chamber music appetite spans from the Renaissance and early Baroque, which he explores with The Early Interval, up to the Classical and early Romantic repertoire for string quartet and clarinet with Wit’s Folly, which he co-founded. He has collaborated and trained with Malcolm Bilson, Paolo Pandolfo, Jaap ten Linden, Barthold Kuijken, Bruce Dickey, and the late Jeanne Lamon at the early music festivals in Boston, Bloomington, Amherst, Bach Oregon, Urbino (Italy), Daroca (Spain), Saintes (France), and the Stuttgart Bachwoche (Germany). As a scholar of Spanish and colonial music, he has presented his research in conferences at Boston, Indiana, and Oregon Universities, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His upcoming book for Indiana University Press translates and discusses Spanish violin treatises from the 18th century. As an educator, Guillermo is committed to the advancement of historical performance practice in Latin America. He is on the faculty at the Festival de Musica de Santa Catarina (Brazil), and has given masterclasses at the Academia de Música Antigua de Medellín (Colombia), and Instituto Nacional de Música (Costa Rica).

Guillermo started music lessons at age nine in his native Costa Rica, where he studied with Lidia Blanco, Mercedes Moreno and José Aurelio Castillo. Before switching to Baroque, he studied in the US and Bulgaria with Dr. Borislava Iltcheva, Aleksandr Iltchev, Espen Lilleslåtten, and Dr. Lin He. He shared the stage with conductors and soloists Manfred Honeck, Robert Spano, Yefim Bronfman, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Midori, Lang Lang, and Renée Fleming at the Aspen Music Festival, Severance Hall, Sala São Paulo (Brazil), and the National Theatres of Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, and Honduras. He performed with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, CityMusic Cleveland, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional and Orquesta Sinfónica de Heredia (Costa Rica). He currently serves in Early Music America’s IDEA Task Force, dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion in early music throughout the Americas. Upcoming engagements include appearances with SoundSalon, North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, and The American Baroque Opera Company. He plays on an instrument by Jason Viseltear and bows by Michelle Speller, H.F. Grabenstein, Pieter Affourtit, and James Dodd II. Outside of music, Guillermo enjoys literature, learning languages, and practicing yoga.

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A Columbus native, David Stefano is currently on the faculty of Otterbein University, co-directing the Otterbein Early Music Ensemble. He holds degrees in bassoon performance from Indiana University, under the tutelage of Kim Walker, and earned his PhD in Early Music from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Australia). David previously taught at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts and coached ensembles at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. David has performed locally as a recorder soloist, and as a bassoonist with Ohio Capital Winds, the Newark-Granville Symphony Orchestra, and the Westerville Symphony. He has also performed internationally with ensembles such as Latitude 37 and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, among others. David joined The Early Interval in 2019.  

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Alexandra Vargo hails from central Ohio. She was a violinist in the Westerville Symphony for seven years and has performed with the Early Interval since 2015. She earned a music performance degree from Otterbein University, after which she opened a music lessons company entitled Dynamic Studios, Inc. She has participated in performance tours of Italy, China, Estonia and Canada.