Matthias Maute joined Bach Society of Minnesota as Artistic Director in 2016. The Montreal-based conductor, composer, and recorder and flute soloist is founder of Montreal-based Ensemble Caprice, an orchestra he formed in 1993 that performs throughout the world. The award-winning artist was honored with two JUNO Awards and in 2020 received the OPUS Award for Musical Event of the Year in recognition of the Mini-Concerts Sante he created during the pandemic, delivering 9,000 Mini-Concerts to 70,000 people in Montreal, Quebec, and Canada while providing 3,000 hires of professional singers and musicians during difficult times.

In 2019 Matthias was named Artistic Director of Ensemble Vocal Arts-Quebec. He has earned international praise for his artistic approach, presenting lush, vibrant performances and recordings of Early Music, and occasionally weaving other musical genres into his work.

In October 2022, Matthias and the Bach Society of Minnesota presented the U.S. Premiere of Vivaldi’s Four Nations, a suite of concertos created for the recorder that were lost after the composer’s death and reconstructed by Matthias. His compositions are published by Breitkopf & Hartel, Amadeus, Moeck, and Carus. Forty-nine movements of Matthias’ compositions are featured in 49 videos on noncerto.com. Matthias has made more than 20 recordings on the Analekta, Vanguard Classics, Bella Musica, Dorian, Bridge, and ATMA Classique labels. He is regularly invited to perform at major international festivals and in 2023, his Ensemble Caprice orchestra performed in South Africa, Finland, and Norway as well as Canada and the U.S.

Dr. Jennaya Robison is the Artistic Director of the National Lutheran Choir (Minneapolis, MN) and an in-demand conductor, educator, and soprano. Known for her dynamic leadership and commitment to intergenerational and globally engaged choral artistry, she has conducted choirs, workshops, and festivals across the United States, Europe, and southern Africa. She is a frequent guest conductor for All-State and honor choirs and is highly sought after for her work in worship, education, and community-based choral initiatives.

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From 2020 to 2023, Robison served as the Raymond R. Neevel/Missouri Associate Professor and Director of Choral Studies at the University of Missouri–Kansas City Conservatory. Prior to that, she was Associate Professor of Choral Music at Luther College. She holds a Master of Music in conducting and voice from the University of New Mexico and a Doctor of Musical Arts in choral conducting from the University of Arizona.

Robison is deeply committed to voice pedagogy within the choral ensemble, cultivating expressive singing and honoring the unique vocal potential of each singer. She is also an active composer and arranger, editing the National Lutheran Choir Series with MorningStar Music and the Jennaya Robison Series with Pavane Publishing. She serves as national chair for Music in Worship for the American Choral Directors Association.

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Grammy Award-winning tenor Aaron Sheehan is recognized internationally as a leading interpreter of baroque repertoire. Equally compelling on the opera stage and concert platform, he is praised for his “sinuous and supple” voice (Opera News) and expressive musicality. Sheehan’s 2025-26 season included performances of Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall with the Oratorio Society of New York, as well as with the Jacksonville Symphony and Lancaster Symphony Orchestra. Further performances includes appearances with Philharmonia Baroque for Rameau’s La guirlande, the Bach Collegium of San Diego for the B Minor Mass, Musica Angelica for the St. Matthew Passion, and Boston Early Music Festival for Stellidaura’s Revenge in the role of Orismondo.

In the 2024–25 season, Sheehan debuted with Music of the Baroque in Haydn’s Creation under Dame Jane Glover, joined San Francisco Symphony and Jacksonville Symphony for Messiah, and returned to Washington Bach Consort as Evangelist in St. Matthew Passion, and appeared in Kaiser’s Octavia with Boston Early Music Festival. He also returns to Philharmonia Baroque for Handel’s Alceste. Sheehan made his professional operatic debut with the Boston Early Music Festival in the 2005 world premiere staging of Mattheson’s Boris Gudenow.

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He appears on over 35 recordings, including Handel’s Acis & Galatea with Boston Early Music Festival, Rameau’s Le temple de la Gloire & Handel’s Saul with Philharmonia Baroque, and Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria with Boston Baroque. He sang the title role in BEMF’s recording of Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphée aux enfers, which won Best Opera Recording at the 2015 Grammy Awards.

His worldwide operatic and concert appearances include venues as diverse as the Royal Opera at Versailles, Tanglewood Festival, New Zealand Festival of the Arts, Lincoln Center, Concertgebouw, Kennedy Center, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Gran Teatro Nacional del Perú, Beethoven Festival Warsaw, Boston Symphony Hall, Musikfestspiele Postdam Sanssouci, Halle Handel Festival, Leipzig BachFest, and the early music festivals of Boston, San Francisco, and Vancouver.

Recent performances include Handel’s Messiah with Seattle Symphony, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Armenian Philharmonic, Winterreise in recital at the Smithsonian Museum, Bach’s B minor Mass with American Bach Soloists, solo performances with Handel & Haydn Society and Boston Baroque, and the first Bach St. Matthew Passion in Peru with the National Symphony Orchestra of Peru.

Sheehan received his bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance from Luther College and a master’s degree in historical vocal performance from Indiana University, and currently serves on the voice faculty of Boston University.

Hailed by the Boston Globe as “alight with the spirit of the music,” bass-baritone Dashon Burton is known for performances that move fluidly between the worlds of Bach, spirituals, contemporary music, and the concert repertoire of the great orchestral tradition. A three-time GRAMMY Award winner, Burton has built an international career as a concert soloist, collaborative musician, and educator. 

Burton appears regularly with leading orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and New Jersey Symphony. His performances have taken him to major venues and festivals across the United States, Europe, and Asia, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Hollywood Bowl, Wigmore Hall, Barbican Hall, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and the Salzburg Festival.

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Highlights of the 2025–2026 season included Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Don Fernando in Fidelio with the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst; Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer and Mozart’s Requiem with the New Jersey Symphony conducted by Xian Zhang; Britten’s War Requiem with the Erie Philharmonic; and Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle with the Cincinnati May Festival. Recent engagements have also included appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the St. Louis Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, and a return to the Carmel Bach Festival.

A frequent collaborator of Michael Tilson Thomas, Burton has appeared in performances of Beethoven’s Ninth, Copland’s Old American Songs, Meditations on Rilke, and Thomas’s Walt Whitman Songs with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, and New York Philharmonic. Other recent performances include Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex with the Houston Symphony and Christopher Cerrone’s The Year of Silence with the Louisville Orchestra.

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Burton first came to major award attention as a founding member of the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, with whom he received his first GRAMMY Award. His second GRAMMY came in 2021 for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison with The Experiential Orchestra, and his third for Roomful of Teeth’s album Rough Magic. 

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A native of the Bronx and Williamsport, PA, Burton studied at Case Western Reserve University, earned his Bachelor of Music from the Oberlin Conservatory, and completed his Master of Music at Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music. Early distinctions in his career include prizes at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich.