A POISONOUS AFFAIR: Confessions of a Royal Mistress starring Brooke Bloom at Rockefeller Lounge at Riverside Church

Brooke Bloom

Hailed by the New York Times for her "delicate, white-knuckled composure", Brooke Bloom has an accomplished career in film, television, and theatre. A veteran of NY stage, Brooke won an Obie Award for Best Actress, and garnered a Best Actress Drama Desk nomination for her work in Clare Barron's Off-Broadway play You Got Older. In the TV sphere, she's had memorable turns on FX's Atlanta and Kindred, Amazon's Sam Esmail series Homecoming opposite Julia Roberts and Shea Whigham, the critically acclaimed third season of The Sinner opposite Matt Bomer and Bill Pullman, and series regular stints on HBO's Gypsy, Amazon's Alpha House and I Know What You Did Last Summer. On the feature front, Brooke can be seen in the critically acclaimed Jeremy Hersh indie The Surrogate (SXSW), Eric Steel's Minyan which premiered at Berlin Film Festival, Anja Marquardt's She's Lost Control (two Indie Spirit Award nominations), and Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story. She can currently be seen in Noah Baumbach's White Noise. Other theatre credits include Atlantic Theater Company's Cloud Nine, David Greenspan's I'm Looking for Helen of Twelvetrees, and Signature Theatre's Everybody. Brooke resides in New York and is represented by TalentWorks and Circle of Confusion.

Gonzalo X. Ruiz

Gonzalo X. Ruiz is one of America’s most sought after historical woodwind soloists. In recent seasons Mr. Ruiz has appeared as principal oboist and soloist with leading groups in the U.S. and Europe, such as The English Concert, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Sonnerie, Wiener Akademie, Philharmonia, Trinity Wall Street, The Boston Early Music Festival, and Musica Angelica. He has been featured in numerous recordings of orchestral, chamber, and solo repertoire and his reconstructions of the original versions of Bach’s Orchestral Suites received a Grammy nomination in 2010. Mr. Ruiz teaches at The Juilliard School, and his former students now fill the ranks of many top groups across the country. Equally accomplished on the modern oboe, he is principal oboe of the Carmel Bach Festival, with recent performances including the concertos of Mozart, Vaughn Williams, and Strauss. For many years Mr. Ruiz led the ensemble American Baroque, specializing in new music commissions, for which he received the 2000 ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming.

Tatiana Daubek

Tatiana Daubek is known for her“sleekly elegant” playing (Gazettes Long Beach) and “soloistic precision (Early Music America). In a recent performance of Bach’s famous Chaccone, Daubek's “flawlessly lyrical rendering filled the cavernous, gold-leaf cathedral with splendor and gave the music the fluidity it wants” (Bachtrack). She is concertmaster for New York’s oldest Bach cantata series, Bach Vespers Holy Trinity. In addition, she performs frequently with the American Classical Orchestra, Carmel Bach Festival, Handel and Haydn Society, Musica Angelica, and Trinity Baroque Orchestra. Ms. Daubek is a founding member of House of Time, a chamber ensemble with a thriving series in Manhattan dedicated to performing music on period instruments. Ms. Daubek has taken part in multiple tours across North and South America with Musica Angelica/Wiener Akademie of The Infernal Comedy and The Giacomo Variations starring John Malkovich. Honoring her Czech heritage, Ms Daubek helped start the Festival Jarmily Novotne, a festival in the Czech Republic commemorating the life of star soprano and her grandmother, Jarmila Novotna. She has collaborated abroad with the Czech ensemble, Musica Florea and was a featured soloist broadcast live on Czech Radio. Daubek holds degrees from the University of North Texas, Boston University and The Juilliard School. Aside from music, Tatiana is also a photographer specializing in portraiture and street photography. She is a mother to her daughter Sofia.

Matt Zucker

Described as “mesmerizing” (Seen and Heard International), Matt Zucker appears internationally as a collaborator and soloist specializing in historical cellos and viols. His orchestral career has taken him around the world with ensembles such as Boston Baroque, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Les Arts Florissants, and Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra. His 2023 performances as viola da gamba soloist in J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the New York Philharmonic were lauded as “stellar” and “a delight” (Financial Times). He has also recently been featured in solos with Trinity Baroque Orchestra and New York Baroque Incorporated. Equally at home as a chamber musician, he performs with House of Time, the Boston Baroque X-tet, TENET Vocal Artists, the Sebastians, and Sonnambula. He has spent his summers at the Boston Early Music Festival, Dans les Jardins de William Christie, and Teatro Nuovo, a festival dedicated to historically-informed performances of bel canto opera. He can be heard on Brillance Indéniable: The Virtuoso Violin in the Court of Louis XV with Alana Youssefian and Le Bien-Aimé on Avie Records. Matt graduated from the Historical Performance program at the Juilliard School and was awarded a Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant. He holds additional degrees in cello performance and music theory from the Eastman School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Elliot Figg

Elliot Figg is a keyboardist, conductor and composer from Dallas, Texas. He is a graduate of the Historical Performance Program at The Juilliard School where he studied harpsichord with Kenneth Weiss. He also studied with Arthur Haas at the Yale School of Music. Elliot is an active member of several New York-based early music and contemporary ensembles, including ACRONYM, Ruckus, New York Baroque Incorporated, and New Vintage Baroque. Recent engagements include: Conductor and harpsichordist for Death of Classical's production of Dido and Aeneas in the catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery; Conductor and harpsichordist for Piramo e Tisbe and L'Amant Anonyme, both with Little Opera Theatre of New York; Deputy Music Director and harpsichordist for Farinelli and the King on Broadway; Assistant Conductor and harpsichordist for Il Farnace and Veremonda, both with Spoleto Festival USA; assistant conductor and harpsichordist for Dido and Aeneas with L.A. Opera.