Artists since 2019

Adriana Contino is a cellist noted for her versatility and musicianship as well as a deep interest in pedagogy. As professor of cello, baroque cello and chamber music at the Hochschule fuer Musik in Freiburg, Germany, she taught and concertized from 1991 to 2012. From 1987 to 1991 she served as principal cellist of both the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and Bach Collegium with which she toured world wide as soloist. Prof. Contino founded the Bach Chamber Soloists and was a member of the Caecilian Trio. In 1976, having completed a bachelor of music at Indiana University with Janos Starker, she was appointed to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Andre Previn. She was that orchestra’s youngest member and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra’s first female principal. She has worked with conductors Robert Shaw, Dennis Russell Davies, Lukas Foss, Helmuth Rilling, Raphael Kubelik, Trevor Pinnock, Ferdinand Leitner and William Steinburg among others. Mentors Gyorgy Sebok, Joel Krosnick, Arleen Auger, and Julius Herford, as well as her parents, conductor Fiora Contino and clarinetist Joseph Contino deeply shaped her musical philosophies. Her festival performances include Mostly Mozart, European Music, Lucerne, Aspen, and Oregon Bach. She has gained recognition in both solo and chamber repertoire and as an outstanding continuo cellist. Adriana Contino is an avid improviser, both in baroque and free styles and integrates many forms of artistic expression in her work. Currently Prof. Contino resides in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she lives with her daughter, concertizes, and continues work on a book on pedagogy. She teaches regularly at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, and Anderson University. She is an active performer as well as a sought-after pedagogue. As a volunteer she has been intensely involved with hospice and education.
Praised by The New York Times as “spellbinding,” violinist Alex Shiozaki is emerging as a strong advocate for the music of today. At home with music new and old, he has appeared as a soloist with orchestras including the Sapporo Symphony, Sendai Philharmonic, AXIOM Ensemble, and the Juilliard Orchestra. Other highlights include summer residencies at the Tanglewood Music Center as a New Fromm Player and a Japan tour with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. A member of the Momenta Quartet since 2016, he also regularly performs with the IRIS Orchestra, Contemporaneous, and Mimesis Ensemble. As part of the Shiozaki Duo with his wife and pianist Nana Shi, Alex has given recitals in New York, Boston, Washington D.C., and California. Holding a B.A. from Harvard College and an M.M. and D.M.A. from the Juilliard School, he counts among his teachers Ronald Copes and Joseph Lin of the Juilliard String Quartet, Lynn Chang, and Robin Sharp. In addition to his performance activities, he is on faculty at the Juilliard School, State University of New York at New Paltz, and Interlochen Center for the Arts
Amanda Brin, a native of Rochester, New York, is a founding member and first violinist of the Hyperion String Quartet. Her playing has been praised for its “lusciousness and great pathos” by Classical Voice of North Carolina and as a member of the quartet, she won first prizes at the Coleman, Music Teachers National Association and Green Lake chamber music competitions, and was the bronze medal prizewinner at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Hailed by The Strad magazine for their “uncommonly high level of homogeneity and confidence”, the Quartet has held residencies at San Diego State University in collaboration with the La Jolla Music Society, the Western Piedmont Symphony in North Carolina, the Empire State Youth Orchestra in Albany, New York and the Sembrich Opera Museum in Bolton Landing, New York.
She has performed as soloist with the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra in New York and has also appeared at festivals including the Strings in the Mountains Festival, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival and SummerFest La Jolla. Amanda has collaborated with renowned artists including Anthea Kreston, Eugenia Zukerman, Anne-Marie McDermott, Stephen Taylor, Stewart Rose, Jennifer Frautschi, Benny Kim, Toby Appel, Sophie Shao, Melvin Chen, Raman Ramakrishnan and the Miró and Rossetti string quartets. She currently spends her summers performing as Assistant Concertmaster of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta in New York.
Dedicated to teaching, Amanda has served on the faculty at the Hartt School Community Division, Montana Chamber Music Workshop, Connecticut College, SUNY Adirondack and Skidmore College, and currently teaches at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York.
Amanda holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Kent State University. Her principal violin teachers include Ilya Kaler, Timothy Ying, Sandy Yamamoto, Ivan Chan and Cathy Meng Robinson and she studied viola with Chauncey Patterson. Other mentors include Virginia Wensel, Betty Haag and David Updegraff. She also studied chamber music with members of the Ying, Miró, Miami, Juilliard and Emerson quartets. She currently performs on a J.B. Ceruti violin on generous loan.
She is married to cellist, Jonathan Brin, and they have three children, Annabelle, Elliott and Oliver.
The American bass-bartitone, Andrew Padgett, holds a B.S. in physics (2009), an M.M. in voice (2011) from UC Santa Barbara, and an M.M. in Early Music, Oratorio, and Chamber Ensemble (2015) at Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music, where he studied under tenor James Taylor, and was a member of the internationally-acclaimed Yale Schola Cantorum. His scholarships and awards include: Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Louise E. Maclean Scholarship (2013); Early Music America, Summer Workshop Scholarship (2013); Vancouver Early Music Festival, Elaine Adair Mediaeval Scholarship (2013); Yale School of Music, Alumni Association Prize (2014).
Praised for his “powerful baritone and impressive vocal range” (Boston Music Intelligencer) and as a “musicianly, smooth vocalist, capable in divisions” (Opera News Online), Andrew Padgett is an accomplished interpreter of both Baroque and medieval vocal and instrumental music. In 2012 he performed the role of Harapha in George Frideric Handel‘s Samson(HWV 57) under the baton of conductor Nicholas McGegan, and was also a featured soloist in the first modern performance of 17th-century vespers settings by composers Giovanni Legrenzi and Johann Rosenmüller, conducted by Simon Carrington. In 2013 he worked with conductor Masaaki Suzuki as the bass soloist in performances of J.S. Bach‘s cantatas (BWV 106 and BWV 150) as well as J.S. Bach‘s Mass in B Minor (BWV 232), which he performed on a concert tour of Japan and Singapore, his hometown. In the summer of 2013 he was a bass soloist in American Bach SoloistsAcademy performances of Biber’s Missa Salisburgensis, G.F. Handel‘s Esther, and J.S. Bach‘s Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) under the baton of conductor Jeffrey Thomas. In March 2014 he reprised the role of Harapha in G.F. Handel Samsonwith Nicholas McGegan and the American Classical Orchestra in his Lincoln Center debut. In April 2014 he returned to the stage of Alice Tully Hall as the bass soloist in J.S. Bach‘s Johannes-Passion (BWV 245) with Yale Schola Cantorum, Juilliard415, and Masaaki Suzuki. In May 2014, he was also the bass soloist in Haydn’s Harmoniemesse with conductor David Hill. He is currently based in New York City, where he frequently sings as a substitute with the Saint Thomas Choir of Men & Boys.
Andrew Padgett is also an avid interpreter of medieval music, both as a vocalist and hurdy-gurdy player, and has had the opportunity to study and perform with leading experts in the field. In 2012 he worked with Susan Hellauer, a founding member of Anonymous 4, on a performance based on the plainchant First Vespers for Christmas with polyphonic selections from the Las Huelgas Codex. In the summer of 2013 he attended Early Music Vancouver’s Mediaeval Programme, where he worked with members of the medieval music ensemble Sequentia and its founder, Benjamin Bagby, on a performance entitled The Unknown “Carmina Burana”, featuring 12th-century music from the collection of medieval songs now known as the Carmina Burana. He is the founder and artistic director of Ensemble ÆVUM, a musical project dedicated to the performance of rarely-heard Western music from the 15th century and earlier. In November 2014 they presented Carmina Gothica, a performance featuring 12th and 13th century songs from Paris and Aquitaine.
Andrius Žlabys’ concert appearances have been on many of the world’s leading stages, such as Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Phillips Collection, Teatro Colón, Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein and Suntory Hall. He has also appeared at numerous festivals both in the U.S. and abroad, including the Menuhin, Salzburg, Lockenhaus and Caramoor music festivals. He made his Carnegie Hall debut at the Isaac Stern Auditorium with the New York Youth Symphony conducted by Misha Santora in 2001 in a performance of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. He was also invited the following season as soloist with Kremerata Baltica to perform Benjamin Britten’s Young Apollo at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.
Andrius Žlabys has enjoyed collaborations with several esteemed musicians, including violist Yuri Bashmet, violinist Hilary Hahn, and an enduring collaboration with violinist Gidon Kremer with whom Zlabys has toured extensively in Europe, Japan, South America, and the U.S.
In 2003, Žlabys received a Grammy nomination for his recording of Enescu’s Piano Quintet with Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica. A multifaceted musician of wide-ranging repertoire, Andrius Žlabys holds a special reverence for J. S. Bach, while remaining a strong advocate for the contemporary stage with numerous works commissioned by and written for him. He was a winner of 2000 Astral Artists National auditions.
Andrius Žlabys began piano studies at the age of six in his native Lithuania with Laima Jakniuniene at the Ciurlionis Art School, and continued his studies in the U.S. with Victoria Mushkatkol (Interlochen Arts Academy), Seymour Lipkin (Curtis Institute of Music), Sergei Babayan (Cleveland Institute of Music), and Claude Frank (Yale School of Music).n text goes here
Cellist Annabelle Hoffman, has toured with the NY Philharmonic, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonietta Salzburg and the American Symphony Orchestra. She has participated in the Mostly Mozart Festival, Marlboro Festival, and Aspen Festival. On Broadway, Annabelle has performed in the pit orchestras of Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, Aladdin, War Paint, and The Visit. In addition to performing, Annabelle also teaches and coaches chamber music. She has been on the faculty of The Calhoun School, the 92nd Street Y, and the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music.
Cellist Arthur Cook has appeared as a chamber musician and soloist in summer festivals at Sandpoint, Meadowmount,Yale-at-Norfolk, Rutgers, Apple Hill, Taos, and Provincetown. He appears regularly on the Northshore Pro Musica Chamber Music series and with Blue Mountain Festival in concerts at Franklin & Marshall College. He has recently performed in a series of online chamber music concerts and solo cello concerts for the Blue Mountain Festival, Gateway in Holyoke, MA, Pianoforia, and the St. Boniface series in Brooklyn. During the pandemic, he performed live concerts featuring works for cello alone in various parks throughout Jersey City. He has collaborated with pianist Deborah Gilwood for many years. Their recording Censored by Hitler: the Rediscovered Masterpieces, garnered much attention in Europe and continues too receive radio play. Mr. Cook has been on the faculties oof Seton Hall University and Smith College. His teachers include Arthur Fellows, David Geber, Felix Galimar, Louis Krasner and John Sessions. He holds degrees from Texas Tech University and the Mannes College of Music. He is a free lance cellist in the New York metropolitan area and teaches privately from his studio in Jersey City.
American cellist Ashley Bathgate has been described as an “eloquent new music interpreter”(New York Times) and “a glorious cellist”(The Washington Post) who combines “bittersweet lyricism along with ferocious chops”(New York Magazine). Her “impish ferocity”, “rich tone” and “imaginative phrasing” (New York Times) have made her one of the most sought after performers of her time. The desire to create a dynamic energy exchange with her audience and build upon the ensuing chemistry is a pillar of Bathgate’s philosophy as a performer. Dynamism drives her to venture into previously uncharted areas of ground-breaking sounds and techniques, breaking the mold of a cello’s traditionally perceived voice. Collaborators and fans alike describe her vitality as nothing short of remarkable and magical for all who are involved. For the past ten years Bathgate was a member of the acclaimed sextet Bang on a Can All-Stars. She is also a member of the chamber music group HOWL, TwoSense with pianist Lisa Moore, and Bonjour, a low-strung, percussive quintet.
In 2015 Bathgate gave the world premiere of What Moves You, a collaborative performance project with jookin’ dance sensation Lil Buck at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, NC, as well as the world premiere of a new Cello Concerto written for her by Kate Moore for the Gaudeamus Festival in Utrecht, NL. Subsequently, she released her debut album featuring a set of works for solo cello, composed by Moore, which was released in 2016 on Cantaloupe Music. That year Bathgate also commissioned the ‘composer collective’ Sleeping Giant to write ASH, a six-movement suite for solo cello. Both ASH and her latest album, 8 Track, featuring new multitrack works by Alex Weiser and Emily Cooley, as well as a new rendition of Steve Reich’s Cello Counterpoint, will be commercially released this coming season. Most recently, she premiered a new evening length work by Michael Gordon, House Music, at the 2018 Cello Biennale in Amsterdam, NL. In 2022 Bathgate was named Artistic Director and then Executive Director of the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in New Hampshire
Bathgate’s radio/television appearances include performances on BBC Radio 3, WKCR, WMHT, WQXR’s Meet the Composer podcast with Nadia Sirota, NPR’s Performance Today, WYNC’s New Sounds Live, SiriusXM, Late Night and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Her recorded work can be found on Albany Records, Cantaloupe Music, Innova Recordings, La-La Land Records, Naxos, Nonesuch, Starkland and Uffda Records.
Equally at home in both the concert hall and the rock club, Bathgate focuses on presenting concerts that draw from a wide range of musical genres. Her dedication to performing traditional music is equally matched by her passion to promote new music by today’s composers. That dedication has led her to work with an esteemed list of composers and musicians such as John Adams, John Luther Adams, Louis Andriessen, Nik Bärtsch, Iva Bittova, Martin Bresnick, Don Byron, Jace Clayton, Bryce Dessner (The National), Arnold Dryblatt, DJ Spooky, Ben Frost, Philip Glass, Michael Gordon, InAnnie Gosfield, Ann Hamilton, Glenn Kotche (Wilco), David Lang, Lori Lieberman, Yo-Yo Ma, Meredith Monk, Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), Questlove and The Legendary Roots Crew, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Trio Mediaeval, Julia Wolfe, Shara Nova (My Brightest Diamond) and Nick Zammuto (The Books). Bathgate has toured the U.S., South America, Russia, Australia, Europe, and Asia with the Bang on a Can All-Stars and has collaborated with several notable ensembles including the Choir of Trinity Wall Street (Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields at Avery Fisher Hall), the Los Angeles Master Chorale (Anthracite Fields at Disney Hall), Red Fish Blue Fish (Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians at Disney Hall), the Kronos Quartet (Brian Eno’s Music for Airports at MIT, Cambridge) and eighth blackbird (Reich’s Pulitzer Prize winning Double Sextet at Carnegie Hall & The Barbican).
Bathgate studied at Bard College with Luis Garcia-Renart (B.M.) before continuing her education at Yale University with renowned cellist Aldo Parisot (M.M. & A.D). Originally from Saratoga Springs, NY, Bathgate began her cello studies with the late Rudolf Doblin, principal cellist and assistant music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic in the 1950’s. After his passing, she resumed her tutelage with Ann Alton at Skidmore College. A member of the Empire State Youth Orchestra at the time, Bathgate was also the unprecedented two-time winner of the Lois Lyman Concerto Competition, performing the Saint-Saens and Schumann Cello Concertos with the orchestra at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. While at Bard College, she was invited to perform both the d’Albert and Barber Cello Concertos with the American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leon Botstein and then went on to win Yale University’s Concerto Competition in 2008, performing with the Yale Philharmonia in New Haven’s legendary Woolsey Hall.
Pianist Benjamin Hochman’s eloquent and virtuosic performances blend colorful artistry with poetic interpretation exciting audiences and critics alike. He performs in major cities around the world as a respected orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, working with a celebrated array of renowned conductors and colleagues. An impassioned and intelligent exponent of diverse composers, he frequently juxtaposes familiar works with the unfamiliar in his concert programs to help illuminate each work for the listener, a talent further illustrated by his thoughtful recorded repertoire. Highlights of the 2017-2018 season include Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K.414, with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, where he serves as the soloist and conductor; under the baton of David Felberg, he reprises this work with Santa Fe Pro Musica Orchestra. Chamber music performances in 2017-18 include collaborations with the Borromeo String Quartet at Shriver Hall, members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at the Italian Academy of Columbia University, and at Santa Fe and Norfolk chamber music festivals, among others. Winner of the 2011 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Mr. Hochman has performed with the Los Angeles, New York and Israel Philharmonics, the Chicago, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Houston, Seattle, Vancouver, New Jersey, American and Portland Symphonies, the New York String Orchestra, IRIS Orchestra in Memphis, Prague Philharmonia, Istanbul State Orchestra, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada under eminent conductors such as David Robertson, Gianandrea Noseda, John Storgårds, Pinchas Zukerman, Jun Märkl, Leon Botstein, Bramwell Tovey, Jahja Ling, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Kaspar Zehnder, Michael Stern, Jaime Laredo and Joshua Weilerstein. Under early influences of Otto Werner Mueller at Curtis and with a deep admiration for the rich orchestral repertoire, Mr. Hochman has recently pursued serious conducting studies. They resulted in Mr. Hochman’s appointment as the musical assistant to Louis Langrée and guest conductors at the 2016 Mostly Mozart Festival, including Thierry Fischer, Jeffrey Kahane, Matthew Halls and Paavo Järvi. He has served as assistant conductor at the Orlando Philharmonic, and led the Roosevelt Island Symphony, a specialized ensemble consisting of New York’s top musicians, in performance. This season, he conducts members of The Orchestra Now and serves as assistant conductor to Leon Botstein for American Symphony Orchestra’s concerts at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium and Alice Tully Hall. In 2009, Mr. Hochman’s debut solo recording of works by Bach, Berg and Webern was released by Artek, followed by his second solo album titled Homage to Schubert for Avie Records in 2013. His latest album on Avie Records, Variations, was based on his 2014 recital at 92nd Street Y which was recognized by The New York Times as one of the top ten classical music events of the year. He has also recorded chamber music by Lawrence Dillon with the Daedalus Quartet (Bridge Records) and Lisa Bielawa (Innova Recordings). Born in Jerusalem, Benjamin Hochman began his studies at the Conservatory of the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem, and is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Mannes College of Music where his principal teachers were Claude Frank and Richard Goode. His studies were supported by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. He is currently on the piano faculty of Bard College. Benjamin Hochman is a Steinway Artist and lives in New York City. His website is www.benjaminhochman.com
Hailed by the New York Times as “prodigiously accomplished and exciting” and as one of the piano’s “brilliant stars,” pianist Blair McMillen leads a musical life unbounded by convention. He is known for his advocacy of living composers and contemporary music, as well as championing very early keyboard music and more recent neglected masterpieces. For more than two decades he has divided his time as soloist, ensemble leader, music festival director, and educator.
Blair McMillen has performed in major concert venues throughout New York City, the United States, and around the world. He has played frequently with the Knights, the International Contemporary Ensemble, the New York Philharmonic, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and jazz legends Fred Hersch and Don Byron. He is a member of several ensembles, including American Modern Ensemble, the six-piano “supergroup” Grand Band, and Perspectives Ensemble, among others. For 11 years, McMillen was pianist for the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players.
His first solo CD “Soundings” was released to critical acclaim in 2000. Since then, Blair McMillen has been featured on dozens of commercially-released solo and ensemble recordings, spanning numerous musical genres – jazz, world, musical theater, electronics. A recent album of contemporary American two-piano music with Stephen Gosling, “Powerhouse Pianists II,” was declared “one of the finest piano recordings of the year” by NPR.
McMillen is the co-founder and co-director of the Rite of Summer Music Festival, an outdoor contemporary and world-music series in New York. Having recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, Rite of Summer is the only annual music festival on Governors Island, a place the New Yorker has called “an enormous playground for the arts.”
Blair McMIllen holds degrees from Oberlin College, The Juilliard School, and the Manhattan School of Music. At Juilliard, he was principal soloist on a tour of Japan with the Juilliard Orchestra. While there, he also won the Juilliard Gina Bachauer Competition and the Sony “Elevated Standards” Career Grant.
Having taught at Bard College and Conservatory since 2005, McMillen also serves on the piano faculty at Mannes at the New School in New York City. He is grateful for the many teachers who have inspired him; including Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, Joseph Kalichstein, Sophia Rosoff, and Byron Janis. www.pianoblair.com
Called “intense, precise, and full of personality” after appearing as concerto soloist with The Juilliard Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall (OperaClick), CAELI SMITH is an award-winning chamber musician, educator, and facilitator. She has performed across the United States, Europe, and Asia with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The Knights, Sejong Soloists, Jordi Savall, and the Verbier Chamber Orchestra. Caeli is an alum of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, the post-graduate performance, education, and leadership program of Carnegie Hall and The Juilliard School. She is a founding member of Frisson and a member of the dynamic, eclectic chamber group, Sybarite5.
A curious and enthusiastic educator, Caeli is on the faculty of the Heifetz International Music Institute, the Kinhaven Music School, and the New York Philharmonic Teaching Artists. She is a Teaching Assistant and Technique Instructor for the ACHT Viola Studio at The Juilliard School. She has led educational workshops for the fellows of Ensemble Connect and the music teachers of Musical Mentors Collaborative. In 2022-2023 she is the visiting professor of viola, teaching the viola studio at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem.
Caeli holds two degrees from The Juilliard School: a bachelor’s degree in violin performance and a master’s degree in viola performance. Upon graduating, she received the William Schuman Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music. Caeli also holds a Master’s in Education, Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship; with a concentration in Arts and Learning from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Caeli has written for radio, TV, and print, and her articles have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as Strings, Teen Strings, and Symphony magazines.
Item dPraised in Opera Now for her “angelic lyric soprano voice,” Charlotte Dobbs brings luminous sound and incisive musicianship to a broad repertoire that encompasses Bach, Mozart, and the bel canto masters, as well as the second Viennese school and contemporary composers.
Charlotte made her New York Philharmonic debut in a new song cycle by the Swiss composer Michael Jarrell, and debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra in a concert of works of Mozart and the Alabama Symphony Orchestra in Handel’s Messiah. She sang with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for Bach’s Magnificat under Jeffrey Kahane. She also was featured in recital at Copland House, Caramoor and with the Claring Chamber Players for Faure’s La Bonne Chanson. An avid performer of new music, Charlotte has been featured by the MATA Festival, Beth Morrison Productions, and Collage New Music in Boston.
Charlotte sang with the New York City Opera in VOX, a concert performance of new operas, and covered Governess in their production of The Turn of the Screw. Charlotte made her European debut as Corinna in Il viaggio a Reims at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, and returned to Italy to sing Rosina in Il barbiere di Sivigliaunder the auspices of the Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini and Teatro Aligheri in the theaters of Jesi, Fermo, and Ravenna. With the Chicago Opera Theater, she sang Servilia in La clemenza di Tito with Jane Glover in a new production of Christopher Alden. Under the baton of Lorin Maazel, she appeared as Governess in the Chateauville Foundation’s production of The Turn of the Screw. Other recent operatic credits include Amina in La Sonnambula, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, the title role in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Nuria in Ainadamar, and Countess in Le nozze di Figaro with the Curtis Opera Theater, as well as the title role in Iphigenie en Aulide, Elettra in Idomeneo, and Juno in La Calisto at Juilliard. Charlotte also joined renowned theater group The Civilians for their production Paris Commune at Arts Emerson and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
She appeared in recital with Mitsuko Uchida at the Marlboro Music Festival, performing Schoenberg’s Book of the Hanging Gardens. Also at Marlboro, she gave her first performance of Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet, which was reprised with the Saratoga Chamber Players. She has been featured in three programs with the New York Festival of Song, most recently “The Sweetest Path” at Caramoor and Merkin Hall. Miss Dobbs made her Kimmel Center and Carnegie Hall debuts in Nielsen’s Third Symphony with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Alan Gilbert.
Born in Massachusetts, she has received an M.M. from both Juilliard and Curtis and a B.A. from Yale, where she majored in English and Music.escription
Chloe Holgate’s strong musicianship, vocal flexibility and range have allowed her to enjoy an exciting and varied career.
Her recent solo engagements include Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbrae with the Saint Andrew Music Society, and a solo recital at Lehman College Art Gallery with Concerts in the Heights. She made her Alice Tully Hall debut with the American Classical Orchestra under the direction of Thomas Crawford. “Holgate wielded a clear straight tone that flexed and tapered beautifully” (New York Classical Review).
In recent seasons Chloe has been a featured soloist with the TENET, American Soloists Ensemble, Ensemble Échappé, Melius Consort, Chatham Baroque, Folger Consort, and Prototype Festival. Chloe performs regularly with Musica Sacra, Voices of Ascension, Trinity Wall Street, Virtuoso Singers and Artefact Ensemble.
A member of vocal trio ModernMedieval Voices, Chloe has performed at the Met Museum, the Cloisters, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington National Gallery, for Princeton Chamber Music Society and at Saint Thomas Church. In addition to performing, MMV give vocal masterclasses and composition workshops at universities around the country. Their debut album, The Living Word, featuring chants by Hildegard von Bingen and contemporary commissions, is now available on all streaming platforms.
Cong Wu joined the New York Philharmonic as Assistant Principal Viola, The Norma and Lloyd Chazen Chair, in September 2018. He is the winner of the Third Prize and the Chamber Music Prize in the Fourteenth Primrose International Viola Competition, and of the Special Prize in the Twelfth Tertis International Viola Competition. His performances throughout North America and Asia include solo appearances with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, Macau Youth Orchestra, and New York Classical Players.
An avid chamber musician, Mr. Wu has collaborated with Christoph Eschenbach, David Finckel, Itzhak Perlman, Peter Wiley, Pinchas Zukerman, American String Quartet, and many New York Philharmonic musicians. His festival engagements have included the Marlboro Music Festival, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Encounters, Music@Menlo, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Perlman Music Program, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, and Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany. He also appears regularly with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and New York Classical Players.
Passionate about teaching, Mr. Wu served as a guest faculty member of the National Arts Centre Summer Music Institute in Canada and as a teaching artist at the Music@Menlo Winter Residency. He has been invited to give masterclasses at the Manhattan School of Music, Mead Witter School of Music (University of Wisconsin-Madison), China Conservatory of Music, Hong Kong Baptist University, and the Renmin University of China.
Born in Jinan, China, Cong (pronounced “Ts’ong”) Wu moved to New York in 2010 after graduating from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. He holds a master’s degree from The Juilliard School and a doctoral degree from Manhattan School of Music. His teachers have included Wing Ho, Heidi Castleman, Hsin-Yun Huang, Patinka Kopec, and Pinchas Zukerman.
Violist David Rose has served as a titled player of numerous orchestras, including Associate Principal of the Vancouver Symphony, Principal Viola of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and Acting Assistant Principal of the San Francisco Symphony. Currently, he performs regularly with the Pro-Musica Chamber Orchestra. Also active as a baroque performer, he has toured and recorded with Toronto’s Tafelmusik. Mr. Rose studied viola at the University of British Columbia, and also Indiana University. His main teachers included Gerald Stanick, Atar Arad and Stanley Ritchie.
He serves as associate professor of Viola at Fredonia State University (New York), and teaches in the summer at the Rocky Ridge Young Artists Seminar in the Colorado Rockies, as well as the Fredonia Summer String Festival. In 2024, he was also visiting viola professor at the University of Maryland.
Known for his sweet and “sumptuous” (New York Times) tone, American-born Doori Na took up violin at the age of four and began his studies with Li Lin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He quickly made his first performance with orchestra at age seven with the Peninsula Youth Symphony as the first prize winner of the concerto competition. Thereafter Mr. Na went on to win top prizes in The Sound of Music Festival, The Korea Times Youth Music Competition, the Chinese Music Teacher’s Association, The Menuhin Dowling Young Artist Competition, The Junior Bach Festival, VOCE of the Music Teacher’s Association of California, and The Pacific Musical Society. Receiving full scholarships to private high school Crossroads School of Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica, he moved to Los Angeles to study with renowned violin teacher, Robert Lipsett, at The Colburn Music School. There he appeared as soloist with the Palisades Symphony, Brentwood Symphony, and Torrance Symphony. During that time, the summer of 2004 was Mr. Na’s first time at the Perlman Music Program where his expression and musical identity were greatly influenced. He has been a part of the program ever since and participated in many of their special residencies in Florida, Vermont, New York, and Israel. Currently living in New York City, Mr. Na plays with numerous ensembles around the city. He has played with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with tours in the US, Japan, and Europe performing in venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York and the Musiverien in Vienna. Other orchestras include American Symphony Orchestra at Bard College, American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House, and Riverside Symphony at the Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. The music of our time has also been an integral part of Mr. Na’s New York life. He is part of the New Music Project of Argento Chamber Ensemble performing the works of Georg Friedrich Haas, Beat Furrer, Tristan Murail, and many more. One of his favorite groups to work with is New Chamber Ballet, where he has been a member since 2013. He provides live solo music for dance at their regular venue of City Center Studios and have also gone on tour to Lake Tahoe, Germany, and Guatemala. Chamber music has always been a big part of Mr. Na’s growth as a musician. His first endeavor playing in an ensemble was with the Luna Trio as a teenager, and were finalists at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2016. From then on, he has collaborated with members of the Juilliard String Quartet, New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera and has been fortunate to tour with Itzhak Perlman at venues such as the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Other notable experiences include performing at the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach with the Bonhoeffer Trio and Les Amies trio. Mr. Na has also found that teaching and doing outreach is essential to being a well rounded musician. He currently works at the Juilliard School as a teaching assistant to Catherine Cho and gives lessons as well as running play-through classes for the students. In 2015, he returned to the Music Teacher’s Association of California to give a masterclass and recital for their annual convention. Outreach to schools includes going to Sarasota, Florida with the Perlman Music Program/Suncoast, Brazil and The UAE with Juilliard Global Ventures, and the British International School of Chicago with Juilliard President Joseph Polisi. Mr. Na attended the Juilliard School with the Dorothy Starling and Dorothy Delay scholarships and holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree where he studied under Itzhak Perlman, Catherine Cho, and Donald Weilerstein. He was concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra and was fortunate to play on a Guadagnini and Vuillaume violin from the Juilliard School’s prestigious violin collection.
Violist Ed Gazouleas has emerged as one of the finest teachers of his generation and his students now populate the viola sections of many orchestras, including the Boston, St. Louis, and Indianapolis symphony orchestras; and many others in the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America. Mr. Gazouleas was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 24 years, where he held the Lois and Harlan Anderson Viola Chair. As a chamber music performer, Mr. Gazouleas has appeared with members of the Fine Arts, Pacifica, Muir, Lydian, and Johannes string quartets, among others. A prize-winner at the Eighth International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France, he has also collaborated with such artists as Christian Tetzlaff, Stephanie Blythe, Roberto Díaz, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and the principal string players of the Cleveland Orchestra.
Mr. Gazouleas has also served on the faculties of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music as a tenured professor, Boston University College of Fine Arts, Boston Conservatory, Wellesley College, and New England Conservatory. He is also in demand as an orchestral clinician around the country. He is a 1984 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied viola with Michael Tree and Karen Tuttle. He joined the Curtis faculty in 2017 and was named the Gie and Lisa Liem Artistic Director in 2021 and Provost in 2022. He is also the Director of the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, MA
Eliot Bailen has an active career as an artistic director, cellist, composer and teacher. Strings Magazine writes, “At Merkin Hall ‘cellist Eliot Bailen displayed a warm focused tone, concentrated expressiveness and admirable technical command always at the service of the music.” Founder and Artistic Director of the Sherman Chamber Ensemble, now in its 35th year, whose performances the New York Times has described as “the Platonic ideal of a chamber music concert,” Mr. Bailen is also Founder and Artistic Director of Chamber Music at Rodeph Sholom in New York and has recently been appointed Artistic Director of the New York Chamber Ensemble. Principal cello of the New Jersey Festival Orchestra, New York Chamber Ensemble, Orchestra New England, New York Bach Artists, Teatro Grattacielo and the New Choral Society, Mr. Bailen also performs regularly with the Saratoga Chamber Players, Cape May Music Festival, Sebago-Long Lake Chamber Music Festival as well as with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, New York City Opera and Ballet, American Symphony, Stamford Symphony and New Jersey Symphony. Heard frequently in numerous Broadway shows, in 2015 he was solo cellist for ‘Allegiance.’ As a composer, Mr. Bailen’s commissions include an Octet (“For Ellen”) for 3 winds and strings (2013), a Double Concerto for Flute and Cello (2012) commissioned by the Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra and Perhaps a Butterfly (2011), for Soprano, child soprano, flute and string trio. His Saratoga Sextet, commissioned by the Saratoga Chamber Players, premiered in June, 2014 (“The crowd loved it!” writes the Schenectady Daily Gazette). Recently Mr. Bailen’s musical, The Tiny Mustache, received a third grant for further development from the Omer Foundation after its successful debut. Mr. Bailen has received over thirty commissions for his “Song to Symphony” project, an extended school residency program that presents children’s original musicals in an orchestral setting (subject of a NY Times feature article Sept. 2006). This project was recently awarded a special Alumni Grant from the Yale School of Music. In 2002 he received the Norman Vincent Peale Award for Positive Thinking. Most recently, Mr. Bailen inaugurated SCP’s “Classroom to Concert” project at Lake Avenue Elementary school with an encore presentation at SPAC as part of Radial Arts’ Poetry in the Pines. Mr. Bailen received his Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) from Yale University and an M.B.A. from NYU. He is on the cello and chamber music faculty at Columbia University and Teachers College.
Elizabeth Tuma, cellist, was raised in a musical family in Farmington Hills, Michigan. As a young person, she attended Interlochen, both as a summer camper and later as a student at the Interlochen Arts Academy. Her studies included teachers from the Detroit Symphony, Mr. Edward Korkigian and Ms. Melinda Dalley at Interlochen. She continued her musical studies at the University of Michigan with Mr. Oliver Edel, in New York and Philadelphia, at the Curtis Institute of Music with Mr. David Soyer.
At Curtis, her chamber music training was with the Guarneri Quartet, members of the Budapest Quartet, and Jascha Brodsky. Elizabeth graduated with an Artist Diploma, and continued her chamber music studies with the Hungarian Quartet, and post- graduate work with Mr. Larry Lesser at Peabody Institute in Baltimore.
Prior to her full-time engagement as a cellist in the Milwaukee Symphony in 1975, she free-lanced in the Washington DC area, playing with the National Symphony, the Virginia Chamber Orchestra, and many other chamber groups. In 1975, Elizabeth joined the cello section of the Milwaukee Symphony. She has had an active chamber music presence, in the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, the Stratford Quartet, the Chanterelle Quartet, the Arcadia Trio and the Baroque group, Bach Babes and performs regularly with the Temescal Quartet in San Francisco. She has had a private studio as well for many years.
Elizabeth has been active in orchestral committee work, and has represented the MSO at ICSOM Conferences, coordinating a National Conference in Milwaukee in the late ’70s. She has also chaired Players Committees and Artistic Liaison Committees for the MSO.
She has served as an adjudicator for the String Academy Concerto Competition, the Concord Chamber Orchestra Concerto Competition, the MSO Stars of Tomorrow Competition and as a coach for the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Lauded by the New York Times as “brilliant” and by The Strad for her “marvellous and lyrical playing,” violinist Emilie-Anne Gendron enjoys an active and versatile freelance career based in New York. A deeply committed chamber musician, Ms. Gendron has been on the roster of the Marlboro Music Festival and the touring Musicians from Marlboro since 2011. She has appeared frequently with Talea Ensemble, A Far Cry, Argento Ensemble, Sejong Soloists, and has served on numerous occasions as concertmaster of ensembles including Orpheus, IRIS Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. She is a founding member of Ensemble Échappé, a new-music sinfonietta, as well as the Gamut Bach Ensemble, in residence with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Ms. Gendron’s extensively varied international appearances have included recitals in Sweden and at the Louvre in Paris; festivals in Russia, Finland, and Jordan; and recently, major venues in China, South Korea, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. She was trained at the Juilliard School where her teachers were Won Bin Yim, Dorothy DeLay, David Chan, and Hyo Kang. A dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, she holds a B.A. in Classics from Columbia with Phi Beta Kappa honors, and a Master of Music degree and the coveted Artist Diploma from Juilliard.
Cellist Eric Bartlett has been a member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra since 1983, and recently retired from the New York Philharmonic after 23 years. He served 14 seasons as principal cellist of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival and was a guest principal of the American Ballet Theatre orchestra.
Mr. Bartlett grew up in Marlboro, Vermont, where he was a student of Stanley Eukers, George Finckel, and Leopold Teraspulsky. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School in 1978 and 1979, as a student of Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins.
Mr. Bartlett made his New York Philharmonic solo debut in March, 2015, as the soloist in Per Nørgård’s second Cello Concerto on the Philharmonic’s “Contact” series, and recently performed the solo cello part of Pierre Boulez’ “Messagesquisse” both in New York City and in Shanghai. Mr. Bartlett has appeared frequently as a member soloist with Orpheus and is featured on several of their Deutsche Grammophon recordings. In addition to Orpheus, other solo appearances include the Cabrillo Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the Anchorage Symphony, the Hartford Chamber Orchestra, the Aspen and Juilliard Orchestras, and the New York Philharmonic’s Horizons ’84 series.
Dedicated to contemporary music, Mr. Bartlett released a CD of four commissioned works, entitled Essence of Cello, on the Albany Records label. He is an adjunct professor at The Juilliard School, where he teaches orchestral repertoire for cello and coaches the conductorless Juilliard Chamber Orchestra.
Erica Pickhardt is assistant principal cellist with the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Hudson Valley Philharmonic and Schenectady Symphony. She performs frequently throughout New York as a guest performer with numerous choral and chamber ensembles and is a founding member of the Eribeth Piano Trio. Pickhardt has been the featured soloist with the Schenectady and Woodstock orchestras. She teaches cello at Emma Willard School in Troy and maintains a private studio outside of Albany, where she lives with her husband and four cats.
Pianist Gili Melamed-Lev is known as an imaginative musician who has captivated audiences around the world with her unique artistry and soulful interpretations.
She is an engaging, multifaceted pianist who enjoys a career as soloist, chamber musician and collaborative artist. She has been hailed for “brilliance of technique” and for “sensitivity of interpretation.” — Register-Star).
Ms. Melamed-Lev is the founder and Artistic Director of The Concerts at Camphill Ghent since 2012 and for the past five years has been a member of the Lev-Evans duo with pianist Mark Evans. Since 2014 the duo has been in residence at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute (Boscawen, NH). She garnered rave reviews for her collaboration with Australian actor John McManus during their extended tour of The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico. She also partnered with the Actors’ Ensemble and Walking the Dog Theater (WTD). This past year she performed at the Targ Music Center (Jerusalem), Taconic-Music Series (VT), Columbus Ohio (OSU), Camphill Village Copake (NY) and the Schenectady College Chamber Music Series (NY), in addition to her concerts at Camphill Ghent. Recent collaborations include Eugene Drucker, Michael Slatkin, Aaron Boyd, Kenneth Cooper, Joel Pitchon, Joana Genova, Judith Mendenhall, Eugenia Zukerman, Ah-Ling Neu, Ariel Rudiakov, Peter Weitzner, Roberta Cooper, Ronald Feldman, Ashley Bathgate, Gili Sharett, Jenia Pikovsky, Dimitri Ratush, Gilad Rivkin and Linor Katz.
Ms. Melamed-Lev has performed throughout the US, Europe and Canada, at the Goetheanum Stage (Switzerland), the Jerusalem Theater and the Jerusalem Music Center, the 11:11 Music Series in Tzavta (Tel-Aviv), the BPL Concert Series (NY), the Wisteria Chamber Music Society (NY), the Capital Chamber players (NY) and the Taconic Music Series (VT). She was the co-founder of the Music Coalition of Columbia County, dedicated to contemporary music. A passionate advocate of music education, she teaches, performs, and gives master classes at the Schenectady Community College School of Music, and also works with students at Williams College, Bard College and her private studio. Born in Jerusalem, Gili Melamed-Lev studied with Sascha Gorodnitzki, György Sándor, Susan Cohen-Zwilich and Miyoko Nakaya-Lotto and was a scholarship student at The Juilliard School, Montclair State College and The Rubin Academy in Jerusalem.
Hailed as being a “superior [and] excellent” violinist (The Flint Jounal), Hyun Jeong Helen Lee has captivated audiences throughout the United States, Canada and Asia. Leading into her conservatory career, she attended the Interlochen Center of Arts in the summer of 2009. While there, she was concertmaster of the World Youth Symphony Orchestra for two terms. As a soloist, she has performed with the Chichibu Festival Orchestra, Royal Oak Symphony Orchestra, and The Boston Conservatory String Ensemble as winner of the String Ensemble Concerto Competition. Furthermore, Helen was a winner of The Boston Conservatory’s prestigious String Honors Competition. Helen has also performed in masterclasses for various artists, including Phillipe Quint, Jorja Fleezanis and Joseph Silverstein. She is a graduate of The Boston Conservatory where she studied with Markus Placci, and received an Artist Diploma as part of the John J. Cali School of Music Graduate Quartet in Residence Program where she studied with Weigang Li of the celebrated Shanghai Quartet. Recently, as part of the Peak Fellowship, Helen served as a Teaching Assistant and Assistant Chamber Music Coach at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University.
With playing that is “fierce and lyrical” and works that are “other-worldly” (The Strad) and “evocative” (New York Times), Jessica Meyer is a GRAMMY® – nominated violist and composer whose passionate musicianship radiates accessibility and emotional clarity. Her first composer/performer portrait album in 2019 debuted at #1 on the Billboard traditional classical chart, where “knife-edge anticipation opens on to unexpected, often ecstatic musical realms, always with a personal touch and imaginatively written for the instruments” (Gramophone Magazine).
Meyer’s compositions viscerally explore the wide palette of emotionally expressive colors available to each instrument while using traditional and extended techniques inspired by her varied experiences as a contemporary and period instrumentalist. Since embarking on her composition career eight years ago, premieres have included performances by acclaimed vocal ensembles Roomful of Teeth and Vox Clamantis, the St. Lawrence String Quartet as the composer in residence at Spoleto Festival USA, the American Brass Quintet, PUBLIQuartet, cellist Amanda Gookin for her Forward Music Project, Sybarite 5, NOVUS NY of Trinity Wall Street, a work for A Far Cry commissioned by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Juilliard School for a project with the Historical Performance Program, and by the Lorelei Ensemble for a song cycle that received the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award from Chorus America.
Her first Symphonic Band piece was recently premiered by the President’s Own Marine Band (with an upcoming NY premiere in Carnegie Hall), and her orchestral works have been performed by the Phoenix, North Carolina, Charlotte, and Vermont Symphonies, the Nu Deco Ensemble in Miami, and all around the country as part of Carnegie Hall’s nationwide Link Up Program. This past year she was the winner of the 2nd Annual Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer’s Award to write a piece for the Bangor Symphony, and a winner of Chamber Music America’s Commissioning Program Award to write for the Argus Quartet. Recent chamber/solo premieres included a work for CityMusic Cleveland, musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra, and for the Five Borough Songbook. Next season brings the premiere of “GAEA”, a concerto for herself and orchestra, as well as works for the Dorian Wind Quintet, Hub New Music, the Portland Youth Philharmonic in collaboration with the female vocal ensemble In Mulieribus, and ensemble fivebyfive as a recipient of a New York State Council on the Arts Grant.
As a solo performer, Ms. Meyer uses a single simple loop pedal to create a virtuosic orchestral experience with her viola and voice. Drawing from wide-ranging influences which include Bach, Brahms, Delta blues, Flamenco, Indian Raga, and Appalachian fiddling, Meyer’s music takes audience members on a journey through joy, anxiety, anger, bliss, torment, loneliness and passion. Her solo shows have been featured at iconic venues such as BAMcafé, Joe’s Pub, and Symphony Space in NYC, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, in Paris at Sunset Sunside, in addition to venues in Singapore, Switzerland, Vietnam, the Emirates and beyond. At home with many different styles of music and an ardent collaborator, Jessica can regularly be seen premiering her chamber works, creating with dancer/choreographer Caroline Fermin, performing on Baroque viola, improvising with jazz musicians, or collaborating with other composer-performers.
Canadian violinist Jessica Tong has garnered international acclaim as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, having been described as an “outstanding talent” (Performing Arts in Canada) with “keen sensitivity and receptivity” (Bloomington Herald Times), who “allow[s] us to savour her sense of ardour and intensity, but never at the detriment of her tonal beauty.” (ClassiqueInfo France). She has been a top prizewinner at the Eckhardt-Gramatté Competition, the Toronto Symphony, Canadian Music and Yellow Springs International Chamber Music Competitions and has served as first violinist of both the Vinca and Larchmere String Quartets, during which time she was Artist-in-Residence for the Perlman Music Program in Florida, the ProQuartet Odyssée Program in France and at the University of Evansville in Indiana.
A pupil of Pamela Frank, Jessica has also studied with Kathleen Winkler, Donald Weilerstein, and Zhang yun Zhang, and has been mentored as a chamber musician by members of the Alban Berg, Vogler, Artemis and Brentano Quartets. She is currently the Assistant Violin Professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia, Chamber Music Director of the Composers Conference, and Co-Artistic Director of Avaloch Farm Music Institute.
Jill Levy is now in her 29th season as Artistic Director and violinist of the Saratoga Chamber Players, bringing together musicians from Europe, Canada, and the U.S. since 1994. She recently retired as concertmaster of the Albany Symphony Orchestra, having joined them in 1993. Her numerous solo performances with them include the December 2008 performance with Jaime Laredo of Bach’s “Double Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra,” and the premiere and recording of Evan Chambers’ “Concerto for Irish Fiddle and Violin” which was released on the CD Brutal Reality by Albany Records. She is scheduled to solo with them again in Spring 2020. As a winner of competitions, she twice performed as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The New York Times review of the ASO Carnegie Hall appearance in May 2011 praised the “graceful solo from the concertmaster, Jill Levy.” Ms. Levy is also featured on the Saratoga Chamber Players CDs of Live Performances. She has performed at the Blossom, Sebago-Long Lake Festivals, with the Pittsburgh Chamber Soloists, the Williams Chamber Players (Williams College), and North Country Chamber Players. She has been a member of the Sherman Chamber Ensemble in Sherman, CT. since 1993. She is a former member of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Italy. Ms. Levy is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Jascha Brodsky and Arnold Steinhardt. She has also worked with Franco Gulli at the Academia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy.
Praised for his “persuasively emphatic and engaging” performances (Boston Musical Intelligencer), violist John Batchelder has captivated audiences as a passionate chamber musician, educator and administrator, deeply committed to the values of chamber music. He has performed as soloist with numerous ensembles such as the Hemenway Strings, Los Colinas Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Arlington, Garland Symphony Orchestra and Worcester Bach Consort and, as well as participated in various summer festivals and masterclasses, such as The McGill International String Quartet Academy, the Banff Centre Masterclasses, St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, the Meadowmount School of Music, The Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, and the Music from Salem Festival in Salem NY. As a member of the award winning Julius Quartet, John has performed in venerated venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Bargemusic, Moss Arts Center, Shalin Liu Performance Center, and Bing Concert Hall. As a fervent chamber musician, John has collaborated with numerous artists such as Aaron Boyd, Joseph Silverstein, Andres Cardenes, Andres Diaz and members of the St. Lawrence, Escher, Shanghai, Baumer, and Lydian Quartets. In 2011, he was a winner of the Davis Projects for Peace Grant for his program designed to help, encourage and teach music to the young children of the favelas of Natal, Brazil. Beginning his musical education in Boston, John is a graduate of The Boston Conservatory where he studied with Lila Brown, and of the John J. Cali School of Music Graduate String Quartet in Residence program where he studied with Honggang Li of the celebrated Shanghai Quartet. During the quartet’s tenure as the Peak Fellowship Ensemble-in-Residence at the Meadows School of Music at Southern Methodist University, he served as an Assistant Chamber Music Coach at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University. In addition to his work as a performer and educator, John now serves as Executive Director of the Dallas Chamber Music Society, celebrating 79 years of presenting the world’s most esteemed chamber music ensembles. John performs on a viola crafted by Michele Deconet (Venice, 1780) that was previously played by Boris Kroyt of the Budapest String Quartet, loaned to him in memory of Boris and Sonya Kroyt.
John Feeney is principal bass of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and a member of the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble. He is a member of the Smithsonian Chamber Players and the Grand Tour Orchestra, a period instrument group, and can be heard frequently playing chamber music in NYC’s major venues and festivals throughout the U.S. and Europe. Mr. Feeney was first prize winner of the 1980 Concert Artists Guild and the Zimmerman-Mingus International competitions and a medalist and prize winner in the 1978 Geneva and Isle of Man competitions. His numerous performances of double bass concerti include appearances with such orchestras as the American Symphony and St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall, the Metropolitan and Brooklyn Museums and Symphony Space. He has recorded extensively for Sony, EMI, CBS, RCA, Telarc, MusicMasters, Nonesuch, BMG, and Arabesque Records. He began his bass studies with Linda McKnight and holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from The Juilliard School where he was a scholarship student of David Walter.
Violist Judith Nelson joined the New York Philharmonic in 1983. A native of Portland, Oregon, she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Washington (Seattle) and also holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School. As a student, she received the University of Washington’s highest music award, the Brechemin Scholarship, and performed concertos by Mozart, Hindemith, Walton, and Bartók with the University Symphony and the Seattle Symphony. She earned a master’s degree from The Juilliard School and taught at the University of Evansville and Memphis State University, performing in its resident quartets and as a recitalist. She is a former Governor of the New York Chapter of the GRAMMY organization. She states that her most memorable moments were playing Mahler with Leonard Bernstein, and the Verdi Requiem with Riccardo Muti. Time in the outdoors is important to Ms. Nelson. Vacations are spent hiking and cycling, often in her native West; at home in New York, she blades, runs, and practices yoga. Other interests include books, especially twentieth-century fiction and poetry, languages, and jazz. A favorite recreation is reading string quartets with friends.
Judith Serkin began her ‘cello studies in Puerto Rico with Marta Casals Istomin and continued with David Soyer, of the Guarneri Quartet, at the Curtis Institute of Music. She was also a student of Mischa Schneider, of the Budapest Quartet. Ms. Serkin was a member of the Iceland Symphony, in Reykjavik, and of both the Guilford and the Hebrew Arts(later known as the Mendelssohn) String Quartets. A founding member of the Soldier Creek Music Festival in Nevada, she has been a participant at both the Yellow Barn and Marlboro Music School and Festivals,in Vermont, and has also been on numerous Music from Marlboro tours. Ms. Serkin has performed across the United States and Canada, and has toured extensively throughout France and Japan. She makes her home in Guilford, Vermont and is presently serving on the faculty of the New England Conservatory Preparatory Dept, as well as at the Brattleboro Music School.
The instrument that she is playing was made by Joseph Hill, in 1760.
Pianist Julia Hamos performs internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, notably in Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. She has given recitals and chamber music performances at the Trasimeo Music Festival in Italy, Open Chamber Music of the IMS Prussia Cove festival, the Ravinia Steans Institute, and the Verbier Festival Academy. Julia is the winner of the Sterndale Bennett Prize for romantic-era music at the Royal Academy of Music, the winner of the Mannes College of Music Eidelman Prize for contemporary music, as well as the first prize winner of the international Virtuoso Competition in New York City and the recipient of the first Jacob Barnes Award of the Royal Academy of Music for ideas to create collaboration with other art forms and connect with different communities. She performed in masterclasses at the invitation of Sir Andras Schiff at the Wigmore Hall in London, in the Gstaad Menuhin Academy in Switzerland and at the Klavierfestival Ruhr in Germany in 2017. With a penchant for collaborations with other arts, she has performed with Martha Graham Dance Company, the New English Ballet Theater, and the New School’s Drama division, and has an affinity for experimental contemporary works that combine acting with playing. Julia has worked with such artists as Andras Schiff, Angela Hewitt, Leon Fleisher, Thomas Ades, Peter Serkin, Jonathan Biss, Yefim Bronfman and members of the Orion, Juilliard, and Takacs String Quartets. Julia began her studies at the age of 4 with Hungarian pianist Christina Kiss. She is a graduate of the Juilliard pre-college division, the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied with Christopher Elton, and the Mannes College where she earned a Masters Degree and subsequently a Professional Studies Diploma studying with Richard Goode. Julia is a piano faculty member at the 92nd Street Y School of Music in New York.
Cellist Julian Müller performs frequently as soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player. Hailed as “…haunting and mesmerizing…” by USA Today, Julian appeared as soloist with the Louisville Orchestra, giving world premiere performances of the ballet How They Fade, composed by him and art-pop band, YASSOU, on a commission from the Louisville Ballet Company. Julian has been presented on NPR Live with Sergei Babayan collaborated with Simone Dinnerstein, members of The Cleveland Orchestra, among others. Julian performs with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Berkshire Symphony, Caroga Arts Ensemble, the Metropolis Ensemble, Williams Chamber Players and many other ensembles in and around New York City. Julian is the Artist Associate in Cello at Williams College. Julian studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Mannes School of Music and is completing a Doctorate at Rutgers University. Principal mentors include Timothy Eddy, Georg Faust, Ronald Feldman, Sharon Robinson and Jonathan Spitz. Julian is passionate about engaging communities through chamber music, recitals, interactive performance, and collaboration with composers. Julian enjoys playing sports, traveling, laughing and taking long walks.
Kathy Andrew (violinist), resident of Brattleboro, Vermont, is an active performer and instructor. She received degrees from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque (BA violin performance), and MM (violin) from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Andrew currently performs with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra (Assistant Concertmaster), Opera North (Concertmaster), Springfield Symphony Orchestra, the Burlington Chamber Orchestra (Co-Concertmaster), and for over two decades performed yearly with the New England Bach Festival. She has also performed with the Albany Symphony, the Berkshire Symphony (Concertmaster), the New Hampshire Symphony and the New Mexico Symphony. On period instruments she has performed with Santa Fe Pro Musica and the Arcadia Players. As chamber musician she collaborates frequently, and most recently has performed with colleagues at the Brattleboro Music Center, Dartmouth College, Middlebury College, St Michael’s College, Keene State College, and Northampton’s Unitarian Society, to name a few. She has been soloist with the Windham Orchestra and the Nashua Chamber Orchestra, and has played violin/piano recitals throughout New England. In 1998 she toured the U.S. with Eric Clapton’s “Pilgrim Tour” as a member of his 21 piece string section. Ms. Andrew has coached chamber music at Dartmouth, taught at Bennington College, Keene State College, Greenfield Community College, The Putney School, Northfield Mount Hermon, and the Eaglebrook School. Currently she teaches at the Brattleboro Music Center and has a private studio in Norwich, Vermont.
Keir GoGwilt is a violinist, composer, and musicologist who was born in Edinburgh and grew up in New York City. His work combines historical research and collaborative experimentation. Current projects include his Zarabanda Variations: a co-authored collection of songs and dances reflecting Baroque histories and futurisms of New Spain, as well as duo projects with Kyle Motl and Johnny Chang. This season he created and performed a stage role for Bobbi Jene Smith’s “Marie & Pierre,” with original music by Celeste Oram for the Sinfonieorchester Basel. In past seasons he has soloed with groups including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Chinese National Symphony, Orquesta Filarmonica de Santiago, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the La Jolla Symphony. He is an artist-in-residence for JACK quartet’s 2023-25 Studio, a frequent collaborator with Ruckus Early Music, and a founding member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC). GoGwilt earned his PhD in Music from UC San Diego in 2022 and was awarded the Chancellor’s Dissertation Medal for the Division of Arts & Humanities. His research on histories and philosophies of performance, pedagogy, and embodiment has been published in the Bach Journal, Current Musicology, Naxos Musicology, and the Orpheus Institute Series.
Krista Bennion Feeney, violin, has enjoyed an unusually varied career, much in demand as a soloist, chamber musician, music director, and concertmaster. She is the founding first violinist of the DNA Quintet, Loma Mar Quartet, and Ridge String Quartet (1979-1991), which, along with pianist Rudolf Firkusny, won the Diapason d’Or and a Grammy Award nomination in 1992 for its RCA recording of Dvorak’s Piano Quintets. The DNA Quintet (the Loma Mar Quartet with the addition of bassist John Feeney) has released world-premiere recordings of the string quartets and quintets of Domenico Dragonetti to critical and popular acclaim, bringing this uniquely beautiful music to light after being hidden for more than 165 years in the British Library. The Loma Mar Quartet has also recorded original works written for the ensemble by Paul McCartney for EMI, and its members were recently featured as soloists in Arnold Schoenberg’s Concerto for Quartet and Orchestra with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. Krista is concertmaster of Orchestra of St. Luke’s and has been a member of St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble since 1983. She is currently involved in rediscovering and reviving a musical sound world from the past, as the founding first violinist of the Serenade Orchestra and Quartet, specializing in music of the late 18th and 19th centuries with historic instrumental configurations. She has soloed several times with the San Francisco Symphony (debuting in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto at age 15), and with the St. Louis Symphony, Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra (in the world premiere of SolTierraLuna, written for her by Terry Riley), Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Mostly Mozart, and New York String Orchestra at both Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. During the 2014/2015 season, Krista performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the American Classical Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall. From 1999-2006, she was the music director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra. In May 2014, The New York Times praised Krista’s playing with St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, saying: “Her deep notes were rich and melancholy … there was a tender exuberance in both tumbles of notes and sustained phrases … a dramatic interplay of ferocity and light slyness.”
Lila Brown is a professor of viola at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. She is cofounder of the Music from Salem program and has been its artistic director since 1986. After graduating from the Juilliard School, she joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She subsequently left to study with Sándor Végh and become principal violist of the Camerata Academica in Salzburg under his direction. Brown then spent seven years as an assistant professor at the Vienna Hochschule and six years as a member of the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, and since 1997 she has been professor of viola at the Musikhochschule in Duesseldorf, Germany. Brown has taught chamber music and viola courses in Sweden, Austria, and Germany.
Lily Holgate is an active performer and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. As a former member of the Puck Quartet, Lily was in residence at Stanford University as a part of the St. Lawrence String Quartet’s Emerging Quartet program. In addition, Puck Quartet attended the prestigious Robert Mann String Quartet Institute, and were regular performers at the Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society. In 2017, Puck Quartet performed the premier of Robert Prutsman’s original score to “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.
Lily is passionate about sharing music with diverse audiences, and has performed in homeless shelters, prisons, libraries, mental health centers and on the Azure Concert Series, which designs concerts for children with autism. Lily plays with the String Orchestra of New York City, the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra and is a regular player in the pit orchestra of Wicked on Broadway.
Her current creative projects include recording an album of original music and arrangements with her sister, singer Chloe Holgate, as well as a collaboration with horn player Ann Ellsworth that explores creativity at the intersection of music, movement and text.
Lucy Chapman, chair of New England Conservatory’s strings studio faculty, also served as chair of chamber music from 2002 through 2010. She has had solo and chamber music concerts throughout the USA and in Europe, Korea and Japan. She has held positions as acting associate concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony and first violin of the Muir String Quartet, and won a Grammy nomination for a recording of Bartok, Stravinsky and Ives with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and pianist Richard Goode. She has also recorded with Keith Jarrett, whose solo sonata she premiered in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. Recent performances include the Mozart “Sinfonie Concertante” with violist Kim Kashkashian, an all-Mozart concert in NYC with pianist Robert Levin, frequent guest appearances with the Boston Chamber Music Society, and return visits to the Busan Festival in Korea and the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. Chapman is a former faculty member of the University of California/ Santa Cruz, Boston and Harvard Universities. She is a graduate of Curtis Institute where she studied with Arnold Steinhardt of the Guarneri Quartet. Her other principal teachers include Dorothy Delay and Marc Gottlieb.
Violist Marcia Cassidy leads a busy musical life as a chamber, orchestral, and free-lance musician and teacher. Ms. Cassidy is a member of the Musicians of the Old Post Road (a Boston-area period performance chamber music ensemble), the Samara Piano Quartet (NH), and is principal violist for the Burlington Chamber Orchestra (VT) and Opera North (NH). She frequently performs with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. As a member of the faculty of Dartmouth College, she teaches violin and viola, leads orchestra sectionals, coaches chamber music, and is a member of the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Cassidy has been immersed in music her entire life, sometimes as work, but always for fun.
Pianist Margaret Kampmeier enjoys a varied career as soloist, collaborative artist and educator. Equally fluent in classical and contemporary repertoire, she has concertized and recorded extensively. Ms. Kampmeier has performed with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic Ensembles, Kronos Quartet, Sherman Chamber Ensemble, Richardson Chamber Players, and Mirror Visions Ensemble. As orchestral keyboardist, she performs regularly with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and is a frequent guest of the New York Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. As a recording artist, Ms. Kampmeier can be heard on the Albany, Centaur, CRI, Koch, Nonesuch, and Bridge labels.
Ms. Kampmeier teaches piano and chamber music at Princeton University, and is Chair and Artistic Director of the Contemporary Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music. She has given lecture recitals on a wide range of topics including Preludes and Fugues through the Ages, Contemporary Keyboard Techniques, and Piano Music of Women Composers. She earned degrees from the Eastman School of Music and SUNY Stony Brook, and is deeply grateful to her mentors Barry Snyder, Jan Degaetani, Julius Levine, and Gilbert Kalish. In addition to her professional activities, Ms. Kampmeier is an avid reader, and enjoys traveling and spending time with her family. A native of Rochester, NY, she resides currently in New York City.
Michael Haas is an accomplished and exciting cellist, performing in New York City and around the world. His playing has been described as “refined and attractive” by the New York Times. Leading a varied musical life, Michael is equally at home performing chamber music and orchestral repertoire both old and new. He has recently appeared performing at Symphony Space, the New York Live Arts Theater, Le Poisson Rouge, as well as for Tertulia, a new series bringing chamber music to intimate settings around New York City. In addition to his work with Momenta Quartet, he performs regularly with the Princeton Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, and American Ballet Theater Orchestra. He holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School.
Michael Roth, violin and viola, is a native of Scarsdale, NY and received his early musical training with Frances Magnes at the Hoff-Barthelson Music School. He attended Oberlin College and Conservatory, continuing his studies with Marilyn McDonald. At Oberlin, he won the Kaufman Prize for violin and First Prize in the Ohio String Teacher’s Association Competition. He completed his Master of Music degree at the University of Massachusetts where he worked with the distinguished American violinist and pedagogue Charles Treger and was a recipient of the Julian Olevsky Award. Mr. Roth is currently associate concertmaster of the New York City Ballet Orchestra and has appeared in chamber music and as a soloist with the company, most recently in the debut of “Slice Too Sharp”, a ballet of Biber and Vivaldi violin concerti, and “After the Rain”, violin music of Arvo Pärt. In addition he is a member of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Principal 2nd violin of the Westchester Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, and the New York Pops. He was concertmaster of the Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra for many years and often appeared as soloist there, as well as at the Caramoor and Bard Music Festivals. He has played and toured internationally with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the New York Chamber Soloists. As a chamber musician, Mr. Roth has collaborated with artists such as Eugene Drucker, Menahem Pressler, James Buswell, Steven Doane, Hamao Fujiwara and members of the Brentano, Manhattan and Ying Quartets, and recently presented a recital of contemporary Cuban solo violin and chamber music in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall under the auspices of the American Composers Orchestra. With Orpheus, the Eos Orchestra, Philharmonia Virtuosi, The New York Pops and the American Composers Orchestra and others, Mr. Roth has recorded for the Sony, Angel, Telarc, Decca, BMG, Point Music, ESSA.Y. and Arbors Music labels.
Paul Suits was born in California and studied for two years at UC Santa Cruz before moving to New York, where he earned Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in piano at the Mannes College of Music. In the years after his graduation he lived as free-lance musician in NYC, and met and collaborated for the first time with cellist Eric Bartlett. In 1983 he received a grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst for a year of post-graduate study in Liedbegleitung at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart. This was followed by engagements as coach at the Stadttheater Basel and as head coach at the Luzerner Theater. Paul Suits performed in the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, at the Murten Festival and was for many years keyboardist in the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester (including performances of Berg’s Kammerkonzert). He was pianist and founding member of the chamber music series Brücken in Basel. On tours to Russia, Israel and South America he performed with the Basler Madrigalisten and he regularly appears as accompanist in song recitals. Paul Suits composed operas, songs, piano music and choral works, for example the opera Eulenspiegel, Luegenspiele (2004) commissioned by the Musik-Akademie Basel; jüngst und einst, for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra, (2001) commissioned by the Basler Bach-Chor; as well as his music to Rilke’s Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke (2017), a commission of the vokalensemble larynx. Paul Suits has taught for the last 25 years at leading conservatories of Switzerland: from 1993-2008 at the Hochschule der Künste Bern (vocal coach and score-reading), since 2006 at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel (vocal coach), as well as since 1992 at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Zurich (score-reading) – where he for many years was also musical director of the opera course, initiating performances of, among others, Monteverdis Ulisse in Ritorno alla Patria and Brittens Turn of the Screw. Based upon his vast pedagogical experience and acute interest in the subject, he is currently writing a book on score-reading.
Leonard Bernstein described Paul Woodiel as “a first-class performer – one who combines spirituality with intellect”. A busy New York-based purveyor of a broad range of violin and fiddle styles, he has been a featured recitalist at the 92nd St. Y, the Miller Theater at Columbia University, The Caramoor International Festival, and the New York Festival of Song at Carnegie Hall, and has appeared as soloist at music festivals from Bard College in New York to the red rocks of Moab, Utah.
A three-time New England Fiddle Contest champion, he is a widely celebrated exponent of traditional fiddle styles, and has taught traditional fiddle at Wesleyan University and elsewhere. Also in the traditional vein, he performs across the US and abroad with the Scottish dance band Local Hero.
Paul’s diverse freelance career finds him equally at home in the concert hall, the theatre, the recording studio, as well as a player for dancing of many sorts. A Broadway pit veteran, he has dozens of productions to his credit, including Ragtime, Sunset Boulevard, West Side Story, and Sting’s The Last Ship. A three-time New England Fiddle Contest champion, he performs widely with pianist Susie Petrov and piper/flutist Chris Layer as the Scottish trio Local Hero. He has performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, 92nd St. Y, the Miller Theater at Columbia, The Bard Festival, the Moab Music Festival, and the Sherman Chamber Ensemble. As a studio player, has worked as a mercenary on countless advertising jingles, from sugary “Irish” breakfast cereals to dubious weight loss medications. His many film credits include Woody Allen films and Carter Burwell scores, and he is heard on recordings for Tony Bennett, Sting, Fall Out Boy, and over 20 Broadway cast albums. Paul began fiddling as a teen, playing contras with Ralph Sweet and Jim Gregory and ECD demos with CT based Reel Nutmeg as early as 1977. He has enjoyed a long relationship with social dance fiddling, particularly for English, Scottish, and contra dancing, as well as vintage and ragtime era genres.
Praised by The New York Times for her “passionate and insightful” playing, Renana Gutman has performed across four continents as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and collaborative artist. She played at venues like The Louvre Museum, (France), Carnegie Recital Hall, Merkin Hall (New York), St. Petersburg’s Philharmonia (Russia), Stresa Music Festival (Italy), Ravinia Rising Stars (Chicago), Jordan Hall (Boston), Herbst Theatre (St. Francisco), Menuhin Hall (UK), UNISA (South Africa), Marlboro (VT), and Washington National Gallery. Her performances are heard frequently on WQXR Young Artists Showcase, NY, WFMT Dame Myra Hess, Chicago, and MPR Performances Today, MN.
A top prize winner at Los Angeles Liszt competition, International Keyboard Festival in New York, and Tel-Hai Internationl Master Classes, she has performed with orchestras including Jerusalem Symphony, Haifa Symphony, Belgian “I Fiamminghi”, Mannes College Orchestra.
Renana was one of four young pianists selected by the renowned Leon Fleisher to participate in his workshop on Beethoven piano sonatas hosted by Carnegie Hall, where she presented performances of “Hammerklavier” and “Appassionata” to critical acclaim. Her recording of Chopin etudes op.25 will be released in 2016.
Renana spent summers at the Marlboro and Ravinia Music Festivals where she collaborated with Richard Goode, Mitsuko Uchida, members of the Guarneri quartet and clarinetist Anthony McGill. She toured with “Musicians from Marlboro” in series like People’s Symphony Concerts (NY), Gardener Museum (Boston) and Freer Gallery (Washington).
High in demand as a chamber musician, Renana serves as the staff collaborative pianist of Steans Institute at Ravinia Festival, where she performs chamber music and lieder extensively. Her regular duo partners include violinists Alexi Kenney, InMo Yang, Yoojin Jang and Tessa Lark. Recently, she premiered a commissioned piece by composer Paul Schoenfield alongside violinist Miriam Fried. She has been touring with “Echoes of Hope” ensemble, which is dedicated to performing obscure pieces by Jewish composers who perished in the Holocaust.
As a former member of the piano trio “Terzetto”, Renana won first Prize at the Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition in Ohio, performed Beethoven Triple Concerto with Lansing Symphony. The trio was featured at “Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival”, the Banff Center, Canada, Swannanoa Chamber Music Festival, North Carolina and Saugatuck Music Festival, Michigan.
From 2008-2010 Renana had been on the piano faculty of the Yehudi Menuhin Music School in the UK, as an assistant of prof. Marcel Baudet. She currently teaches at 92nd Street Y, and Bard College Preparatory in NY.
A native of Israel, she started piano playing at the age of six. Soon after, she garnered multiple awards and honors, and became a recipient of America Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship with distinction from 1992-2004, and later on of Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women Scholarship.
Her most influential teachers were pianists Natasha Tadson and Victor Derevianko in Israel, and Richard Goode at Mannes College of Music in New York where she completed her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. Her musicianship teacher was the established Israeli composer Arie Shapira.
Renana became an American citizen in 2015 and makes her home in NYC.
Violist Rosemary Nelis has performed as chamber musician and soloist throughout the United States and Europe, sharing her imaginative playing in work that spans the great standard repertoire, historical performance, and extensive collaboration with living composers. Major performances include American premieres of works by composers Brett Dean, Hilda Paredes, Jörg Widmann, in addition to the New York City premiere of György Kurtág’s …Concertante… for solo violin, viola and orchestra on the Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall. Nelis has spent her career as a champion of contemporary music, working with composers Missy Mazzoli, David Lang, Christine Southworth, Dan Visconti, Andy Akiho, Kenji Bunch, Don Byron, James MacMillan, Brett Dean, Yu-Hui Chang, Jörg Widmann, and Joan Tower. During her time in the Cassatt String Quartet, Nelis worked with composers Daniel S. Godfrey, Adolphus Hailstork, Shirish Korde, and Tania Leon in addition to works by Fanny Mendelssohn, Dorothy Rudd Moore, and Florence Price. Nelis received both Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Arts degrees from Bard College and Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Steven Tenenbom and majored in Chinese Language and Literature. Nelis was the proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship during her Masters studies at The Juilliard School, where she worked with Roger Tapping and Misha Amory. She also studied at the University of Glasgow, Qing Dao University, and Yale School of Music, working with violists Duncan Ferguson and Ettore Causa. Nelis has spent summers performing chamber music at Yellow Barn, Bard Music Festival, Music@Menlo, and Kneisel Hall. In 2022 Nelis served as faculty at the Kinhaven Music School and is currently a Professor of Viola at both her alma mater, the Special Music School, and the Cali School of Music at Montclair State University. In 2024 Nelis served as faculty at Yellow Barn’s Young Artist Program and Vilacello String and Piano Festival in Pennsylvania. Ms. Nelis plays on a 1991 viola made by the Brooklyn-based maker Samuel Zygmuntowicz.
Sarah Adams, violist, began her musical training in Cleveland, Ohio, where her first teachers were Cleveland Orchestra members Kurt Loebel and Edward Ormond and where she won the inaugural Cleveland Orchestra String Competition and the Louis Lane Scholarship. She studied at the Eastman School of Music with Martha Katz, and received her BA and MM from Kent State University, studying with Kay Slocum. Sarah attended The Juilliard School, where she earned the Professional Studies Certificate as a student of Karen Tuttle.
Ms. Adams has appeared as soloist with the Riverside and Jupiter Symphonies in Alice Tully Hall, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Caramoor, the Berkshire Bach Ensemble, the Washington Square Music Festival, Philharmonia Virtuosi, Parnassus, the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s Music Off the Walls series, and in recital with the Hong Kong Chamber Series, the Houston Chamber Music Society, the New York Viola Society, the Long Island Composer’s Alliance and at the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC. Sarah recently performed Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata, orchestrated by Ruth Lomon, with the Adelphi Chamber Orchestra.
Ms. Adams is a frequent performer of chamber music in the New York area. She is violist of the Cassatt Quartet, as well as a member of the New York Chamber Ensemble and the Sherman Chamber Ensemble.
Sarah has also performed and recorded with the Smithsonian Chamber Ensemble, Parnassus, and with the Roerich and Amernet String Quartets. Other chamber music appearances have included the Haverford College Music Series, Bard Summerscape Chamber series, Friends of Mozart Chamber Series, the Windham Chamber Music Series, the Claring Chamber Series, the New Jersey Chamber Music Society, Speculum Musicae, the Si-Yo Chamber Series, and the Metropolitan Museum Chamber Series with flutist Paula Robison.
Ms. Adams is Principal Violist of the Riverside Symphony. She is a member of the American Ballet Theatre, and the New York City Opera, and performs frequently with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and New York City Ballet. She was formerly Principal Violist of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and Associate Principal Violist of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Adams frequently served as acting Principal Violist of the American Symphony Orchestra, and regularly appeared with the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
Festival appearances include Lake Tahoe Summerfest, Bard Summerscape Festival, Sherman Chamber Ensemble, Cape May Music Festival, Windham Music Festival, Seal Bay American Chamber Music Festival, Music Mountain, and Bargemusic. Sarah has been a member of the House Orchestras for Jerome Robbin’s Broadway, Kiss of Spiderwoman, Candide, Aida, Swan Lake and La Boheme. She has recorded for the Atlantic, Dorian, Koch, New World, Nimbus, Nonesuch and Virgin labels.
Ms. Adams served as viola instructor at Long Island University and Queens College, and has been a Music Associate at Columbia University since 1993, teaching viola and chamber music. She is the founding director of Viola Hour, a performance opportunity serving the Columbia viola community.
Sarah performs on a Hiroshi Iizuka viola, circa 1982.
Sarah and her husband Fred Grevin, children Quinn, Eugene, Hannah, Winona and Jean-Luc, and their dog, Buddy, reside in Westchester, N.Y
Cellist Scott Kluksdahl presented his solo debut with the San Francisco Symphony, and since then he has performed a broad gamut of his instrument’s repertory throughout the entire United States and in the major musical centers of New York City, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Kluksdahl has been heard in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Kennedy Center, Dame Myra Hess Series, Phillips Collection and Tanglewood Music Festival, and continues to perform the complete cycle of Bach Suites for cello, notably at the Oregon and Philadelphia Bach Festivals. He has been a frequent a guest chamber artist at the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society, Music from Salem, Killington Music Festival, Craftsbury Chamber Players, Lancaster Music Festival, and Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music. Scott Kluksdahl was a founding member of the Lions Gate Trio for two decades. He also performed as cellist of the Veronika String Quartet, and he has been a guest artist with numerous ensembles including DaPonte, Miami and Pacifica String Quartets.
Sebastian Kozub comes from a musical family, his father being a cellist and mother violinist. He started playing the cello when he was 5 years old, studied in The Purcell School of Music in London under Pal Banda and Sir Simon Rattle and completed his Performance Diploma and Artist Diploma at the Meadows School of the Arts in Dallas under the tutelage of Andres Diaz. He is a prize winner of over 50 cello competitions on national and international level. The most important are: VIII. International cello Competition ‘Antonio Janigro’ (Croatia) – first prize, V.J. Dotzauer International cello Competition (Germany) – 2nd prize, International cello competition ‘Flame’ (Paris) – 1st prize, International cello Competition (Liezen – Austria) – 2nd prize, D. Popper International cello Competition ( Hungary) – 2nd Prize, International strings Competition ‘Bohdan Warchal’ (Slovakia) – Grand Prix. He has performed in many venues in the United Kingdom and around the world, including Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elisabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, Goldsmiths Theatre, Royal Castle Hall in Warsaw, Concert Hall of Forbidden City (Beijing). The orchestras he performed with include BBC Symphony Orchestra, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Sinfonia Varsovia, National Orchestra of China, Kaunas Philharmonic Orchestra, The National Chamber Orchestra of Slovakia, Lublin Symphony Orchestra among many others. Sebastian is an active chamber musician having performed with artists such as Andres Cárdenes, Yuja Wang, Teng Li and Aaron Boyd, and is the newest member of The Julius Quartet.
Violinist Sheryl Staples joined the New York Philharmonic as Principal Associate Concertmaster, The Elizabeth G. Beinecke Chair, in 1998 and made her solo debut with the orchestra in 1999 performing the Tchaikovsky Concerto led by Kurt Masur. Since that time she has been featured in concertos of Mendelssohn, Mozart, Haydn, Bach and Vivaldi with conductors including Lorin Maazel, Sir Colin Davis, Alan Gilbert, Kent Nagano, Jeffrey Kahane and Yaap van Zweden. She has also appeared as soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Richmond Symphony and San Diego Symphony among many others. The New York Times wrote that “she is a perceptive musician, who plays with great rhythmic integrity and a lucid sense of phrase structure… she draws a wonderful array of vibrant and luminous colors…interpretive honesty and unmannered elegance.”
In demand as a chamber musician, Ms. Staples performs frequently in the New York area with Philharmonic colleagues as well as other esteemed artists including Yefim Bronfman and Emanuel Ax, and has performed for US Ambassadors in London, Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong and Beijing as well as touring the US, Asia and Latin America. She was a founding member of the New York Philharmonic String Quartet and now leads the newly formed New Jersey String Quartet. Summer festival appearances include La Jolla Summerfest, Salt Bay Chamber Music Festival, Santa Fe, Seattle, Aspen, Martha’s Vineyard, Sarasota and Strings Music Festivals.
Ms. Staples is a member of the violin faculty at Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard Pre-College. She also teaches at The Juilliard School in orchestral studies. Originally from Los Angeles, Ms. Staples began studying violin at age five, and her major mentors were Robert Lipsett and Heiichiro Ohyama.
Stephanie Griffin is an innovative violist and composer with an eclectic musical vision. Born in Canada and based in New York City, her musical adventures have taken her to Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, England, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Mongolia. Stephanie founded the Momenta Quartet in 2004, and is a member of the Argento Chamber Ensemble and Continuum; principal violist of the Princeton Symphony; and viola faculty at Hunter College. She was a 2019 Composition Fellow at the Instituto Sacatar in Brazil, and has received prestigious composition fellowships and commissions from the Jerome Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Bronx Council on the Arts. As an improviser she has performed with Henry Threadgill, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris and Adam Rudolph, among others, and was a 2014 Fellow and 2021 Alumna-in-Residence at Music Omi. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School where she studied with Samuel Rhodes, and has recorded for Tzadik, Innova, Naxos, Aeon, New World and Albany records. Since August 2020, she has served as the Executive Director of ACMP, a nonprofit organization providing grants and services for amateur chamber music worldwide.
Susan Rotholz, praised by the New York Times as “irresistible in both music and performance,” flutist Susan Rotholz, was winner of the Young Concert Artists with Hexagon Piano and Winds and Concert Artists Guild. She continues to be in demand as a soloist, orchestral and chamber musician and teacher. Susan is Principal flute of the Greenwich Symphony and The New York Chamber Ensemble and is a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, The New York Pops and the Little Orchestra Society. She has toured extensively with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and also performs with the American Symphony, New York City Ballet, Westchester Philharmonic, Gotham Opera Company, Encores! at City Center and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Broadway revival King and I. Susan is co-founder/director of the Sherman Chamber Ensemble and the Rodeph Sholom Chamber Music Series, and was a founding member of the Young Concert Artists award winning group, Hexagon Piano and Winds. Susan performs each season with the Cape May Music Festival, Greenwich Chamber Players, Saratoga Chamber Players and the Sebago Long Lake Chamber Music Festival. Susan attended the Marlboro Music and Grand Teton Festivals, and continues to perform at the Caramoor Festival with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. As an extension of her associations at the Marlboro Festival, Susan played principal flute and solo with the New England Bach Festival for twenty-five years conducted by Blanche Honneger Moyse. Rotholz was soloist with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra playing Mozart Flute and Harp Concerto and Phoenix for Flute and String Orchestra by David Gilbert in the 2014 season and most recently this past fall, Susan played the Nielsen Flute Concerto with the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra with Jed Gaylin in Baltimore. Her recordings of the complete Bach Flute Sonatas and the Solo Partita with Kenneth Cooper, fortepiano, on the Bridge Records label received a New Classics review saying the “beguiling sounds and first-class performances make this an enchanting experience” and the Wall Street Journal described as “eloquent and musically persuasive.” Susan, with pianist Margaret Kampmeier, just released through Bridge Records, American Tapestry, Duos for Flute and Piano Beaser, Copland, Muczynski and Liebermann. “Remarkable on this recording is the stellar duo playing of Susan Rotholz and Margaret Kampmeier, who combine brilliant instrumental virtuosity with deep understanding of this quintessentially American repertoire” is how Bridge Records presents the CD. Susan has commissioned and premiered many new works by such composers as Robert Beaser, Elizabeth Brown, Edie Hill and Eliot Bailen and has recorded George Crumb’s Night of Four Moons with the acclaimed soprano, Dawn Upshaw, for Nonesuch Records. A devoted teacher and chamber music coach, Susan teaches at Vassar College, Columbia University, Queens College: Aaron Copland School of Music, City College CUNY and at the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College. Susan has also been a guest performer and teacher at the Colorado College Music Festival in Colorado. She holds degrees from Queens College (BM) and Yale School of Music (MM) where she studied with Thomas Nyfenger and Marcel Moyse. In 2002 she received the Norman Vincent Peale Award for Positive Thinking. She lives in New York with her cellist/composer husband, Eliot Bailen, and their three musical children.
Yulia Ziskel has established herself as a highly acclaimed solo, chamber, and orchestral musician, praised by the Strad Magazine for “The sweetness of her sound.” A member of the New York Philharmonic’s First Violin section (Friends and Patrons Chair), her activities include numerous international solo and chamber music appearances.
Ms.Ziskel stayed very active during the COVID lockdown, streaming solo and chamber music recitals from the 92nd Street Y, Merkin Hall, New York City Museum of Art and Design as well as a livestreamed festival, “Classic at Home,” celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday with a quartet arrangement of his 4th Symphony. She also performed in the New York Philharmonic’s “Bandwagon,” which brought live chamber music to the streets of NY in 2020-21. Ms. Ziskel’s pre-pandemic appearances include chamber music performances in West Palm Beach, FL, and tours of Italy, Spain and the Ballearic Islands. She performed recitals at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Lyric Chamber Music Society and Avery Fisher Hall, and premiered a solo violin work by Michael Hersch, commissioned for Ms. Ziskel by the New York Philharmonic. She plays regularly as a member of New York Philharmonic Ensembles.
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Yulia Ziskel began her musical training on the violin and piano at age 4. She made her solo debut at the age of 7 at the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall and at age 12 as a soloist with St. Petersburg Chamber Orchestra. She toured extensively during her teenage years, appearing in solo recitals throughout Russia, Germany, Finland, Poland and United States. In 1994, Ms. Ziskel’s family emigrated to the United States, where she completed her BM degree at Indiana University and her MM from the Juilliard School.
Yulia Ziskel’s solo CD on the Sonoris label includes works by Wieniawski, Tchaikovsky, Ysaye, Brahms, and Paganini. The disc is available on WWW.YULIAZISKEL.COM
Item descriptionZela Terry began her cello career at the age of 19 as a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony and then joined the New York Philharmonic. She later held the post of first chair cellist with the Stuttgart Symphony and the International Bach Academy. In 1990 she became first cello with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Nice. She has served as the cellist for the Orchestra des Concerts Syrinx since its creation. She has soloed frequently with Orchestra Philharmonique de Nice. At the same time she has frequently played and recorded with some of the great jazz artists.

Artists since 2019

Adriana Contino, cellist (20/21)

Alex Shiozaki, violinist (25/26)

Amanda Brin, violinist (23/24)

Andrew Padgett, bass-baritone (19/20)

Andrius Žlabys, pianist

Annabelle Hoffman, cellist (22/23, 23/24)

Arthur Cook, cellist (22/23)

Ashley Bathgate, cellist (20/21, 21/22, 23/24, 24/25, 25/26)

Benjamin Hochman, pianist (20/21)

Blair McMillen, pianist (20/21, 21/22)

Caeli Smith, violist (23/24)

Charlotte Dobbs, soprano (19/20)

Chloe Holgate, soprano (24/25)

Cong Wu, violist (22/23)

David Rose, violist (24/25)

Doori Na, violinist (20/21)

Ed Gazouleas, violist (24/25)

Eliot Bailen, cellist (19/20, 20/21, 21/22, 22/23, 23/24)

Elizabeth Tuma, violist (19/20, 20/21)

Emilie-Anne Gendron, violinist (25/26)

Eric Bartlett, cellist (22/23, 23/24)

Erica Pickhardt, cellist (23/24)

Gili Melamed-Lev, pianist (19/20)

Helen Hyun Jeong Lee, violinist

Jessica Meyer, violist (22/23)

Jessica Tong, violinist (24/25)

Jill Levy, violinist

John Batchelder, violist (23/24)

John Feeney, bassist (20/21, 21/22)

Judith Nelson, violist (19/20)

Judith Serkin, cellist (19/20)

Julia Hamos, pianist (20/21)

Julian Mueller, cellist (24/25)

Kathy Andrew, violinist (19/20 , 20/21, 21/22)

Keir GoGwilt, violinist (24/25)

Krista Bennion Feeney, violinist (19/20, 20/21)

Lila Brown, violist (22/23, 23/24)

Lily Holgate, violinist (22/23, 23/24, 24/25)

Lucy Chapman, violinist (19/20)

Marcia Cassidy, violist (19/20)

Margaret Kampmeier, pianist (19/20, 20/21, 21/22, 23/24, 24/25)

Michael Haas, cellist (25/26)

Michael Roth, violinist/violist (20/21, 21/22, 23/24)

Paul Suits, pianist (20/21)

Paul Woodiel, violinist (19/20)

Renana Gutman, pianist (19/20, 23/24)

Rosemary Nelis, violist (24/25)

Sarah Adams, violist (20/21, 23/24)

Scott Kluksdahl, cellist (22/23)

Sebastian Kozub, cellist (23/24)

Sheryl Staples, violinist

Stephanie Griffin, violist (25/26)

Susan Rotholz, flutist (19/20, 20/21, 21/22)

Yulia Ziskel, violinist

Zela Terry, cellist (19/20)