Faculty Biographies
Click any of the links below to access faculty biographies.
Music Director – Tobias Werner
Senior Composer-in-Residence – Donald Crockett
Violin – Sonya Chung, Judith Eissenberg, Mayuki Fukuhara, Amy Galluzzo, Shem Guibbory, Jean Huang, Sharan Leventhal, Muneko Otani, Sheila Reinhold, Andrea Schultz, James Stern, Samuel Thompson, Masako Yanagita, Airi Yoshioka
Viola – En-Chi Cheng, Korine Fujiwara, Amy Galluzzo, Marka Gustavsson, Deborah Price, Marcus Thompson, Lisa Whitfield
Cello – Michael Finckel, Eugene Kim, Andrea Lee, Carol Ou, Nathaniel Parke, Brad Ritchie, Tobias Werner
Flute – Giorgio Consolati, Conor Nelson
Oboe – Jacqueline Leclair, Keve Wilson
Clarinet – Michael Dumouchel, Jo-Ann Sternberg, Garrick Zoeter
Bassoon – Gilbert Dejean, Stephen Walt
Horn – Shelagh Abate, Daniel Grabois
Piano – Audrey Andrist, Catalin Dima, James Goldsworthy, Lura Johnson, Sara Laimon, Genevieve Feiwen Lee, Kent McWilliams
Guest Faculty – Michael Dumouchel, Stephen Walt
Music Director
TOBIAS WERNER
Tobias Werner has been Music Director of the Chamber Music Conference since 2015. He was the cellist in residence and co-artistic director at Garth Newel Music Center from 1999 until 2012. He is the artistic director of Pressenda Chamber Players, teaches at Georgetown University, and is an Arts for the Aging teaching artist. He has performed at the Cape and Islands Chamber Music Festival, Villa Musica Mainz, the San Diego Chamber Music Workshop, the Vail Valley Bravo! Colorado Music Festival, the Maui Classical Music Festival, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Strathmore Hall, the Phillips Collection, the Library of Congress, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and Bargemusic.
Tobias has appeared as soloist with orchestras in the US, France, Germany, and Romania, and recent performances have included the concertos of Dvořák, Elgar, Haydn, and Boccherini. He has recorded on the ECM, Darbringhaus & Grimm, Bayer Records, and Orfeo labels. Recent CD releases include Piano Quartets by Mozart, Brahms, Dvořák, and Martinů with the Garth Newel Piano Quartet, the Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by J.S. Bach, and the Sonatas for Piano and Cello by Beethoven with Victor Asuncion.
Tobias studied at the Musikhochschule Freiburg in Germany and at Boston University. His teachers have included Andrés Díaz, Christoph Henkel, and Xavier Gagnepain. He plays on an 1844 J.F. Pressenda cello.
Website: www.tobiaswernercello.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 (BM Magna cum Laude 1974, MM 1976) and UC Santa Barbara (PhD 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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Violin Faculty
SONYA CHUNG
Violinist Sonya Chung joined the Richmond Symphony in 2008, after completing her graduate studies at Peabody Conservatory as a full-scholarship student of Violaine Melançon. Previous studies include the Yellow Barn Music Festival, a two-year fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Festival, and a degree with honors in Philosophy from Harvard College. An avid chamber musician, she has performed with members of the Peabody Trio, Brentano, Mendelssohn, and Takács Quartets. Opera and orchestral performances include concerts under the direction of James Levine, Bernard Haitink, Herbert Blomstedt, Sir Roger Norrington, and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. Recent notable trips include Carnegie Hall in New York, Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City, and Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland.
JUDITH EISSENBERG
Judith Eissenberg’s musical roots begin in the ever-broadening repertoire of the string quartet. She is a founder/second violin (1980-2022) of the Lydian String Quartet, recognized for its depth of interpretation, performing with a precision and involvement marking them as among the world's best quartets
(Chicago Sun-Times). The LSQ received top prizes at the Evian (1982), Banff (1983), and Portsmouth (1985) International String Quartet Competitions, winning the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1984. With over 30 recordings (Nonesuch, CRI, Harmonia Mundi, New World Records, Musica Omnia, etc.) and multiple commissions, premieres and dedications, the Quartet is recognized for its fresh and incisive approach: [the Lydian] revealed a fire that makes all timeless music forever contemporary
(Washington Post). Eissenberg performs in the US and abroad (Europe, Taiwan, Australia), including in major concert venues (Weill Recital Hall, Allice Tully Hall, Library of Congress, etc.), and has enjoyed residencies at colleges, universities and conservatories. Other chamber music affiliations include Boston Chamber Music Society, Emmanuel Music, and various summer festivals throughout the US. With experience in period instrument performance, she has been soloist with and core member of Boston Baroque and Handel and Haydn Society.
Eissenberg collaborates with musicians in jazz, Korean Gugak, Indian classical, Chinese classical, and enjoys cross-disciplinary work in film, theater, dance, electronics/digital, video, etc. She has received multiple grants and awards, including from Copland Foundation, Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Readers’ Digest. She is Professor Emeritus at Brandeis University (1980-2022), and Professor at Boston Conservatory at Berklee.
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 post-graduate 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) and is a participating artist in such festivals as Marlboro, Caramoor, and the New England Bach Festival.
Mr. Fukuhara spends his summers performing with the Saito Kinen 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. For many years, Amy was a member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet, touring around the United States and internationally, performing a wide range of repertoire. 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, Carol Rodland, James Buswell and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. More unusual collaborations include Yihan Chen, pipa, Scott McConnell, steel pan, and Dariush Saghafi, santoor.
Recent highlights include Amy's 2017 Carnegie Hall debut with Carpe Diem String Quartet and the release of four recordings with the quartet: The Art of Calligraphy (Albany Records), featuring the music of one of NPR's 10 Favorites, Iranian-born Reza Vali, Volumes 4 and 5 of the complete String Quartets of Sergei Taneyev (Naxos Records), and Music for Mandolin and String Quartet by Jeff Midkiff. Current recording projects include the complete string quartets of D.C.-based composer Jonathan Leshnoff and the latest quartets by Reza Vali. 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 the New England Conservatory Concerto 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.
Amy maintains a private violin studio in Boston, and 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 and has taught at the Chamber Music Conference since 2015.
SHEM GUIBBORY
Shem Guibbory has achieved recognition as an award-winning violin soloist, as a chamber musician, and as a music director and artistic producer.
His recording Voice of the People – comprising two works of Gabriela Frank and the Shostakovich Violin Sonata – was released worldwide in June 2010 and has received great reviews. This CD is the first element of a series exploring linked relationships among multiple arts. The series also includes mini-documentary films and theatrical works.
Currently he is a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. From 1997 to 2006 he was Music Director of the Chamber Music Conference, winning two ASCAP/CMA Awards for Adventurous Programming (2001, 2002) in conjunction with Senior Composers-in-Residence Chen Yi and Donald Crockett. Mr. Guibbory was codirector of Special Projects for the Cal Arts Alumni Association (2006-2010), and serves on the Board of Directors of the Recording Musicians Association, NY Chapter (2011-present).
He is a coauthor of a groundbreaking music and theater work in collaboration with director Margaret Booker and writer Robert Schenkkan entitled A Night at the Alhambra Café, with its world premiere planned to take place at The Krannert Center, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign.
His recordings can be found on the ECM, Gramavision, Opus 1, DG, Bridge, CRI, New World, ALBANY and MSRCD labels. He is a featured artist in The Classical Hour at Steinway Hall
, a joint production of NHK TV (Japan) and D'Alessio Media (USA). He has received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (Bellagio) in 2002, a fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2003), and a fellowship at the Centre por Ars y Natura (Spain, 2004).
As a soloist, his interpretations of 20th Century music have received international acclaim. He was the original violinist in Steve Reich and Musicians, and his recording of Reich's Violin Phase
(ECM) is now a classic of American avant-garde music. With Anthony Davis he recorded four albums, as well as Maps
, a violin concerto cocommissioned with the Kansas City Symphony (Gramavision). Mr. Guibbory has had close associations with other composers such as Ornette Coleman, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jeffrey Levine, Earl Howard, and Gerry Hemingway. He has premiered over 60 compositions with more than 30 works written expressly for him.
He has appeared as soloist with the N.Y. Philharmonic, the Beethoven Halle Orchestra (Bonn), the Kansas City Symphony, and the Symphony of the New World. He has served as concertmaster with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra and many NYC freelance orchestras, and has performed recitals and chamber music throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
From 1981-1985 he was codirector (with choreographer Joan Lombardi) of NovEnsemble, a company dedicated to performance of live music and dance. Mr. Guibbory has also collaborated with the Belgian choreographer Anne-Theresa de Keersmaker.
A graduate of the California Institute of the Arts, Mr. Guibbory studied violin with Broadus Erle, Romuald Tecco, Evelyn Read and Sophie Feuermann.
Websites: shemguibbory.com
innovativemusicprograms.com/
JEAN HUANG
Taiwanese violinist Jean Huang's active performing career has brought her to concert halls internationally and throughout the United States. Huang holds Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral of Musical Arts degrees in Violin Performance with honors from the New England Conservatory with the Doctoral thesis topic A Performative Analysis and the Critical Edition: Francis Poulenc Violin Sonata. Passionate for teaching, Huang currently maintains a private studio in Boston, with students ranging from six years old to adults. She also serves as the violin faculty at the New England Conservatory School of Continuing Education and preparatory school.
Maintaining an active professional career, Jean serves as the concertmaster of the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra and has received recognition for her leadership and artistry from Cape Cod Times and other prominent music critics. Jean also serves as Co-Concermaster of the Phoenix Orchestra (Boston), where she participated as the principal violinist and performed 16 episodes of the "Chronophone" online chamber music series on Twitch during the pandemic, covering Western music history from pre-baroque to modern-era. Praised for her poised and expressive playing, Jean enjoys performing standard repertoire and contemporary music. She recently joined cellist Carol Ou and violist/violinist Amy Galluzzo and formed Trio L’Eveque.
Jean loves performing, believing music can provoke the wildest imagination. As a result, she often looks for a three-way connection between the composer, performer, and audience. Jean is recognized for her lecture recitals discussing topics such as Musician's role,
Baroque Dances,
and Evolutionary Violinist.
During those recitals, she combines virtuosic violin playing, her musicology background, and multi-media commentary that audience members of all experience levels can understand.
Praised for her transcendent tone,
Jean’s recent concerto appearances include a sold-out Vaughan Williams’s Lark Ascending concert with the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra and Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.5 with the Music for Peace Orchestra.
Wishing to become a musician rather than merely a violinist, Huang delves into all aspects of the field. In the summer of 2013, she took violin-making lessons and created her first violin based on a Guarnerius model. She enjoys everyday coffee and often wanders around the Greater Boston area for new inspirations from nature in her sound.
Website: www.violinjeanius.com
SHARAN LEVENTHAL
Violinist Sharan Leventhal has toured four continents as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. Since winning the Kranischsteiner Musikpreis at the 1984 International Contemporary Music Festival in Darmstadt, Germany, she has built an international reputation as a champion of contemporary music, and has garnered 30 grants and awards from such institutions as the NEA, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Recording, Chamber Music America, New Music USA, and the Fromm and Koussevitzky foundations. Her more than 130 premieres include works by Gunther Schuller, Ben Johnston, Virgil Thomson, William Kraft, Pauline Oliveros, Taina León, Simon Bainbridge, Scott Wheeler, Matt Aucoin, and Fred Hersch.
Leventhal has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras, is a founding member of the Gramercy Trio, the Kepler Quartet, and Marimolin, and appears regularly with the Boston Artists Ensemble. She can be heard on the New World, Northeastern, Newport Classic, Naxos, Navona, GM and Catalyst labels, and has recorded broadcasts for the BBC, ORF (Austria), Musikradion (Sweden), WGBH-Boston, and WNYC.
Leventhal teaches at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Berklee College of Music, and has served on the faculties of Brandeis University and Michigan State University. During the 1990s she taught regularly at the Bruckner-Konservatorium in Linz, Austria. Known for her detailed approach to effortless playing and injury prevention, she has successfully helped numerous players suffering from tendonitis, nerve damage and other playing related injuries. Summer teaching has included the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival, FOOSA (Fresno, CA), Interlochen Arts Camp, and The Asian Youth Orchestra in Hong Kong.
Leventhal has served as chamber music editor for the American String Teachers Association’s publication (AST), as chair of the national Studio Committee, and as president of the Massachusetts chapter. She continues to be an active member of the MA-ASTA board, and presents regularly at ASTA’s annual national conference. Leventhal is the founder and director of Play On, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting active participation in music making. Her music blog is titled Just tuning In.
Website: sharanleventhal.net/
MUNEKO OTANI
Violinist Muneko Otani serves on the faculties of Columbia University and Williams College and is assistant to Lewis Kaplan at the Mannes College of Music. She has also taught at the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg.
As the first violinist of the Cassatt String Quartet since 1986, she has appeared in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, as well as in Europe and Asia. Major venues have included Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress, Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the Bastille Opera House.
As a chamber musician, she has collaborated with Walter Trampler, Martin Lovett, Marc Johnson, Paul Katz, Kazuhide Isomura, Ursula Oppens, Masuko Ushioda, Colin Carr, and Lawrence Lesser.
Ms. Otani 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.
She has served as a panelist for the Juilliard Concerto Competition, the 2019 Postacchini International Violin competition, the Barlow Prize for composition, and Chamber Music America’s Residency Program.
Ms. 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.
Ms. 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.
Ms. Reinhold'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 major films and Broadway productions, and appeared with popular artists such as Tony Bennett.
Ms. Reinhold can be heard as a chamber musician on the North/South and Albany labels, and is featured on a newly released CD of the music of Victoria Bond. Her teaching positions have included Resident Musician at Harvard and head of the string faculty at the Children's Orchestra Society, and she has been a member of the Chamber Music Conference faculty since 2000.
Ms. Reinhold 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.
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, the New York Chamber Ensemble, and Musica Sacra. A devotee of contemporary music, Schultz is also a member of the contemporary chamber ensemble Sequitur and has been involved in the premieres of more than a hundred works with groups that include Either/Or, Cygnus, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Locrian Chamber Players, Eberli Ensemble, the New York Composers Circle, the League of Composers, the Cabrini Quartet, and others. She has recorded contemporary chamber music for the Naxos, Albany, New World, and Phoenix labels. She was a member of the Mark Morris Dance Group Music Ensemble for many years, touring the US, Britain, Japan, and Australia; and has performed as guest with the Cassatt String Quartet, Perspectives Ensemble, Avery Ensemble, Apple Hill Chamber Players, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Mostly Mozart.
Schultz spends summers performing and teaching at the Kinhaven Music School, the Wintergreen Music Festival and Academy, and the Chamber Music Conference. She and her husband, cellist Michael Finckel, also curate a summer chamber-music series in a historic carriage barn in North Bennington, VT. A graduate of Yale University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and SUNY Stony Brook, Schultz studied violin with Betty-Jean Hagen, Sydney Harth, Paul Kantor, Donald Weilerstein, and Joyce Robbins. She plays on a violin made in 1997 by Stefan-Peter Greiner.
JAMES STERN
Hailed by the Washington Post for virtuosity and penetrating intelligence,
James Stern has performed with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, recording for Dorian/Sono Luminus; the 21st Century Consort, recording for Bridge Records; and VERGE Ensemble, touring internationally. He has appeared as violinist, violist, and/or conductor at the Smithsonian Museums, the Corcoran Gallery, the National Gallery, the Phillips Collection, the White House, and the Library of Congress. His recording of the complete Sonatas and Partitas by Bach is available on Albany Records, and he has presented the cycle in live performance from coast to coast. Festival appearances include Marlboro, Siletz Bay, Colorado MahlerFest, and Garth Newel. In addition, he has both performed and taught at the National Orchestral Institute, Master Players Festival, Intermuse, California Summer Music, the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East, and the Schlern and Orfeo festivals in northern Italy. Other recital and chamber music engagements have taken him to Paris, Munich, Stavanger (Norway), and throughout China. A former faculty member at the Cleveland Institute, he has taught at the Brian Lewis Young Artist Program, the Starling/Delay Symposium at Juilliard, and is currently professor at the University of Maryland.
SAMUEL THOMPSON
Noted for taking audiences to a place of calm and beauty
(Blackbook Magazine) and the excellence and exuberance
of his playing (Charleston Today), Samuel Thompson enjoys a career that includes performance, education and arts journalism. Samuel has appeared in venues including the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the August Wilson African-American Cultural Center (Pittsburgh), Wortham Theater Center (Houston) and Koerner Hall (Toronto) and has soloed with the Capital Philharmonic of New Jersey, Orchard Park Symphony, Hopkins Concert Orchestra and at the Tanglewood Music Center’s Linde Center for Learning.
Thompson has performed on chamber music series including WMFT-FM’s Fazioli Salon Series, Colour of Music Festival, Gateways Music Festival and the Utah Festival Opera Chamber Music Series, and served as acting second violinist of the Marian Anderson String Quartet in a series of concerts throughout Houston. He has also worked extensively with artists across other disciplines including visual and performance artist David Antonio Cruz in the premieres of TAKEABITE: The Opera and Green, How I Want You Green at El Museo del Barrio and New York's Snug Harbor; saxophonist Carl Grubbs for the premiere and subsequent performances of Inner Harbor Suite Revisited: A Tribute to Baltimore; and the premiere and tour of playwright Linda Parris-Bailey’s Between a Ballad and a Blues with the Carpetbag Theatre Ensemble.
In addition to performing, Samuel is a passionate, thoughtful and well-regarded writer. In addition to being a regular contributor to Violinist.com, his work has appeared at 21cm.org, Strings Magazine, and Nigel Kennedy Online. In 2017, conductor Marlon Daniel invited Samuel to Havana, Cuba to chronicle a week of concerts and masterclasses at the Lyceum Mozartiana de la Habana.
Teaching is an integral component of Samuel’s life, and he has developed a specialty in working with secondary school students on many aspects of violin technique and orchestral playing. Currently a Teaching Artist for the DC Youth Orchestra Program and a member of the Four Strings Academy Summer Intensive Faculty, Samuel has taught students ranging from beginners to young adults and adult amateurs. He has served on the faculty of the Vermont Music and Arts Center, DC Strings Summer Camp, and the Baltimore Symphony ORCHKids, and has given master classes and clinics at the Lyceum Mozartiano de La Habana and the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville.
Samuel is originally from Charleston, South Carolina, and earned the Master of Music degree from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where his teachers included Kenneth Goldsmith and the late Raphael Fliegel. A prizewinner in the 2011 Padova International Music Competition, Samuel is a recipient of the Sphinx Organization’s MPower Artist Grant and Artistic Assistance Awards from Alternate ROOTS.
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.
AIRI YOSHIOKA
Hailed by the Gramophone Magazine as “brilliant and intrepid”, violinist Airi Yoshioka has concertized throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Canada as a recitalist, soloist and chamber musician. Deeply committed to chamber music, she is the founding member of the Damocles Trio and Modigliani Quartet and has performed and recorded with the members of the Emerson, Brentano and Arditti Quartets. Damocles Trio’s debut disc of complete piano trios and piano quartet of Joaquín Turina has won a four-star rating from the BBC Music Magazine, Le Monde de la Musique and Diapason.
Her orchestral credits include performances with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Sinfonietta and engagements as concertmaster and soloist with the Manhattan Virtuosi and concertmaster of one of the festival orchestras at the Aspen Music Festival. An enthusiastic performer of new music, she was one of the original members and concertmasters of the New Juilliard Ensemble and had performed annually in Juilliard’s FOCUS! Festival and is currently a member of Continuum, ModernWorks!, RUCKUS, Son Sonora, and Azure Ensemble. She has premiered dozens of works and her latest recording project of works for violin and electronics includes commissions from such prominent women composers as Tania León, Linda Dusman, Alice Shields and Milica Paranosic.
Educational outreach has been a vital aspect of Ms. Yoshioka’s professional life through her work as a teaching artist for the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center Institute. In addition, she has taught music at New York City public schools through the Morse Fellowship program and has performed in hospitals, hospices, and nursing homes as a recipient of the Community Service Fellowship. Currently, she is Professor of Violin at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
A native of Japan, Ms. Yoshioka came to the United States at the age of 12 and received her early training as a student of Honorary Distinction at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She holds a B.A. in English from Yale University, where she received the Branford College Arts Award for outstanding contribution to the arts, M.M. and DMA from The Juilliard School. Summer festivals attended include Meadowmount, Encore, Sarasota, Banff, and Aspen.
While at The Juilliard School, she won the concerto competition. Among her teachers and coaches have been Jorja Fleezanis, Glenn Dicterow, Joey Corpus, Stephen Clapp, Syoko Aki, Felix Galimir, Paul Kantor, Jerome Lowenthal, and Seymour Lipkin, as well as members of the Juilliard and Tokyo String Quartets.
Viola Faculty
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.
One of the most unique and sought-after chamber ensembles on the concert stage today, the Carpe Diem String Quartet is a boundary-breaking ensemble that has earned widespread critical and audience acclaim for its innovative programming and electrifying performances. Carpe Diem defies easy classification with programming that includes classical, Gypsy, tango, folk, pop, rock, and jazz-inspired music. The group has completed recording the complete cycle of the nine string quartets of Sergei Taneyev for Naxos. New recording projects include Claudel, the musical score for a ballet commissioned by Columbus Dance Theatre (composed by Ms. Fujiwara), as well as the complete string quartets by Jonathan Leshnoff.
Ms. Fujiwara was the Artist-in-Residence for the string program at the Tacoma School of the Arts and teaches violin at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA. 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.
She performs annually with the Snake River Chamber Players in Keystone and Dillon, CO, and was a founding member of the Marble Cliff Chamber Players, based in Ohio. She has been heard throughout the Northwest United States on public radio as a performer at the Olympic Music Festival in Seattle, WA with members of the Philadelphia String Quartet. Critics have described her performances as “engaging” and “with finesse and perfection.” She has been invited to participate in numerous international music festivals, including the MidAmerica Chamber Music Festival, the Victoria International Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Focus! Festival of 20th Century Music at Lincoln Center, and the Summergarden Festival at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, where she collaborated with composer John Cage. She is a sought-after and well-respected adjudicator and teacher and served as an Artist/Teacher-in-residence with the Icelandic Youth Orchestra in Reykjavik, Iceland.
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 Krosnick. Ms. Fujiwara is a member of the music honorary society Pi Kappa Lambda.
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. When not performing, writing or teaching music, Korine enjoys geocaching.
Website: korinefujiwara.com/
AMY GALLUZZO
See biography above.
MARKA GUSTAVSSON
A dedicated chamber musician and current member of the Manhattan String Quartet, violist Marka Gustavsson enjoys a rich and varied performance life both in the US and abroad. She has been a guest artist at festivals including Bard Music Festival, Mostly Mozart, Vancouver’s Music in the Morning, the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, WQXR’s Showcase Concerts, Yale Faculty Artists’ Series. Marka has premiered and recorded solo works and chamber music of composers John Halle, Joan Tower, Kyle Gann, Harold Farberman, George Tsontakis, Martin Bresnick, Richard Wernick, Laura Kaminsky, Tania Leon, and Tan Dun. From 1999 through 2014, Marka belonged to the Colorado Quartet with whom she performed cycles of Beethoven, Bartok and Schubert. As a teacher, Marka holds a faculty position at Bard College and Conservatory, and serves as Associate Director and Coordinator of Chamber Music. In the summer, she coaches chamber music for the Young Artists’ Program of Yellow Barn in Putney, VT. At home in Red Hook, NY, she loves gardening, cooking, reading, and hiking with her husband, pianist and composer John Halle, son Ben, and Russell—the dog.
DEBORAH PRICE
Violist Deborah Barrett Price is recognized internationally as an innovative pedagogue and versatile performer. As founder and artistic director of the Chamber Music Connection, Debbie has received numerous awards, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music, the Alumni Achievement Award from Baldwin Wallace Conservatory, and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra Community Educator of the Year. Chamber ensembles under her mentorship have received recognition at WDAV Young Artists (NC), St. Paul String Quartet Competition (MN), the Fischoff (IN), Coltman (TX), and Discover (IL) National Chamber Music Competitions, as well as features on NPR’s From the Top including Carnegie Hall and from CMS at Alice Tully Hall.
A respected violist and conductor, Debbie serves as principal violist of the McConnell Arts Center Chamber Orchestra and Opera Project Columbus, and has directed and performed in festivals throughout Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Czech Republic. In addition to her roles at Chamber Music Connection and Caroga Arts, Debbie serves on the faculty of Denison University teaching viola, violin, and chamber music. Videos featuring techniques from her innovative chamber music pedagogy series, Breathe Together, Move Together, Play Together, are available online through iClassical Academy.
MARCUS THOMPSON
Marcus Thompson has appeared as viola soloist, recitalist and chamber music player in series throughout the Americas, Europe and the Far East. He was featured as soloist with the Symphony Orchestras of Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Saint Louis, and the Czech National Symphony. He has recorded the Bartok Viola Concerto and the Bloch Suite with the Slovenian Radio Symphony and the Tibor Serly Concerto, Jongen Suite and Francaix Rhapsodie with the Czech National Symphony, both conducted by Paul Freeman. Mr. Thompson has received critical acclaim for performances of the John Harbison Viola Concerto with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and with the Chicago Sinfonietta, and for performances of the Penderecki Viola Concerto in Boston and London. His solo repertoire includes the recent—Ligeti, Overton, Schnittke—as well as the exotic with works by Ariosti, Vivaldi and Hindemith performed on the viola d’amore.
He has been a guest of the Audubon, Borromeo, Cleveland, Emerson, Jupiter, Muir, Orion, Shanghai, and Miami String Quartets, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and a frequent participant in chamber music festivals in Amsterdam, Anchorage, Dubrovnik, Montreal, Seattle, Sitka, Los Angeles, Okinawa, Portland and Vail.
Born and raised in The Bronx, N.Y.C., Mr. Thompson earned the doctorate degree at The Juilliard School following studies with Walter Trampler. He is an alumnus of Young Concert Artists, Inc. He currently lives in Boston where, as the Robert R. Taylor Professor of Music and a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, he founded and leads programs in chamber music and performance study at MIT, and serves on the viola faculty at New England Conservatory of Music. An artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society since 1984, he became BCMS's second artistic director beginning with the 2009/2010 season.
Website: web.mit.edu/bratsche/www/
LISA WHITFIELD
Lisa Whitfield is an active orchestral and chamber musician in the Cleveland area, after having spent nearly 20 years performing in the NYC metropolitan area. She is a classically trained violist who has also performed as a vocalist and improvising violist. She especially enjoys performing new works for the viola, either alone or with piano or percussion; in 2003 she premiered Siddhartha's Dreams, written for her by composer Louis Fujinami Conti, and also performed composer Keith Fitch's Todestanzen. Ms. Whitfield has appeared with such varied artists as Ray Charles, Shirley Horn, David Murray of the World Saxophone Quartet, the Indigo Girls, and Sir Elton John. In 2005, Ms. Whitfield performed with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in the Lincoln Center production of Ocean, a Merce Cunningham/John Cage collaboration. She performed in the orchestras of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular and Broadway productions of Tommy, Big, Frogs, and Victor/Victoria; additionally she has performed with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Philharmonic Orchestra of NJ, Connecticut Grand Opera, and the Greenwich Symphony. In Northeast Ohio, Ms. Whitfield has performed with the Akron Symphony and in the touring production of Broadway's Porgy and Bess in Cleveland's historic Playhouse Square.
Ms. Whitfield was on the solfege faculty of the Juilliard Pre-College, Juilliard's MAP Program, and was a teaching fellow in the college division at Juilliard for 3 years. She is on the faculty of the Chamber Music Conference Chamber Music Conference (at Colgate University, formerly at Bennington College), where she has served as a faculty representative to the board of directors. She was privileged to sit on the music panel of the NY State Council on the Arts and she taught at the Third Street Music School Settlement for fourteen years.
In her spare time, Ms. Whitfield is the mother of two incredibly talented musicians: a daughter who plays violin and sings, and a son who plays drums, keyboards, and tuba. She holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and The Juilliard School and counts among her teachers Karen Tuttle, Jeffrey Irvine, and Lynne Ramsey.
Cello Faculty
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 has also been 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 each summer at the Kinhaven Adult Chamber Music Workshop in Weston, Vermont, the Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the Chamber Music Conference (at Colgate University, formerly at Bennington College), and at the Wintergreen Festival in Virginia. He and his wife, violinist Andrea Schultz, co-direct the Park-McCullough House Carriage Barn Summer Concert Series in North Bennington, Vermont. 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 and the Hoff-Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale, New York.
EUGENE KIM
Cellist Eugene Kim has enjoyed a distinguished teaching career. He is the 2019 recipient of the Jean Stackhouse Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Preparatory Division of New England Conservatory. His students have performed concerti with the Boston Symphony (under Andris Nelsons), the Boston Pops (under Keith Lockhart), the NEC Youth Philharmonic and Youth Symphony Orchestras, the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, the New England Philharmonic, as well as numerous other Boston area orchestras. Eugene’s students have been top prize-winners of several national competitions, including the Sphinx Competition, and have performed on the national radio show, From the Top. His cello students have gained acceptance to the major US conservatories, including the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music, the Peabody Institute, the Shepherd School (Rice) and Jacobs School of Music (Indiana University).
An avid chamber musician and solo recitalist, cellist Eugene has given solo performances throughout Korea, England, Italy, and his native United States, including such venues as Carnegie Recital Hall and Jordan Hall. His chamber music collaborations have included Raphael Hillyer, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Marcus Thompson, Gervase de Peyer, and Mark O'Connor. An active Boston-area performer, he has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra as an extra player, as well as the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Boston Ballet, Boston Lyric Opera and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra. Eugene has been guest principal cellist with the Boston Philharmonic, Boston Classical Orchestra and the Pro Arte Chamber Ensemble. Formerly, he was the principal cellist of the Vermont Symphony.
In addition to his serving on the faculties of the New England Conservatory Preparatory Division and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Eugene was formerly a member of the faculties of UMASS/Boston and Brandeis University. He also was a faculty member at summer festivals such as the Bosa Antica International Music Festival (in Sardinia, Italy), the Foulger International Music Festival and Killington Music Festival. Eugene is also a contributor to the website CelloBello.org.
From 2002-2005, Eugene served as the Artistic Director of Project STEP, a string training organization devoted to developing Boston area African-American and Latino music students. Recently, he completed a term as Executive Director of the Foulger International Music Festival. Eugene received his A.B. magna cum laude with highest honors from Harvard University, and a master's degree from New England Conservatory. He has studied with cellists Andres Diaz, Colin Carr, Laurence Lesser, and Carter Brey
ANDREA LEE
Andrea Lee splits her professional life between performing as a cellist and working in K–12 music education. As a cellist, she has been praised for her elegant solo work
(New York Times) and sublime
playing (Times Union). She performs regularly with East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), IRIS Orchestra, the Knights, and A Far Cry, with whom she recorded the Grammy-nominated album Dreams and Prayers. In recent seasons, she also toured with the Silk Road Ensemble and Mark Morris Dance Group’s production of Layla and Majnun. She has participated in festivals in the U.S. and Europe, including Taos School of Music, Spoleto Festival USA, IMS Prussia Cove, Holland Music Sessions, and Banff and collaborated in performance with members of the Borromeo, Jupiter, and Miami Quartets.
As an educator, Andrea is a Music Curriculum Specialist for Global K–12 Programs at the Juilliard School, where she develops music curriculum resources and manages the program’s main digital product, Juilliard Creative Classroom. Her work takes her frequently to schools worldwide to lead professional development with classroom teachers and support the curriculum’s successful implementation. She has previously served on the faculties of Turtle Bay Music School, the Chamber Music Conference, and the New York Philharmonic Schools Program.
Andrea holds a BA in history with distinction from Yale University and graduate degrees in cello performance from New England Conservatory and Mannes College. Her principal teachers include Richard Aaron, Yeesun Kim, and Timothy Eddy, and in masterclasses, she has received further guidance from Frans Helmerson, Janos Starker, Anner Bylsma, and Ralph Kirshbaum.
A recent New York City transplant, Andrea now makes her home in San Francisco with her husband William Arnold and their new son, Elliot Sunjae Arnold.
CAROL OU
A versatile artist, cellist Carol Ou is known for her fiery, marvelous
and meltingly melodic outpourings
(Boston Globe) and her wonderfully pure cello tone and incisive technique
(The Strad Magazine). As a soloist and a former member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet, Ms. Ou's exuberant performances 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's creative programming is often a mélange of traditional European masterworks with more eclectic ones. She has recorded three of the most beloved cello concerti by Haydn, Tchaikovsky, and Elgar and premiered several new compositions written for her. She gave the first performance of Hsiao Tyzen's Cello Concerto in Taipei and collaborated with Hsiao on the premiere of a number of solo and chamber music works throughout the US and Singapore. American composers Richard Toensing and Daniel Pinkham have also dedicated works to her. Recent new music performances have featured collaborations with crossover artists on the banjo, accordion, didgeridoo, erhu, pipa, and the Persian santoor.
Carol Ou's discography includes solo and chamber music discs issued by Chi-Mei, Naxos, CRI, and Albany Records. Her three solo and concerti recordings are all produced by the Chi-Mei Label in Taiwan. Among her many recordings with the Carpe Diem String Quartet are Volumes 4 and 5 of Sergei Taneyev's String Quartets on Naxos and The Book of Calligraphy—the solo cello and string quartet works by Reza Vali—released by Albany Records. Her recording of Walter Piston's Chamber Music won the 2001 Chamber Music America's Best Chamber Music CD award.
A graduate of Yale University, Ms. Ou received her BA magna cum laude from Yale College and her MM, MMA, and DMA in music performance from the Yale School of Music. A much sought after teacher, Ms. Ou serves on the artist cello faculty of New York University's Steinhardt School of Music and teaches preparatory cello students as well as college chamber music students at New England Conservatory of Music. Since 2015, as the assistant chair of the string department at the conservatory's School of Continuing Education, she also cultivates a music-loving adult community. In addition to her regular teaching duties, Ms. Ou travels internationally to teach cello and chamber music master classes, most recently in Hong Kong, Turkey, and Italy.
NATHANIEL PARKE
Nathaniel Parke is a member of the Bennington String Quartet and is principal cello of the Berkshire Symphony and co-principal cello of the Berkshire Opera Orchestra. He has also been a member of the Boston Composers String Quartet with whom he can be heard performing new works by Boston composers on the MMC label.
He is currently artist associate in cello at Williams College, instructor of cello at Bennington College and at Skidmore College, and part-time lecturer at SUNY Albany, in addition to maintaining a studio of private students. He has served as a faculty member and chamber music coach at the Longy School of Music and is currently on the faculty of the Chamber Music Conference.
As a soloist, he has been heard with the Wellesley, Berkshire and Sage City Symphonies. His free-lance work in the Albany, N.Y. and Boston areas ranges from period instrument performances to premieres of new works. He can be heard on Albany records performing solo cello music by Ileana Perez-Velasquez.
He received his training at the Longy School of Music studying with George Neikrug, and in London with William Pleeth. He holds an MFA from Bennington College where he studied with Maxine Neuman. Mr. Parke performs on an instrument made in 1721 by C.G. Testore.
BRAD RITCHIE
Originally from Portland, Oregon, cellist Brad Ritchie earned his Bachelor of Music at Indiana University where he studied with Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and Janos Starker. In his senior year, his string quartet won the school's Kuttner Quartet Competition, which provided them with a year of recitals and trips to a number of chamber music competitions from Osaka, Japan, to Evian, France. Following a summer of quartet concerts in Europe, Ritchie enrolled in the Musikhochschule in Freiburg, Germany, and earned his graduate degree studying with Adriana Contino.
After completing his studies in Germany, Ritchie played for two years in the New World Symphony in Miami under Michael Tilson Thomas. In 1997, he became a member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and also joined the Atlanta Chamber Players. During his tenure with the Atlanta Chamber Players, he has made recordings on the CRI, ACA Digital, and MSR labels and toured extensively, including performances at Carnegie Hall, Boston's Jordan Hall, the American Cathedral in Paris, France, and at the International Chamber Music Festival in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
In addition to his Orchestra commitments, Ritchie has played with many other chamber music and new music ensembles in and around Atlanta, including Riverside Chamber Players, Thamyris Ensemble, Emory Chamber Players, Franklin Pond Quartet, GLO-ATL, and Bent Frequency, as well as annual concerts with faculty at Kennesaw State University and recitals with Robert Henry in Highlands, NC. He is a founding member of the contemporary music ensemble Sonic Generator, currently in its 10th season in residence at Georgia Tech University.
In his spare time, Ritchie enjoys traveling to distant lands, running through the woods and finding new places to eat.
TOBIAS WERNER
See biography above.
Flute Faculty
GIORGIO CONSOLATI
Praised for his “lustrous tone” (Musical America), Italian flutist Giorgio Consolati has performed at Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Miami’s New World Center and the Beijing China Conservatory. Highlights of Giorgio’s upcoming projects include a six-US city tour with Musicians from Marlboro, a solo concerto appearance with the York Symphony, and a residency at The Chamber Music Conference at Colgate University during the summer.
As a soloist, Giorgio performed with Alan Gilbert and the Juilliard Orchestra, as well as with the National Repertory Orchestra and the Verdi Conservatory Orchestra. Giorgio is the principal flutist of the York Symphony Orchestra and has previously worked under the batons of John Adams, Gianandrea Noseda, Peter Oundjian and David Robertson.
Passionate about chamber music, Giorgio has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. He was also heard with the Juilliard School’s AXIOM and New Juilliard Ensemble, and at the contemporary music festival Milano Musica. Giorgio is a top prizewinner of 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 has released Tour De Flute, his debut album. As an educator, Giorgio teaches at the Peabody Institute as the assistant of Marina Piccinini and gave masterclasses for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, at the Longy Conservatory of Bard College, the Pavia Conservatory in Italy, and the Beijing Central Conservatory.
A native of Milan, Giorgio is the first flutist in the Verdi Conservatory’s history to graduate with top honors and honorable mention. As a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship, Giorgio received both his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at The Juilliard School studying 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 the 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
JACQUELINE LECLAIR
Oboist Jacqueline Leclair is Associate Professor of Oboe at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University Montréal, Québec. She is a member of Ensemble Signal, and can frequently be heard performing solo and chamber music concerts internationally. She was a member of Alarm Will Sound for eight years until resigning in 2011. Dr. Leclair was on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music (NYC) and was Assistant Professor of Oboe at Bowling Green State University (Ohio) from 2007 to 2012. During her last two years at BGSU she also served as the Director of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music.
Summer festivals for which Dr. Leclair has served as faculty and/or performer include the Lincoln Center Festival (NYC), Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East, June In Buffalo (NY), Chamber Music Festival of Aguascalientes (Mexico), East/West Festival (Kazan, Tatarstan) and the Sebago Music Festival (ME) among others.
In addition to performing a variety of classical and other musics, Dr. Leclair specializes in the study and performance of new music. She has premiered many works, and regularly presents classes in contemporary music and its techniques at schools such as UCLA, the Eastman School of Music, Brigham Young University, The North Carolina School for the Arts and University of California San Diego.
Dr. Leclair has recorded for Nonesuch, CRI, Koch, Neuma, Deutsche Grammophon and CBS Masterworks, receiving critical acclaim in particular for her premiere recording of Roger Reynolds' Summer Island. Luciano Berio's Sequenza VIIa Supplementary Edition by Jacqueline Leclair is published by Universal Edition, Vienna, and Dr. Leclair's recording of the piece is on the Mode Records collection of all Berio Sequenze and other solo works.
The New York Times has reviewed Dr. Leclair's performances as astonishing
and as having electrifying agility
; and the New Yorker has referred to her as lively
and wonderful.
Dr. Leclair studied with Richard Killmer and Ronald Roseman at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester and SUNY Stony Brook, earning a Bachelor of Music, Performer's Certificate, Master’s Degree and Doctor of Musical Arts.
Website: www.jacquelineleclair.com/
KEVE WILSON
Hailed by the New York Times for her magnificently sweet tone,
oboist Keve Wilson has spent years honing her craft by playing a variety of musical genres in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to stadiums in Dubai. Most recently, she recorded solo oboe for Bruce Springsteen on his album, Letter to You. Keve has been the oboist for numerous Broadway shows including Company, Carousel, and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. A winner of Concert Artists Guild and solo oboist with the Grammy nominated Absolute Ensemble, she has performed as principal oboist with American Sinfonietta, San Diego Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, American Modern Ensemble and On-Site Opera, among other ensembles.
Keve has performed at music festivals including Newport Jazz Festival, New Zealand Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Bremen Music Fest, The Tanglewood Music Center, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Berkshire Bach, Mostly Modern Festival and many others. She spent 6 years in Los Angeles as 2nd oboist of Opera Pacific, recorded for TV commercials and films, and premiered After Hearing Bach by Peter Schickele for oboe and string quartet. Keve inspires visiting high school band and orchestra students from around the country with her original show Believe NYC---from the Band Room to Broadway. During the pandemic, she stayed busy with her duo partner violinist Rachel Handman, playing at the Javits Center every Sunday for vaccinations. Keve and Rachel are the only instrumentalists to have a regular repeating show at Feinstein’s/54 Below in New York City.
From Hyde Park, NY and a graduate of Eastman School of Music, Keve studied oboe with Richard Killmer, piano with Judith Handman and dance with Elizabeth Clark. Having played the oboe everywhere from Argentina to South Korea, she lives in her favorite city, New York, with her husband Kerry and Portuguese water dog Bugsy.
Website: www.kevewilson.com
Clarinet Faculty
MICHAEL DUMOUCHEL
A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, clarinetist Michael Dumouchel has studied with Stanley Hasty, Robert Marcellus, and Harold Wright. Currently, Mr. Dumouchel holds the posts of solo E-flat clarinet and second B-flat clarinet with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra - posts he has held for more than 30 years. As a chamber musician, Mr. Dumouchel has performed with Musica Camerata Montreal for the past 25 years. Mr. Dumouchel also teaches clarinet at McGill University. He has recorded on London/Decca, Centredisc CBC, DGG, and CRI.
JO-ANN STERNBERG
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. A member of Sequitur, the Saratoga Chamber Players, Wind Soloists of New York, the Richardson Chamber Players and the Riverside Symphony, she also regularly performs and tours with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, American Symphony, Mark Morris Dance Company, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Musicians from Marlboro, and can often be heard playing in a number of different Broadway musicals.
Following her undergraduate years in the combined Tufts University/New England Conservatory dual degree program 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. Currently, Ms. Sternberg serves on the faculty of the Music Performance Program of Princeton University, the Music Advancement Program at the Juilliard School, and maintains an active teaching studio from her New York City home. Additionally, she serves as an advisor for New England Conservatory's Entrepreneurial Musicianship Program and coaches chamber ensembles 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, teaches and performs at the Chamber Music Conference, and participates in numerous performance residences throughout greater New England. From September through May, Ms. Sternberg resides in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
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 1997-2013 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 2002-2007, and from 1997-2004 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
Photo by Roy Lewis
GILBERT DEJEAN
Gilbert Dejean is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music where he studied bassoon with Leonard Hindell and Steve Maxym. He has been a member of the American Symphony Orchestra for more than twenty years in the position of third bassoon/contrabassoon. He is principal bassoon of Opera Saratoga. Mr. Dejean performs with various groups in the New York Metropolitan area including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, North/South Consonance, Double Entendre, Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Queens Symphony, Stamford Symphony, Greenwich Symphony, and Greater Bridgeport Symphony. He has substituted in various shows on Broadway and was a member of the orchestra for the shows The Scarlet Pimpernel and West Side Story. Mr. Dejean has recorded for various labels including BIS, Telarc, North/South Consonance and Albany Records. He has also been commissioned to arrange works for various woodwind ensembles.
STEPHEN WALT
Stephen Walt is Artist-Associate in Bassoon and Director of Woodwind Chamber Music at Williams College, where he also performs as a member of the Williams Chamber Players and the Berkshire Symphony. In June 2019 Mr. Walt retired from the Albany (NY) Symphony Orchestra after thirty-seven seasons with the orchestra. In addition, he had been Senior Lecturer in Bassoon at the University of Massachusetts from 1999 until 2017. Mr. Walt has performed with orchestras, opera companies and chamber ensembles throughout the United States, including performances with the Borromeo, Lark, Muir, Amernet, and Shanghai String Quartets. Mr. Walt has been guest artist at the Monadnock Festival, Musicorda, Music Festival of the Hamptons (NY), and Music From Greer (AZ) and has appeared on the Mohawk Trail Concerts and Williamstown Chamber Concerts series. He also performs with the Berkshire Bach Ensemble, of which he has been a member since 1995. His primary teachers were Sherman Walt and Arthur Weisberg. He has recorded for Naxos, CRI, Decca, Koch International, Gasparo, Nonesuch and Albany Records.
Mr. Walt plays on a Heckel bassoon made in 1958 for his father, Sherman Walt, the eminent former principal bassoonist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The instrument is nicknamed The Brussels
as it was exhibited at the 1958 World's Fair in that city as an example of German artisanship.
Horn Faculty
SHELAGH ABATE
Shelagh Abate is unquestionably one of New York’s most sought-after musicians. Shelagh’s love for the horn is almost as old as her love for music itself. Known for her simultaneously warm and assertive sound, her versatility and musical intuition has earned her a place in the lexicon of NYC’s busiest performers.
Shelagh has opened more than one dozen Broadway productions. Among them are Mary Poppins, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, South Pacific, Honeymoon in Vegas, Evita, Fiddler on the Roof, Anastasia, and most currently Disney’s Frozen. Since arriving in New York in 2006, she has performed regularly with The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, The Mostly Mozart Festival, The American Ballet Theater, The American Symphony Orchestra, The Opera Orchestra of New York, is third horn with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra and has been principal horn of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra under the artistic direction of Jaime Laredo since 1999. During the course of her career, she has been conducted by some of the great musicians of our time; Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, Andre Previn, James Conlon, Gunther Schuller, James DePriest, Robert Spano, Carl St. Clair, John Williams, Marin Alsop, Jaime Laredo, Keith Lockhart, and Placido Domingo, to name a few.
Chamber music has been at the very core of Shelagh’s success as a musician. A winner of the Coleman Competition (2000), and a founding member of the award-winning Triton Brass (Fischoff, Lyon & Concert Artist’s Guild, 2005), Shelagh has collaborated with her world-class and longtime colleagues in order to achieve what is only artistically possible through such an intimate medium. Together they have shared their gifts with many thousands of others through live performances, recordings, and through education. Shelagh will be returning as faculty with Triton Brass to the Boston University Tanglewood Institute for their 2019 season. She also served as faculty for more than a decade with the renown Atlantic Brass Quintet International Summer Seminar. Through these summer programs, Shelagh is proud to have influenced, shaped and enriched the lives of many dozens of tomorrow’s musicians. Shelagh is an Artist in Residence at Boston College, and The Boston Conservatory of Music where she has performed and conducted clinics and masterclasses on a regular basis since 2003.
Shelagh’s early musical influences include extensive study with the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Richard Sebring, Toronto Symphony’s principal horn Neil Deland, and renowned pedagogue and performer Laura Klock. She has been a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and with The National Repertory Orchestra. Shelagh holds a B.A. from Boston College, an M.M. from The University of Massachusetts at Amherst where she was a recipient of the Howard W. Lebow Scholarship, and an Artist Diploma from The New England Conservatory of Music, where she was a Walkenier Scholar. Shelagh is proud to be a Stephens Horns artist, playing one of the very first horns handcrafted by Stephen Shires.
Website: shelaghabate.com
DANIEL GRABOIS
Daniel Grabois is Assistant Professor of horn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. 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 the Department of Contemporary Performance at the Manhattan School of Music, he is also the hornist in the Meridian Arts Ensemble, a sextet of brass and percussion soon to celebrate its Twenty-Fifth Anniversary. With Meridian, he has performed over fifty world premieres, released ten 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.
The author/composer of two etude books for horn, Grabois has appeared as a frequent guest with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and has performed in New York and on tour with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and many other ensembles. As a soloist, he has commissioned and premiered numerous works. He also appears on over thirty CD recordings, and he has recorded a concerto written for him by composer David Rakowski. Grabois taught horn for fourteen years at The Hartt School and has taught courses on the business of music at both Hartt and the Manhattan School of Music.
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 has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Place des Arts in Montreal, Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, and Alice Tully Hall in New York. She is a member of the Stern/Andrist Duo with her husband, James Stern, Strata, a trio with Stern and clarinetist Nathan Williams, and the Andrist-Stern-Honigberg Trio with Stern and cellist Steve Honigberg. Ms. Andrist can be heard on over a dozen recordings on the Albany and New Focus labels, among others. She lives in the Washington, DC area, where she teaches at the Washington Conservatory and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, and where she was a visiting faculty artist at the University of Maryland-College Park in 2020. Ms. Andrist is in constant demand as a soloist, chamber musician, teacher, master class presenter and pedagogy consultant. Her CD of solo works by Robert Schumann is available on Centaur Records.
Website: www.audreyandrist.com/
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 Romanian Cultural Institute (NYC), the International House (NYC and Washington D.C.), the Romanian Embassy (Washington D.C.), the Cosmos Club (Washington D.C.), the Preston Bradley Hall (Chicago), the Norwegian Academy of Music (Oslo, Norway), the Romanian Athenaeum (Bucharest, Romania), the Thalia Concert Hall (Sibiu, Romania), the Mihail Jora Philharmonic Hall (Bacau, Romania), the Oltenia Philharmonic Hall (Craiova, Romania), and the Pitesti Philharmonic Hall (Pitesti, Romania).
Catalin Dima is a prize winner of numerous international piano competitions, including Karl Filtsch International Piano Competition (Sibiu), Pro Piano International Competition (Bucharest), Yamaha Piano Competition (Bucharest), Fr. Chopin International Piano Competition (Hartford, CT), and Shenandoah Concerto Competition (Winchester, VA).
His engagements with orchestras include concerts with the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra (Bucharest), the Pitesti Philharmonic Orchestra (Pitesti), the Washington Sinfonietta (Washington D.C.), the Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra (Winchester, VA), and the Symphonic Winds (SOSU).
In his pursuit for innovative programming in concerts and recordings, Catalin Dima combines mainstream and rare piano repertoire, often focusing on Romanian, American, and Japanese composers. Dr. Dima worked with Pulitzer Prize-winning composers such as David Lang, Jennifer Higdon, and John Corigliano, and performed in concerts with distinguished music groups dedicated to contemporary music such as Edge Ensemble (Shenandoah Conservatory) and Great Noise Ensemble (Washington D.C). Together with violinist Alexandru Malaimare, he started a duo project that includes lectures and concerts and promotes Romanian music throughout the U.S. Their engagements included tours in Indiana, Illinois, D.C., Virginia, Oklahoma, and Texas.
A native of Bucharest, Dr. Dima holds degrees from Shenandoah University (D.M.A.), Mannes School of Music (M.M.), and the Romanian National University of Music in Bucharest (M.M., B.M.). Currently, he serves as a Piano Instructor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, the artistic director of the Texoma Piano Competition, and the coordinator of the Musical Arts Series. During his free time, he enjoys swimming, biking, camping, and hiking in the mountains.
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.
LURA JOHNSON
Steinway Artist Lura Johnson is celebrated by critics and audiences for her insightful, emotionally impactful performances. The Washington Post describes hearing her play as one of life's great pleasures.
The Baltimore Sun praises her surging expressive force... impressive bravura...
and exceptional vitality, color, and impact.
Performing more than one hundred concerts annually as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral pianist, Lura captures, distills, and powerfully communicates the spirit and personality of the music she performs. She describes her mission this way: My goal is to vividly and thoroughly bring to life the essence and true character of the music, the way an actor embodies a role with full commitment.
Lura is Resident Pianist of the Baltimore Symphony and Principal Pianist of the Delaware Symphony, positions which synthesize her finely honed ensemble skills, soloistic virtuosity, and versatility. She has played principal keyboard for seven albums recorded by the Baltimore Symphony, including Bernstein's Mass, which received a Grammy nomination in 2010. The Washington Classical Review wrote of a BSO performance of Bernstein's Age of Anxiety, [Soloist] Jean-Yves Thibaudet was shadowed brilliantly by the BSO's outstanding keyboard player, Lura Johnson, on the daunting celesta part.
This collaboration was immortalized in a 2017 album released by the BSO on the Naxos label, and was also part of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's tour of the United Kingdom in 2018, with performances and telecasts at the renowned BBC Proms and the prestigious Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.
Esteemed for her uncommon sensitivity and skill as a chamber music partner, Lura moves flexibly inside an ensemble as leader or supporter, as needed. She has enjoyed success both on the concert stage and in commercial recordings as a member of several chamber ensembles. Duo Baltinati with cellist Ilya Finkelshteyn won Second Prize in the chamber music division of the International Johannes Brahms Competition in 2015.
Chamber music has always been Lura's true north. The sensing, the risk-taking, the spontaneous creation in the moment,
she says, sharing these human experiences through music, not words, is electrifying.
One of her chamber music albums, Inner Voice with violist Peter Minkler, received widespread attention when it was prominently featured in the official trailer for the 2013 Warner Brothers film, Gravity. The mesmerizing state of suspension the two created in their rendition of Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel complemented perfectly the cinematic tale of literal weightlessness set in outer space.
A thoughtful and devoted teacher, Lura works with students of diverse ages and levels. Past positions include Director of Chamber Music at Georgetown University, faculty at Sequoia Chamber Music Workshop, and faculty at Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music. She has been a faculty member at Peabody Institute in Baltimore since 2003 and currently directs a chamber music program there for adult amateur musicians.
Website: www.lurajohnson.com/
SARA LAIMON
Pianist Sara Laimon is an active performer in both solo and chamber music. She has performed in Canada, the United States, England, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and Poland, and has represented the U.S. Information Agency as an Artistic Ambassador in India and Nepal. Sara is founding member and co-artistic director of the acclaimed New York based group Sequitur, former pianist for Ensemble Contemporain de Montreal, and has been guest artist with numerous other ensembles and festivals.
As a sought-after performer of new music, she has worked with such composers as Ligeti, Berio, Bresnick, Kirchner, and Matalon as well as performing and recording music of many emerging composers. The New York Times has hailed her a commanding and confident player with a strong technique and an ability to find the drama and wit in works that often had daunting surfaces
, and a performer with a sense of knowing exactly where she wanted to go: music-making as intelligent as it was technically proficient.
Ms. Laimon has recorded for Albany Records, Capstone Records, CRI, Disques XXI/21, MODE records, and North/South Recordings. Her most recent CD (on Disques XXI/21) features the Horn Trios of Brahms and Ligeti with colleagues Jonathan Crow and John Zirbel. She is a frequent performer on CBC and has also been heard on radio broadcasts from summer performances at Marlboro, Tanglewood and Banff. Montreal audiences will be familiar with her performances on the CCA series, CBC/McGill, and the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival.
Current and former students of Ms. Laimon have been successful in competitions such as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Prix d'Europe, Canadian Music Competitions, National Music Festival, and many are now teaching at universities in Canada and the United States.
Born in Vancouver, Sara is a graduate of the Vancouver Academy of Music, the University of British Columbia, Yale School of Music and SUNY Stony Brook where she received a DMA under Gilbert Kalish. Ms. Laimon was a member of the piano faculty at the Yale School of Music (1990-2000) and the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg (2000-2001) before joining the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in 2001. She has previously served as Piano Area Chair, Associate Dean, Academic and Student Affairs, and as Resident Faculty Fellow with IPLAI (the Institute for Public Life of Arts and Ideas). Currently she is Director of the McGill Conservatory of Music. She lives in Montreal with her husband and two children.
GENEVIEVE FEIWEN LEE
A versatile performer of music spanning five centuries, Grammy-nominated Genevieve Feiwen Lee has thrilled audiences on the piano, harpsichord, toy piano, keyboard, and electronics. She enjoys finding music that challenges her to go outside of her comfort zone to sing, speak, act, and play new instruments. She has given solo recitals at Merkin Concert Hall, NY, and the Salle Gaveau in Paris. Since her first concerto engagement at age twelve, she has appeared with the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, Brazil; the Vrazta State Philharmonic, Bulgaria, and The Orchestra of Northern New York. Her concerts in China appeared on Hunan State Television, and her performance from the Spiegelzaal at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam was broadcast on live radio.
Ms. Lee has premiered and commissioned numerous works, and she can be heard on the Innova, Albany and Reference labels. She was nominated in the Best Chamber Music Performance category at the 58th Grammy Awards for the recording of Tom Flaherty's Airdancing. In the Los Angeles area, Ms. Lee has been a guest performer with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Music series at Disney Hall, Southwest Chamber Music, Jacaranda, Piano Spheres and the Hear Now New Music Festival. She is a founding member of the Mojave Trio and was a member of the Garth Newel Piano Quartet when they performed in Carnegie Hall. Ms. Lee received her degrees from the Peabody Institute, École Normale de Musique de Paris, and the Yale School of Music. She is the Everett S. Olive Professor of Music at Pomona College, California, where she teaches piano, chamber music, aural skills and theory.
KENT MCWILLIAMS
Kent McWilliams, D.M.A., joined the Hugh A. Glauser School of Music at Kent State University, Ohio, as Director and Professor in 2019. Formerly, Dr. McWilliams served as a Professor of Music and Associate Dean of Fine Arts at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.
An accomplished, award-winning pianist and educator, Dr. McWilliams holds music performance degrees from the University of Toronto and the University of Montreal as well as an Artist Diploma from the Stuttgart Musikhochschule. Dr. McWilliams made his orchestral debut performing Rachmaninov's Third Concerto with the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has performed live on the CBC in Canada and the ABC in Australia. Recently, he released an album on Albany Records with renowned clarinetist Jun Qian titled “East Meets West: Music for Clarinet and Piano by Chinese Composers.” His students have gone on to successful careers in performance and education, with many winning or competing as finalists of numerous local, regional, and national competitions. An in-demand clinician, Dr. McWilliams has given music pedagogy workshops in 25 states and provinces and has also been invited to adjudicate the national finals of the MTNA competition and the Canadian Music Competitions.
During his 18-year tenure at St. Olaf College, Dr. McWilliams held several leadership positions, including Co-Chair of the Music Department and chair of the Artist Series Committee. In his most recent position as an Associate Dean of Fine Arts, he has served as a member of the Deans Council charged with overseeing all of the academic programs of the college. He has also been an active and engaged member of the International Council of Fine Arts Deans, serving on the Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
