Con Gioia has featured such internationally renowned musicians as violinists Eduard Melkus, Monica Huggett, Daniel Stepner, Elizabeth Blumenstock and Greg Maldonado; flutists John Solum and Stephen Schultz; recorder player Mathias Maute; viola da gambists, Wieland Kuijken, Laura Jeppesen, and Mark Chatfield; oboist Gonzalo X. Ruiz; sopranos Julianne Baird and Sharon Baker; glass harmonicist Dennis James and others.

Suzanna Giordano Gignac, (Baroque viola) Co-Director of Angeles Consort is a NY native.  She studied violin at the Hartt School of Music with Renato Bonacini and then CSUN with Kathleen Lenski and Manuel Compinsky earning a Bachelor of Music degree cum laud.  She later continued her studies on viola with  Alan de Veritch. As a soloist, Suzanna has appeared with the Santa Monica; Calabasas; and Saddleback Chamber Orchestras.  Her love for early music brought her to study with Elizabeth Blumenstock, Manfredo Kraemer and Simon Standage and play under the directorship of Rachel Podger and Andrew Manze.  Suzanna performs with Musica Angelica, Los Angeles Baroque Orch., Bach Collegium San Diego, Los Angeles Bach Society, Vox Profundis and Santa Fe Pro Musica (all as Principal Viola); has soloed with Musica Angelica and has appeared with Camerata Pacifica, Texas Early Music Project, Concerto Pacifica and the San Francisco Bach Choir Orch.   She has performed in many early music festivals including Germany’s Tage Alter Musik Regensberg, England’s Brighton Early Music Festival , CA’s Corona del Mar Bach Festival; San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival and Texas’  Victoria Bach Festival.  Ms. Gignac is married to chef Jean-Luc Gignac and mom to 6 year old son Luca!  Ms. Gignac performs on a 1784 Leopold Widhalm viola.

Puerto Rican baritone, Abdiel González, has been praised for his “rich, lush baritone” and for having a “superb voice, which commanded the stage.”  Most recently Mr. Gonzalez was excited to make his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic this March as a soloist in Stravinsky’s Renard under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen.  Roles performed include Mercutio in Roméo et Julliette, Shrike in the West Coast Premiere of Miss Lonelyhearts, Athanaël in Thaïs, Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor, Pandolfe in Cendrillon, Morales in Carmen, Guglielmo in Cosí fan Tutte, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, King Melchior in Amahl and the Night Visitors, Ko-Ko in The Mikado, The Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, and Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. Mr. Gonzalez is proud to have performed lead roles in three Zarzuelas, an art form which he loves dearly.  These include the title role in Luis Alonso, Paquiro in Goyescas and Don Pedro in El Barberillo de Lavapies.  The concert stage has seen him as a soloist in Händel’s Messiah, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Fauré's Requiem, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, Haydn’s Creation, Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in c minor, Bach's St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion, Vaughn William’s Fantasia on Christmas Carols and Five Mystical Songs, Lizst’s Via Crucis, Brahms’ Requiem, and Britten’s War Requiem.  He was a first place winner in the San Diego District of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions as well as in the Opera 100 Competition.  He recently created the role of Frank Shabata in the World Premiere of a new Opera, Marie’s Orchard this past June with Center Stage Opera.  Upcoming engagements include singing the role of Arman Fleuri in the world premiere of Shostakovich’s newly discovered unfinished opera Orango with the Los Angeles Philarmonic under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen as well as being the Bass soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Los Angeles Master Chorale last December.

Janet Worsley-Strauss enjoys an active career as a baroque violinist.  Her performances have been called “virtuoso”, “pristine and crystalline, while fully infused with 18th century accents of passion”.  As a leading violinist in Los Angeles, she has appeared with the Los Angeles Opera, and Los Angeles Master Chorale; and is a principal member of Los Angeles-based Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra.  She often appears with American Bach Soloists, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Bach Collegium San Diego, and San Francisco Bach Choir where she has worked with Monica Huggett, Eric Milnes, Reinhard Goebel, Paul Goodwin, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Alex Weimann, and Richard Egarr.  Ms. Strauss has performed with Trinity Consort (Portland, OR), Musica Pacifica, Magnificat, Camerata Pacifica, and Galanterie.  She has performed at the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, Tage Alte Musik Regensberg, Brighton Early Music Festival, Renaissance and Baroque Society Pittsburgh, and Corona del Mar Bach Festival.  She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in performance from the University of Southern California.  She is co-founder of the Los Angeles-based chamber ensemble Angeles Consort, and teaches privately in the Los Angeles area.  Ms. Strauss has recorded for Koch, Centaur, and Loft Recordings.

Acclaimed as "one of the greatest singers of his generation" (Toronto Globe and Mail), Michael Maniaci has been praised for hisrare, thrilling voice and sensational stage presence.  Mr. Maniaci "possesses a remarkable voice, that marries trumpeting high notes with a warm and supple middle voice and secure bottom" (Washington Post).  He is lauded for "his natural male soprano [that] is probably the closest thing on earth to the sound of the castrati of long ago, and he uses it with a finesse that’s rare among singers so young." (Toronto Globe and Mail).  Following his overwhelming success as Tirinto in Chistopher Alden's staging of Handel's Imeneo for Glimmerglass Opera, Anthony Tomossini stated in the New York Times, "The amazing male soprano Michael Maniaci [is] headed for a major career." In January 2010, he released his first solo album of Mozart Arias for Telarc, which included Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and arias from Lucio Silla, La clemenza di Tito, and Idomeneo with Boston Baroque, and debuted at # 13 on the US Billboard Charts. Future engagements include Unsuk Chin's Cantatrix Sopranica with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and tours of Madame Whitesnake to Beijing International Music Festival and Singapore.

Based in London, Rohan de Saram was, for over twenty years, the 'cellist of the Arditti Quartet, renowned as Europe's leading champions of contemporary music for string quartet. In 2005, Mr. de Saram resumed his solo career, in order once more to perform repertoire from the baroque, classical, romantic, and contemporary periods. Although he has been more recently known as an outstanding performer of contemporary music, it was as a classical artist that Rohan de Saram earlier gained recognition. Having studied 'cello from the age of 11 with Gaspar Cassado in Italy in Siena and Florence, he was awarded, at the age of 17, the coveted Suggia award to study in the UK with Sir John Barbirolli and in Puerto Rico with Pablo Casals--the most renowned 'cellist of the twentieth century. In 1957 Rohan de Saram was invited to give his Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Philharmonic, playing Khatchaturian's Cello Concerto.

"There are few of his generation that have such gifts."--Pablo Casals
"de Saram is a Cello Phenomenon, one of the greatest cellists of our time."--Kölnische Rundschau, Germany

Rohan de Saram has performed with the major orchestras of Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, and the former Soviet Union with conductors such as John Barbirolli, Adrian Boult, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa and William Steinberg, as well as with composers conducting their own works such as Luciano Berio. De Saram has an impressive discography with numerous recordings on labels such as Sony, Phillips, and Montaigne and his recording of the Complete Sequenzas of Luciano Berio was rated one of the New York Times' "10 Best Recordings of 2006." In December 2004 he was awarded an honorary D. Litt., from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. A year later, in December 2005 he received the Deshamaniya, a national honour of Sri Lanka, given by the President of Sri Lanka. More details at www.rohandesaram.co.uk

Canadian soprano Anne Harley specializes in performing music from early oral and written traditions, and in creating new works by contemporary composers. She has appeared as a soloist across North America and Europe with The Handel & Haydn Society, The Boston Camerata, Opera Boston, Opera Unlimited, The American Repertory Theatre, The Banff Centre for the Arts (Alberta, Canada) and at the Tanglewood Festival. She has been oratorio soloist in many standard works of the baroque, such as Handel’s Messiah, Israel in Egypt, Bach’s Passions, Magnificat, Cantata No. 51 "Jauchzet Gott," Lutheran Mass, Christmas Oratorio, and Monteverdi’s Vespers. She débuted in Europe at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw as the lead in Handel’s Acis and Galatea and created the roles of Imagination and Zélide in the modern-day première of Royer’s Le Pouvoir de l’Amour in conjunction with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and Oberlin College. The Boston Globe acclaimed her performance in theAmerican première of Peter Eotvos's Angels in America as "vocally and dramatically outstanding."The Village Voice described her singing in the Boston Camerata's American Shaker program at Brooklyn Academy of Music as transmitting a "heart-wrenching purity." Her solo performances have been released on Naxos, Sony Classics, Dorian, and Musica Omnia, among others.

Stephen Schultz, heralded by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the rising stars of the period movement," is founder and director of American Baroque. He is principal and solo flutist with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Musica Angelica of Los Angeles, and performs with the American Bach Soloists, the Portland Baroque Orchestra, and Joshua Rifkin's Bach Ensemble. Concert tours have taken him throughout Europe and North America with featured appearances at the Tage Alter Musik Festival, Regensburg, Berkeley Early Music festival, Monadnock Music, J. Paul Getty Museum Summer Series, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, San Jose Chamber Music Society, and the Nakamichi Early Music Festival. A graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Holland, Schultz also holds several degrees from the California Institute of the Arts and the California State University of San Francisco. Currently a lecturer at Holy Names College in Oakland, Schultz's engaging teaching style has left its mark at California State University at Long Beach and Sacramento, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the University of Southern California, and the University of California at Davis and Los Angeles. 

Appearing on more than twenty-nine recordings for Harmonia Mundi USA, New Albion, Amon Ra, Koch International Classics, RGB, XDot25, Heru, and the Musical Heritage Society, Schultz enters his multi-year recording contract on the Naxos label with a wealth of experience. Innovative playing styles and experimentation with world music groups such as D'CuCKOO and Haunted By Waters have given Schultz a perspective on the music world unparalleled by his peers.  Schultz's unique processed baroque flute sounds characterize a new genre of alternative music that offers listeners of early music a new platform to enjoy formerly traditional instruments.