Eleanor Blake 

    Eleanor Blake studied ‘cello at The Boston Conservatory with Ronald Feldman (Boston Symphony Orchestra) and Andrew Mark (Boston Pops).  It was there that she received the Susan Glover Hitchcock Award for excellence in musical academics (2000-2002) and a yearly scholarship from The Boston Conservatory.

    During and after graduation, Blake studied ‘cello with Alexander Baillie (Bremen Conservatory, Germany) and Mark Johnson (Vermeer Quartet), orchestral performance with Mihail Jojatu and Sato Knudsen (Boston Symphony Orchestra), and Alan Stepansky (New York Philharmonic), and participated in master classes with members of the Julliard String Quartet and Steven Doane, while her chamber coaches have included Joel Krosnick, and Claude Frank and Pamela Frank.  Eleanor has held fellowships with the Tanglewood Music Center and The Manchester Music Festival (Vermont), in addition to participating in Festival de Violoncelle des Cote des Isles (Normandy, France) and the American Institute for Musical Studies (Graz, Austria).

    Currently a member of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, The Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra, and The Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra, Eleanor Blake has played under the baton of international conductors like James Levine, Andre Previn, Raphael Frühbeck De Burgos, Bernard Haitink, Oliver Knussen, and Sir Andrew Davis, and has worked with international soloists like 'cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Emanuel Ax, violinist Joshua Bell, and soprano Renée Fleming.  In addition she has performed with Rhode Island Philharmonic, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.  Past orchestral positions have included the National Lyric Opera of New York, the New England String Ensemble, and New Bedford Symphony.  She has been a guest artist with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and the Lyra Summer Music Festival (Vermont). 

Jacques Lee Wood

Noted for his fluency of playing, and expressive warmth, sensitivity, and technical ease (Boston Musical Intelligencer, Melrose Free Press), cellist Jacques Lee Wood enjoys an active and varied musical career.  His passion for teaching and research complements a performance career that explores a broad range of interests: from historically informed performance on baroque cello, commissioning and performing new works on modern and baroque cello, to playing bluegrass banjo, mandolin, and cello with his NYC-based group Cathedral Parkway. Deeply committed to seeking out new areas in music to explore, Wood is a founding member of the Boston-based Antico Moderno, a period chamber ensemble that commissions new works for period instruments and StringLab, a duo with guitarist Simon Powis that produces original arrangements/compositions and commissions new works for the ensemble.  Wood is currently the Artistic Director of Music at Eden’s Edge, a nonprofit chamber music organization based on Boston’s North Shore, and is a principal player with the Grammy-nominated Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Bachsolisten Seoul, the American Baroque Orchestra, and is a guest artist with A Far Cry, Yale Schola Cantorum, Bach Collegium Japan, Firebird Ensemble, and Handel and Haydn Society.  Since 2014, Wood has been a visiting artist at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and is a frequent guest artist at the Great Mountains Festival (South Korea), Korea Strings Research Institute, Bari International Music Festival, International Musical Arts Institute, and the Manchester Summer Chamber Music Festival.  Dr. Wood holds a BM from the New England Conservatory of Music and a MM and DMA from Yale University.