Artistic Director
Deborah Fox became the Artistic Director of NYS Baroque in May 2013. She is also the Artistic Director and founder, in 2005, of Pegasus Early Music, Rochester’s early music concert series. She is a lutenist with a span of repertoire ranging from medieval to baroque music, and plays 6 different lutes! She has performed with the major early music ensembles and festivals in North America, including the Carmel Bach Festival, Opera Florentine in Milwaukee. Glimmerglass Opera, Les Violons du Roy (Montreal), Spoleto Festival, Opera Atelier, Aradia, Tafelmusik, Concert Royal, Brandywine Baroque, Third Coast Baroque and others; and has made frequent trips to Australia to work with Pinchgut Opera in Sydney.
She is a cum laude graduate of Smith College, and received the Certificate of Advanced Studies in Early Music at London’s Guildhall School of Music, specializing in the improvised accompaniment practices of the seventeenth century. Her teachers have included lutenists Pat O’Brien, Paul O’Dette, and Nigel North. She performs as a regular member of the baroque chamber music ensemble Fioritura, and has been a Teaching Artist for the Aesthetic Education Institute. She has recorded for Centaur, Plectra, ABC, and Naxos, and has a cd out on Sono Luminus with countertenor José Lemos and harpsichordist Jory Vinikour, entitled Io Vidi in Terra.
Administrative Director
Natalie Rose Kress, became the Administrative Director of NYS Baroque in the fall of 2025. Hailed by The New York Times for her “splendid playing” as a violinist, she is known for eloquent interpretations on both modern and historical instruments. She received the Jules C. Reiner Violin Prize from the Tanglewood Music Center and the English Concert in America Fellowship at The Juilliard School, has performed with Yo-Yo Ma at the Kennedy Center Honors, and premiered Leonard Bernstein’s Music for String Quartet, later recording its first commercial release. She appears frequently with her ensembles, Repast, Quartet Salonnières, and Relic, recently toured Tanzania under a U.S. Embassy Public Diplomacy Grant, and can be seen performing with the Handel and Haydn Society, Aisslinn Nosky Band, Washington Bach Consort, Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, Opera Lafayette, The Thirteen, and during the summers at The Carmel Bach Festival, The Staunton Music Festival, and the Charlotte Bach Festival. A dedicated educator, she recently served on faculty at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute and currently runs educational programs for the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society, including the Smithsonian Academy Orchestra and Smithsonian Family Concerts. She is excited to begin this new chapter as Administrative Director of NYS Baroque!
