Artistic Leaders
Bach Akademie Charlotte's Artistic Leaders are leaders in their respective fields and internationally-renowned interpreters of Baroque music. They assist the Artistic Director with the overall artistic direction of Bach Akademie Charlotte.
Aisslinn Nosky
Aisslinn Nosky was appointed Concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society in 2011. With a reputation for being one of the most dynamic and versatile violinists of her generation, Aisslinn is in great demand internationally as a director, soloist, and concertmaster. From 2016 to 2019, Aisslinn served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Niagara Symphony Orchestra. She is currently Guest Artist in Residence with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and an artistic advisor for the Portland Baroque Orchestra. Aisslinn is also a member of I FURIOSI Baroque Ensemble. For twenty years, this innovative Canadian ensemble presented its own edgy and inventive concert series in Toronto and toured Europe and North America, turning new audiences on to Baroque music. With the Eybler Quartet, Aisslinn explores repertoire from the first century of the string quartet literature on period instruments. From 2005 through 2016, Aisslinn was a member of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. An avid educator, she serves on the faculty of EQ: Evolution of the String Quartet, at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
Guy Fishman
Guy Fishman is principal cellist of the Handel and Haydn Society and is in demand as an early music specialist in north America and Europe. He has performed with Tafelmusik, Les Violons du Roi, Seraphic Fire, Arcadia Players, Connecticut Early Music Festival, Querelle des Bouffons, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Boston Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, Emmanuel Music, the Boston Museum Trio, Boulder Bach Festival, and El Mundo, among others. In addition to concert appearances, Guy has been presented in recital with Dawn Upshaw, Mark Peskanov, Eliot Fisk, Richard Eggar, Lara St. John, Gil Kalish, Kim Kashkashian, the Eybler Quartet, the Consone Quartet, and Natalie Merchant. His playing has been praised as “plangent” by The Boston Globe, “electrifying” by The New York Times, and “beautiful....noble” by the Boston Herald, and “dazzling” by the Portland Press Herald. The Boston Musical Intelligencer related having “…heard greater depth in [Haydn concerto] than I have in quite some time.” Guy studied with David Soyer, Peter Wiley, Julia Lichten, and Laurence Lesser, with whom he completed Doctoral studies at the New England Conservatory of Music. He now serves on the faculty there. In addition, he is a Fulbright Fellow, having worked with famed Dutch cellist Anner Bylsma in Amsterdam, and he has presented masterclasses at conservatories and universities here and abroad. Guy plays a rare cello made in Rome in 1704 by David Tecchler.
Nicolas Haigh
Prize-winning organist and harpsichordist Nicolas Haigh is currently Associate Organist at St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue (NYC). Prior to this, he held positions with the Gramophone Award-winning Choir of New College, Oxford and the choir of York Minster. He was a student at the University of Cambridge, where he held the Sir William McKie organ scholarship at Clare College, working closely with Graham Ross and Timothy Brown. Recent engagements have included performances with American Bach Soloists, TENET vocal artists, and Bach Akademie Charlotte; as well as solo recitals at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco; St. Paul’s Cathedral, London; and Westminster Abbey, London. Nicolas is co-founder of the early music consort L'Académie du Roi Soleil and has performed as a Young Artist at the Britten-Pears Festival. He has been privileged to perform on a number of tours to venues in Europe, the Americas, Hong Kong, Australia, and Israel. He appears frequently on radio in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, and can be heard on the CDs Veni Emmanuel, Imogen Holst: Choral Works, and A Tudor Christmas. Nicolas’ organ teachers have included Malcolm Archer, Clive Driskill-Smith, and James McVinnie.
Margaret Carpenter Haigh
Director of Artistic Planning
Praised as “fiery, wild, and dangerous” (Classical Voice North Carolina) with “a talent for character portrayal” (Chicago Classical Review), soprano Margaret Carpenter Haigh captivates audiences with her “flawless intonation” and “perfect vocalism” (CNVC). Treasured performances include the American premiere of Huang Ruo’s 12-voice tour de force of vocal-theatre and puppetry Book of Mountains & Seas; a ground-breaking soprano interpretation of the Evangelista role in Bach’s St. John Passion at the Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival for the 300th anniversary year of the work’s creation; Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the choirs of Trinity Wall Street and Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue; Thuthuku Sindisi and Gregory Maqoma’s dramaticized Broken Chord at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; the eco-cantata A Forest Unfolding, inspired by Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Overstory, with NOVUS NY; a newly choreographed ballet performance of David Del Tredici’s virtuosic and whimsical masterwork An Alice Symphony with Portland Symphony and Ballet in Maine; and Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres in the Easter at King’s Concert Series in King’s College Chapel (Cambridge). Recent solo recording credits include Handel’s Israel in Egypt with Jeannette Sorrell and Apollo’s Fire and Desmarest’s Circé with Paul O’Dette, Stephen Stubbs and the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra.
A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, Margaret is a grateful recipient of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship and holds the M.Mus from the University of Cambridge and the D.M.A. in Historical Performance from Case Western Reserve University, where her dissertation was supervised by Susan McClary. She is a proud graduate of the UNC Greensboro College of Visual and Performing Arts. Recent scholarship includes work on physical gesture in the madrigal repertory of the concerto delle donne in late sixteenth-century Ferrara, and she is active as a voice teacher and choral conductor. She has lectured widely, including at University of Iowa, Harvard University, Peabody Institute, and Indiana University, and has served on the faculties of the Oklahoma Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain and Vocal Fellows Program at Bach Akademie Charlotte. Margaret is a devoted mother, and in the brief moments when her daughter allows her two hands, she is an avid knitter, yogi, runner, and hiker, and she enjoys experimental cooking and mixing craft cocktails with her husband Nicolas. She is a member of The Choir of Trinity Wall Street. More at www.margaretcarpenterhaigh.com.