Francesco Pellegrino

A child sensation of Neapolitan songs in his native Campania, he completed his Diploma in Voice Performance with a minor in piano, from the Benevento Conservatory of Music. Francesco soon won the International Arturo Toscanini Foundation Scholarship with an invitation to study at the Academy of Verdian Voices with opera legend, Carlo Bergonzi.

Francesco Pellegrino worked in the chorus of Milan’s illustrious Teatro alla Scala from 1997 to 2001. There he sang under the baton of such world-renowned conductors as Riccardo Muti, Roberto Gabbiani, Valerie Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Mstislav Rostropovich, Kent Nagano, Georges Prêtre, and Giuseppe Sinopoli.

In his new Canadian home of Toronto, Francesco created the critically acclaimed trio, Vesuvius Ensemble, dedicated to the preservation and celebration of Neapolitan and southern Italian music. The group merged forces in 2012 with one of the world’s foremost baroque orchestras from Toronto, Tafelmusik. Their highly successful show, Bella Napoli celebrated both the Traditional and classical music of the Italian south.

Francesco Pellegrino’s discography includes Puccini’s Magnificat (2003), Serenata Napulitana (2004), Devozione (2009), and Vesuvius Ensemble’s EP, In the Shadow of the Volcano (2010), La meglio giuventù (2014).

Lucas Harris

Lucas Harris began his musical life as a jazz guitarist in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. After graduating summa cum laude from Pomona College, he studied for a year in Milan, Italy as one of the first Marco Fodella Foundation scholars and then at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen. Lucas now keeps a busy schedule as a continuo player for dozens of Baroque ensembles across North America. He is the regular lutenist with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and is based in Toronto since 2004.

Lucas teaches each summer at Oberlin Conservatory’s Baroque Performance Institute and the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, and has also taught for Amherst Early Music, the International Baroque Institute at Longy, and the New York Continuo Collective. He is a founder of the Toronto Continuo Collective, a weekly class and performing ‘pluck band’ dedicated to learning the art of seventeenth-century accompaniment.

Some recent projects included a lute concerto program for CBC radio’s Young Artist Series, a solo recital for the Minnesota Guitar Society, a debut solo CD, as well as duo recitals and a recording with the Chinese pipa virtuoso Wen Zhao. Lucas was music director for a production of Cavalli’s La Calisto for the Opera Program at Ohio State University, and has also been invited as guest director with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in Vancouver.

“The revelation of the concert was the Torontonian lutenist Lucas Harris, who weaved a poetic thread through his infinitely subtle interventions. The sweetness and patience of his playing . . . was astonishing.”

— Le Devoir