Sarah Groser, Yonit Kosovske and Xenia Pestova Bennett

Sarah Groser first played the viola da gamba as a child, encouraged by her viol-playing father, whilst waiting to start on the cello. She concentrated on the cello until her late teens when she heard viols playing in consort and was captivated by the sound. At Manchester University she was able to study both Baroque cello and viol with Charles Medlam of London Baroque and continued on to Rotterdam Conservatorium to study Baroque cello with Jaap ter Linden. Later she had lessons with Jordi Savall as an external student at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Sarah has since stopped playing cello and now concentrates on all the different sizes of viol. She was a member of the Rose Consort of Viols for fifteen years and of Sonnerie under Monica Huggett for three years. She has also played with London Baroque, Fretwork, Charivari Agréable, and the Dowland Consort. In 2001 Sarah moved from England to West Cork. In Ireland, she has collaborated with The Irish Baroque Orchestra, the IBO Concert Soloists, Resurgam, Sestina, Camerata Kilkenny, Morisca, The Orchestra of St Cecilia, Madrigal 75, and as a duo with Sarah Cunningham. Sarah performs regularly with harpsichordist Yonit Kosovske on both early and contemporary repertoire.

Yonit Kosovske performs as a soloist, chamber musician, accompanist, and interdisciplinary artist on modern piano, fortepiano, harpsichord, clavichord, and chamber organ. Recognized for her creative curation and imaginative programming, she specialises in repertoire from the 16th century through Contemporary, regularly championing music outside of the mainstream canon of Classical Western Art Music. She has collaborated with many composers, singers, instrumentalists, choral ensembles, and orchestras. Yonit has commissioned several new chamber works, among them Baile by Xenia Pestova Bennett, Watershed by Ailís Ní Ríain, and Alchemy by Tal Arbel, among others. In 2026 she will record and release Apricity, an album of Contemporary music for solo & collaborative harpsichord. Yonit has also created, directed, and performed in projects made for screen, including Rocking, The Judith Project, Susanna, Triple Spiral, Seams In My Socks, Keening, and Litany. In 2024 she collaborated on Inventions: The Harpsichord Across Time and Borders, a transnational composition and harpsichord project directed by Janet Oates. Yonit is founding Co-director of the annual Limerick Early Music Festival and year-round series H.I.P.S.T.E.R. (Historically Informed Performance Series, Teaching, Education, and Research), as well as founding Artistic Director of Wave~Links, a video documentary series exploring modalities between music-making and artisanry. Yonit is an Associate Professor in Music at the University of Limerick, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. She holds a Doctor of Music from Indiana University, a Master of Music from San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a Bachelor of Music from Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Pianist, composer and improviser Xenia Pestova Bennett has earned an international reputation as a leading proponent of uncompromising music. Her work spans a wide range of sound worlds, styles and genres from classical and contemporary art music to free improvisation, experimental electronica, multimedia and avant-pop. Xenia’s commitment to contemporary music inspired her to commission dozens of new works and collaborate closely with major innovators including Annea Lockwood, Karlheinz Essl and Gayle Young as well as champion numerous new voices. As a composer, Xenia is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre Ireland. Her ten studio albums to date include widely acclaimed recordings of core piano duo works by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen with Pascal Meyer for Naxos Records, collaborations with singer-songwriter Roxanne De Bastion and guitarist / producer Simon Tong (“The Piano Player of Budapest”), a collection of premiere recordings “Shadow Piano” for piano, toy piano and electronics (a “terrific album of dark, probing music”, Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader), complete piano works by Gayle Young hailed as “a triumph” (John Eyles, All About Jazz), and “Gold.Berg.Werk”, a reimagining of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations by Karlheinz Essl described as “a sci-fi journey in the direction of 1741” (Luke Clancy, RTE Lyric FM).