Violist Suzanne Rousso accepted an appointment as artistic director of the Mallarmé Chamber Players in 2008.  In this capacity she is responsible for all aspects of Mallarme’s eclectic programming. The ensemble is known as one of the region’s most diverse collectives of musicians.

Her previous administrative and educational engagements included service as Director of Operations and Education of the Portland (Maine) Symphony and Director of Education for the North Carolina Symphony. She was on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival and served as that organization’s personnel manager.

Violist Rousso has performed with the North Carolina Symphony, as Principal violist of the Greensboro Symphony, the Vermont Symphony, the Portland Chamber Orchestra and orchestras of North Carolina Opera, Carolina Ballet, the Choral Society of Durham, PortOpera and Opera Boston.

Ms. Rousso was educated at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and at New England Conservatory, earning Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in viola performance. Her teachers included Eugene Becker, Max Aronoff, Heidi Castleman and Walter Trampler. As a high school student she was lucky to study at the prestigeous Juilliard Pre-College.

In 2009, she received a Regional Artist grant from the United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County and later a Durham Arts Council’s Emerging Artist grant that enabled her to acquire a baroque viola and enter into the field of historically-informed performance. Pursuing this interest, she attended the Amherst Early Music Festival, Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute and Tafelmusik’s winter baroque intensive. She has participated in both Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals, is a member of the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra and a regular player with Duke Chapel’s Bach Cantata Series in which Mallarmé is a musical partner.

Her service to the arts extends beyond performance and administration. She has served on the boards of the American Federation of Musicians Local #500 and Arts North Carolina, an advocacy organization for arts and arts education in NC.

Praised for her “boundless energy and rapier definition” (New York Concert Review) and “transforming performance” (Classical Voice of North Carolina), cellist Grace Lin Anderson is a soloist and chamber musician with performances in the Americas and Europe. She has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician at the Weill Recital Hall at
Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center of New York City, the Kennedy Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the
Aspen Festival, and in international festivals abroad, in Canada, France,
Germany, Croatia, and the Netherlands.
In 2023-24, Grace had performed as soloist with the National University
Orchestra in the Cathedral of Arequipa, Peru. She had also performed in
Germany Bach’s Solo Cello Suites and her arrangement of Bach’s Goldberg
Variations for and with cellist Alan Black as part of WDAV’s tour In the
Footsteps of Bach. Her performances took place in venues where J.S. Bach
had worked and lived, including the historical Köthen Castle in Anhalt and
St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.
In North Carolina, Grace is a frequent chamber music collaborator. In
recent years, she has performed with Mallarmé Music, Music for a Great
Space, the Eastern Music Festival, UNC Chapel Hill, UNC School of the Arts,
Queens University of Charlotte and Wake Forest University.
As an artistic director and an educator, Grace had established and directed
the Triad Chamber Music Society concert series and the Young Performers
Chamber Music Workshop, for which she was twice nominated for the
Swalin Outstanding Music Educator Award by the North Carolina
Symphony. She has taught at UNC-Chapel Hill and UNCSA summer
chamber music programs and appeared as a guest artist at Appalachian
State University and East Carolina University. She is currently an adjunct
instructor of cello at Queens University of Charlotte.
She received her B.A. from Harvard University, M.M. The Juilliard School,
and D.M.A., UNC Greensboro

brings to her performances an “opalescence that is particularly served by her impressive phrasing and inherent musicality” (operagasm.com), and “wows audiences with her powerful and flexible soprano voice, her acting ability, and her dedication and drive” (CVNC). Andrea has enjoyed a wide range of collaborations with artists and ensembles including Vladimir Ashkenazy, David Zinman, Eighth Blackbird, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance company, the Hamburger Kammeroper, My Brightest Diamond and the Red Clay Ramblers.

Equally at home in the music of our time and of the distant past, she has starred in roles ranging from The Governess in Britten’s Turn of the Screw, Micaëla in Carmen, Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, and Sara in Higdon’s Cold Mountain. An accomplished concert soloist, she has garnered particular acclaim for her interpretations of the Bach Cantatas and German Lieder, at venues including the Teatro Colon, Baltimore Lieder Weekend, Duke Chapel, and Richard Tucker Foundation.

Andrea’s commitment to voices from her native North Carolina has led her to commission, premiere, and perform composers including Kenneth Frazelle, Daniel Thomas Davis, Sue Klausmeyer, Robert Ward, and numerous others. She produced, premiered, and developed Family Secrets: Kith and Kin with North Carolina Opera, and is especially proud to feature this new work as her debut recording.

Andrea is a prizewinner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, was a fellow with four-time Grammy-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird at the Blackbird Creative Lab and has twice received the Yale School of Music Alumni Award. She holds degrees from Yale University, Peabody Conservatory of Music at The Johns Hopkins University and UNC School of the Arts.

Andrea performs full time, teaches privately and, with her husband owns two restaurants: Alley Twenty Six in Durham and James Beard “American Classic” Crook’s Corner Chapel Hill, NC.

Isaac Pyatt is a percussionist and composer who specializes in contemporary chamber & solo music. Isaac serves as Artistic Director and Percussionist for the contemporary chamber ensemble Catchfire Collective. He also performs regularly with Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Salisbury Symphonies, North Carolina Brass Band, and Elon Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. His performance highlights include the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Bang on a Can LOUD Weekend, and Smetana Hall, and as a soloist with the UNC-Greensboro and Michigan State symphony orchestras. Isaac was a prize winner in the 2019 Great Plains International Marimba Competition, and winner in multiple statewide Percussive Arts Society competitions. An active composer, his music is available through Tapspace Publications and APAKA Music. Isaac received an MM in Percussion Performance from Michigan State University, and a BM in Percussion Performance & Music Composition from UNC-Greensboro. 

Flutist Carla Copeland-Burns enjoys an active teaching and performing career based in North Carolina. Noted as a flexible and versatile player, Carla currently performs with the Greensboro, North Carolina, and Salisbury Symphonies as well as the North Carolina Opera, Carolina Ballet, Blue Mountain Ensemble, Flute4, Mallarmé Chamber Players, and with the performer-composer collective Blue Mountain/Forecast.  Enthusiastic about new works, Carla has been a member of commissioning projects and premiere performances with all of her chamber ensembles and as a soloist. She is equally comfortable performing as an orchestral player, chamber musician, soloist, and playing contemporary music in alternative settings.

Carla teaches at Duke University, Meredith College, and through her home studio. Previously she served for eight years as Instructor of flute at Radford University, and has also been a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Mars Hill College, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Preparatory Department.  Guest artist-teacher appearances include schools such as the New Zealand School of Music, Auckland University, University of Southern Maryland, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and Florida State University. She has been a featured performer at National Flute Association Conventions and at several International Double Reed Society Conferences in the US, Canada, and Australia. In summers she has been associated with the New England Music Camp, Eastern Music Festival, and the InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy and Germany. She taught at the Clazz International Music Festival in Summer 2018 in Italy and looks forward to returning to Arcidosso soon! Carla’s students have successfully auditioned into festivals, competitions, and music schools throughout the US and abroad with many currently working as music educators, music therapists, arts administrators, and performers.

 She has recorded with ensembles on the Albany, Centaur, and Klavier labels and has been heard on several editions of NPR’s Performance Today. Mentors include Charles DeLaney, Lois Schaefer, Carol Wincenc, and Nadine Asin and her degrees are from Florida State University, New England Conservatory, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).

Dr. Copeland-Burns is a Yamaha Performing Artist

An active performer, Bassoonist Michael Burns enjoys roles as a soloist, in chamber groups, and orchestrally with numerous recent performances at International Double Reed Society conventions, recitals and masterclasses throughout North America, Germany, Italy, China and the South Pacific. He performs as principal bassoon with the Asheville Symphony and the North Carolina Opera and as bassoonist in the EastWind Ensemble and Blue Mountain Forecast.

He also performs regularly with regional groups such as the Greensboro, Charlotte, and North Carolina Symphonies and as a guest with the Ciompi Quartet and Mallarme Chamber Players.

He has recorded for the Centaur, CAP, Telarc, EMI, Klavier, and Mark labels and his solo CD Primavera: Music for Bassoon and Piano by Bassoonists, was released to critical acclaim on the Mark Masters label. A new CD Glass Ghosts is scheduled for release in 2020.

He performed extensively with the Cincinnati and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and he held Principal positions with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and the Midland/Odessa, Richmond, and Abilene Symphonies.

Burns plays on a Moosmann 222CL 5SC Thin Wall bassoon.