Artists
Below are the musicians who joined us for the 2022 Festival.
Artistic Directors, Music in the Vineyards
Daria Tedeschi Adams
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Violinist Daria Tedeschi Adams, the founding Co-Artistic Director of Music in the Vineyards, is a member of the world-renowned Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) where she has been featured in solo and chamber music performances. Since joining the SPCO, she has traveled the world on tours to Asia, Europe and across North America. In 2017, the SPCO won a Grammy for Best Small Ensemble Performance with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. At both MITV and the SPCO, Daria has earned a reputation for developing innovative concert presentations. Her “musical choreography” of both traditional and new music, has enhanced the listener experience in exciting new ways. Daria has maintained a robust teaching studio over 25 years. Earlier in her career, she spent four years playing in the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, where she took an interest in a musician lurking suspiciously in the back of the pit, her current husband. His interest remains mutual. She lives in suburban Minneapolis with her husband, three children (27, 25 and 23) and one dog.
Michael Adams
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Violist Michael Adams has carved out a unique career that has lead down many roads: as an orchestral player, chamber musician, writer on music, radio host and producer, host of the Minnesota Orchestra’s Adventures in Music family concerts, and — along with his violinist wife Daria — the founding Artistic Director of Music in the Vineyards. As MITV’s concert commentator and emcee, his goal is to make the music sound so interesting − through insightful stories, musical explanations and analysis − that listeners can't wait to hear it!
Michael joined the Minnesota Orchestra in 1988 at the invitation of conductor Edo de Waart following a successful stint as producer and host for classical WCAL-FM in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and later, for Minnesota Public Radio. Before landing in Minnesota, Michael passed through many different orchestras: The Rochester Philharmonic, Denver Chamber Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera, The Tulsa Philharmonic and the Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra.
He is the father to three children, ages 27, 25 and 23 who are baffled that anyone would pay to hear their father speak. Michael is an avid bicyclist, enjoys canoe camping in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Wilderness Area, sailing with friends on Lake Superior and planning fantasy vacation trips with his collection of maps. Someday, he will own a boat larger than a canoe.
2023 Summer Festival
ENSEMBLE The Calidore Quartet
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Performances of the Calidore String Quartet (Jeffrey Myers, Ryan Meehan, violins, Jeremy Berry, viola, and Estelle Choi, cello) are renowned for their “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct” (New York Times). Their unique “balance of intellect and expression” (Los Angeles Times) is complemented by the feeling that “four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one” (Washington Post). After over a decade of performances and residencies in the world’s most esteemed venues and festivals, the release of numerous critically acclaimed recordings and lauded with significant awards, the Calidore String Quartet is recognized as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of a vast repertory; from the cycles of quartets by Beethoven and Mendelssohn to works of celebrated contemporary voices like Grygory Kurtag, Jörg Widmann and Caroline Shaw.
In their most ambitious recording project to date, the Calidore are amidst recording the complete cycle of Beethoven’s String Quartets for Signum Records. The recording will involve multiple releases beginning in March 2023. The 22-23 season includes debuts in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Prague, Madrid, Vancouver and Key West. Their concert activities also see returns to Wigmore Hall, Kennedy Center, Copenhagen, Florence, Montreal, St. Paul, Houston and Los Angeles. In September 2022, the Calidore performs at Carnegie Hall with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, in a memorial concert honoring the late composer Andre Previn. They also enjoy collaborations this season with the Emerson Quartet, clarinetist Anthony McGill, bassist Xavier Foley, violist Matthew Lipman, harpist Bridget Kibbey and pianists Ivo Kahanek and Sophiko Simisive.
Recipient of a 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2017 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, the Calidore String Quartet first made international headlines as winner of the $100,000 Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition. The quartet was the first and only North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, and is currently in residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
ENSEMBLE Catalyst Quartet
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Hailed by The New York Times at its Carnegie Hall debut as “invariably energetic and finely burnished… playing with earthy vigor,” the Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet was founded by the internationally acclaimed Sphinx Organization in 2010. The ensemble (Karla Donehew Perez, violin; Abi Fayette, violin; Paul Laraia, viola; and Karlos Rodriguez, cello) believes in the unity that can be achieved through music and imagine their programs and projects with this in mind, redefining and reimagining the classical music experience.
The Catalyst Quartet, known for “perfect ensemble unity” and “unequaled class of execution” (Lincoln Journal Star), has toured widely throughout the United States and abroad, including sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., at Chicago’s Harris Theater, Miami’s New World Center, and Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall in New York. The quartet has been guest soloists with the Cincinnati Symphony, New Haven Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, and has served as principal players and featured ensemble with the Sphinx Organization’s featured ensemble, the Sphinx Virtuosi, on six national tours. They have been invited to perform at important music festivals such as Mainly Mozart in San Diego, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Sitka Music Festival, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Strings Music Festival, and the Grand Canyon Music Festival, where they appear annually. The Catalyst Quartet was ensemble-in-residence at the Vail Dance Festival in 2016 and in the 2021-22 season were in residence with San Francisco Performances where they presented the complete series of works from their Uncovered Project. In 2014, they opened the Festival del Sole in Napa, California with Joshua Bell and participated in England’s Aldeburgh Music Foundation String Quartet Residency with two performances in Jubilee Hall. In 2022 the Catalyst Quartet was named ensemble in residence for the Chamber Music Northwest Festival in Portland and for the Met Museum's LiveArts series in NYC.
ENSEMBLE Telegraph Quartet
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The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
The Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan.
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Rieko Aizawa, Piano
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Praised by the NY Times for an “impressive musicality, a crisp touch and expressive phrasing,” Japanese pianist Rieko Aizawa has performed throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, including at New York City’s Lincoln Center, Boston's Symphony Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, and London’s Wigmore Hall.
At the age of thirteen, Ms. Aizawa was brought to the attention of conductor Alexander Schneider on the recommendation of the pianist Mitsuko Uchida. Schneider engaged Ms. Aizawa as soloist with his Brandenburg Ensemble at the opening concerts of Tokyo's Casals Hall. Later that year, Schneider presented her in U.S. début concerts at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall with his New York String Orchestra. She has since established her own unique musical voice.
Highlights have included acclaimed performances with the New Japan Philharmonic under Seiji Ozawa, the English Chamber Orchestra under Heinz Holliger, the Festival Strings Lucerne in Switzerland under Rudolf Baumgartner, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under Hugh Wolff, the Curtis Institute Orchestra with Peter Oundjian, the St. Louis Symphony under David Loebel and a wonderfully received performance with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Aizawa also has a great interest in exploring unusual repertoire. The St. Paul Pioneer Press described her performance with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hans Graf "the Salieri Piano Concerto in C was played so splendidly by Rieko Aizawa. Hers was a graceful reading. .... Aizawa's performance lent the work a respect it rarely receives." In the same year, she received the Washington Award.
Julie Albers, Cello
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American cellist Julie Albers is recognized for her superlative artistry, her charismatic and radiant performing style, and her intense musicianship. She was born into a musical family in Longmont, Colorado and began violin studies at the age of two with her mother, switching to cello at age four. Julie made her major orchestral debut with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1998, and thereafter has performed in recitals and with orchestras throughout North America, Europe, Korea, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand. In 2014, she was named principal cellist of the SPCO. She regularly participates in chamber music festivals around the world, and is active with the Albers String Trio and the Cortona Trio. Julie performs on a N.F. Vuillaume cello made in 1872.
Edward Arron, Cello
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Cellist Edward Arron has garnered recognition worldwide for his elegant musicianship, impassioned performances, and creative programming. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Arron made his New York recital debut in 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since that time, he has appeared in recital, as a soloist with major orchestras, and as a chamber musician throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
The 2020-21 season marks Mr. Arron’s 12th season as the artistic director and host of the acclaimed Musical Masterworks concert series in Old Lyme, Connecticut. He is also the co-artistic director with his wife, pianist Jeewon Park, of the Performing Artists in Residence series at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Mr. Arron tours and records as a member of the renowned Ehnes Quartet, and he appears regularly at the Caramoor International Music Festival, where he has been a resident performer and curator of chamber music concerts for over a quarter of a century. In 2013, he completed a ten-year residency as the artistic director of the Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, a chamber music series created in 2003 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Museum’s prestigious Concerts and Lectures series.
Edward Arron began playing the cello at age seven in Cincinnati and continued his studies in New York with Peter Wiley. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Harvey Shapiro. In 2016, Mr. Arron joined the faculty at University of Massachusetts Amherst, after having served on the faculty of New York University from 2009 to 2016.
Aaron Boyd, Violin
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Aaron Boyd has established an international career as soloist, chamber musician, orchestral leader, recording artist, lecturer and educator. Since making his New York recital debut in 1998, he has appeared at the most prestigious venues throughout the United States, Europe, Russia and Asia and has collaborated with members of the Juilliard, Guarneri, Orion, Tokyo and Emerson Quartets, the Beaux Arts Trio, Phillippe Entremont, Mitsuko Uchida, Anner Bylsma, Lynn Harrell, Cho-Liang Lin, Wu Han and David Finckel.
Sunmi Chang, Violin
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As the laureate of both the 2007 International Markneukirchen and Sion-Valais International Violin Competitions, Sunmi Chang has performed widely to much acclaim throughout North America and Europe as a soloist and chamber musician. In 2008, she was the soloist of the Yale Philharmonia's tour to Seoul, Beijing, and Shanghai, performing the Beethoven Concerto. She studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England and at the Hanns Eisler Musikhochschule in Berlin with Prof. Eberhard Feltz. An active chamber musician, Ms. Chang won first prize at the Plowman Chamber Music Competition and has collaborated with many renowned artists. She was invited to take part in the Rising Stars Series at Caramoor, Music@Menlo and Chamber Music Northwest. She completed her studies with Peter Oundjian, Ani Kavafian, and Soovin Kim in 2009, earning the Artist Diploma and the Master of Music degree at Yale University, where she won the concerto competition in 2006. She was a tenured member of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra from 2009 to 2015 and she recently completed a Doctor of Musical Arts in Violin Performance from the University of Michigan in 2020.
Owen Dalby, Violin
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Praised as “dazzling” (The New York Times), “expert and versatile” (The New Yorker), and “a fearless and inquisitive violinist” (San Francisco Classical Voice), Owen Dalby leads a rich musical life as a soloist, chamber musician, new and early music expert, orchestral concertmaster, and educator. As a member of the St Lawrence String Quartet, Owen is Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University. With the SLSQ, recent and upcoming projects include tours of all the major chamber series in North America and Europe, as well as solo debuts with the LA Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the NHK Philharmonic (Tokyo) in John Adams’s Absolute Jest for string quartet and orchestra. As one of today’s most active classical ensembles , Owen performs with the SLSQ around 75 concerts each year and spearheaded a major new release of Haydn string quartets (Opus 20) on vinyl LP, CD, streaming, and HD video.
Jennifer Frautschi, Violin
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Two-time GRAMMY nominee and Avery Fisher career grant recipient violinist Jennifer Frautschi has appeared as soloist with innumerable orchestras including the Cincinnati Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and St Paul Chamber Orchestra. As chamber musician she has performed with the Boston Chamber Music Society and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and appeared at Chamber Music Northwest, La Jolla Summerfest, Music@Menlo, Tippet Rise Art Center, Toronto Summer Music and the Bridgehampton, Charlottesville, Lake Champlain, Moab, Ojai, Santa Fe, Salt Bay, Seattle, and Spoleto Music Festivals.
Her extensive discography includes several discs for Naxos: the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Robert Craft, and two GRAMMY-nominated recordings with the Fred Sherry Quartet, of Schoenberg’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra , and the Schoenberg Third String Quartet. Her most recent releases are with pianist John Blacklow on Albany Records: the first devoted to Robert Schumann’s three sonatas; the second, “American Duos”, an exploration of recent additions to the violin and piano repertoire by contemporary American composers Barbara White, Steven Mackey, Elena Ruehr, Dan Coleman, and Stephen Hartke. She also recorded three widely praised CDs for Artek: the Prokofiev concerti with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony; the violin music of Ravel and Stravinsky; and 20th-century works for unaccompanied violin. Other recent recordings include a disc of Romantic Horn Trios, with hornist Eric Ruske and pianist Stephen Prutsman, and the Stravinsky Duo Concertant with pianist Jeremy Denk.
Born in Pasadena, California, Ms. Frautschi attended the Colburn School, Harvard, the New England Conservatory, and the Juilliard School. She performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius violin known as the “ex-Cadiz,” on generous loan from a private American foundation with support from Rare Violins In Consortium. She currently teaches in the graduate program at Stony Brook University.
Francisco Fullana, Violin
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The Spanish violinist Francisco Fullana, recipient of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant, has been praised as a “rising star” (BBC Music Magazine) and “a paragon of delicacy” (San Francisco’s Classical Voice), while his thoughtful virtuosity has led to collaborations with such conducting greats as the late Sir Colin Davis and Gustavo Dudamel -- who described Fullana as “an amazing talent.” Beside his many appearances as a soloist performing internationally, and his commitment to chamber music -- he has been named a member of the prestigious Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society Two to start in 2018 -- he is making an impact as an innovative educator, having created the Fortissimo Youth Initiative, a series of baroque and classical music seminars and performances in partnership with youth and university orchestras, which explore and deepen young musicians’ understanding of 18th Century music.
Fullana’s first CD, Through the Lens of Time (released by Orchid Classics) showcases both his incandescent virtuosity and the range of his artistic inquisitiveness. The album is centered around Max Richter’s recomposition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, recorded alongside the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Richter’s work is intertwined with three other contemporary solo scores that all re-examine and take flight from masterpieces of the baroque.
A graduate of The Juilliard School and the University of Southern California, Francisco currently performs on the 1735 Mary Portman ex-Kreisler Guarneri del Gesù violin, on loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.
Ara Gregorian, Violin
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Known for his thrilling performances and musical creativity, Ara Gregorian made his New York recital debut in 1996 at Carnegie Hall and his concerto debut in 1997 with the Boston Pops Orchestra in Symphony Hall. Since that time he has established himself as one of the most sought-after and versatile musicians of his generation. Ara has taken an active role as a presenter of chamber music as well, as the Founding Artistic Director of the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival in Greenville, North Carolina, which will be celebrating its 15th Anniversary Season. Ara has appeared at the music festivals of Santa Fe, Skaneateles, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Cactus Pear, Bravo! Vail and Music in the Vineyards Festival. Gregorian is the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival Distinguished Professor of Violin at East Carolina University where he has been on the faculty since 1998. He is married to violinist Hye-Jin Kim.
Oliver Herbert, Cello
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The recipient of a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Oliver Herbert’s natural musicianship and connective performances are carving a unique path in the world of music. As a soloist, Oliver’s collaborations include appearances with the San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia, Erfurt Philharmonic, and Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has worked with conductors such as Michael Tilson Thomas, Juanjo Mena, and Alexander Shelley.
Driven by the living quality and relevance of the works he presents to audiences, Oliver sees his role as a cellist as being a conduit for magical musical messages. His work is fueled by a passion for music ranging from past centuries to the present, with concerto performances spotlighting works from C.P.E. Bach to Haydn, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Ibert, Elgar, Barber, Shostakovich, Schnittke, Lutoslawski, and Vasks, among others. Current collaborations with composers include premieres of a new solo work by Chelsea Komschlies as well as a piece for cello, percussion, and electronics by Andrew Moses. His recent projects include performances of the complete Bach Cello Suites at Capital Region Classical and the complete Beethoven Cello Sonatas at Guarneri Hall in Chicago.
As a chamber musician, Oliver appears regularly at leading festivals and venues such as the Rheingau Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Marlboro, La Jolla SummerFest, Verbier Festival, ChamberFest Cleveland, Bridgehampton, Caramoor, CMS Palm Beach, and the Ravinia Festival. During his two summers at Marlboro, Oliver had the opportunity to work closely and perform with legendary pianist Mitsuko Uchida, the festival’s director.
Gaeun Kim, Cello
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20-year old Gaeun Kim is a cellist based in New York. She is spotlighted as the outstanding virtuosic performer around the world and numerous competitions winner since her age of 4. Starting from winning both first prize and the special award in the Antonio Janigro Competition in Zagreb, Croatia, She has also won first prizes in the Liezen International Competition, and the David Popper International Cello Competition. She was selected as a “30 Representative stars in the Culture & Arts Industry of the Republic of Korea”, “Samsung Foundation Rising Star'', and as one of the six winners of the ‘Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle’, led by Gautier Capucon, performing as the Louis Vuitton Fondation Artist until 2021. Furthermore, in 2023, she got invited as the special jury at the “World Biggest Stage International Competition”.
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Tessa Lark, Violin
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Violinist Tessa Lark is one of the most captivating artistic voices of our time, consistently praised by critics and audiences for her astounding range of sounds, technical agility, and musical elegance. In 2020 she was nominated for a GRAMMY in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category and received one of Lincoln Center's prestigious Emerging Artist Awards, the special Hunt Family Award. Other recent honors include a 2018 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Silver Medalist in the 9th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and winner of the 2012 Naumburg International Violin Competition. A budding superstar in the classical realm, she is also a highly acclaimed fiddler in the tradition of her native Kentucky, delighting audiences with programming that includes Appalachian and bluegrass music and inspiring composers to write for her. Tessa has been a featured soloist at numerous U.S. orchestras, recital venues, and festivals since making her concerto debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at age sixteen. She has appeared with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; the Louisville Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic; the Albany, Indianapolis, Knoxville and Seattle symphonies; and has been presented by such venues as Carnegie Hall, New York's Lincoln Center, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, the Music Center at Strathmore, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, San Francisco Performances, Ravinia, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, Australia's Musica Viva Festival, and the Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Bridgehampton, and La Jolla summer festivals.
Highlights of her 2021-22 season include debuts at London's Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall; return appearances for recital series such as Cal Performances and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; and numerous concerto engagements, including the world premiere of Michael Schachter's violin concerto, Cycles of Life, with the Knoxville Symphony in April 2022.
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Tessa plays a ca. 1600 G.P. Maggini violin on loan from an anonymous donor through
the Stradivari Society of Chicago.
Dimitri Murrath, Viola
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Born in Brussels, Belgian American viola player Dimitri Murrath has made his mark as a soloist on the international scene, performing regularly in venues including Kennedy Center (Washington), Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Royal Festival Hall, Kioi Hall (Tokyo) and Théâtre de la Ville (Paris).
A first prize winner at the Primrose International Viola Competition, Dimitri Murrath has won numerous awards, including second prize at the First Tokyo International Viola Competition and the special prize for the contemporary work at the ARD Munich Competition. In 2012, he was named laureate of the Juventus Festival, an award recognizing young European soloists. He is a recipient of a 2014 Avery Fisher Career Grant. With this award, Dimitri Murrath recorded and released his first solo album recording music by Vieuxtemps, Clarke and Hindemith last year.
Dimitri Murrath began his musical education at the Yehudi Menuhin School studying with Natalia Boyarsky, and went on to work in London with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He graduated from the New England Conservatory as a student of Kim Kashkashian. After 9 years teaching viola at New England Conservatory, he is now on the viola and chamber music faculty at San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Dimitri Murrath participates in the Music for Food project, which raises awareness of the hunger problem faced by a large percent of the population, and gives the opportunity to experience the powerful role music can play as a catalyst for change.
“(...) the warm and noble tome of Mr. Murrath’s viola glowed fiercely” New York Times
John Novacek, Piano
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Pianist John Novacek regularly tours the Americas, Europe and Asia as solo recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist; in the latter capacity he has presented over thirty concerti with dozens of orchestras.
Following a summer filled with re-engagements at major festivals throughout the United states and Canada, John Novacek’s current season is highlighted by his returns to Massachusetts’ Springfield Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Kevin Rhodes, and Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México, conducted by Scott Yoo. He also continues his collaborative work with violinist Leila Josefowicz, performing at Amherst College, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York City’s Park Avenue Armory and Washington, DC’s Library of Congress and The Phillips Collection.
John Novacek’s major American performances have been heard in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, 92nd Street Y, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, Merkin Concert Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Symphony Space, Washington’s The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center and Los Angeles’ Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Hollywood Bowl and Royce Hall, while international venues include Paris’ Theatre des Champs-Elysées, Salle Gaveau and Musée du Louvre, London’s Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre, as well as most of the major concert halls of Japan. He is also a frequent guest artist at festivals, here and abroad, including New York City’s Mostly Mozart Festival, California’s Festival Mozaic and those of Aspen, Cape Cod, Caramoor, Chautauqua, Colorado College, Great Lakes, Mendocino, Mimir, Ravinia, Seattle, SummerFest La Jolla, Wolf Trap, BBC Proms (England), Braunschweig (Germany), Lucerne, Menuhin and Verbier (Switzerland), Majorca (Spain), Sorrento (Italy), Stavanger (Norway), Toulouse (France) and Sapporo (Japan). He has also made his debut with the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México.
Karen Ouzounian, Cello
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Described as “radiant” and “expressive” (The New York Times) and “nothing less than gorgeous” (Memphis Commercial Appeal), cellist Karen Ouzounian approaches music-making with a deeply communicative and passionate spirit. Winner of the S&R Foundation's 2016 Washington Award and at home in diverse musical settings, she is especially drawn towards unusual collaborations and eclectic contemporary repertoire.
At the heart of Karen’s artistic practice is her love of the collaborative process and the development of adventurous new works. Current and recent projects include collaborations with visual artist Kevork Mourad, theater director Joanna Settle, and instrumentalist-composers Kinan Azmeh, Haruka Fujii and Kayhan Kalhor, whose Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur for solo kemancheh, cello, tabla and orchestra Karen performed and recorded with Kalhor, Sandeep Das, and conductor Eric Jacobsen. Other upcoming premieres include a new cello concerto by composer Lembit Beecher with the Orlando Philharmonic, a new work by Anna Clyne for solo cello and string quintet with The Knights, and a series of new pieces for Karen to perform as a cellist and vocalist.
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Susie Park, Violin
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Sydney native Susie Park first picked up a violin at age three, made her solo debut at five, and, by 16, had performed with every major orchestra in her country. Susie has grown into a musician distinguished by unusual passion and versatility, and today performs internationally as an orchestral, chamber, and solo artist.
Susie's international career was launched at age 16, when she took first place in the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition in France. This led to performances and reengagements throughout the US, Europe, and her native Australia, where highlights included performances for crowds of over 120,000. Susie went on to receive additional top honors at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and the Wieniawski Competition in Poland.
Susie has since concertized around the world, soloing and touring with European orchestras including the Vienna Symphony, Orchestre National de Lille, and the Royal Philharmonic; American orchestras including the Pittsburgh Symphony and San Francisco Symphony; Korea's KBS Orchestra; Orchestra Wellington in New Zealand; and all major symphony orchestras in Australia. Working with conductors including Simon Rattle, Hans Vonk, Alan Gilbert, Fabio Luisi and Yehudi Menuhin, Susie has been heard in venues ranging from New York’s Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls, Boston's Symphony Hall, Chicago's Millenium Park, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Washington's Smithsonian Institute, Vienna's Musikverein, Cologne's Philharmonie, Düsseldorf's Tonhalle, and Sydney's Opera House...Read More...
Masumi Per Rostad, Viola
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Grammy Award-winning Japanese-Norwegian violist Masumi Rostad has been described as an “electrifying, poetic and sensitive musician” with an “understated yet commanding presence” by critics and is in demand as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. In 2017 he was appointed to the faculty of the renowned Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.
2023-4 highlights include concerto appearances with the Virginia Symphony, LA Chamber Orchestra, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and numerous festivals including La Jolla Summerfest, Music In The Vineyards (Napa), SpoletoUSA, and Beare’s Premiere Music Festival (Hong Kong).
As a former member of the Pacifica Quartet 2001-2017 Masumi recorded prolifically and concertized extensively.
He received his BM and MM degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied with legendary violist and pedagogue Karen Tuttle and was appointed her teaching assistant. While a student, he performed the world premiere of Michael White's Viola Concerto in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall and also gave the New York premiere of Paul Schoenfield's Viola Concerto.
Masumi has served on the faculties of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, The University of Chicago, The University of Toronto, and Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.
Currently, Masumi lives in Rochester, NY. He actively maintains a YouTube channel and produces videos about music and musicians. His Amati viola was crafted in Cremona, Italy in 1619.
Scott Pingel, Bass
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Scott Pingel has been serving as the principal bass of the San Francisco Symphony since 2004, after having worked with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada. He has also served as principal bassist of festival orchestras including Arizona MusicFest and the Bellingham Festival, as well as principal bassist, soloist, and Artistic Partner for the Mainly Mozart Festival of Orchestras.
An active chamber musician, he has collaborated with luminaries including Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Kalish, David Finckel, YeMim Bronfman, Wu Han, members of the Emerson, Miro, PaciMica, St. Lawrence, Danish, and Takacs Quartets, toured throughout the US with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and regularly performs in the Music at Menlo and Music in the Vineyards festivals. His solo performances and recitals featuring his own arrangements and compositions have received high critical acclaim.
Versatile in a variety of styles of music, Scott has performed in jazz clubs from New York to Stockholm, and his solo performances with the iconic heavy metal band, Metallica, have been seen by millions worldwide, and were hailed as “show stopping” and “jaw dropping” by Rolling Stone and Variety magazines.
Passionate about teaching, he has taught master classes throughout North America, Asia, and Europe, served as a tenured Associate Professor of Music at the University of Michigan, and is currently a faculty member of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Former students have won international solo competitions and gained employment with major symphony orchestras in multiple countries.
Anna Polonsky, Piano
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Anna Polonsky is widely in demand as a soloist and chamber musician. She has appeared with the Moscow Virtuosi, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Memphis Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, and many others. Ms. Polonsky has collaborated with the Guarneri, Orion, Daedalus, and Shanghai Quartets, and with such musicians as Mitsuko Uchida, Yo-Yo Ma, David Shifrin, Richard Goode, Emanuel Ax, Arnold Steinhardt, Peter Wiley, and Jaime Laredo. She has performed chamber music at festivals such as Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Seattle, Music@Menlo, Cartagena, Bard, and Caramoor, as well as at Bargemusic in New York City. Ms. Polonsky has given concerts in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Alice Tully Hall, and Carnegie Hall’s Stern, Weill, and Zankel Halls, and has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. A frequent guest at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, she was a member of the Chamber Music Society Two during 2002-2004. In 2006 she took a part in the European Broadcasting Union's project to record and broadcast all of Mozart's keyboard sonatas, and in the spring of 2007 she performed a solo recital at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium to inaugurate the Emerson Quartet’s Perspectives Series. She is a recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award.
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Stephen Prutsman, Composer / Piano
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Stephen Prutsman has been described as one of the most innovative musicians of his time. Moving easily from classical to jazz to world music styles as a pianist, composer and conductor, Prutsman continues to explore and seek common ground and relationships in the music of all cultures and languages.
From 2004-2007 Stephen was Artistic Partner with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, where he conducted concertos from the keyboard, performed in chamber ensembles, conducted works of living composers, developed and arranged collaborations for their Engine 408 series of contemporary and world music, and wrote several new works for the orchestra. From 2009 – 2012 he was the Artistic Director of the Cartagena International Festival of Music, South America’s largest festival of its kind, programming and curating concerts with themes ranging from Mozart celebrations, to eclectic evenings of folk and popular music of the Americas, to hybrid programs fusing art and dance music of multiple musical dimensions.
As a composer, Stephen’s long collaboration with Grammy Award winning Kronos Quartet has resulted in over 40 arrangements and compositions for them. Other leading artists and ensembles who have performed Stephen’s compositions and arrangements include Leon Fleisher, Dawn Upshaw, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Yo-Yo Ma, Spoleto USA, and the Silk Road Project. In 2010, his song cycle “Piano Lessons” was premiered by Ms. Upshaw and Emanuel Ax at Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, Disney Hall and the Barbican Centre. As a pianist or arranger outside of the classical music world he has collaborated with such diverse personalities as Tom Waits, Rokia Traore, Joshua Redman, Jon Anderson of “YES”, Sigur Rós and Asha Bhosle.
Hyobi Sim, Viola
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A native Korean violist Hyobi Sim is the Associate Principal Violist of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. She began the study of viola when she was 12 years old. She won prizes at Tertis International Viola Competition, Music Chunchu Competition and Seoul Arts Center Competition.
Sim has made solo appearances with The Saint Paul Orchestra where she performed the Italian Serenade by Hugo Wolf and the Sinfonia Concertante in E flat Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. She also had solo appearances with many other orchestras such as Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Gyungki Philharmonic Orchestra, Gyungchal Symphony Orchestra, Curtis Chamber Orchestra and more.
Axel Strauss, Violin
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The first German artist to ever win the international Naumburg Violin Award in New York, Axel Strauss made his American début at the Library of Congress in Washington DC and his New York début at Alice Tully Hall in 1998. Since then he has given recitals in major North American cities, including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 2007 he was the violinist in the world première performance and recording of Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby, written for him by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis. Axel Strauss' discography include the Brahms violin concerto, the three last violin concertos by Kreutzer, the complete Caprices for solo violin by Pierre Rode and the complete works for violin and piano by George Enescu. Axel Strauss has performed as soloist with orchestras in Budapest, Hamburg, New York, Seoul, Shanghai, Bucharest, San Francisco and Cincinnati, among others, and has toured widely throughout the world as a recitalist and chamber musician. He has also served as guest concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony. In 2012 AxelStrauss was appointed Professor of Violin at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal, where he also serves as Chair of the String Area. Prior to that he served as Professor of Violin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Arnaud Sussmann, Violin
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Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Arnaud Sussmann has distinguished himself with his unique sound, bravura and profound musicianship. Minnesota’s Pioneer Press writes, “Sussmann has an old-school sound reminiscent of what you'll hear on vintage recordings by Jascha Heifetz or Fritz Kreisler, a rare combination of sweet and smooth that can hypnotize a listener. His clear tone [is] a thing of awe-inspiring beauty, his phrasing spellbinding.”
A thrilling young musician capturing the attention of classical critics and audiences around the world, Arnaud Sussmann has appeared with the American Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Chattanooga Symphony, New World Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Paris Chamber Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Further concerto appearances have included a tour of Israel and concerts at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Dresden Music Festival in Germany and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. Mr. Sussmann has been presented in recital in Omaha on the Tuesday Musical Club series, New Orleans by the Friends of Music, Tel Aviv at the Museum of Art and at the Louvre Museum in Paris. He has also given concerts at the OK Mozart, Mainly Mozart and Moritzburg festivals and appears regularly at the Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Seattle Chamber Music, Moab Music and Saratoga Springs Chamber Music festivals.
Tanya Tomkins, Cello
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Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, cellist Tanya Tomkins is equally at home on Baroque and modern instruments. She has performed on many chamber music series to critical acclaim, including the Frick Collection, “Great Performances” at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y, San Francisco Performances, and the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal.
She is renowned in particular for her interpretation of the Bach Cello Suites, having recorded them for the Avie label and performed them many times at venues such as New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Seattle Early Music Guild, Vancouver Early Music Society, and The Library of Congress.
Tanya is one of the principal cellists in San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Portland Baroque Orchestra. She is also a member of several groups including Voices of Music and the Benvenue Fortepiano Trio (with Monica Huggett and Eric Zivian). On modern cello, she is a long-time participant at the Moab Music Festival in Utah, Music in the Vineyards in Napa, and a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. As an educator, Tanya has given master classes at Yale, Juilliard, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and runs the Benvenue House Concert Series in Berkeley.
Bion Tsang, Cello
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Cellist Bion Tsanghas been internationally recognized as one of the outstanding instrumentalists of his generation: among his many honors are an Avery Fisher Career Grant, an MEF Career Grant and the Bronze Medal in the IX International Tchaikovsky Competition. He has performed as soloist with such orchestras as the New York, Mexico City, Moscow, Busan and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestras, the Atlanta, Pacific, Civic, American and National Symphony Orchestras, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the Saint Paul and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestras and the Taiwan National Orchestra.
Mr. Tsang’s discography includes three live recordings: Beethoven: Sonatas and Variations for Cello and Piano (Artek), Brahms Cello Sonatas and Four Hungarian Dances (Artek), and Bion Tsang & Adam Neiman: Live at Jordan Hall (BHM). Tsang released The Blue Rock Sessions (BHM) in 2017, featuring eighteen virtuoso miniatures for cello and piano, Dvořák/Enescu Cello Concertos (Sony) in 2019, with conductor Scott Yoo and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Bach Cello Suites (Sony) in 2021. His latest album, Cantabile (Universal), with Yoo and the RSNO, was released this past spring.
Mr. Tsang received his BA from Harvard University and his MMA from Yale University, where he studied with Aldo Parisot. His other cello teachers included Ardyth Alton, Luis Garcia-Renart, William Pleeth, Channing Robbins and Leonard Rose. Mr. Tsang resides in Austin, TX, where he holds the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long Chair in Cello at the UT Butler School of Music.
William Welter, Oboe
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William Welter was appointed Principal Oboe of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by Zell Music Director Riccardo Muti in June 2018. He made his debut as soloist with the Orchestra in March 2022, performing Mozart’s Oboe Concerto under the baton of Dame Jane Glover. Prior to his appointment to the CSO, Welter performed as a guest musician with the Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and as guest principal oboe of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Welter was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and participated in several esteemed music festivals including the Aspen Music Festival, Bravo Vail Festival, and Music Academy of the West. He also participated in Music from Angelfire by invitation of violinist Ida Kavafian.
A native of Omaha, Nebraska and raised in Crescent, Iowa, William Welter is a 2016 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Richard Woodhams, the longtime Principal Oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Welter completed an Artist Diploma at the Oberlin Conservatory under the instruction of Robert Walters. His other teachers include Eugene Izotov and Christopher Philpotts. Welter is an alumnus of the Interlochen Arts Academy, where he studied with Daniel Stolper.
John Wineglass, Composer
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JOHN CHRISTOPHER WINEGLASS has written several scores for shows on MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS and ABC as well as documentaries on Headliners & Legends with Matt Lauer for The Brady Bunch, Kathy Lee Gifford and Farah Fawcett. Having scored mainly independent films, several of his nationally syndicated commercials include music for the United States Army, American Red Cross and Texaco as well. As a recipient of three (two consecutive) ®Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition for a Drama Series, and three ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards, Mr. Wineglass holds seven ®EMMY nominations.
In the classical music genre he has garnered commissions from the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music w/Maestra Marin Alsop to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, with The Washington Post describing his concert-hall work as having ‘iridescent colors in the world premiere of a beautifully crafted suite’ while conductor Marvin Hamlisch introduces and congratulates the occasion by commenting ‘… with a name like Wineglass, it had to be good.’
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Eric Zivian, Piano
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Eric Zivian is both a seasoned composer and a performer, having studied composition with Ned Rorem and Oliver Knussen, and piano with Gary Graffman and Peter Serkin. Eric's compositions have been performed widely in the U. S. and Japan. As a pianist, Eric is a frequent guest artist on the San Francisco Conservatory's faculty chamber music series and a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. Eric and his partner, cellist Tanya Tomkins, comprise the Zivian-Tomkins Duo, an ensemble specializing in music performed on period instruments. Eric is co-artistic director for the new Valley of the Moon Festival in Sonoma.
2022 Summer Festival
ENSEMBLE: Escher Quartet
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Adam Barnett-Hart, Violin | Brendan Speltz, Violin | Pierre Lapointe, Viola | Brook Speltz, Cello
The Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its expressive, nuanced performances that combine unusual textural clarity with a rich, blended sound. A former BBC New Generation Artist, the quartet has performed at the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall and is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall. In its home town of New York, the ensemble serves as Season Artists of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where it has presented the complete Zemlinsky Quartets Cycle as well as being one of five quartets chosen to collaborate in a complete presentation of Beethoven’s string quartets. Last season, the quartet toured with CMS to China.
Within months of its inception in 2005, the ensemble came to the attention of key musical figures worldwide. Championed by the Emerson Quartet, the Escher Quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be Quartet in Residence at each artist’s summer festival: the Young Artists Programme at Canada’s National Arts Centre; and the Perlman Chamber Music Programme on Shelter Island, NY. The quartet has since collaborated with artists including David Finckel, Leon Fleischer, Wu Han, Lynn Harrell, Cho Liang Lin, Joshua Bell, Paul Watkins and David Shifrin, as well as jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman, vocalist Kurt Elling, legendary Latin artist Paquito D’Rivera and Grammy award-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux. In 2013, the quartet became one of the very few chamber ensembles to be awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.
The Escher Quartet has made a distinctive impression throughout Europe, performing at venues such as Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus, London’s Kings Place, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Slovenian Philharmonic Hall, Auditorium du Louvre and Les Grand Interprètes series in Geneva. With a strong collaborative approach, the group has appeared at festivals such as Heidelberg Spring Festival, Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival, Dublin’s Great Music in Irish Houses, Risør Chamber Music Festival in Norway, Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival and Perth International Arts Festival in Australia.
ENSEMBLE: Ivalas Quartet- 2022 Fellowship Quartet
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Composed of violinists Reuben Kebede and Tiani Butts, violist Aimée McAnulty and cellist Pedro Sánchez, the Ivalas Quartet has been changing the face of classical music since their inception at the University of Michigan in 2016. Dedicated to the celebration of BIPOC voices, Ivalas seeks to disrupt the classical music world by introducing more audiences to BIPOC composers, including Jessie Montgomery, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Eleanor Alberga. The Ivalas Quartet had the pleasure of performing George Walker’s Lyric for Strings at their debut at Carnegie Hall in January of 2020. Later that year, they worked in collaboration with Walker’s son to program his String Quartet No. 1 with Friends of Chamber Music Denver and the Colorado Music Festival. In 2021, they created the first recording of Carlos Simon’s Warmth of Other Suns for string quartet under Lara Downes’ digital label Rising Sun Music.
The Ivalas Quartet is currently the Graduate Quartet in residence at The University of Colorado-Boulder where they study under the renowned Takács Quartet. During the summer seasons, Ivalas has worked with the Ying Quartet at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in 2018 and the Pacifica Quartet, American Quartet, and Escher Quartet at the Aspen Music Festival in 2019. Ivalas has also spent the past 3 summers at the Great Lakes Music Festival working with the Emerson Quartet and had the opportunity to perform Mendelssohn’s String Quintet No. 2 in concert with Eugene Drucker in 2019. The quartet has additionally been coached by Peter Oundjian, Paul Katz, Ayano Ninomiya, Masumi Rostad, Kirsten Docter, Jeffrey Zeigler, Danielle Belen, Richard Aaron, Kathryn Votapek, and Mikhail Kopelman, and worked with composers Samuel Adler, Carlos Simon, and Missy Mazzoli.
ENSEMBLE: Maxwell Quartet
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Colin Scobie, Violin | George Smith, Violin | Elliott Perks, Viola | Duncan Strachan, Cello
1st Prizewinner and Audience Prizewinner at the 9th Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition in 2017, and hailed as “brilliantly fresh, unexpected and exhilarating” by The Scottish Herald, and "superb storytelling by four great communicators" by The Strad Magazine, the Maxwell Quartet is now firmly regarded as one of Britain's finest young string quartets, with a strong connection to their folk music heritage and a commitment to bringing together wide-ranging projects and programmes to expand the string quartet repertoire.
The quartet performs regularly across the UK and abroad, at venues including London’s Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, and St Martin-in-the-Fields, with performances through the Park Lane Young Artist Programme, the Tunnell Trust Awards Scheme, and the Kirckman Concert Society programme.
After their success at Trondheim in 2017, the quartet has toured widely across Europe, including performances in the Tivoli Concert Hall Series, the Amsterdam String Quartet Biennale, Stavanger Festival, Trondheim Chamber Music Festival, Schiermonnikoog and Wonderfeel Festivals in the Netherlands, Lammermuir Festival and Music at Paxton in Scotland, and more. Its debut tour of the USA in January 2019 garnered critical acclaim from the New York Times (“eloquent performers who bring the same sense of charisma and sense of adventure to their programming”), and performing to sold out venues in New York, Florida, California and Washington. Collaborations have included working with the Danish String Quartet to perform Scottish and Danish folk music, and working on a new commission for clarinet quintet with composer/clarinettist Mark Simpson. The Quartet's debut CD on Linn Records, featuring string quartets by Haydn alongside the quartet’s own compositions based on Scottish traditional folk music, received glowing reviews from international press.
The Quartet is formed of four close friends, who grew up playing folk and classical music together in youth orchestras and music schools across Scotland. The group officially began in 2010 at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where its founding members met as postgraduate students. In 2011, the Maxwell Quartet was named as Residency Artists for Enterprise Music Scotland 2011-2013, which saw several acclaimed concert tours over their two-year tenure. Performing widely across Scotland, the quartet established a reputation for delighting audiences with their "unnaffected enthusiasm" (North Highland Times) and their "panache and conviction" (Strathearn Herald). The quartet has since held residencies at Oxford University, Perth Concert Hall and many chamber music festivals across the UK, including their own festival Loch Shiel in the west highlands of Scotland, and a new self-curated concert series at Guardswell Farm in Perthshire. The quartet currently holds the position of Associate Artist at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, and at Music at Paxton Festival in the Scottish Borders... Read more...
ENSEMBLE: Pacifica Quartet
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Simin Ganatra, Violin | Austin Hartman, Violin | Mark Holloway, Viola | Brandon Vamos, Cello
Recognized for its virtuosity, exuberant performance style, and often-daring repertory choices, over the past two decades the Pacifica Quartet has gained international stature as one of the finest chamber ensembles performing today. Named the quartet-in-residence at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in March 2012, the Pacifica was previously the quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and received a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance. In 2017, the Pacifica Quartet was appointed to lead the Center for Advanced Quartet Studies at the Aspen Music Festival and School.
Formed in 1994, the Pacifica Quartet quickly won chamber music’s top competitions, including the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. In 2002 the ensemble was honored with Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award and the appointment to Lincoln Center’s CMS Two, and in 2006 was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Also in 2006 the Quartet was featured on the cover of Gramophone and heralded as one of “five new quartets you should know about,” the only American quartet to make the list. And in 2009, the Quartet was named “Ensemble of the Year” by Musical America.
The members of the Pacifica Quartet live in Bloomington, IN, where they serve as quartet-in-residence and full-time faculty members at the Jacobs School of Music. Prior to their appointment, the Quartet was on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana from 2003 to 2012, and also served as resident performing artist at the University of Chicago for seventeen years.
The Pacifica Quartet is endorsed by D'Addario and proudly uses their strings.
For more information on the Quartet, and individual bios, click here.
James Baik, Cello
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James Baik, 21, is a Bachelor of Music candidate at the Colburn Conservatory of Music, where he studies with Clive Greensmith. James began studying the cello at the age of eight in his hometown of Houston, Texas. In the 2017-2018 school year, James began studying privately with Hans Jorgen Jensen in the Chicago area. James would win the 2018 DePaul Concerto Competition and reach the finals at the 2018 Johansen International Competition in Washington D.C. At the end of 2018, James was named a YoungArts finalist and was invited to YoungArts Week in Miami, Florida, while also being awarded the grand prize at the Walgreens National Competition, resulting in a solo performance at Northwestern University. In the following year, James was a finalist at the 2019 Stulberg International String Competition and would go on to receive the first prize at the Irving M. Klein International Competition in June of 2019. During 2020, James won the Colburn Concerto Competition and subsequently performed Dvorak’s Cello Concerto with the Colburn Orchestra in Walt Disney Concert Hall, under the baton of Sir Andrew Davis, this past year. Most recently, James was a semi-finalist at the 2022 Queen Elisabeth Cello Competition. James has attended the Meadowmount School of Music, the Aspen Music Festival, where he participated in the Finckel Wu Han Chamber Music Program, and the Ravinia Steans Music Institute.
Michael Brown, Composer in Residence / Piano
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Michael Brown has been hailed by The New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” His artistry is shaped by his creative voice as a pianist and composer, praised for his “fearless performances” (The New York Times) and “exceptionally beautiful” compositions (The Washington Post).
Winner of the 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Brown has recently performed as soloist with the Seattle Symphony, the National Philharmonic, and the Grand Rapids, North Carolina, New Haven, and Albany Symphonies; and recitals at Carnegie Hall, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and Caramoor. Brown is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing frequently at Alice Tully Hall and on tour. He was selected by András Schiff to perform on an international tour making solo debuts in Berlin, Milan, Florence, Zurich’s Tonhalle and New York’s 92nd Street Y. He regularly performs recitals with his longtime duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and has appeared at numerous festivals including Tanglewood, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Gilmore, Ravinia, Saratoga, Bridgehampton, Bard, Sedona, Moab, and Tippet Rise.
Nicholas Canellakis, Cello
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Hailed as a “superb young soloist” (The New Yorker), Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, captivating audiences throughout the United States and abroad. In The New York Times his playing was praised as “impassioned” and “soulful,” with “the audience seduced by his “rich, alluring tone.” In the spring of 2015, Nicholas made his Carnegie Hall debut, performing Leon Kirchner’s Music for Cello and Orchestra with the American Symphony Orchestra. Nicholas is an artist of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and a member of The Canellakis-Brown Duo, in which he collaborates with the pianist/composer Michael Brown. He has been featured at the festivals of Santa Fe, La Jolla, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Verbier, Mecklenburg, Moab, Bridgehampton, Sarasota, Aspen and the Bargemusic series in New York City. Nicholas is on the faculty of the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music and is the Co-Artistic Director of the Sedona Winter MusicFest in Arizona.
Kristin Lee, Violin
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A recipient of the 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as a top prizewinner of the 2012 Walter W. Naumburg Competition and the Astral Artists’ 2010 National Auditions, Kristin Lee is a violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique who enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and educator. “Her technique is flawless, and she has a sense of melodic shaping that reflects an artistic maturity,” writes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Strad reports, “She seems entirely comfortable with stylistic diversity, which is one criterion that separates the run-of-the-mill instrumentalists from true artists.”
Kristin Lee has appeared as soloist with leading orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, New Mexico Symphony, West Virginia Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Tacoma Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Nordic Chamber Orchestra of Sweden, Ural Philharmonic of Russia, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra of China, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Dominican Republic, and many others. She has performed on the world’s finest concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Steinway Hall’s Salon de Virtuosi, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Ravinia Festival, Philadelphia’s World Cafe Live, Le Poisson Rouge in New York, the Louvre Museum in Paris, Washington, D.C.’s Phillips Collection, and Korea’s Kumho Art Gallery.
Maureen Nelson, Violin
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Maureen Nelson, violin, became a full-time member of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2016. As former founding member and first violinist, she led the Grammy-nominated Enso String Quartet for nearly two decades, captivating audiences from major concert stages of the world, regularly concertizing throughout North America and abroad. Founded at Yale University in 1999, the quartet has been described by Strad magazine as "thrilling" and praised by the Washington Post for its "glorious sonorities...half honey, half molten lava." The quartet quickly went on to win top prizes at the Concert Artists Guild competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition. Classical Voice praised the ensemble as "one of the eminent string quartets of our era." Along with a busy touring and teaching schedule, Maureen made numerous critically acclaimed recordings on the Naxos label with the Enso.
A native of Pennsylvania, Maureen was enrolled in Temple University's Center for Gifted Young Musicians at the age of 12, and began attending the Curtis Institute of Music shortly thereafter. As a winner of the Greenfield Competition, Maureen appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra when she was 16. While studying in Germany, she was concertmaster of the Detmolder Kammerochester and has been a member of the Houston-based River Oaks Chamber Orchestra since 2010. Much of her inspiration came from teachers Shmuel Ashkenasi, Jascha Brodsky and Yumi Ninomiya Scott.
Tara Helen O'Connor, Flute
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Tara Helen O'Connor is a charismatic performer noted for her artistic depth, brilliant technique and colorful tone spanning every musical era. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a two-time Grammy nominee, she is now a Season Artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A Wm. S. Haynes flute artist, Tara regularly participates in the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, Spoleto Festival USA, Chamber Music Northwest, Mainly Mozart Festival, Music from Angel Fire, the Banff Centre, the Great Mountains Music Festival, Chesapeake Music Festival and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.
Tara is a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape, the legendary Bach Aria Group and is a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning New Millennium Ensemble. She has premiered hundreds of new works and has collaborated with the Orion String Quartet, St. Lawrence Quartet and Emerson Quartet. Tara has appeared on A&E's Breakfast for the Arts, Live from Lincoln Center and has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Bridge Records.
Tara is Associate Professor of Flute, Head of the Woodwinds Department and the Coordinator of Classical Music Studies at Purchase College School of the Arts Conservatory of Music. Additionally, Tara is on the faculty of Bard College Conservatory of Music, the Contemporary Performance Program at Manhattan School of Music and is a visiting artist, teacher and coach at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. She lives with her husband, violinist Daniel Phillips on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
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David Requiro, Cello
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First Prize winner of the 2008 Naumburg International Violoncello Competition, DAVID REQUIRO (pronounced re-KEER-oh) has emerged as one of today’s finest American cellists. After winning First Prize in both the Washington International and Irving M. Klein International String Competitions, he also captured a top prize at the Gaspar Cassadó International Violoncello Competition in Hachioji, Japan, coupled with the prize for the best performances of works by Cassadó.
In 2015, Mr. Requiro was appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. He previously served as Artist-in-Residence at the University of Puget Sound as well as Guest Lecturer at the University of Michigan. His artist faculty appointments include the Music@Menlo Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society Summer Festival, Giverny Chamber Music Festival, Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival and Institute, Innsbrook Music Festival and Institute, Maui Classical Music Festival, and Olympic Music Festival. Along with duo partner Meta Weiss, he co-founded the Boulder Cello Festival in 2020.
A native of Oakland, California, Mr. Requiro began cello studies at age six and his teachers have included Milly Rosner, Bonnie Hampton, Mark Churchill, Michel Strauss, and Richard Aaron.
Rebecca Young, Viola
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Violist Rebecca Young joined the New York Philharmonic as its youngest member in 1986. In October of 1993 she won her current position of Associate Principal Viola. She has also won the Principal Viola positions of the Boston Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic. Ultimately, she has chosen to remain in New York with her family. Ms. Young is the principal violist of the Classical Pops Orchestra of Barbados, as well as the All Star Orchestra, a televised educational project spearheaded and conducted by Gerard Schwartz.
An avid chamber musician, Ms.Young has played with many world renowned artists, including Isaac Stern, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Edgar Meyer and Pamela Frank. Ms. Young appears often with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles and has played with the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and others.
Ms. Young was first introduced to classical music by her parents, who took her to hear the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts led by Leonard Bernstein. Today, she is the host and part of the creative team of the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young People’s Concerts, where her philosophy is less to educate the audience than “to make it so much fun that kids and parents alike want to come back!” This ensemble made its European debut in London in April, 2017