It’s been twenty years since we decided to name our duo after Orpheus, because his music made mountains dance. We were twelve and nine years old, growing up in Ithaca, New York, amidst multi-colored bookcases and gardens, acting in the First Street Playhouse and singing Kurt Weill and Schubert around one of our four pianos (it’s a long story) with our parents and friends.

We are now known for playing from memory and for performances of rare spontaneity and integration. Our mission is to encourage and inspire audiences of all ages and backgrounds through music-making that expresses the breath of life.

Just click on the title and it will take you to a window to choose a media player with which to listen to : To Make a Prairie (Words by Emily Dickinson, music by Dana Maiben, sung by Mary Ellen Callahan and Beth Anne Hatton, with James Blachy, contrabass.)

We have appeared throughout the Americas as well as in Europe. In New York City, which we’ve made our home, we’ve performed in venues ranging from the tiny East Village club Tonic to Carnegie Hall. We have performed on respected series such as the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago and Trinity Church Concerts on Wall Street, at numerous colleges and universities, and in Italy as guests of Mrs. Bice Horszowski.

We’ve toured Latin America as Artistic Ambassadors for the United States, performing and giving masterclasses in El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Curacao and the Bahamas.

We have recordings on the VAI Audio, Marquis Classics, and Unacorda labels and are featured on Vienna Modern Masters and Tzadik. For our recording of the Schumann sonatas we used a wonderful 1846 Streicher piano from the Frederick Collection and Vita's 1765 Italian violin with gut strings.

Over the years we’ve explored many different musical interests together. Our repertoire ranges from Bach to music by young composers from our neighborhood, including the complete sonatas of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Bartok as well as our own arrangements of arias and songs. Our performances are colored by exploration of historical performance practices and kindled by a spirit of improvisation.

Anna Maria Baeza

We love to collaborate with other musicians, including clarinetist Anna Maria Baeza, sopranos Mary Ellen Callahan and Beth Anne Hatton, and mezzo-soprano Hayden DeWitt, founder and director of Teatro Corleone.

In 2003 we began a project called "What a Neighborhood!" to celebrate greater West Harlem primarily through the music of living local composers. The programs are modeled after nineteenth-century concert programs, with a lot of variety, many singers, unexpected arrangements, and a warm, intimate, salon-like atmosphere.

Just click on the title "Seal Lullaby" and it will take you to a window to choose a media player with which to listen to Seal Lullaby
(Words by Rudyard Kipling, music by Franklin Latner, sung by Beth Anne Hatton)

Mary Ellen Callahan

In addition to performing and recording, we also enjoy teaching. Because we were homeschooled ourselves, we look for teaching opportunities in which we can create an environment of listening, cooperation, and mutual respect among all parties—the experience of chamber music from the inside. Our favorite workshops have included week-long improvisation workshops at Camphill Village, Copake, New York, a community inspired by Rudolf Steiner that has the most beautiful Healing Plant Garden and people and food; chamber music, improvisation, and composition workshops with young people supported by three grants from the Chamber Music America Residency Partnership Program; and workshops on baroque musical style for the Caramoor Education Department and Summer Sinfonia at the Hawthorne Valley School.

Just click on the title "S(" and it will take you to a window to choose a media player with which to listen to the music. S (Words by e. e. cummings, music by Mark Ettinger, sung by Mary Ellen Callahan

We continue to learn from each other in our work together as the Orfeo
Duo, but we also find inspiration in working with others.

Vita is a member of ARTEK and Philomel and is a founding member of Foundling Baroque Orchestra and Women’s Advocacy Project. In these groups Vita plays music of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries on a baroque violin with replicas of early bows. She won the Felix Salzer Award at the Mannes College of Music, where she studied with Felix Galimir.

Ishmael gives solo recitals and performs with a variety of singers and instrumentalists. He majored in both piano and composition at the Curtis Institute of Music and Mannes College, where he studied with Richard Goode. He won First Prize in the MTNA Yamaha Piano Competition. Ishmael's compositions, which include operas to his own libretti, chamber music, and orchestral works, have won many national competitions.