Board of Directors and Staff

Andrew Flory is an American lutenist and classical guitarist that is newly based in Antwerp, Belgium. He regularly performs across the US as a soloist with his theorbo and classical guitar program “Fourteen and Six”. He is a veteran continuo player and was a member of the Paul O’Dette led Collegium Muscium Baroque Ensemble at the Eastman School of Music and the Schola Cantorum Early Music Ensemble in Rochester, NY.

Andrew earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Classical Guitar Performance and his Certificate of Advanced Achievement in Early Music from the Eastman School of Music in 2024. At Eastman, Andrew had the privilege of studying with Paul O’Dette for three years. That experience was life changing and influenced Andrew to dedicate his career to the lute and lute education.

Andrew’s “Fourteen and Six” program will be released as an album in 2024 and he is excited to be forming new ensembles as he is getting settled in Belgium.

Brian Kay is a modern-day troubadour. He is the Artistic Director of the early music meets early theater group THEATRO, and is currently overseeing their international recording of music from the plays of William Shakespeare. He won a GRAMMY® Award for his work on Apollo’s Fire’s Songs of Orpheus recording with tenor Karim Sulayman. He works as a musician and recording artist for the Netflix music lab and is a featured soloist on the soundtrack of their original series The Witcher. He has performed throughout the world at venues such as the National Concert Hall of Dublin, Belfast Castle (Ireland), Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Folger Theater. His live radio appearances include NPR, Baltimore’s WYPR, Baltimore’s 98ROCK, Boston’s WGBH, and Cleveland’s WCLV. He has recorded with labels Avie and Sono Luminus and has appeared on releases which include original, early music, folk, traditional sephardic, chamber and orchestral. He is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, arranger, and a traditional and historical music specialist.

Brian is a founding member of THEATRO and Twa Corbies, and regularly performs with Hesperus, The Folger Consort, Early Music Access Project, and Trio Sefardi.

Brian is on the faculty as teacher of historical plucked instruments at Cleveland Institute of Music and Case Western Reserve University. He has lectured on music and history at Yale University, The Peabody Conservatory, Johns Hopkins University, The Folger Theater, The Kennedy Center, and Baldwin-Wallace College. He was Artist in Residence at the Cushman School in Miami and has done outreach for elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges, and prisons across the country.

Carey is an accomplished musician who teaches and performs on guitar as well as historical plucked string instruments including lute and theorbo. His musical studies began at Oklahoma City University, where he initially focused on classical guitar. During his time there he was awarded the 1st place prize for the Guitar Foundation of America ensemble showcase. He then pursued studying lute at Indiana University’s historical performance institute, where he was awarded the Barbara and Davis Jacobs Fellowship for his studies and successfully earned his master’s degree in 2019 studying under the renowned lutenist Nigel North.

He also shares a passion for teaching and presently, is the guitar instructor at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in his second year. He has performed with prestigious ensembles such as Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Nashville Baroque, Kansas City Baroque Consortium, and Oklahoma Baroque.

Bio coming soon.

After earning a degree in lute with the highest marks at the Conservatory of Verona under the guidance of Orlando Cristoforetti, Francesca studied with Nigel North at the Guildhall School of Music, Renaissance and Baroque singing with Auriol Kimber in London and Music disciplines at the Bologna University.

From the start, her concert activities have featured solo repertoire for lute and theorbo, as well as repertoire for voice and lute (singing while accompanying herself on the instrument). Since 2000 she’s also been the director of several Early music ensembles.

As a soloist, she has participated in many festivals in Europe, South America and Australia. Francesca has recorded for Tactus, Dynamic, Stradivarius, Mondo Musica and Nuova Era, with the ensembles Cappella Artemisia, Sans souci, Cappella Palatina, Accademia Farnese and the chamber orchestra Offerta Musicale.

She has also collaborated with the orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Vivaldi ensemble of Solisti Veneti, Il Ruggiero, Capella Regiensis.

Francesca has recorded two CDs with Tactus centered around music by Pietro Paolo Melli and Alessandro Piccinini (reprint Brilliant 2011) and the albums John Dowland: Lute songs, lute music (2010), Musique pour le Roy-Soleil: Robert de Visée works for theorbo (2013), Italian Baroque Music for Archlute (2017), Le Dialogue: Charles Mouton Lute suites (2021) for Magnatune. All these recordings received great reviews from the press. Her CD Renaissance Fantasias, Da Vinci (2022) was awarded with 5 stars by Amadeus and Musica magazines. In 2006 Francesca published A tutor for the Theorbo, with Ut Orpheus editions. It was the first method on this instrument to ever be published. She is founder and director of Scintille di musica ensemble and recorded six CDs with them, for EMI and Lungomare, featuring the voice of songwriter Angelo Branduardi. These recordings focus on Renaissance and early Baroque Italian music. Since 2001 she teaches lute at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan, where she has also been head of the Early Music Institute. Francesca has directed the Conservatory’s Andromeda early music ensemble, with which she has performed rare Baroque oratorios by G. Kapsberger, Camilla de Rossi, Alessandro Della Ciaia, theatrical works by Purcell and many concert productions.

francescatorelli.com

Bio coming soon.

John Trout has been a member of LSA since 1982. He regularly attends the LSA Lute Fest and is a lute steward for the LSA Rental Program. He is currently funding a young faculty position at the LSA Lute Fest. He regularly hosts lute house concerts featuring visiting players. He currently studies Baroque lute and Theorbo.

John has been on the Board for Tempesta Di Mare, the Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra for 10 years and Board chair for the last 7 years. He is also President of the Delaware Model T club and Secretary and Treasurer of the Valley Forge Model T club.

John is retired from managing a global R&D group in DuPont’s Photovoltaic Materials Business. John has held a variety of R&D, Marketing and Business roles in DuPont in several different business units. In addition, he has worked in and led several start-up ventures.

Scott Witzke holds a Masters in lute performance from Indiana University where he studied with Nigel North, Paul O’Dette, Lyle Nordstrom, Karen Meyers, and Patrick O’Brien. Finding that he was 400 years too late to find a job as a professional lutenist, he has been working as Director of Marketing and Communications at Indiana University, first at the local NPR/PBS station (Harmonia Early Music) and currently at the School of Education. He previously served on the board of directors at the Bloomington Early Music Festival. He has also provided marketing support for the American Bach Society and there Bloomington Bach Cantata Project. He was co-editor of the LSA Quarterly from 1998-2001 and currently serves as a caretaker for the LSA Lute Rental Program.

Jack Chessa is an amateur lute player who also plays classical guitar and was once an avid cellist. He came to the lute about ten years ago and has been wonderfully affected by its charm and beauty, as well as the wonderful community of early musicians. He plays with a few early music groups in the El Paso, TX area where he lives, and also with his daughter, Zoë who is a soprano based out of Baltimore. Currently, he is taking lute lessons with Liz Pallet, and on the weekends he can also be seen playing guitar with several jazz groups in the area, and in his spare time he is an engineering professor.

James Louder is a retired organbuilder living in Montreal, Quebec. James started life playing the classical guitar, but in time had to admit he was unlikely to have a career. He turned instead to another musical love, the pipe organ—not as a player, but as a builder. He apprenticed with the Swiss-Canadian organbuilder, Hellmuth Wolff, and spent the next forty years building tracker-action pipe organs. With his organbuilding days behind him, James now has returned to plucking—a musical circle closed, perhaps? With no ambitions as a player, his woodworking and instrument-making skills have led James to an avocation in lutherie.

In 2019 when the LSA’s Lute Rental Program expanded into Canada, James was asked to manage the comings and goings of lutes north of the border. A year later James agreed to take on the same work for the Lute Rental Program as a whole. Recently James has assumed the program’s administrative duties as Lute Rental Program Director. With his election to the LSA’s Board, James Louder is eager for the challenges facing the Lute Society of America, as we consolidate our organization and expand our scope in the years ahead.

Laudon Schuett is a lutenist and early music specialist. He has been called “a masterful performer…[and] a brilliant educator” (Classical Voice of North Carolina) with “immaculate articulation and sensitive phrasing” (Fanfare). In addition to performing and expanding the solo repertoire, he formed the lute song duo BEDLAM with Kayleen Sánchez. They have toured the United States and recorded two albums, “BEDLAM” (2015), and “Died for Love” (2017), both for Soundset Recordings. BEDLAM will be releasing a Christmas album in 2024. Laudon also has a solo album of his own compositions called “Dedications: New Works for the Lute” (2022) on Navona Records and a book called “The Art of Lute Playing” which was published by Mel Bay in 2022. He can also be heard on the recently released soundtrack for the Netflix film “Rustin,” playing lute on the track, “I Ne’r Didst Dream.” Laudon earned his D.M.A. in Early Music under Paul O’Dette from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.