members
For violinist Sahana Shravan, chamber music and teaching give meaning to a life in music. From Palm Beach County, Florida to her home in New York City today, her career has evolved into an exploration of how art can serve and create open, compassionate, and accepting communities of artists and audiences. Her collaborators range from Western classical musicians to period performers to Carnatic and Hindustani singers, composers, and dancers. She was named the 2025 Van Lier Artist of Exceptional Merit, receiving prizes including the Joseph W. Polisi Prize for Artist as Citizen, Joan D. Warren Prize for Student Leadership and Civic Engagement, and the 2025 Benzaquen Career Grant. She has performed at the European American Musical Alliance, Yellowbarn Young Artists Program, and Madeline Island String Quartet Fellowship Program. Sahana received two degrees from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Areta Zhulla and Catherine Cho and was the recipient of a Kovner Fellowship for her graduate studies.
New York-based classical and baroque violinist Ian Jones has traveled throughout the world, performing a range of repertoire from medieval to contemporary works. Ian’s passion for historical performance practice has brought him to perform with the world’s leading figures in early music, including Rachel Podger, William Christie, Masaaki Suzuki, John Butt, Shunske Sato, Lionel Meunier, among others.
In 2022, Ian became an artist apprentice with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado for two seasons. Additionally, Ian was chosen as a 2023 Corelli Fellow with ARTEK Early Music. Most recently, he was selected as a 2025 fellow with the English Concert in America. Previous and future performance engagements include concerts with ensembles such as the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, ARTEK Early Music, Bach Vespers NYC, New York Baroque Incorporated, Teatro Nuovo, Juilliard415, Tafelmusik, Les Arts Florissants, MAFestival Bruges, as well as the American Bach Soloists and Berwick Academy orchestras. As a member of Juilliard415, Ian has concertmastered for Handel’s oratorio Jephtha, under the direction of Nicholas McGegan, and concerto soloed under Alfredo Bernardini.
Ian holds a bachelor’s degree in music performance from The University of Georgia, as well as a master’s degree from The University of Denver, where he served as his studio’s graduate teaching assistant. Ian is currently pursuing a master’s degree in baroque violin at the Juilliard School’s Historical Performance program. Beyond music, Ian enjoys visiting art museums, cooking, and hanging out with his black cat Lilith.
Evan Fraser is a flutist, recorder player, and music theorist driven by a desire to use music as a powerful tool for human connection. He has performed with modern and historical ensembles throughout the Midwest and the East Coast, has placed as a winner or finalist in several international competitions, and has taught students from 7 to 70 years old. After Juilliard, Evan hopes to use his multifaceted training across musical disciplines to connect with, to teach, and to inspire communities wherever he can.
A native New Yorker, Jessica Slade found her home on the viola when she was young and has been committed to the instrument’s voice ever since. She has ample experience with anything ranging from historical to modern viola repertoire, and she is an advocate for the viola as a solo instrument. She studied with David Rose at SUNY Fredonia and earned a BM in Music Performance.
Jessica has a passion for period performance, both on her instrument of choice and as a dancer. She studies and dances with the New York Baroque Dance Company whose dancers specialize in Baroque dance and early 19th century ballet reconstruction. Not only this, but she is a musician and dancer with ZPiT Galopka, a Polish folk dance ensemble based in New Jersey, as folklore is another one of her passions. She also has experience in Ukrainian, Hungarian, and Mexican folk dance with groups based in NYC.
Chamber music has always been something she has enthusiastically dedicated herself to, and she currently plays with Quartet Euterpe, an ensemble composed of young early music professionals Zoe Kushubar, Ian Jones, Grace McKenzie, Jessica Slade, and Grace Mockus. These musicians perform at the highest caliber on both gut and steel strings, and have performed and studied at institutions such as the Juilliard School, Oregon Bach Festival, the American Bach Soloists Academy, and the Smithsonian Haydn Academy.
As a performer and researcher of Renaissance and Baroque vocal music, American vocalist Julie Knott is committed to music from centuries past, presented through a modern and socially relevant lens. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, she is an avid performer of opera, oratorio, and art songs with a specialization in early music and plainchant. Julie’s 2026 engagements include: her debut with Lorelei Ensemble under the direction of Dr. Beth Willer, on Julius Eastman’s Colors at Yale University, a recital at the Greene Space in New York City hosted by the Gerda Lissner Foundation and Peabody Conservatory, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Baltimore Basilica Schola and early music ensemble “Three Notch’d Road,” premiering the role Sally in Kin Psalms, a new opera by Josiah Garza at the 2640 space in Baltimore, and a spring concert series around the DMV with Ensemble Prose. A native of central Pennsylvania, Julie has collaborated with the Hershey and West Shore Symphony Orchestras, as the soloist in Poulenc’s Gloria and Orff’s Carmina Burana, respectively. Julie is a graduate student at the Peabody Institute studying Historical Performance in the voice studio of Ms. Elizabeth Futral.
Felix Aurelius (countertenor) is a 1st year master's student at The Juilliard School studying with Amy Burton. This season, Felix appears in a Liederabend curated by Dr. Lydia Brown at Juilliard, and performs the role of Fragile in huddle, a new piece by Thomas Cabaniss presented by Carnegie Hall as part of their Early Childhood Concerts series. He will also appear in the 2026 iteration of the New Series: Pride Songbook at Juilliard. During his undergraduate studies, also at Juilliard, he performed in Pride Songbook as part of the New Series in 2024 and 2025, as well as performed the roles of Cherubino in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and Miles in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. Aurelius is the winner of an Encouragement Award from the New Orleans District of the 2025/2026 Laffont Competition. He is a member of the Pants Role Projectx, a short film founded and directed by Theo Claveles about Transgender and Nonbinary opera singers. Aurelius aims to reach other Queer and Trans singers with a passion for opera to help younger LGBTQ+ artists feel more welcome within the classical space. Felix is also an alumnus of the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.
Grace Mockus is a graduate student at The Juilliard School, where she is equally at home in modern and historical performance practices. Her mentors are renowned performers and pedagogues across music disciplines, and include Peter Sykes, Eva Lymenstull, Sarah Cunningham, Natasha Brofsky, Darrett Adkins, and Joseph Gascho. Grace has performed and studied at numerous festivals, including Orford Musique, the Oregon Bach Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, American Bach Soloists Academy, the Smithsonian Academy, and in fellowships with the Chautauqua Festival Orchestra and ARTEK early music ensemble. She has won prizes and honorable mentions in the Rembrandt Young Artists chamber competition and Walgreens National Concerto Competition, and has been featured on WFMT’s Trailblazing Women in Music series and WETA’s Classical Breakdown. Grace has performed with ensembles such as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, ARTEK, the Fort Greene Orchestra, Theotokos, Reverie Baroque, the Juilliard Orchestra, and the Chicago Philharmonic. She is currently a core member of the West Michigan Symphony.
Andrew Bortvin is a versatile keyboardist based in Baltimore and New York City. His primary teachers include Peter Sykes and Adam Pearl. He has performed in festivals and workshops such as the San Francisco Early Music Society’s Baroque Workshop, St. Andrew’s Baroque Performance Course, the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, and Amherst Early Music Academy. Andrew performs extensively throughout the east coast with the Baltimore Baroque Band, Peabody Renaissance Ensemble, Ensemble Prose, and in opera and chamber music ensembles. Outside of early music, Andrew has earned his PhD in computational biology at Johns Hopkins University.
