Program and Administrative Directors

DANIEL STEPNER, Artistic Director, has distinguished himself as a violinist of great versatility, having performed and recorded contemporary music with the Boston Musica Viva; the sonatas of Charles Ives with pianist John Kirkpatrick; and solo works, chamber works and concertos from the Baroque and Classical eras on period instruments. Mr. Stepner recently accepted the position of first violinist of the Lydian String Quartet. He has served as concertmaster of the Handel & Haydn Society, Banchetto Musicale, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, the Boston Philharmonic, and the New Haven Symphony, and as associate concertmaster of Frans Brüggen's Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. Mr. Stepner has taught at Eastman School of Music, the New England Conservatory, and the Longy School of Music.

RAYMOND ERICKSON, Academy Director and Aston Magna performing artist, is a harpsichordist, music historian, Dean of Arts and Humanities, Queens College, and Professor of Music, Queens College and the Graduate School, CUNY. Mr. Erickson has been affiliated with Aston Magna since 1973 and since 1974 as the founder and director of humanities educational programs including serving as Architect and Director of the twelve Aston Magna Academies. He has performed as a harpsichord soloist and continuo player throughout US and Europe. Recordings include Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and music by Henry Purcell (with Sally Sanford, soprano and Brent Wissick, gamba and baroque cello). Mr. Erickson has published in the fields of computer applications in musicology, historical performance and medieval music theory. He is also the editor of the Aston Magna Academy books, the first of which, Schubert’s Vienna, a multi-disciplinary treatment by lecturers at the 1993 Aston Magna Academy, was published by Yale University Press in 1997. The next volumes currently in preparation for this series, Bach in His World and Handel's London, are expected to appear in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

RONNIE BORISKIN, Aston Magna's Executive Director, has more than twenty-five years' experience working with some of this country's most important cultural institutions, including The Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City (where she led the creation and subsequent expansion of both its fund-raising and public relations programs), Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (where she secured the first corporate underwriting grants for concerts and lectures), and Columbia Artists Management (where she was responsible for the business management of all 700 Community Concerts series). She has been invited to serve as grants panelist for the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, is a former member of the Board of Directors and past Treasurer of Early Music America, and has served as consultant for numerous arts and educational institutions nationwide. Trained as a cellist, she holds a Master of Arts degree in Musicology from Queens College of the City University of New York.