© ALLEGRAEva Maria Pollerus, born in 1976 near Graz, Austria, is Professor of Harpsichord and Performance Practice at the Graz University of Music and Performing Arts, and chair oft he Institute for Early Music and Performance Practice there. Already as a child she discovered through piano playing her passion for music, and collected intensive concert and competition experience already early on. In addition to her piano studies, which she commenced at the age of fourteen ah the Graz University oft he Arts, she began two years later to become interested in Early Music and the harpsichord, which ultimately was to be her area of specialization. She studied harpsichord at the Universities oft he Arts in Graz (with K. Rieckh, among others) and Vienna (with W. Glüxam) as well as at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (with J. B. Christensen), and received her Magistra artium with honors. In addition to intensive concert activities as a solist, she performs with various orchestras and ensembles, including several that she directs, and with the ensemble “Musick’s Pleasure Garden“, of which she is a co-founder. Moreover, she is working on a dissertation on the ornamentation practice oft he German/English High Baroque.