Keyboardist Alissa Duryee grew up in New Jersey and began her musical studies at the piano with Donaldo Garcia, at the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division. She later attended Vassar College, where she became interested in early keyboard instruments, and upon graduation in 1997, moved to France where she has since studied the piano with Gerard Fremy and Guigla Katsarava, the harpsichord with Olivier Baumont, Noelle Spieth, and Frederic Michel, and the organ with Marie-Louise Langlas.As a resident artist at the Fondation des Etats-Unis in Paris, she cofounded PONT, an organization devoted to promoting young artists and musicians, and the Orchestre FMR, an orchestra composed of young international musicians supporting student soloists and conductors, and promoting the works of student composers. During this residency, a grant from the Harriet Hale Woolley Foundation allowed her to pursue an interest in instrument building by constructing a fretted clavichord and a French double manual harpsichord.
As a performer, she has appeared throughout Europe and North America and completed a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts. As a collaborative artist she works with such institutions as the Conservatoire de Chartres, Conservatoire de Region de Paris, and the Amherst Early Music Festival, as well as numerous freelance projects. She maintains a class of keyboard students in Nogent-le-Rotrou, France. Current projects include the study of fortepiano with Patrick Cohen and the writing of a thesis on the topic of the musical traditions of the Couperin, Bach, and Scarlatti families.