Sarah Balsam-Moga, is a New York transplant from rural Pennsylvania. She is an experienced ensemble singer, soundtrack artist, and liturgical musician. Sarah is currently a member of the Manhattan-based early music ensemble, Canticum Scholare, as well as the New York Philharmonic Chorus. Sarah holds a Master’s Degree in History from New York University and a Bachelor’s Degree in History and German Language and Literature from George Washington University. She lives with her wife in Manhattan and enjoys cooking and running. 2024 will mark her third season with Polyhymnia.

Steve has been singing and conducting Renaissance music since college, where he met classmate Alex Blachly (Pomerium founder) in 1962, and they founded and directed the Renaissance Choir of Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges (which still exists).  Other groups he has directed include: Vassar Madrigal Singers, Renaissance Chorus of NY, Canby Singers, NY Madrigal Singers, Polyhymnia, and most recently, Music Divine, which he founded in 2005.  He enjoys the rest of his time with Erica, his wife of 55 years, and his son, daughter and four grandchildren, who all live less than an hour away.  On his own he runs competitively, plays tennis and frisbee, and gardens too vigorously for his own good. With Erica he spends as much time as possible traveling in Europe--mainly all over France and Italy, most recently in Bologna, where the photo was shot.

Angelica has been singing with Polyhymnia for almost 10 years, and has been singing with various ensembles and churches around NYC for 15 years, specializing in early music. She has sung with Florigelium, Sing We Enchanted and Long Island Opera Night in recent concerts in the area, and has toured in France and Italy. She has also worked as a private voice, piano and music theory teacher for children and adults in the NYC area and Paris.

Drew moved to New York from Wisconsin in 2017 after completing his masters in Historical Musicology from University of Wisconsin at Madison. Since then, he has sung with the New York Continuo Collective, Polyhymnia, Sing We Enchanted, the Stony Brook University Baroque Ensemble, and, really, pretty much anyone else who has asked. In 2023 he started a voice and lute duo group called Poore Astronomers who give regular recitals in the New York metropolitan area. He is currently a staff singer at St Agnes Church. He studies voice with Richard Slade. He maintains a private piano studio, and he spends most days singing at home with his toddling son who loves to “doot doot” and watch airplanes.

Virginia Kaycoff, a NYC East Village denizen and native Manhattanite, has long been involved in early music and ensemble singing. She has sung and/or played early bowed instruments in groups including the Renaissance Street Singers, the Philadelphia-based Bloom Consort, the treble choirs Amuse and Angelica, and I Giulari di Piazza, among others. She is also a founding member of the New York Continuo Collective, the Renaissance duo Il Grillo, and the early-music trio Choraulos. She has studied voice with Michele Kennedy.

Brendan Littlefield is a composer, producer, and performer based in Brooklyn. When not singing with Polyhymnia or the St. Bart's Choir under Dr. Paolo Bordignon, he serves as resident composer to Linked Dance Theatre, where he has provided score, lyrics, and sound design for over 10 years. Brendan's love of choral music stems from his parents, both classical singers themselves, and he has written and performed in a wide range of contexts and mediums. Brendan has sailed across the Pacific Ocean, walked the Appalachian Trail and Camino de Santiago, and (true story) once briefly earned his living writing songs about beans.

Bennett Mahler is a singer, church musician, and violist/violinist based in New York City. An early music enthusiast, he sings as a soloist and cantor at St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church in Manhattan and with Polyhymnia, specializing in Renaissance polyphony and chant. Bennett was featured as both a vocal and baroque viola fellow with ARTEK Early Music in their 2022-2023 season, and has continued to perform with the ensemble since. Bennett holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees from McGill University in Montréal, Canada, having studied modern and baroque viola. When not making music, Bennett enjoys a career in research administration at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

A 4th generation musician, Erik-Peter Mortensen (EP) started singing professionally at age 9 at The Men and Boy's Choir of the Church of the Transfiguration, NY, and developed a great passion for Early Music. A year later he joined both the Metropolitan and City Opera Children's Choruses. While studying at Columbia University for his Music BA, he founded the New York Madrigal Singers (NYMS), which he led for 7 years. The NYMS received 2 favorable NY Times Reviews and produced 3 CDs. In 2015, he received his Master Certificate for Orchestration for Film and TV from Berklee College of Music where he studied with Ben Newhouse and Pinar Tobrak, composer of Marvel's superhero saga, "Captain Marvel". EP has sung professionally for decades in numerous churches and ensembles in the tri-state area. His compositional style is very eclectic and he's equally at home writing motets, anthems and madrigals in Renaissance style, fugues in the style of Bach, divertimentos in the style of Mozart, as well as art songs, cinematic blockbusters, epic rock, sci-fi electronica, as well as blurring and/or inventing genres such as Sacred Hip-Hop or EDM infused with Gregoria Chant. He is currently pursuing a MFA with the University of Chichester, England, in Orchestration and Composition for Film, TV, and Games. Many samples of his work paired to visual media can be found on Vimeo, Spotify and other Social Media under his first name Erik-Peter, (which is unique) as well as his brand “4LeafComposer”.

Alana Murphy is a jack of all trades and a (double) Master of Music based in NYC, holding an MM in piano performance from Indiana University and an MPhil in musicology from the CUNY Graduate Center. An active collaborative pianist, Alana particularly enjoys working with singers; she is also a staff accompanist at several ballet schools around the city. She has taught music courses in the CUNY system and Indiana University, and currently works as an assistant editor for RILM Abstracts of Music Literature. Alana has also always moonlighted as a soprano with affinities for early and new music, and has been a proud member of Polyhymnia since 2017. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Arthur and their two rescue coonhounds, Layla and Charlie.

Lianna Portnoy is currently the Managing Director of St. Ann's Warehouse, a nonprofit theatre in Dumbo, Brooklyn. She is a CPA and arts administrator with previous roles at accounting firm PwC and Manhattan School of Music.  A musician by trade, Ms. Portnoy still actively performs in New York City as both a clarinetist and early music singer.  She attended McGill University to Clarinet Performance, and Baruch College, where she obtained her MBA in Accounting.

Nathan Riehl has lived in NYC since 2012 and has performed with numerous church and professional ensembles including: The Riverside Church, St. Joseph's Church in Greenwich Village, Grace Church in NYC, Canticum Scholare, Polyhymnia, Pomerium, The American Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, Canterbury Choral Society, and What the Dickens carolers.  A native of Richmond, VA, Nathan holds his B.A. in Biology from the University of Richmond and his M.S. in Data Analytics from Johns Hopkins University.

Andrea, a New York public school teacher librarian, has been singing in New York for over 30 years. She has sung with Grace Church Choral Society, Music Divine, and has participated in the Sintra Choral Workshop with Ghislaine Morgan.  She is so thankful that there is an active early music community in New York City! Singing with Polyhymnia is a highlight of her week. 

Gwen Thompson is a prize-winning author, editor, and choral music addict who has sung with NYC choirs including Polyhymnia, Manhattan Choral Ensemble, New York Chamber Choirs, Canticum Novum, Young New Yorkers Chorus, and at St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Michael's on Amsterdam, Broadway United Church of Christ, and St. John's, Christopher Street.  Further afield, she has sung with the Royal School of Church Music Cathedral Singers at Durham Cathedral and York Minster in England, and in the Oxford Bach Choir under Christopher Robinson.  She studied early music performance practice at the Tallis Scholars International Summer School in Oakham, England, where she sang under Peter Phillips and studied voice with Ghislaine Morgan and Patrick Craig, and at the Brighton Early Music Festival, where she sang in the Brighton Consort under Deborah Roberts.  She received her B. A. in music, summa cum laude, from Bowdoin College

This year marks David’s 11th season with Polyhymnia and his 30th with Cantori New York directed by Mark Shapiro. For the past several years, David has enjoyed singing in the Tallis Scholars Summer Course with  Zenobia Música in Ávila, Spain under Peter Phillips and Rupert Damerell. This summer, David sang at The Gesualdo Six Renaissance Weekend in London and also performed with the chamber choir Sing We Enchanted in Sleepy Hollow.

Anna Willson is a vocalist and pianist from Yakima, WA. In addition to singing with Polyhymnia, Anna is a section leader and soloist with the Canterbury Choral Society at the Church of the Heavenly Rest on the Upper East Side. She sings regularly with the choirs at Marble Collegiate Church and The Church of Our Saviour. She has been a regular member of the New York Continuo Collective, a chamber group of early musicians that present concerts at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church. She also has a lute song duo “Good Pennyworths” that performs 16th century English Lute Music in Renaissance garb to the good walkers of Central Park and presents house concerts to anyone who will host wandering troubadours. In her free time, she also likes to play her harpsichord and lute.