Arcadia Players

Founded in 1989, Arcadia Players is a professional ensemble of musicians specializing in historical performance practice and dedicated to presenting music of the past in a fresh light for audiences old and new. We offer a series of concerts each year in communities around western Massachusetts and beyond, bringing together artists and audiences from throughout the region to engage listeners and showcase the work of area performers. Andrew Arceci became our new Artistic Director in the spring of 2022.

Arcadia Players is Ensemble-in-Residence at the Arthur F. Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at UMASS Amherst.

Andrew Arceci, Artistic Director

Multi-instrumentalist Andrew Arceci has performed and recorded throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.  He has taught at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley College (Director, Collegium Musicum), and Worcester State University. Additionally, he has given lectures, masterclasses, and/or workshops at Illinois Wesleyan University, the International Baroque Institute at Longy (Bard College), the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, the Narnia Arts Academy (Italy), Institutum Romanum Finlandiae (Italy), Taipei National University of the Arts (Taiwan), and Burapha University (Thailand). Arceci was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies during the 2019-2020 academic year. In addition to serving as Arcadia Players’ Artistic Director, he is the Founding Director of the Winchendon Music Festival (Winchendon, MA).

Christina English, Mezzo-Soprano

Noted for her “warm, colorful voice” (Schmopera) and “striking” presence (The Arts Fuse), mezzo-soprano Christina English enjoys a versatile career that encompasses many genres. Her 2019-20 schedule includes solo appearances with Hudson Valley Philharmonic (Messiah) and Newburyport Choral Society (Elijah); ensemble performances with Boston Baroque; and nationwide performances of Lorelei Ensemble’s 2019-20 touring program, Without Walls, featuring the world premiere of Jessica Meyer’s I long and seek after (winner of the 2019 Chorus America Dale Warland Commissioning Award), alongside works by Pérotin, Sungji Hong, David Lang, and Jonathan Woody.

Recent stage roles include the Pilot in NEMPAC Opera Project’s production of Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince; Fastrada in Pippin with Music on Norway Pond; the Housekeeper in New Repertory Theater’s Man of La Mancha; and Miss Prism in Odyssey Opera’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Her concert appearances include premieres with composer and sound artist Beau Kenyon and Boston University faculty member John Wallace; Britten and Bolcom’s Cabaret Songs with Boston Art Song Society; solo oratorio works with Rhode Island Philharmonic & Providence Singers, Newburyport Choral Society, Cambridge Community Chorus, Resonance Works, and Choral Art Society; and regular appearances with the acclaimed Boston Baroque chorus.

Christina has been a core member of Lorelei Ensemble since 2008, and currently works as social media manager for the ensemble. A vocal chamber group known for its “pristine vocal tone” and unfailing display of the “elegance, power, and grace of the human voice,” Lorelei is committed to the expansion of the repertoire for women’s voices. Lorelei has commissioned and premiered more than fifty new works since its founding in 2007 and continues to expose and reinvent early works of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque repertoires. Recent highlights with Lorelei include the role of the nursing sister in Puccini’s Suor Angelica with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, collaborations with GRAMMY-nominated ensembles Cantus and A Far Cry, and appearances at The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music.

Christina belongs to Beyond Artists, a coalition of artists that donates a percentage of their concert fees to organizations they care about. She supports the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and the Environmental Defense Fund through her performances.