Violinist Joanna Becker loves to connect with others through performance and teaching. She is especially dedicated to playing newly-written music in a number of genres and to exploring the historical performance practice of older repertoire. 

Joanna is one of the original members of La Speranza. She is also a core member of the Texas New Music Ensemble, in which she performs chamber works of Texas based composers. She collaborates in studio and on stage with folk rock, neoclassical and ambient artists, and performs regularly with Houston-based period ensembles Mercury and Ars Lyrica. She teaches violin in her private studio.

Originally from the East Coast, Joanna earned her BA in musicology from Yale University and her MM in violin performance from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. She lives in Houston with her husband and two boys.

Photo by Tara Flannery

Flutist Alaina Diehl has performed on traverso with Ars Lyrica Houston, Mercury Chamber Orchestra, Bach Society Houston, Opera Neo, Oregon Bach Festival, Bach Akademie Charlotte, Austin Baroque Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, and the Victoria Bach Festival. On modern flute and piccolo, she has performed with the New Mexico Philharmonic, Opera Southwest Albuquerque, Santa Fe Symphony, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Festival Ballet Albuquerque, San Juan Symphony, and New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players. Alaina studied at the Flute Studio of Trevor Wye in Kent, England, and has a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Houston.

Ben Kerswell serves as Associate Director of Bach Society Houston and Cantor of Christ the King Lutheran Church. He is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Organ Performance at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where he studies with and completed his Master of Music in Organ Performance under Ken Cowan. While at St. Olaf College, he studied organ with Dr. Catherine Rodland and previously with Joanne Rodland. As a member of the St. Olaf Choir, he sang with the group, served as an accompanist, and served as the bass section leader.

An active recitalist, Ben performed as a Rising Star at the 2018 National AGO Convention in Kansas City, and he was a semi-finalist in the 2020 National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance before its cancellation. He previously was Organ Scholar at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas and the Church of St. Louis, King of France in St. Paul, Minnesota.

La Speranza cellist Fran Koiner grew up in idyllic Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She holds degrees from Ithaca College, summa cum laude, and Rice University, where she studied with Elizabeth Simkin (Ithaca), Desmond Hoebig and Norman Fischer (Rice).

At Bowdoin Summer Music Festival Fran studied with Steven Doane and the late Marc Johnson of the Vermeer Quartet, and performed in master classes for David Ying and the Ying Quartet. As part of her increasing focus on Baroque and Classical Era historical performance, Fran recently attended the competitive American Bach Soloists Academy in San Francisco, working with Kenneth Slowik, Steven Lehning, Debra Nagy, Corey Jamason, and Jeffrey Thomas.

An active musician in Texas, Fran has performed with TUTS, the Houston Ballet Orchestra, Mercury, Ars Lyrica, Bach Society Houston, the Houston Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and the Austin Baroque Orchestra. As a seasoned private teacher, Fran has taught at San Jacinto and Lee Colleges and also maintains a small teaching studio in her Clear Lake home, where she lives with her husband and two teenagers.

Photo by Amy Dornbush Smith

Violinist Maria Lin is from Rockland County, New York, and has degrees from the New England Convservatory and the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with James Buswell and Zvi Zeitlin, respectively. She has performed at numerous music festivals including Tanglewood, Spoleto, Sarasota, Grand Teton and the International Musician’s Seminar at Prussia Cove. As a soloist she has performed with the Rockland Symphony, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the National Repetory Orchestra, and gave her debut solo recital at Carnegie’s Weill Hall sponsored by the Asian American Foundation for the Arts. She has taught privately and at the Interlochen Music Center. A  free-lancer in the Northeast for many years, she moved to Houston in 2000 and has since performed with the Houston Grand Opera, Houston Ballet, Houston Symphony, Harmonium Stellarum, American Baroque Opera Co., Mercury, Bach Society, Ars Lyrica, and La Speranza.   She plays on a violin made by Giovanni Baptista Gabrieli in 1770.

Read about our Founder, Director, and violist here!