Heliand tells stories through music.

Playing, singing, speaking, sharing stories – we build bridges to the past and illuminate connections to today’s music. We do away with formality and stylistic boundaries. We seek the spaces where styles meet and overlap.

Our mission is to build community through the shared experience of chamber music. We achieve this through our expansive programming, our artistry and our outreach.

Cynthia Huard

Rachael Elliott

Katie Oprea

  • A featured soloist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Aston Magna Early Music Festival, Cynthia has appeared as a pianist and harpsichordist throughout the United States and in Europe.

    As Artistic Director of the Rochester Chamber Music Society, Cynthia has performed with Lark Quartet, Johannes Quartet, cellist Nathaniel Rosen, and with chamber players of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, National Symphony, and the Colorado, Utah, and Vermont Symphony Orchestras.

    She holds advanced degrees from Indiana University and The Akademie of Music in Graz, Austria. Cynthia teaches piano and chamber music at Middlebury College.

  • Rachael has performed with Heliand since its founding in 2007. An avid chamber musician, her other groups include Clogs, Dark in the Song, Rushes Ensemble, and Tuple.

    With Clogs, Rachael has recorded five critically acclaimed albums and performed on stages and at festivals across the USA, Canada, UK, Europe and Australia. Other recordings include her solo album “Polka the Elk” (2011), “Darker Things” (2019) with Tuple, and “Rushes” (2014) with Rushes Ensemble.

    Rachael teaches bassoon, contemporary chamber music, wind pedagogy, and is a member of the career coaching staff at Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA. Rachael is a certified life coach and Certified Start With Heart Facilitator.

  • A native of St. Albans, Katie studied oboe with her father and later joined the Vermont Youth Orchestra, where she performed as a youth soloist with the VYO and VSO. Her principal teachers include Neil Boyer at the University of Southern Maine, Mark Weiger at the University of Iowa and César Ognibene at the Conservatoire National de Région of Lyon, in France.

    While in Europe, she served as principal oboist with the Romanian State Opera of Timisoara and also appeared with the Timisoara Philharmonic, the Europa Symphony, and the Bolshoi Ballet.

    Katie performs frequently with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Burlington Ensemble and is principal oboist with Opera Company of Middlebury. She teaches oboe lessons in Bakersfield.