Allison Selby Cook

Allison Selby Cook is a Chicago-based singer, actor, and multi-instrumentalist specializing in early music. Last season marked her professional NYC debut with the New York Philharmonic @ Lincoln Center, in Handel's Messiah. This season, Newberry Consort continues to feature Allison as both a singer and a violist, including in collaboration with Haymarket Opera for Monteverdi's L'Orfeo. Elsewhere this season, you can hear Allison performing with Music of the Baroque, Bella Voce, William Ferris Chorale, Oriana Singers, EcoVoice Project, Common Pulse, and as a guest artist at Loyola University. Previously, she brought historical performance to the theater as Associate Music Director and as an actor/multi-instrumentalist in Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Nell Gwynn, with English creative team Nigel Hess and Christopher Luscombe. Allison has performed or recorded with Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia, Piffaro (Philadelphia), Alchymy Viols (Indianapolis), Early Music Now (Milwaukee), Marion Consort, Early Music at the Barn, Schola Antiqua, Chicago Radio Theatre, ShawChicago, The Shakespeare Project of Chicago, and Court Theatre. After studying with Ellen Hargis and David Douglass at Northwestern University, Allison went on to opera and early music festivals in Siena (Italy), New York, Boston, Berkeley, and Bloomington (Indiana).