Faculty Biographies
Click any of the links below to access faculty biographies.
Senior Composer-in-Residence— Donald Crockett, Sean Friar
Violin— Maiani da Silva, Mayuki Fukuhara, Amy Galluzzo, Shem Guibbory, Mari Lee, Muneko Otani, Sheila Reinhold, Andrea Schultz, Sam Weiser, Yezu Woo, Masako Yanagita
Viola— Mark Berger, En-Chi Cheng, Korine Fujiwara, Celia Hatton, Jessica Meyer, Beth Meyers, Nick Revel
Cello— Claire Bryant, Michael Finckel, Laura Metcalf, Jan Müller-Szeraws, Ariana Nelson, Carol Ou, Nathaniel Parke
Double Bass— Jessica Powell Eig
Flute— Giorgio Consolati, Conor Nelson
Oboe— Stephen Key, Jacqueline Leclair
Clarinet— Michael Dumouchel, Jo-Ann Sternberg, Guy Yehuda, Garrick Zoeter
Bassoon— Brad Balliett, Nanci Belmont
Piano— Audrey Andrist, Phillip Bush, Catalin Dima, James Goldsworthy, Kent McWilliams, Ardita Statovci, Sayaka Tanikawa, Anna Vinnitsky
Music Director
LAURA METCALF
Cellist Laura Metcalf, renowned worldwide as a passionate solo and chamber musician and acclaimed for her “brilliant” playing (Gramophone Magazine) has performed throughout the US and on six continents, and recorded extensively for the Grammy-winning label Sono Luminus, reaching #3 on the Billboard Classical Charts and surpassing 6 million streams on Spotify. A “cellist whose passion for music is as evident as her artistry and talent” (I care if you listen), she tours with her duo Boyd Meets Girl (with whom she recently gave the world premiere of a cello-guitar double concerto by Clarice Assad) and string quartet The Overlook, as well as collaborates regularly with four-time Grammy winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird (with whom she has appeared as chamber soloist in contemporary concerti with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Symphony and others). She has toured worldwide with the popular ensembles Break of Reality and Sybarite5, and has worked with The Knights, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and ETHEL. She has performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Madison Square Garden and the Caramoor, Ravinia, Moab, Festival Napa Valley, Aspen and Newport Classical festivals, among countless others.
Laura is also a curator and artistic director, having co-founded the groundbreaking Sunday morning concert series GatherNYC, as well as guest curating for the Museum of Arts and Design, Fotografiska, The Frick Collection, and Wave Hill. As a dedicated educator, she has given workshops, masterclasses and lectures at Juilliard, Curtis, New England Conservatory and many other conservatories, as well as played for tens of thousands of school-aged children across the globe from Dehra Dun, India to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and is on the prestigious teaching artist roster for the online platform ToneBase Cello.
In 2025, Laura was appointed to the position of Music Director of the Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East.
Website: www.laurametcalf.com
Senior Composer-in-Residence
DONALD CROCKETT
Born in Pasadena, California, Donald Crockett is dedicated to composing music inspired by the musicians who perform it. He has received commissions from a great variety of artists and ensembles including the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (Composer-in-Residence 1991–97), Kronos Quartet, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Aspen Music Festival, Hilliard Ensemble, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Caramoor Festival, the San Francisco-based chamber choir, Volti, Charlotte Symphony, Music from Angel Fire, the Chamber Music Conference (Senior Composer-in-Residence 2002–present), and the Guitar Foundation of America, among many others.
Featured projects include commissions from the Dilijan Chamber Music Series and the Caramoor Festival for new string quartets, New Music USA for SAKURA cello quintet, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival and Oberlin Conservatory for And the River, a concerto for duo pianists and chamber orchestra, Aspen and Oberlin for his Violin Concerto, the Harvard Musical Association for violist Kate Vincent and Firebird Ensemble, the Claremont Trio, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and JFNMC for his Viola Concerto, a chamber opera, The Face, based on a novella in verse by poet David St. John, and a consortium commission from twenty-two college and university wind ensembles for his Dance Concerto for Clarinet/Bass Clarinet and Wind Ensemble. His music has also been widely performed by ensembles including the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, eighth blackbird, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Collage, Xtet and the Arditti Quartet, at the Tanglewood, Aspen, Bennington and Piccolo Spoleto festivals, and by artists including violinists Ida Kavafian and Michelle Makarski, violist Kate Vincent, soprano Jane Sheldon, mezzo sopranos Janna Baty and Janice Felty, tenor Daniel Norman, baritone Thomas Meglioranza, oboist Allan Vogel, pianist Vicki Ray, and conductors Gil Rose, Jorge Mester, JoAnn Falletta, Hugh Wolff, Sergiu Comissiona, Jeffrey Kahane, H. Robert Reynolds and Christof Perick.
The recipient in 2013 of an Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for outstanding artistic achievement, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006, Donald Crockett has also received the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a commission from the Barlow Endowment, an Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council, an Aaron Copland Award and the first Sylvia Goldstein Award from Copland House, a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, as well as grants and awards from BMI, the Bogliasco Foundation (Aaron Copland Fellowship, 2007), Composers Inc., Copland Fund, National Endowment for the Arts and New Music USA (Commissioning Music/USA, 1997). His music is published by Keiser Classical and Doberman/Yppan, and recorded on the Albany, BMOP/Sound, CRI, Doberman/Yppan, ECM, Innova, Laurel, New World, Orion and Pro Arte/Fanfare labels.
Also active as a conductor of new music, Donald Crockett has presented many world, national and regional premieres with the Los Angeles-based new music ensemble Xtet, Thornton Edge new music ensemble, and as a guest conductor with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Hilliard Ensemble, California EAR Unit, Firebird Ensemble, Ensemble X, Jacaranda and the USC Thornton Symphony, with whom he has premiered over 150 new orchestral works by USC Thornton student composers. He has also been very active over the years as a composer and conductor with the venerable and famed Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, and most recently the Jacaranda concert series in Santa Monica. His recordings as a conductor can be found on the Albany, CRI, Doberman/Yppan, ECM and New World labels.
After composition studies with American composers Robert Linn, Halsey Stevens and Edward Applebaum, and British composers Peter Racine Fricker and Humphrey Searle at the University of Southern California (B.M. Magna cum Laude 1974, M.M. 1976) and UC Santa Barbara (Ph.D. 1981), he joined the faculty of the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music in 1981. He is currently Professor and Chair of the Composition Program and Director of Thornton Edge new music ensemble at Thornton, and Senior Composer-in-Residence with the Chamber Music Conference (at Colgate University, formerly at Bennington College).
Website: www.donaldcrockett.com
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SEAN FRIAR
Composer and pianist Sean Friar grew up in Los Angeles, where his first musical experiences were in rock and blues piano improvisation. His music keeps in touch with the energy and communicative directness of those musical roots, now along with an expansive classical sensibility that is “refreshingly new and solidly mature… and doesn’t take on airs, but instead takes joy in the process of discovery [and] in the continual experience of suspense and surprise that good classical music has always championed.” (Slate ).
A winner of the Rome Prize, Friar composes for ensembles within and outside traditional concert music; including orchestra, wind ensemble, chamber ensemble, laptop orchestra, and a junk car percussion concerto. He has been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic Scharoun Ensemble, American Composers Orchestra, New World Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Modern, Eastman Wind Ensemble, Piano Spheres, Chamber Music America, and the Fromm Foundation, among many others. His music has been featured at festivals including Aspen, Bang on a Can, Bowdoin, Cabrillo, Carlsbad, Gaudeamus, Music Academy of the West, Norfolk, and the Venice Biennale. His album Before and After was released in late 2021 on New Amsterdam Records to international critical acclaim. Also active as a pianist, Friar frequently performs with saxophonist Jeff Siegfried and recently debuted a new duo for amplified bassoon and piano with effects pedals with world-renowned Estonian bassoonist Martin Kuuskmann.
Friar is Chair of Composition at the University of Denver and previously taught at the University of Southern California and UCLA. He also directs composition programs at the Sunset ChamberFest (Los Angeles, CA) and Suncoast Composer Fellowship Program (Sarasota, FL). He holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Princeton and undergraduate degrees in Music and Psychology from UCLA. His principal teachers were Paul Chihara, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, and Dmitri Tymoczko.
Website: www.seanfriar.com/
Violin Faculty
MAIANI DA SILVA
Maiani da Silva is a violinist, performer, and educator. She is a member of the four-time GRAMMY-winning sextet Eighth Blackbird (8BB), and founder of Brouhaha, a multi-disciplinary solo project that addresses the Anthropocene through a musical and scientific lens. With 8BB, Maiani premiered and recorded the 2025 GRAMMY-nominated work composition as explanation by David Lang (on Cedille records). She was a featured soloist for world premieres of concerti grossi with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the United States Navy Band.
As a soloist and chamber musician, Maiani has collaborated with various other cutting-edge artists—both in the contemporary classical realm and beyond—from premiering works by Joan Tower, Du Yun, Kelley Polar, Viet Cuong, Raven Chacon to working directly with Jonathan Bailey Holland, Julianna Barwick, Louis Andriessen, and George Lewis. She has also performed at Bang on a Can's prestigious Long Play Festival 2025 (for the U.S. premiere of Sophia Jani's Six Pieces for Solo Violin), and has performed and recorded with Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP). Some fun pop gigs include performing with Childish Gambino and Peter Gabriel.
In 2021 Maiani joined the faculty of Yale University's Department of Music as Lecturer, specializing in the performance of contemporary chamber music. She also co-leads the Blackbird Creative Lab and has been guest faculty at Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, among others. Maiani is Artist in Residence and Fellow at Yale's Morse College.
First picking up a violin in a Los Angeles public school with Ms. Carol Dobbs, Maiani went on to study under the tutelage of Irina Muresanu at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and with the legendary Mela Tenenbaum in Brooklyn, N.Y. Other mentors include Lenny Matczynski and Andrew Mark.
Maiani was born in Bahia, Brazil, grew up in Los Angeles, and has also lived in Boston, Paris, Mexico City, and San Francisco before settling in woodsy Connecticut. Maiani enjoys friendly disagreements, speaking other languages, reading books about human behavior, and listening to Motown and 90s slow-jams.
Website: www.maianidasilva.com
MAYUKI FUKUHARA
Mayuki Fukuhara began his musical studies at age seven, and, by age twelve, he had won the International Music Festival Grand Prix. He came to the United States as a scholarship student at the Curtis Institute of Music, and later did postgraduate work at Mannes College of Music, studying under Ivan Galamian, Jaime Laredo, and Felix Galimir.
He performs with several of the New York metropolitan area's most prestigious chamber orchestras (Orpheus; Orchestra of St. Luke's, where he is a principal player; and others). He is concertmaster of the New York Scandia Symphony and a member of the Scandia String Quartet. He is a participating artist in such festivals as Marlboro, Caramoor, and the New England Bach Festival.
Mr. Fukuhara spends his summers performing with the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival of Japan under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. His recordings are available on the Musical Heritage Society, Music Masters, and other labels.
AMY GALLUZZO
Praised for her nuanced Mozartian phrasing
and her delicacy and, when needed, force
(Boston Musical Intelligencer), Amy Galluzzo enjoys an active career as both a chamber musician and soloist. Amy was a member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet for many years, touring around the United States and internationally, performing a wide range of repertoire, and is a founding member of Trio Flamecrest. Amy has performed at several prestigious summer festivals, including the Tanglewood Music Festival, Chelsea Music Festival, Taos, and Sarasota Music Festival, and has collaborated with artists such as Masuko Ushioda, John Ferrillo, Shem Guibbory, James Buswell and Carol Ou. More unusual collaborations include Yihan Chen, pipa, Scott McConnell, steel pan, and Dariush Saghafi, santoor.
Past highlights include the 2022 formation of Trio Flamecrest, Amy’s 2017 Carnegie Hall debut with Carpe Diem String Quartet and the release of the CD of the Peracchio and Castelnuovo-Tedesco piano quintets on the DaVinci label. Amy’s other CDs include: Longing (MSR), The Art of Calligraphy (Albany Records), Volumes 4 and 5 of the complete String Quartets of Sergei Taneyev (Naxos Records), and Music for Mandolin and String Quartet by Jeff Midkiff. Amy has performed many world premieres by composers such as David Stock, Reza Vali, Derrick Jordan, Jeff Nytch, Jeff Midkiff and Jonathan Leshnoff. A finalist in the Naftzger Competition and recipient of the Jules C. Reiner Prize for violin, Amy has been heard in recital and concert across Europe and America and has served as concertmaster under the batons of conductors such as Kurt Masur, Raphael Frühbeck de Burgos and Christoph von Dohnányi.
Amy Galluzzo began her violin studies in Great Britain and went on to study with Dona Lee Croft, a professor at the Royal College of Music, London. Amy received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music with Honors, and a Graduate Diploma from the New England Conservatory in Boston, where she studied with Marylou Speaker Churchill and James Buswell. She has studied with members of the Borromeo, Brentano, Shanghai, American and Concord Quartets and is currently a candidate for the degree of Ph.D. from the Steinhardt School, New York University.
Amy teaches through the New England Conservatory Preparatory School and Continuing Education department. She has given masterclasses and workshops at Florida State University, Palm Beach University, University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon University, Eastern Arizona College and numerous music programs for students of all ages.
SHEM GUIBBORY
Shem Guibbory has played in world-class performance environments for over 50 years: 45 seasons in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, as the original violinist with Steve Reich and Musicians and Anthony Davis’ Episteme, as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic and the Beethoven Orchester Bonn.
His recordings can be found on the ECM, Gramavision, Opus 1, DG, Bridge, CRI, MSR and Kumara Music labels—over a dozen LPs and CDs including his most recent recording Kumara (2023). Kumara Music is a genre-defying trio performing and recording original works that are transcendent in nature.
He has been awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to Bellagio (2005), two CMA/ASCAP awards for Adventurous Programming (2001, 2002), served briefly as concertmaster with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra (1981) and many NYC freelance orchestras, and has performed recitals and chamber music throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. He served as Music Director of the Chamber Music Conference (1997-2006), joining their faculty in 1981.
His focus today is on performing with Kumara Music and teaching in his Violin Studio in Croton-on-Hudson, New York City and online.
Website: innovativemusicprograms.com/
MARI LEE
Mari Lee is an artist and social entrepreneur dedicated to creating human connection through listening.
Praised as extremely impressive
by The Strad, she has performed at major venues including Wigmore Hall, Berliner Philharmonie, and Carnegie Hall, and at festivals such as Ravinia, Verbier, and Marlboro.
She is the founder of Salon Séance, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that creates experiences blending music, storytelling, and Japanese ceremonies to provide space for deeper listening, belonging, and connection. Salon Séance has been presented by arts and corporate organizations including the Schubert Club, Howland Chamber Music Circle, IMEX, and Google.
Mari studied violin with Miriam Fried and Nora Chastain, and chamber music with Eckart Runge and Eberhard Feltz. She is an alumna of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and Beth Morrison Projects’ Producer Academy.
MUNEKO OTANI
Violinist Muneko Otani has appeared worldwide as chamber musician and pedagogue for over forty years. As first violinist of the Cassatt String Quartet since 1986, Otani has appeared in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, as well as across Europe and Asia. Major venues have included Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Jordan Hall, the Library of Congress, Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the Bastille Opera House.
As a chamber musician, Otani has collaborated with Walter Trampler, Martin Lovett, Marc Johnson, Paul Katz, Kazuhide Isomura, Ursula Oppens, Masuko Ushioda, Colin Carr, and Laurence Lesser. With the CSQ, she has held fellowships at the Banff Centre, the Tanglewood Music Center, and Norfolk Chamber Music Festival; and, at Yale University, as assistant to the Tokyo Quartet.
Muneko Otani is a devoted and experienced teacher, and serves on the faculties of Williams College and of Columbia University’s Music Performance Program; the latter is a position she has held for nearly thirty years. She has taught at the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg and as assistant to Lewis Kaplan at the Mannes College of Music; and served as a juror for the Juilliard Concerto Competition, the Postacchini International Violin Competition, the Barlow Prize for Composition, Chamber Music America’s Residency Program, and the Fischoff Competition’s Lift Every Voice
prize.
Muneko Otani received a Bachelor of Music degree in both Performance and Education from the Toho Academy of Music in Japan, where she studied with Toshiya Eto. She continued her training at the New England Conservatory, where her principal teachers were Masuko Ushioda and Louis Krasner. Otani plays a 1770 J.B. Guadagnini of Parma violin.
SHEILA REINHOLD
Sheila Reinhold gave her first performance as soloist with orchestra at the age of nine in the Kaufmann Concert Hall of New York's 92nd Street Y. At fourteen, she was invited by Jascha Heifetz to join his master class at the University of Southern California, where she studied with him for five years. She received her B.Mus. from USC and studied theory and analysis with Leon Kirchner and Earl Kim at Harvard University.
Sheila's engagements have included solo appearances with conductors such as Zubin Mehta and André Kostelanetz, chamber music with Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky, and performances both as soloist and as chamber musician at festivals such as Chautauqua, Ives, and Mohawk Trail. She has premiered solo and chamber works for both violin and viola, worked on many major films and Broadway productions, and appeared with popular artists such as Tony Bennett. Sheila can be heard as a chamber musician on the North/South and Albany labels, and is featured on a recently released CD of the music of Allen Shawn.
Sheila has had a life-long dedication to teaching, with positions including Resident Musician at Harvard and head of the string faculty at the Children's Orchestra Society in New York, in addition to maintaining her home studio. She has also been an adjudicator, guest teacher and chamber music coach at, among others, the Juilliard School, Mannes College, Manhattan School of Music, Eastman School of Music, and Columbia University. She has been a faculty member of the Chamber Music Conference and Composer's Forum of the East each summer since 2000.
Sheila is the founder and music director of Intimate Voices, which has been presenting chamber music concerts and community outreach events in New York since 2009. She recently moved her home base to Denver, where she has taught courses for adult music-lovers through the University of Denver and curated an annual Holocaust Remembrance concert, among other activities, while maintaining her commitment to Intimate Voices in New York and engagements elsewhere.
ANDREA SCHULTZ
Violinist Andrea Schultz enjoys an active and versatile musical life as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician. She currently performs and tours with a wide array of groups, including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Riverside Symphony, New York Oratorio Society, and the New York Chamber Ensemble. A devotee of contemporary music, Schultz was a longtime member of Sequitur and has been involved in the premieres of more than a hundred works with groups that include Either/Or, Cygnus, Locrian Chamber Players, Eberli Ensemble, Cabrini Quartet, Da Capo Chamber Players, NY Composer's Circle, and the League of Composers. She has recorded contemporary chamber music for the Naxos, Albany, New World, and Phoenix labels. She was also a member of the Mark Morris Dance Group Music Ensemble for many years, touring the U.S., Britain, Japan, and Australia; and has performed as guest with the Cassatt String Quartet, Perspectives Ensemble, Sherman Chamber Ensemble, Avery Ensemble, SONYC, and the Apple Hill Chamber Players.
Schultz spends summers performing and teaching at the Kinhaven Music School, the Wintergreen Music Festival, and the Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East. A graduate of Yale College, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Stony Brook University, Schultz studied violin with Betty-Jean Hagen, Paul Kantor, Donald Weilerstein, and Joyce Robbins. She plays on a violin made in 1997 by Stefan-Peter Greiner.
SAM WEISER
Sam Weiser, currently the first violinist of the Carpe Diem String Quartet, is a lifelong chamber musician and advocate of contemporary music.
He holds a number of positions around the Bay Area, including assistant concertmaster of the California Symphony, member of One Found Sound, and violinist in sfSound. Formerly, he was a member of the award-winning Del Sol Quartet.
Sam has performed all over the country, from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to a raft floating along the Yampa River. He has premiered over 200 new works by composers such as Vijay Iyer, Huang Ruo, and Chen Yi.
He is also a dedicated educator, having taught violin and chamber music at Sacramento State University and Chamber Music Conference of the East, in addition to maintaining a private teaching studio.
Sam studied with Ian Swensen, Lucy Chapman, James Buswell, and Patinka Kopec. He holds bachelors’ degrees from Tufts University in computer science and the New England Conservatory in violin, as well as a master’s degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in chamber music.
Outside of the violin, Sam loves cooking, a long bike ride, or a game of Dungeons & Dragons.
Website: www.samweiser.me/
YEZU WOO
Violinist Yezu Woo debuted at Carnegie Hall at age sixteen as the youngest performer to present all twenty-four Paganini Caprices for solo violin. Since then, she has built a dynamic career as a soloist, chamber musician, and an artistic director.
As artistic director of the New York in Chuncheon Music Festival, Yezu has built a vibrant platform for world-class chamber music and mentorship in her hometown of Chuncheon, Korea. Her contributions earned her recognition as Honorary Ambassador of Woljeongsa Temple (2023) and the City of Chuncheon (2016).
Her commitment to traditional Korean music and peace between the two Koreas has brought her to venues from Pyongyang, North Korea, to the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Her passion for contemporary music has led to over twenty premieres of new works and collaborations with composers like Rebecca Saunders, Unsuk Chin, and Sir George Benjamin.
She is the violinist of the “paradigm-shifting” (New York Music Daily) string quartet The Overlook and a member of Novus NY, Delirium Musicum, and the Berlin Academy of American Music. She also collaborates regularly with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, International Contemporary Ensemble, and Ensemble Modern.
A Fulbright Scholar in Germany (2019-20), she was a member of the Ensemble Modern Academy and a researcher at the Isang Yun Haus in Berlin. She has recorded for EMI Classics, ECM Records, Warner Classics, and KAIROS, including the first complete recording of Isang Yun’s works for solo violin and violin with piano.
Website: www.yezuwoo.com
MASAKO YANAGITA
Masako Yanagita, winner of top honors in international competitions, has concertized around the world. At present, she is the concertmaster of Springfield Symphony in Massachusetts as well as Queens Symphony in New York. She is also active as a chamber musician, a teacher and coach. As a chamber music coach, she is a faculty member at the Chamber Music Conference (at Colgate University), Greenwood Music Camp and Princeton Play Week.
Masako began her violin studies in Japan at an early age and came to the United States to study with William Kroll at Mannes College of Music. She has recorded many chamber music and solo works including the entire Schubert repertoire for violin/viola and piano with her late husband, pianist Abba Bogin. She resides in both New York City and Charlemont, MA.
Viola Faculty
MARK BERGER
Violist and composer Mark Berger has toured throughout the United States and internationally as a member of the Lydian String Quartet, performing the acknowledged masterpieces of the classical, romantic, and modern eras as well as premiering remarkable compositions written by today's cutting-edge composers. In addition to his work with the quartet, Berger frequently performs with many of Boston’s finest orchestras and chamber ensembles including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Emmanuel Music, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Worcester Chamber Music Society, and Music at Eden’s Edge. He has appeared as a guest artist with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Boston Musica Viva, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, and Radius Ensemble, and has performed at summer music festivals including Tanglewood, the Newport Music Festival, and Kneisel Hall. Strongly devoted to the performance of new music, Berger has performed with many of Boston’s new music ensembles including Sound Icon, Dinosaur Annex, Ludovico Ensemble, and ALEA III. He has recorded solo and chamber works for Albany, Bridge and Innova records.
A dedicated educator, Berger is Associate Professor of the Practice at Brandeis University, where he teaches viola, chamber music, music theory and analysis. In addition to his teaching at Brandeis, he frequently teaches analysis and orchestration courses for Boston University and has taught at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, where he coached chamber music and taught some of the most talented high school students in the country.
EN-CHI CHENG
Taiwanese violist En-Chi Cheng’s recent performance highlights include a solo appearance with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra playing the Walton Concerto. He also performed as part of the 30th-anniversary celebration concert series of the Taiwan National Concert Hall and chamber concert tours led by Nobuko Imai. He has been heard in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Opera House, and Dresdner Philharmonie. He garnered the Balmoral Prize and the Josef Weinberger Publisher Prize in the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition.
He was a semifinalist in the ARD International Music Competition and Tokyo International Viola Competition. He received the Chi-Mei Arts Award from the Chi-Mei Cultural Foundation. He has held the principal viola chair of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, the Juilliard Orchestra, and the Moritzburg Academy Chamber Orchestra, among others. As a chamber musician, he has performed with renowned artists such as Nobuko Imai, Ilya Kaler, Joseph Lin, Meng-Chieh Liu, and Peter Wiley. He has participated in Marlboro Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, and the Taos School of Music.
Mr. Cheng completed a master’s degree at The Juilliard School, studied with Samuel Rhodes, and received the Kovner Fellowship. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the Curtis Institute of Music under the study of Joseph de Pasquale and Hsin-Yun Huang.
KORINE FUJIWARA
Montana native Korine Fujiwara is a founding member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet, a devoted and sought-after chamber musician and teacher, and a gifted composer and arranger.
Ms. Fujiwara is Visiting Assistant Professor of violin, viola, composition, and chamber music at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. She served for many years on the music faculty of Ohio Wesleyan University and is in great demand for master classes and clinics throughout the United States. Korine’s students have been accepted into the performance programs of such institutions as Indiana University, Cincinnati College Conservatory, and Northwestern University to continue their musical studies.
Named as one of Strings Magazine’s “25 Contemporary Composers to Watch,” Korine has received multiple commissions including works for opera, chamber ensembles, chorus, concerti, and music for modern dance. Her works have been performed throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, China, and Japan. Her musical language encompasses a wide range of influences, including classical, folk, jazz, and rock and roll. Her diverse artistic collaborations have helped to infuse her work with a rhythmic power and intensity.
Critics have remarked of Ms. Fujiwara's music, “The ear is forever tickled by beautifully judged music that manages to be sophisticated and accessible at the same time,” “Contains a very rare attribute in contemporary classical music: happiness.” (Fanfare Magazine); “She knows how to exploit all the resources of string instruments alone and together; her quartet writing is very democratic, with solos for everyone; her solo violin writing is fiendishly difficult.” (Strings Magazine). “Fujiwara beautifully meets the challenge of weaving together different emotions across generations that make sense musically while delighting the ear.” (WOSU Classical 101 by Request) “Fujiwara’s music is rich and beguiling throughout.” (The Columbus Dispatch) “Artfully layered and knitted together…While each “room” has its own musical personality, the poignant sections in which characters in different periods actually sing together—a trio, a sextet, and even an octet—dovetail perfectly. The dramatic arc builds persuasively to the climactic moments, shifting with increasing speed between scenes to the culminating revelation.” (The Wall Street Journal)
Korine is a recipient of an Opera America Commissioning Grant from the Opera Grants for Female Composers program, made possible through the generosity of The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, for the composition of “The Flood,” an award-winning opera with Stephen Wadsworth, librettist, premiered by Opera Columbus and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in February 2019.
Ms. Fujiwara is a gifted performer on both the violin and viola, and holds degrees from The Juilliard School and Northwestern University, where she studied with Joseph Fuchs and Myron Kartman, respectively. Her other mentors include Harvey Shapiro, Robert Mann, and Joel Krosnik. Ms. Fujiwara is a member of the music honorary society Pi Kappa Lambda.
Korine began her orchestral career with the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus. She is also a former member of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, where she held the position of Acting Assistant Principal Second Violin.
Korine performs on a 1790 Contreras violin, 2004 Kurt Widenhouse viola, and bows by three of today’s finest makers, Paul Martin Siefried, Ole Kanestrom and Charles Espey, all of Port Townsend, WA, USA.
Website: korinefujiwara.com/
CELIA HATTON
Celia Hatton, New York City-based violist, has performed across Asia, Australia, Europe, South America, and the U.S. Her playing can be heard on several GRAMMY-winning works, including as principal violist on Experiential Orchestra’s album The Prison and Jessie Montgomery’s Rounds. She is a member of A Far Cry, principal viola of Sphinx Virtuosi, and coprincipal of Chamber Orchestra of New York. Hatton has performed with ECCO, The Knights, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. An adjunct professor at Adelphi University, she has given masterclasses at Colburn Music Academy, New York University, and Vanderbilt University. Hatton holds a bachelor’s degree from New England Conservatory, where she studied with Kim Kashkashian, and a master’s degree from Manhattan School of Music with Karen Dreyfus.
Website: www.celiahatton.com/
JESSICA MEYER
With playing that is “fierce and lyrical” and works that are “other-worldly” (The Strad) and “evocative” (New York Times), Jessica Meyer is an award-winning violist and composer whose passionate musicianship radiates accessibility and emotional clarity. Meyer’s first composer/performer portrait album, Ring Out (Bright Shiny Things, 2019), debuted at #1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart. Her second album I long and seek after is a collection of her vocal works that was recently released in March of 2024 on New Focus Recordings and was hailed by Musical America as “gorgeously scored.” Her works have been performed in venues from the Kennedy Center to Carnegie Hall, by musicians of the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic, and by orchestras around the country.
As a solo performer, Ms. Meyer uses a single simple loop pedal to create a virtuosic orchestral experience with her viola and voice. Her solo shows have been featured at iconic venues such as BAMcafé, Joe’s Pub, and Symphony Space in New York City, in addition to venues around the world. At home with many different styles of music and an ardent collaborator, Jessica can regularly be seen premiering her chamber works, creating with dancer/choreographer Caroline Fermin, performing on Baroque viola, improvising with jazz musicians, or collaborating with other composer-performers. Recently she premiered her viola concerto GAEA alongside the Orchestra of the League of Composers at Miller Theatre in New York, headlined the 2024 Primrose International Viola Competition at the American Viola Society Festival with a recital of her own works, gave solo and chamber faculty recitals at Manhattan School of Music, and made various appearances around the country.
Ms. Meyer is equally known for her inspirational work as an educator, where she empowers musicians with networking, communication, teaching, and entrepreneurial skills so they can be the best advocates for their own careers. She is very passionate about getting musicians of all ages off the page to activate their own creativity, improvise, and awaken their own inner composer—which in turn makes them better performers. Currently, she serves on the viola and chamber music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, training students to become the best version of their artistic selves while learning how to build a life in music.
Website: www.jessicameyermusic.com
BETH MEYERS
Multi-instrumentalist and arranger Beth Meyers has performed and recorded in a diverse range of genres with award-winning artists, smash-hit Broadway musicals, and her own critically acclaimed bands. Beth is a member of the indie-folk band Damsel (with Monica Mugan), playing original music that features her on vocals, viola, banjo and ukulele. The group currently has two self-released albums, Just Sit So (2017) and New To You (2021). Beth is a member of the quirky, folk-prog band QQQ (viola, Hardanger fiddle, acoustic guitar, and drums) whose debut album Unpacking the Trailer (New Amsterdam 2009) was hailed “a bold statement of purpose disguised as an unpretentious lark” by Time Out New York. She was a founding member of the flute/viola/harp trio janus, whose debut album i am not (New Amsterdam 2010) was called “gorgeously subtle” (NPR’s Studio 360). Through their more than 14 years of collaboration and touring, janus commissioned over a hundred new works for the trio repertoire. The group’s final album Book of Memory (New Focus 2016) features the music of Paul Lansky and Jason Treuting.
Beth is committed to new sounds and pushing the boundaries of contemporary music. In addition to her experience working under the baton of Pierre Boulez with the Lucerne Festival Academy (2005-6), she has also performed with former Arditti String Quartet violist Garth Knox. In 2009, alongside the New York chapter of the American Viola Society, Beth presented Garth for the first time in the U.S. and his groundbreaking piece, Viola Spaces. As a performer, she is also interested in the intersection of free improvisation and new music and synthesizes her experience as a graduate of the School for Improvisational Music (Ralph Alessi/Peter Epstein 2001). More recently, Beth coproduced and recorded (viola/voice/electric guitar/banjo/spoken word) Go Placidly With Haste (Cantaloupe 2024), a double vinyl of original music by Jason Treuting with collaborative tracks from various artists including Angélica Negrón, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Sam Amidon and members of Sō Percussion.
Beth is a member of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and has performed with orchestras including the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, Richmond Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Knights. As a Broadway musician, she held the viola chair at Wicked Broadway from 2014-2016 and currently subs on Hamilton.
Beth is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music ('00/'02) and is an adjunct faculty member at Rider University. She plays a Möes and Möes viola and a Mike Ramsey banjo.
Website: www.bethmeyersmusic.com
NICK REVEL
Nick Revel is a multi-GRAMMY-nominated violist, composer, engineer, and educator based in Queens, NY. As founding violist of PUBLIQuartet, he has toured internationally performing and premiering original and improvised new music on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, in Carnegie Hall, New York City Ballet, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Library of Congress, and String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam. Their recent GRAMMY-nominated album, What Is American (2022, Bright Shiny Things) topped the Billboard Classical charts on release and has been streamed over one million times. They collaborate regularly with Hiromi and have performed in the Montreal Jazz, L.A. Jazz, and Gilmore Piano Festivals. PUBLIQuartet was named Artist-in-Residence at Carnegie Hall PlayUSA's 2021-2022 convening, creating improvisation and story-telling tools for thousands of students across dozens of U.S. educational institutions.
As an award winning composer, Nick has produced two full length albums of original electroacoustic works for viola: Letters to My Future Self (2018, Centaur Records) and DREAM COLLIDER (2022 Sapphire Records), with tracks earning placements on top podcasts like Doug Fearn's My Take on Music Recording. His recent composition awards include Catalyst Quartet's blind CQ Minute call for scores, fivebyfive ensemble's 2020 call for original scores, the Red Jasper Award Shortlist, and finalist in the Golden Hornet Smackdown IV string quartet competition.
As an audio engineer and recording artist, Nick has produced and engineered chamber orchestras, chamber ensembles, soloists, and choirs across the country with credits on GRAMMY-nominated albums Of Power (2021, Bright Shiny Things) and What Is American (2022, Bright Shiny Things). He's a featured violist on over 35 albums, and commercial and film soundtracks, many of which were recorded remotely at his home studio during the pandemic for artists in France, Azerbaijan, Italy, and North America, and were featured in the No Longer Suitable for Use (2021) short film, and the All That Breathes (2023) documentary trailer.
As an educator and author, Nick has sold nearly 1000 copies of his method book DragonScales 3-Octave Scales and Arpeggios (2023, Amazon KDP). He is immensely excited about the release of his latest and greatest project DragonScales: The Hero Levels, 25 Fantasy Etudes to Slay Evil. He lives with his wife, violist and educator Nora Krohn, and they desperately want to get a cute doggo but are on the fence about the time commitment.
Website: www.nickrevel.com
Cello Faculty
CLAIRE BRYANT
Claire Bryant is a cellist, teacher and activist, whose passion and commitment shine brightly through all of her work. A sought-after and distinctive performer, Claire has collaborated with such master artists as Emanuel Ax, Sir Simon Rattle and Dawn Upshaw, and worked closely with luminary composers from Meredith Monk to Steve Reich to Herbie Hancock.
Over the past 25 years, she has enjoyed a prominent solo career, appearing with major orchestras around the world including the Spartanburg Symphony Orchestra, Finland’s Kuopio Symphony Orchestra and The National Symphony of Honduras.
Claire is a cofounder and co-artistic director of Decoda, Carnegie Hall’s Affiliate Ensemble, and director of its initiative Music for Transformation, a criminal justice program which brings collaborative songwriting workshops to incarcerated communities. In this capacity, she was invited twice to share Decoda’s work with the Obama administration in the White House.
In 2019, Claire returned to her native South Carolina to join the University of South Carolina School of Music’s faculty, where she enjoys a robust studio of talented young cellists. She is the coordinator of Bridging Our Distances, the community engagement arm of the School of Music, and is the director of The Collective, a graduate ensemble dedicated to creative and innovative community performances and programming.
Claire attended the University of South Carolina, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and The Juilliard School, where her primary teachers were Robert Jesselson, Joel Krosnick, and Bonnie Hampton.
Website: clairebryant.com
MICHAEL FINCKEL
Michael Finckel has enjoyed a wide-ranging career as cellist, composer, teacher, and conductor. A founding member of the Trio of the Americas and the Cabrini Quartet, he has performed as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States and Europe. He also performs regularly with members of his family in the renowned Finckel Cello Quartet.
Finckel's passion for contemporary music has involved him in performances with many of New York's leading new-music groups including Steve Reich and Musicians, Speculum Musicae, Ensemble Sospeso, Columbia Symphonietta, Group for Contemporary Music, SEM Ensemble, and the American Composers Orchestra, as well as performances with members of the New York Philharmonic under the directions of Pierre Boulez and Leonard Bernstein. From 1984 to 1995 he held the Gheris Chair as principal cellist of the Bethlehem Bach Choir Orchestra and earlier served as principal cellist of the Vermont State Symphony, touring the state with Dvorak's Cello Concerto and on several occasions conducting his own concerto for cello and orchestra with his brother, Chris Finckel, as soloist. He is a past member of the North Carolina and Puerto Rico Symphonies, the National Ballet Orchestra, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Finckel has recorded for the Dorian, Opus One, New World, Albany, CRI, Vanguard, Vox/Candide, and ECM/Warner Bros. labels.
Since 1992, Finckel has been Music Director of the Sage City Symphony in Bennington, Vermont. Along with its annual commissioning program, he has fostered a unique pilot program for young composers, annually premiering orchestral works by area high school and college students.
Finckel performs and coaches at the Kinhaven Adult Chamber Music Workshop in Weston, Vermont and the Chamber Music Conference (at Colgate University, formerly at Bennington College). Having taught at Cornell and Princeton Universities, Bennington College, and the Vermont Governor’s Institute on the Arts, Finckel is currently on the faculties of the Mannes School in New York City and the Hoff-Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale, New York.
LAURA METCALF
See biography above.
JAN MÜLLER-SZERAWS
The central questions of how music moves and connects us—its mysterious magnetism and power to affect us on so many levels—have led cellist Jan Müller-Szeraws’ musical journey from his native Chile over Europe to the United States, exploring them in their many forms as a performer and teacher.
Solo performances have included engagements with many orchestras including the New England Philharmonic, Concord Orchestra, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Concepción, Orquesta de la Universidad de Santiago de Chile and Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile with repertoire ranging from concertos from the traditional repertoire such as Haydn, Dvorak, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Bloch and Shostakovich to contemporary composers Chou Wen Chung, Gunther Schuller, Shirish Korde, Bernard Hoffer and John Harbison.
Müller-Szeraws has been broadcast by radio and TV stations in the United States, Chile and Germany, and recorded Pedro Humberto Allende’s cello concerto with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile, which was released by the Chilean Academy of Fine Arts as part of the celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of Chilean independence.
Other projects have included the release of Anusvara, a disc with music by Shirish Korde for cello, tabla and Carnatic soprano, the premiere and recording of Thomas Oboe Lee's Suite for Solo Cello, both written for him, as well as a recording of sonatas for piano and cello by Brahms and Chopin with pianist Adam Golka for Hammond Performing Arts and his Bach & Ragas project, which pairs Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello with works by Shirish Korde. His collaboration with composer and MIT professor Peter Child led to a commission for composer/performer pairs by the Association of the Promotion of New Music.
A longtime member of contemporary music ensemble Boston Musica Viva, he currently plays with Collage New Music and Boston/Andover based ensemble Mistral and as a regular extra player with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. On the faculty at Phillips Academy Andover, he is a frequent guest artist at many festivals. As Artist-in-Residence at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, he directed the Performance Program and was founder and director of the Chamber Music Institute at Holy Cross, an intensive summer program for talented high-school and college students.
Website: www.jan-mueller-szeraws.com
ARIANA NELSON
Cellist Ariana Nelson is a member of the internationally renowned Carpe Diem String Quartet. When not on tour with her quartet, she is based in Washington, DC, where she frequently performs with the National Symphony and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras and the Washington National Opera. Additionally, she maintains a private teaching studio and is a coach for the Crescendo chamber music program and the American Youth Philharmonic. As an avid proponent of new music, she has been an artist-faculty member at the Charles Ives Music Festival since 2017. Her interest in improvisation and folk music led her to co-found the Pacific Crest Trio in 2020. Before moving to the DC area, Ariana was a member of the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra and served as an adjunct cello professor at Texas Southern University.
Ariana received her Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School where she studied with Darrett Adkins. She graduated cum laude with her Bachelor of Music degree from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. There she had the privilege of studying cello with Norman Fischer of the Concord Quartet.
Website: www.ariananelson.com
CAROL OU
An award-winning cellist, Carol Ou is known for her fiery, marvelous, meltingly melodic outpourings
(Boston Globe) and her wonderfully pure cello tone and incisive technique
(The Strad). A founding member of Trio Flamecrest, Carol was a member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet and duo partner of legendary violinist James Buswell. Her solo and chamber music concerts have taken her to prestigious concert venues across the globe, including Carnegie Weill Hall, Jordan Hall, National Gallery of Art, Gardner Museum, National Concert Hall in Kiev, and the National Concert Hall of Taipei.
At ease with the diverse musical styles of the last five centuries, Ms. Ou regularly programs traditional European masterworks with contemporary and eclectic ones. She has recorded three of the most beloved cello concerti by Haydn, Tchaikovsky, and Elgar, and premiered Taiwanese composer Hsiao Tyzen's cello concerto in Taipei, Taiwan. Her decade-long collaboration with Iranian composer Reza Vali yielded numerous performances, premieres, and recordings of a dozen of his solo and string quartet works and his cello concerto The Dervish and The Magus. Along with Hsiao, American composers Richard Toensing and Daniel Pinkham have dedicated works to her. Recent music performances have featured collaborations with crossover artists on mandolin, accordion, pipa, and the Persian santoor.
As a prize-winning recording artist, Carol's discography includes solo and chamber music discs issued by Chi-Mei, Naxos, CRI, MSR, and Albany Records, many available on Spotify. Among her many recordings with the Carpe Diem String Quartet are Sergei Taneyev’s String Quartets on Naxos and Reza Vali's The Book of Calligraphy issued by Albany Records. Her Naxos recording of Walter Piston's chamber music won the 2001 Chamber Music America Best Chamber Music CD award and her recording of Jeff Midkiff’s Music for Mandolin & String Quartet won the 2018 Global Music Awards Gold Medal.
A graduate of Yale and a passionate educator, Ms. Ou won the 2025 Jean Stackhouse Award for Excellence in Teaching at New England Conservatory. She has mentored inquisitive cello students of all ages at NEC and has taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and New York University. She has served as Chair of Strings for NEC's Adult Education program and presently serves as Chamber Music Chair at NEC's Preparatory School. Outside of regular teaching, Carol travels internationally for cello and chamber music master classes on five continents and can be seen cheering for her daughter's Ultimate Frisbee games and perusing for rare birds with her son.
NATHANIEL PARKE
Nathaniel Parke is a freelance cellist based in Bennington, Vermont. He has been a member of the Boston Composers String Quartet and the Bennington String Quartet. He teaches privately and is currently an Instructor of Cello at Bennington College. He is recently retired from Williams College as Artist Associate in Cello where he taught cello, was principal cello of the Berkshire Symphony and was a member of the Williams Chamber Players since 1994. He has served as cello faculty member and chamber music coach at the Longy School of Music, Skidmore College, SUNY Albany, Manchester Music Festival, Taconic Music, Point Counterpoint and the Chamber Music Conference.
Double Bass Faculty
JESSICA POWELL EIG
Jessica Powell Eig has crafted a dynamic career performing on double bass, violone, and viola da gamba with Washington Bach Consort, American Bach Soloists, Seraphic Fire, The Thirteen, Inscape Chamber Orchestra, Opera Lafayette, Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, New Orchestra of Washington, National Philharmonic, Washington Concert Opera, Urban Arias, and others, and recording for the Chandos, Acis, and Zefiro labels.
In addition performing, Jessica serves on the faculties of American University, George Mason University, Levine Music, and the Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East, and is a guest lecturer at the University of Maryland. She has given workshops and masterclasses at the Viola da Gamba Society Conclave and the International Society of Bassists Conference.
In 2010, Jessica completed a Doctor of Musical Arts in double bass performance at State University of New York–Stony Brook University. She received her earlier training at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and The Juilliard School.
Flute Faculty
GIORGIO CONSOLATI
Praised for his lustrous tone
(Musical America) and his full tone, exacting articulation, and interpretive intelligence
(New York Classical Review), Italian flutist Giorgio Consolati has performed at Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Miami’s New World Center, and the Beijing China Conservatory. As a soloist, he has performed with Alan Gilbert and the Juilliard Orchestra, as well as with the National Repertory Orchestra.
Giorgio is the principal flutist of the York Symphony Orchestra and teaches at the Peabody Institute and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Passionate about chamber music, Giorgio has performed for several years at the Marlboro Music Festival and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Giorgio is a top prizewinner in several competitions, including the National Society of Arts and Letters Woodwind Competition, the De Lorenzo International Flute Competition, and the Emanuele Krakamp Flute Competition. In 2019, Giorgio released Tour De Flute, his debut album.
A native of Milan, Giorgio is the first flutist in the Verdi Conservatory’s history to graduate with top honors and honorable mention. A proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship, Giorgio earned both his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at The Juilliard School, where he studied with Carol Wincenc. Giorgio is continuing his education with a Doctorate of Music degree under the guidance of Marina Piccinini at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where he previously earned the prestigious Artist Diploma.
Website: www.giorgioconsolati.eu
CONOR NELSON
Praised for his long-breathed phrases and luscious tone
by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Canadian flutist Conor Nelson is established as a leading flutist and pedagogue of his generation. Since his New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, he has frequently appeared as soloist and recitalist throughout the United States and abroad.
Solo engagements include concerti with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Flint Symphony, and numerous other orchestras. In addition to being the only wind player to win the Grand Prize at the WAMSO Young Artist Competition, he won first prize at the William C. Byrd Young Artist Competition. He also received top prizes at the New York Flute Club Young Artist Competition, the Haynes International Flute Competition as well as the Fischoff, Coleman, and Yellow Springs chamber music competitions.
With percussionist Ayano Kataoka he performed at Merkin Concert Hall, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Hall, and Izumi Hall. A recital at the Tokyo Opera City Hall received numerous broadcasts on NHK Television. Their CD entitled, Breaking Training was released on New Focus Recordings (NYC). His second CD, Nataraja with pianist Thomas Rosenkranz is also available on New Focus. He has collaborated with Claude Frank on the Schneider concert series in NYC and appeared at numerous chamber music festivals across the country including the OK Mozart, Bennington, Skaneateles, Yellow Barn, Cooperstown, Salt Bay, Look and Listen (NYC), Norfolk (Yale), Green Mountain, Chesapeake, and the Chamber Music Quad Cities series
He is the Principal Flutist of the New Orchestra of Washington in Washington, D.C., and has performed with the Detroit, Toledo, and Tulsa Symphony Orchestras. He also performed as guest principal with A Far Cry, Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco, and the Conceirtos de la Villa de Santo Domingo.
A respected pedagogue, Dr. Nelson has given masterclasses at over one hundred colleges, universities, and conservatories. Prior to his appointment at UW-Madison, he served as the flute professor at Bowling Green State University for nine years and as the Assistant Professor of Flute at Oklahoma State University from 2007-2011. His recent residencies include Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China, the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico, and the Associação Brasileira de Flautistas in São Paulo. He is also a regular guest of the Texas Summer Flute Symposium and has been the featured guest artist for eleven flute associations across the country.
His former students can be found performing in orchestras, as well as teaching at colleges, universities, and public schools nationwide. They have also amassed over sixty prizes in young artist competitions, concerto competitions, and flute association competitions.
He received degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, Yale University, and Stony Brook University where he was the winner of the schoolwide concerto competitions at all three institutions. He is also a recipient of the Thomas Nyfenger Prize, the Samuel Baron Prize, and the Presser Award. His principal teachers include Carol Wincenc, Ransom Wilson, Linda Chesis, Susan Hoeppner, and Amy Hamilton. Conor is a Powell Flutes artist and is the Assistant Professor of Flute at UW-Madison where he performs with the Wingra Wind Quintet.
Website: www.conornelson.com
Oboe Faculty
STEPHEN KEY
Stephen Key is an oboist, composer, arranger, and pedagogue in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. A member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Professor Key began his studies on piano and voice with his mother when he was only three. He landed on studying the oboe in the public school band program in Ada, Ok. Like many young oboists, at 11 he didn’t want to play an instrument that everyone else was playing.
Mostly an oboist, Stephen is the principal oboe for the New Orchestra of Washington, and is currently adjunct Associate Professor of Oboe at Shenandoah Conservatory. In addition to concerto performances with NOW, Key arranged and performed Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin about which New York critic Oberon’s Grove said, “gorgeous performance… terrific, notable solos… rich, warm tone.” As a soloist, he has performed with the New Orchestra of Washington, Washington Chamber Orchestra, Washington Master Chorale, University of Texas Symphony Orchestra, and Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra. Orchestral work includes regularly performing with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, but he has also played with the National Symphony, Austin Symphony (TX), Richmond Symphony, Maryland Symphony, Roanoke Symphony and Opera, The Washington Chorus, Choral Arts Society of Washington, Virginia Opera, the Chamber Orchestra of San Antonio, and the New World Symphony. Also, he has recorded with GRAMMY-award-winning studio Sono Luminus, the Centaur label, DF Recording Studio in Switzerland, and Albany Records.
Other professional highlights include being the principal oboist for the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival since 2023, and joining the performance faculty for the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East. Professor Key loves to collaborate with international artists, and recently toured in Switzerland, Germany, and France with award-winning Italian pianist Matteo Cardelli. This recital/master class/recording project involved producing adaptations of French Chansons for oboe by Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger, and Olivier Messiaen.
Key studied at Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Texas at Austin. He has worked with Rebecca Henderson, James Caldwell, Rudolf Vrbsky, Carol Stephenson, James Moseley, Richard Killmer, Elaine Douvas, and Katherine Needleman.
Website: www.stephenkeyoboe.com/
JACQUELINE LECLAIR
Jacqueline Leclair is Associate Professor of Oboe at McGill University. She formerly served on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College, and Bowling Green State University.
Leclair worked with Luciano Berio on her 2000 edition of Sequenza VII. She has performed internationally throughout her career and recorded for Nonesuch, CRI, Koch, Deutsche Grammophon, and CBS Masterworks.
In addition to her musical research interests, she has for many years supported the wellbeing of music students and launched various initiatives to help them cultivate better mental and physical health during their studies and careers.
Prof. Leclair is originally from Syracuse, New York and studied at the Eastman School of Music and SUNY Stony Brook, receiving bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in oboe performance.
Website: www.jacquelineleclair.com/
Clarinet Faculty
MICHAEL DUMOUCHEL
Clarinetist Michael Dumouchel is from Arlington, Virginia. He studied the clarinet with Stanley Hasty, Harold Wright and Robert Marcellus. He recently retired from the Montreal Symphony where he was second and E-flat clarinet from 1970 through 2022. He participated in all of that orchestra’s recordings for London/Decca and other labels during that time. He is an instructor of clarinet at McGill University. From 1975-2020 he played in Musica Camerata Montreal. Unofficially, he has lately been writing a little music.
JO-ANN STERNBERG
Clarinetist Jo-Ann Sternberg leads a diverse musical life in the New York area as a chamber musician, orchestral player, music educator, and interpreter of new music. Jo-Ann is a member of the Borealis Wind Quintet, the Richardson Chamber Players, the Wind Soloists of New York, the Sherman Chamber Players, and the Riverside Symphony; principal clarinet of the orchestras of the Oratorio Society of New York, the New York Choral Society, and St. John the Divine; and she has regularly performed and toured with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, Mark Morris Dance, the American Symphony, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Musicians from Marlboro, and many Broadway musicals. Recently, Ms Sternberg was a featured soloist at the Kennedy Center with the New Orchestra of Washington performing a new work by Camille Pepin; and she performed the Copland Clarinet Concerto with the Mimosa Ensemble in New York City.
Following her undergraduate years in the combined Tufts University/New England Conservatory dual degree program (B.A. in English/B.M. in Clarinet Performance) where she was mentored by Peter Hadcock, Ms. Sternberg continued her studies at Yale University with David Shifrin and at The Juilliard School with Charles Neidich where she was awarded the William Kapell Memorial Award. Currently, Ms. Sternberg serves on the faculties of Princeton University, Rutgers Mason Gross School of Music, and the Music Advancement Program at the Juilliard School; she also maintains an active teaching studio from her New York City home. Additionally, she serves as a mentor for the Juilliard Mentoring Program and is a coach for the New York Youth Symphony.
In the summer months, Ms. Sternberg lives in Maine where she is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Maine Chamber Music Seminar at Snow Pond for college and graduate-level musicians. She also performs and teaches at the Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East, and participates in numerous performance residences throughout greater New England. Previous summers have featured performance residencies at the Portland Chamber Music Festival, Salt Bay ChamberFest, Mount Desert Chamber Music Festival, Sebago/Long Lake Festival, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Marlboro, Norfolk, North Country Chamber Players, and Ravinia.
From September through May, Jo-Ann resides in New York City with her family. As a first-generation American, she feels a deep connection, pride and commitment to the melting pot
that is NYC.
Ms. Sternberg is a Selmer Artist.
GUY YEHUDA
Clarinetist Guy Yehuda is recognized as one of the most outstanding and unique talents on the international concert stage. Hailed by composer John Corigliano as “one of the most awe-inspiring clarinetists today,” he has won several international competitions, such as the Heida Hermanns International Woodwind Competition and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition as a gold medalist. Mr. Yehuda has toured extensively in Europe, North and South America, Israel, South Korea and China. As principal clarinetist, he has performed with the Israel Philharmonic, Lucerne Contemporary Festival Orchestra, Chicago Civic Orchestra, Spoleto Festival Orchestra, Haifa Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, among others. He has been guest clarinetist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, and guest principal clarinetist with the Detroit Symphony and Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo symphony orchestras. Yehuda has performed on tours of Europe and the U.S. under the batons of top conductors including Pierre Boulez, Zubin Mehta, Kurt Masur and Daniel Barenboim. He has performed and collaborated with the world’s top composers and performers including Pierre Boulez, Steve Reich, John Corigliano, Menahem Pressler of the Beaux Arts Trio, and the Dali, Cypress, Borromeo and Harrington string quartets. A highly in-demand musician, he has performed as soloist and chamber musician at the Spoleto, Verbier, Lucerne, Ottawa Chamber Music, Parry Sound, and Domain Forget festivals, and at the Israeli Chamber Music Festivals in Tel Aviv and Haifa.
An avid performer of contemporary music as well as the standard canon, Yehuda has performed and commissioned many new works and concerti from composers around the world and performed with Israel’s International Contemporary Ensemble. Yehuda is a sought-after recitalist throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He has performed as soloist in prestigious halls and venues such as Carnegie Hall, Domain Forget in Canada, Chicago Symphony Hall, Palacio Fuz and Casa di Musica in Portugal, Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv and Dame Myra Hess Chamber Series. He has appeared regularly as a guest artist on public radio across the U.S. and abroad, and he has been a frequent artist on a number of live recordings for CBC. Yehuda’s recordings have won many acclaims and rave reviews. His varied discography includes CDs on the Reference Recordings, XII-21, Albany, and Blue Griffin record labels.
Yehuda has given master classes throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Europe, China, and Israel. He is a Selmer-Paris and Vandoren international performing artist and product consultant. He held visiting faculty positions at Indiana University and the University of Virginia and has been the clarinet professor at the University of North Florida. Currently, he is the Associate Professor and Artist Teacher of Clarinet at Michigan State University College of Music, and principal clarinetist with the Lansing Symphony and Jackson Symphony Orchestras. He is the Artistic Director of the Henri Selmer International Summer Academy in Michigan, as well as the clarinet faculty resident at the Saarburg Festival in Europe, Aria International Music Festival in Massachusetts, and Fresno Summer Orchestra Academy in California.
Website: www.guyyehuda.com
GARRICK ZOETER
Clarinetist Garrick Zoeter's passionate and exciting way with the clarinet has been acknowledged around the world. The Clarinet recently described his playing as remarkable, his tone is beautiful and he shows complete mastery of all the technical demands and effects that are required of this piece. His artistry and virtuosity are compelling. This is one of the finest clarinet performances I have reviewed.
The Washington Post described a recent performance of his as an utterly commanding performance, technically superb and radiant with otherworldly majesty, all played with exceptional insight.
A native of Alexandria, Va., Mr. Zoeter took his first serious clarinet studies with Kenneth Lee and National Symphony Orchestra clarinetist William Wright. He received his bachelor's degree from the Juilliard School as a student of Charles Neidich and his master's degree from Yale University as a student of David Shifrin. He made his solo debut at the age of seventeen in Weber's Concerto #1 with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He has won numerous competitions as a soloist including the 1991 International Clarinet Society International Clarinet Competition, as well as prizes in chamber music—the Grand Prize in the 1998 Fischoff, Coleman, and Yellow Springs chamber music competitions, the silver medal in the 1997 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition and first prize in the 2002 Concert Artists Guild competition.
Mr. Zoeter is the founding member of the acclaimed multi-award-winning clarinet, violin, cello, and piano quartet Antares. From 1997 to 2013 with Antares, he annually gave performances around the United States at such prestigious venues as The Kennedy Center, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Aspen Music Festival, Strathmore, Ensemble Music Society of Indianapolis, Carnegie Recital Hall, Market Square Concerts, the Library of Congress, the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art, and Cincinnati Chamber Music Society. His work with Antares resulted in the commissioning and premiering of over 20 new quartets from several of North America's top young composers including Mason Bates, John Mackey, James Matheson, Kevin Puts, Dan Visconti and Carter Pann. Zoeter is also a frequent performer with such diverse groups as Trio Solisti, the Audubon Quartet, the Ensemble for the Romantic Century, the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, the University of Buffalo's Slee Sinfonietta, the PostClassical Ensemble, the Pressenda Chamber Players, Monadnock Music, and the New Orchestra of Washington. Recent performances have included Donald Martino’s Triple Concerto in Buffalo, NY, and chamber music appearances in Strasbourg, France and Medellin, Columbia, as well as an appearance at Cactus Pear Music Festival in San Antonio, TX. He is heard frequently in numerous chamber music performances around Washington D.C. including at Georgetown's Evermay estate.
A committed teacher as well as performer, Mr. Zoeter serves as the Anna Lee Van Buren Professor of Clarinet at the Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University. His students from Shenandoah include numerous competition winners and can be found performing in professional ensembles such as The President's Own
United States Marine Band, teaching in university and public school positions, and serving as music therapists throughout the country and abroad. He served on the clarinet and chamber music faculty of Wesleyan University from 2002 to 2007, and from 1997 to 2004 was the clarinet professor at the Festival Eleazar de Carvalho during the summer in the city of Fortaleza, Brazil. Mr. Zoeter has recorded for the CRI, Newport Classics, Bridge, Innova, Naxos, MSR Classics, and New Focus Recordings CD labels. In addition to his performing and teaching, Mr. Zoeter serves on the advisory council of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the National Society of Arts and Letters.
Website: www.youtube.com/user/SUclarinets
Bassoon Faculty
BRAD BALLIETT
Brad Balliett is a New York City-based bassoonist and composer. Brad is on faculty at The Peabody Institute, The Juilliard School, and Bard Prison Initiative, and is a former Artistic Director of Decoda, a chamber music collective in residence at Carnegie Hall.
Brad often performs with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, the Knights, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and is a member of Signal and Metropolis Ensemble. Brad has played seasons with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the International Contemporary Ensemble.
An advocate for creativity as a human right, Brad works with incarcerated musicians in prisons around the country, including Sing Sing Correctional, San Quentin State Prison, Fishkill Correctional, Lee Correctional, and various facilities on Rikers Island.
Brad has written orchestral, chamber, choral, operatic, and incidental music. Recent premieres include a violin concerto for Courtney Orlando and the Peabody Wind Ensemble, a wind quintet for City of Tomorrow, and Arboretum, an interactive work for seventeen bassoons scattered through a forest.
Brad grew up in Westborough, MA, and attended Harvard College (summa cum laude, 2005) to study music composition and Rice University (2007) to study bassoon performance. His teachers include John Harbison, Robert Levin, Christoph Wolff, and Benjamin Kamins.
Brad spends his free time filming birds. His videos have been featured on local and national news stations.
Website: www.bradballiett.net
NANCI BELMONT
Biography to be supplied.
Website: www.nancibelmont.com/
Horn Faculty
DANIEL GRABOIS
Daniel Grabois is Professor of Horn at the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he performs in the Wisconsin Brass Quintet and serves as the curator of SoundWaves, a series he created that combines science lectures with music performances. The former Chair of Contemporary Performance at the Manhattan School of Music, Grabois now serves as Director of the Electro-Acoustic Research Space (EARS), a facility which he founded with funding from a UW2020 large-equipment grant. Grabois is also the hornist in the Meridian Arts Ensemble, a New York City-based brass quintet founded in 1987. With Meridian, he has performed over seventy world premieres, released twelve CDs, received two ASCAP/CMA Adventuresome Programming Awards, and toured worldwide, in addition to recording or performing with rock legends Duran Duran and Natalie Merchant and performing the music of Frank Zappa for the composer himself. Grabois has also created numerous arrangements and compositions for Meridian.
A freelance musician from 1989 to 2011, Grabois performed with most of the classical music ensembles in New York City, including the Metropolitan Opera, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York City Opera, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra. He appeared on numerous recordings of classical music, rock, and jazz, and played in Broadway pits (some 36 shows, in thousands of performances).
In 2022, Grabois released his second solo album, Fire Names, for horn and tape. He composed the music for that CD as well as for his previous CD, Air Names. The next recording in the series, Earth Names, will be released in 2025, and Water Names will be released in 2026. Grabois’ compositions, including four etude books and numerous chamber and solo works, are published by WaveFront Music.
In addition to his work as a horn player, composer, arranger, and electronic musician, Grabois is also an avid woodworker and practitioner of martial arts.
Daniel Grabois is a Yamaha Performing Artist.
Website: www.danielgrabois.com
Piano Faculty
AUDREY ANDRIST
Hailed as a stunning pianist with incredible dexterity
, Canadian pianist Audrey Andrist has thrilled audiences around the globe, from North America to Japan, China and Germany with her passionate abandon
and great intelligence.
Ms. Andrist grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan, and while in high school traveled three hours one-way for piano lessons with William Moore, himself a former student of famed musicians Cécile Genhart and Rosina Lhévinne. She completed Masters and Doctoral degrees at the Juilliard School with Herbert Stessin, and garnered first prizes at the Mozart International, San Antonio International, Eckhardt-Gramatté, and Juilliard Concerto Competitions. She is the principal pianist of ROCO in Houston, Texas and of the PostClassical Ensemble in Washington, DC. She is a member of the Stern/Andrist Duo with her husband, violinist James Stern; Strata, with her husband and Nathan Williams, clarinet, and the Andrist-Stern-Honigberg Trio with cellist Steven Honigberg. She has performed at Lincoln Center in New York, the Phillips Collection, Kennedy Center and Library of Congress in Washington, Place des Arts in Montreal, and the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. With the CBC Vancouver Orchestra and maestro Mario Bernardi, she presented the world premiere of Andrew P. MacDonald’s Piano Concerto, composed especially for her and commissioned by CBC Radio.
An avid performer of new music, Ms. Andrist has recorded for more than a dozen record labels and has presented over 75 world premieres as a soloist and with various ensembles. In her many intrepid adventures in modern music, she has played a wide variety of instruments, including synthesizer, harmonium, celesta, melodica, paper accordion, mbira, tack piano, bass drum and slide whistle! She and the ensembles with which she performs regularly play music by young student composers, working with the students to hone their craft, and mentoring them in the composition process. A devoted teacher, Ms. Andrist lives in the Washington, DC area, where she teaches at the Washington Conservatory and the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and where she is in constant demand as a soloist, chamber musician, adjudicator and master class teacher. She spends her summers at a variety of festivals, including The Chamber Music Conference, ChamberFest Canandaigua, Intermuse, and the Manhattan Music Festival in Shanghai, China. In her spare time, she is an enthusiastic cook and hockey fan.
Website: www.audreyandrist.com/
PHILLIP BUSH
Phillip Bush is a pianist of uncommon versatility, with a repertoire extending from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first. His active and unconventional career has taken him to many parts of the globe. Since his New York recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum in 1984, Mr. Bush has appeared as recitalist throughout North America, as well as in Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. In 2001 he made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut with the London Sinfonietta to critical acclaim, replacing an ailing Peter Serkin on short notice in concerti by Stravinsky and Alexander Goehr. He has also appeared as soloist with the Osaka Century Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Houston Symphony, and several other orchestras, in repertoire as far-ranging as the Beethoven concerti and the American premiere of Michael Nyman's Harpsichord Concerto.
A much sought-after chamber musician, Mr. Bush has performed and recorded with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, appears frequently on New York's Bargemusic series, and has performed at the Grand Canyon Music Festival, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Strings in the Mountains (Colorado), Sitka Music Festival (Alaska), St. Bart's Music Festival, Bahamas Music Festival, Music at Blair Atholl (Scotland), Cape May Music Festival, and many other festivals. He has also performed with the Kronos Quartet, the Miami String Quartet, and members of the Emerson, Guarneri, Tokyo, and St. Lawrence quartets. Between 1991 and 1999 he performed over 250 concerts in Japan with the piano quartet Typhoon,
and recorded five CD's with the group for Epic/Sony, all of which reached the top of the Japanese classical charts. In 1993 Mr. Bush founded MayMusic in Charlotte,
a critically acclaimed and innovative festival in North Carolina that annually presented chamber and contemporary music, film screenings, and other cross-disciplinary collaborations. He served as Artistic Director of that festival from 1993 to 1998. Mr. Bush can be heard frequently on public radio in the U.S., including appearances on Saint Paul Sunday,
and has had live performances broadcast frequently throughout the nation on television via the Classic Arts Showcase.
A fierce advocate for contemporary music, Phillip Bush has performed often with many of the New York area's most renowned new music ensembles, including Bang on a Can All-Stars, Philip Glass Ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians, Group for Contemporary Music, Newband, Sequitur, Parnassus, and New Music Consort. Since 1995 he has been an artist-member of the Milwaukee-based new music group, Present Music. Mr. Bush's efforts on behalf of contemporary music have earned him grants and awards from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Aaron Copland Fund, ASCAP, Chamber Music America, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His discography as soloist and chamber musician has now surpassed thirty recordings, on labels such as Sony, Virgin Classics, Koch International, New World Records, Denon, and many others.
Mr. Bush is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with Leon Fleisher. From 2000 to 2004 Mr. Bush taught piano and chamber music at the University of Michigan. He was Music Director of the Chamber Music Conference from 2006 through 2015. Today, in addition to his busy performing schedule, he continues to give master classes, sharing his insights with young musicians in venues throughout the nation. He makes his home in the Old Shandon neighborhood of Columbia, South Carolina, with his wife, pianist Lynn Kompass, and their part-Siberian-Husky, Ruby.
CATALIN DIMA
Hailed as a pianist that displays an expressive and unleashed interpretation, transcending all the technical challenges of the score…a gift to the audience
(Romanian Music Radio), Catalin Dima has established himself as one of the leading artists of his generation. He performed in acclaimed venues including the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall (NYC), the Klavierhaus (NYC), the Tamagawa Academy (Tokyo), the Preston Bradley Hall (Chicago), the Romanian Embassy (Washington D.C.), the Cosmos Club (Washington D.C), and the Romanian Athenaeum (Bucharest, Romania).
His engagements with orchestras include concerts with the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra (Romania), the Pitesti Philharmonic Orchestra (Romania), the Washington Sinfonietta (Washington D.C.), the Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra (Winchester, VA), and the Symphonic Winds (SOSU).
In his pursuit for innovative programming, Catalin Dima combines mainstream and rare piano repertoire, often focusing on Romanian, American, and Japanese composers. A frequent guest artist and adjudicator, Catalin Dima is a member of the Music Teachers National Association and College Music Society. He has served as a judge for festivals and competitions such as the OMTA/MTNA Collegiate Competition (OK), the Denison Piano Competition (TX), the 26th Washington Conservatory of Music Festival (Washington D.C.), the Hubbard-Males Piano Competition (OK), the Texoma Piano Competition (OK), the NVMTA Piano Achievement Awards (VA), and the Shenandoah Conservatory Arts Academy Festival (VA).
Currently, Catalin Dima serves as the Assistant Professor of Piano at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, the executive director of the Texoma Piano Competition, and the artistic director of the Musical Arts Series.
Website: www.catalin-dima.com
JAMES GOLDSWORTHY
James Goldsworthy has performed in Europe, Israel, Japan, Canada, and the United States, including broadcasts on Austrian National Television, the California cable television show Grand Piano, Vermont Public Television, BBC radio, and Minnesota Public Radio. While a Fulbright scholar in Vienna, Goldsworthy participated in German Lieder master classes with Hans Hotter and studied vocal coaching and accompanying with Erik Werba, Walter Moore, and Roman Ortner. He performed in one of the Musikverein 175th anniversary celebration concerts given in the Brahms Saal, and concertized in Vienna, Baden, and Spital am Semmering, Austria. More recently, he performed at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, and in Le Sax concert hall in Achère, France, and at the White House. He has appeared in chamber music concerts including celebrations of Milton Babbitt at The Juilliard School, Carnegie Recital Hall, and Cooper Union, James Levine's Met Chamber Ensemble, and in the Works & Process series at the Guggenheim Museum. He has accompanied the singers Judith Bettina, Lindsey Christiansen, Véronique Dubois, Elem Eley, Marion Kilcher, Benjamin Luxon, Sharon Sweet, and Edith Zitelli in recital, and performed in concerts with violinists Jorja Fleezanis, Lilo Kantorowicz-Glick, Rolf Schulte, and violist Jacob Glick. He has premiered works by Milton Babbitt, Christopher Berg, Chester Biscardi, David Olan, Tobias Picker, Mel Powell, David Rakowski, Cheng Yong Wang, and Amnon Wolman. Goldsworthy is currently the Director of the New Works for Young Pianists Commissioning Project. He has taught at Goshen College, Stanford University, and the University of St. Thomas, and is presently on the piano faculty at Westminster Choir College of Rider University. His recordings with Judith Bettina of Chester Biscardi's The Gift of Life, David Rakowski's Three Songs on Poems of Louise Bogan, and songs of Otto Luening are on the CRI label. Most recently, he recorded works written for Judith Bettina with Bridge Records.
KENT MCWILLIAMS
Kent McWilliams has enjoyed a successful performing career since his debut in Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto with the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has been an award winner at competitions of Porto (Portugal), the Regina Symphony and the Canadian National Competitive Festival of Music. Kent has also performed live recitals and concertos on the CBC in Canada and the ABC in Australia. He has released several recordings, including Tryptique, a recording of music for flute, oboe, and piano performed by the Meridian Trio, a soon-to-be-released album with trumpeter Martin Hodel, and East Meets West: Music for Clarinet and Piano by Chinese Composers with clarinetist Jun Qian.
Kent holds a Doctorate in Piano Performance from the University of Montreal, where he studied with Marc Durand. He completed doctoral research in Poland with Andrzej Jasinski while exploring the Polish folk elements in Chopin’s Mazurkas. Kent also earned an Artist Diploma under Oleg Maisenberg at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart, Germany and completed Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with Boris Lysenko at the University of Toronto.
Kent currently plays with the Main Street Chamber Players and teaches at the Main Street Music Studios in Fairfax, Virginia as well as at Kent State University in Ohio. He previously taught at St. Olaf College in Minnesota and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
Dr. McWilliams has judged the national finals of the MTNA competition and the Canadian Music Competitions. He has also judged the Canadian Chopin Festival Competition as well as numerous regional competitions and MTNA auditions in 25 states and provinces. Kent has been an adjudicator for the Royal Conservatory of Music for over 25 years. Kent is also a very experienced clinician, having presented performance and pedagogy workshops to teachers at many national events. At the 2010 MTNA national convention, he presented the opening plenary session to help celebrate the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth.
Website: msmsfairfax.com/piano
ARDITA STATOVCI
Praised by the press as an honest, clear, very touching interpreter and a pianist with super-elitist qualities,
Ardita Statovci was born in Prishtina, Kosovo, where she began studying piano with Hadije Gjinali and Lejla Pula. At the young age of 15, she was admitted to the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Austria, where she earned her Magistra of Arts degree with the highest distinction in the concert class of Christoph Lieske.
In 2009, Ardita studied with the legendary pianist Menahem Pressler at Indiana University in Bloomington, USA. She later completed her postgraduate studies at the Imola Academy in Italy under the guidance of Boris Petrushansky and Franco Scala.
Statovci has participated in masterclasses with renowned artists such as Elisabeth Leonskaja, Peter Lang, Stefan Arnold, Cyprien Katsaris, Peter Donohoe, Thomas Larcher, Paul Badura-Skoda, Dubravka Tomšič, Riccardo Risaliti, Norman Shetler, and Carmen Piazzini, among others.
She has performed extensively throughout Europe, the USA, and Asia, appearing in countries such as Austria, France, England, Kosovo, Sweden, North Macedonia, Italy, Croatia, Switzerland, Bosnia, India, Spain, Germany, China, Slovenia, Albania, Hungary, Turkey, Japan, and across various U.S. states including Vermont, Washington D.C., Maryland, Utah, and Indiana. She has appeared as a soloist with prestigious orchestras including the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Mozart Orchestra (Bologna), Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, Haydn Orchestra (Bolzano), Wiener Sinfonietta, Kammerorchester „Cis“, Kosovo Philharmonic, Albanian Radio Television Orchestra, JSO Bern, and the Presidential Symphony Orchestra Ankara. She regularly gives piano recitals and performs chamber music as part of the “Ariadita Duo” with Swiss pianist Ariane Haering.
Her performances have been featured in numerous TV and radio broadcasts, including RTK, ORF/Ö1, RAI, SERVUS TV, KOHA, and RTV21.
In recognition of her outstanding achievements, she has received numerous scholarships and awards from institutions such as the Society for Music Theatre in Vienna, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture (bm:ukk), the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research, the Internationale Mozarteum Stiftung in Salzburg, the Piano Academy in Birmingham, Rotary Club Salzburg, and the Fohn Foundation in Vienna.
She has also won prizes at several international competitions, including Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now in Salzburg, the Bösendorfer Prize at the Mozarteum University, the Rotaract International Competition in Spain, the Talent of Kosovo
award, and the International Ibla Competition in Italy.
Her CD release includes a live recording featuring works by Brahms, Beethoven, and Dutilleux.
In 2011, she notably stepped in for Martha Argerich during rehearsals of Ravel’s Piano Concerto with Claudio Abbado and the Mozart and Mahler Chamber Orchestra in Ferrara, Italy.
Ardita Statovci is a Young Steinway Artist and has performed at prestigious venues and festivals including the Musikverein in Vienna, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, concert halls in Dortmund, Vienna, and Shanghai, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Royal Palace in Stockholm, and Laeiszhalle in Hamburg.
In addition to her performing career, Statovci has given masterclasses across Europe, Asia, and the United States and has served as a jury member at various international piano competitions. Statovci currently serves on the piano faculty at the Washington Conservatory of Music.
Website: www.arditastatovci.com
SAYAKA TANIKAWA
Noted for her sensitive and thoughtful approach, pianist Sayaka Tanikawa enjoys an active career as a recitalist and chamber musician in the United States and abroad, performing in venues such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Davies Hall, and Suntory Hall. An accomplished chamber musician, Tanikawa has performed with Peter Frankl, Osmo Vänskä, and members of the San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, San Francisco Ballet, NHK Philharmonic, and Sō Percussion. She has appeared in the San Francisco Symphony Chamber Music Series, Minnesota Orchestra’s Sommerfest, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, Banff Chamber Music Festival, and many others.
An avid educator, she has served as an artist-in-residence at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville, South Carolina. She is currently on the faculties of Hunter College and the Pre-College Division (MAP) of the Juilliard School. She also serves as the Artistic Director of the Duluth Chamber Music Festival in Minnesota.
Tanikawa holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from Columbia University, a master’s degree in piano performance from the Yale School of Music, and a doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music.
ANNA VINNITSKY
Dr. Anna Vinnitsky, a pianist renowned for her eloquence and versatility, has forged a multifaceted career as a sought-after soloist, chamber musician, educator, and composer. With a robust performance calendar spanning the United States, Israel, and Western Europe, she has performed at iconic venues including Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Leipzig Gewandhaus, New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall, and Auditorium Haifa in Israel.
In addition to her remarkable achievements as a pianist, Dr. Anna Vinnitsky is a dedicated educator, sharing her expertise and passion with aspiring musicians. She currently serves as an adjunct faculty at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, holds a teaching position at The Seven Hills School in Cincinnati, and has been a guest lecturer at universities nationwide. Her commitment to music education is further evident through her involvement with the Kaufman Center’s Lucy Moses School and her role as a founder of Westchester Piano Studio, an innovative initiative that provides exceptional piano instruction tailored to each student’s artistic development, performance presentation, ear training, and theory.
As a composer, Dr. Vinnitsky has garnered acclaim with commissioned works for esteemed institutions such as the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) and Orchestra Lumos. Her solo and chamber music compositions, embraced by renowned performers, resonate widely across the musical landscape. Anna’s highly anticipated Klezmer Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra premiered in March 2024 at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, receiving widespread praise and acclaim.
As a highly sought-after collaborative artist, she has shared the stage with world-renowned musicians such as clarinetist David Shifrin, violinist Ilya Kaler, oboist Philippe Tondre, and cellist Eileen Moon, to name a few. Anna is also a cherished member of numerous music festivals, including the Interlochen Summer Intensive Program.
Currently, Dr. Vinnitsky is residing in Cincinnati.
Website: annavinnitsky.com/
