“An early music group with an avant-garde appetite.” —The New York Times

About the Program
Winds of Change: Featuring music by Bologne, Haydn, Boscha, and Guillaume

About Les Délices

Les Délices (pronounced Lay day-lease) delights, inspires, educates, and expands audiences for music on period instruments through innovative programming and world class performances. With deep roots in our Northeast Ohio community, Les Délices is building a national reputation as a leader in the field of early music, advancing its relevance and sustainability by welcoming collaboration, embracing digital media, and proactively working to support diversity and inclusion among our peers and repertoire.

Founded by baroque oboist Debra Nagy in 2009, Les Délices has established a reputation for their unique programs that are “thematically concise, richly expressive, and featuring composers few people have heard of.” The New York Times added, “Concerts and recordings by Les Délices are journeys of discovery.” The group’s debut CD was named one of the “Top Ten Early Music Discoveries of 2009” (NPR’s Harmonia), and their performances have been called “a beguiling experience” (Cleveland Plain Dealer), “astonishing” (ClevelandClassical.com), and “first class” (Early Music America Magazine).

The Artists of Les Délices

Debra Nagy has been deemed an artist “of consummate taste and expressivity” (Cleveland Plain Dealer). She has acquired a reputation for creating fascinating and inviting concert experiences through her work with chamber ensemble Les Délices, and she plays principal oboe with Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society, Apollo’s Fire, and many other ensembles. Inspired by a creative process that brings together research, composition in historical styles, improvisation, and artistic collaboration, Debra creates programs that “can’t help but getting one listening and thinking in fresh ways” (San Francisco Classical Voice).

Historical flutist Emi Ferguson plays principal flute with the Handel and Haydn Society, and is a frequent guest artist with period-instrument ensembles such as Tafelmusik and Les Délices. She can also be heard with period-instrument groups including Voices of Music, the American Classical Orchestra, and Trinity Baroque Orchestra. She was the only flutist accepted to Juilliard’s inaugural Historical Performance class, and has performed alongside William Christie and Les Arts Florrisants, and with Christophe Hammer, Massaki Suzuki, Christopher Hogwood, and Nicholas McGegan.

Violinist Shelby Yamin brings signature vivacity to performances across the globe, from the historic state rooms of George Washington’s Mount Vernon to the storied chapel at Versailles. Equally adept on modern and baroque violin, Shelby has appeared as a soloist with Philharmonia Baroque Chamber Players, New York Baroque Incorporated, the San Francisco Academy Orchestra, Tafelmusik Winter Institute, and as guest concertmaster of the 2019 Berwick Academy of the Oregon Bach Festival. Also an active chamber musician, she regularly collaborates with a wide range of New York-based ensembles and Cleveland’s Les Délices.

An early music specialist, Allison Monroe performs on Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical violin and viola, viols, vielle, rebec, medieval harp, and sings. Her performing credits include concerts with the Newberry Consort, the Boston Camerata, Apollo’s Fire, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Les Délices, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Oregon Bach Festival’s Berwick Academy, the Washington Bach Consort, Bourbon Baroque, Alkemie, and the Brecon Baroque Festival Orchestra.

Cellist and gambist Rebecca Landell Reed’s “luminous” (Cleveland.com) and “notable” (The New York Times) sound elicits a range of expression “from classically evocative to Hitchcock horrifying” (Washingtonian). She enjoys a varied performing career as a soloist and chamber musician with groups like Apollo’s Fire and Les Délices, as well as collaborating with a variety of artists creating experimental programs. She can be heard on recordings with Les Délices, Three Notch’d Road, and Apollo’s Fire, including the 2019 GRAMMY® Award winning recording Songs of Orpheus. Rebecca is a professor at Oberlin Conservatory, where she teaches cello and viola da gamba.