Adam Barnett-Hart, Violin | Danbi Um, Violin | Pierre Lapointe, Viola | Brook Speltz, Cello

The Escher String Quartet  has received acclaim for its expressive, nuanced performances that combine unusual textural clarity with a rich, blended sound. A former BBC New Generation Artist, the quartet has performed at the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall and is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall. In its home town of New York, the ensemble serves as Season Artists of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where it has presented the complete Zemlinsky Quartets Cycle as well as being one of five quartets chosen to collaborate in a complete presentation of Beethoven’s string quartets. Last season, the quartet toured with CMS to China.

Within months of its inception in 2005, the ensemble came to the attention of key musical figures worldwide. Championed by the Emerson Quartet, the Escher Quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be Quartet in Residence at each artist’s summer festival: the Young Artists Programme at Canada’s National Arts Centre; and the Perlman Chamber Music Programme on Shelter Island, NY. The quartet has since collaborated with artists including David Finckel, Leon Fleischer, Wu Han, Lynn Harrell, Cho Liang Lin, Joshua Bell, Paul Watkins and David Shifrin, as well as jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman, vocalist Kurt Elling, legendary Latin artist Paquito D’Rivera and Grammy award-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux. In 2013, the quartet became one of the very few chamber ensembles to be awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.

The Escher Quartet has made a distinctive impression throughout Europe, performing at venues such as Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus, London’s Kings Place, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Slovenian Philharmonic Hall, Auditorium du Louvre and Les Grand Interprètes series in Geneva. With a strong collaborative approach, the group has appeared at festivals such as Heidelberg Spring Festival, Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival, Dublin’s Great Music in Irish Houses, Risør Chamber Music Festival in Norway, Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival and Perth International Arts Festival in Australia.

The current season sees another extensive European tour, including debuts at Musik und Kunstfreunde Heidelberg, de Singel Antwerp, Budapest’s kamara.hu festival and Bath Mozarfest. Alongside its growing success in Europe, the Escher Quartet continues to flourish in its home country, performing at Alice Tully Hall in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Chamber Music San Francisco, and the Ravinia, Caramoor and Music@Menlo festivals.

Currently String Quartet in Residence at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and Tuesday Musical in Akron, Ohio, the quartet fervently supports the education of young musicians and has given masterclasses at institutions such as the Royal Academy of Music in London and Campos do Jordão Music Festival in Brazil.

Greta Myatieva, violin | Victoria Pan, violin | Mira Williams, viola | Sophie Applbaum, cello

Members of Highland St. first crossed paths as younger musicians, and are thrilled to reunite as a 2017-2018 New England Conservatory Honors Ensemble.  Highland St. is grateful to be coached by Paul Biss,and has played in masterclasses for members of the Parker and Borromeo Quartets, Kim Kashkashian, Lucy Chapman, and Merry Peckham. Previous coaches include Ayano Ninomiya, Kris Tong,and Guy Fishman. Individually, members of Highland St. have excelled in national solo and chamber music competitions, and have honed their chamber music skills at international music festivals. Highland St. is eager to pursue community outreach opportunities to increase the accessibility of chamber music in Boston. The quartet has collaborated on related work with From The Top, Music for Food, The Emerald Necklace Conservancy,and other Boston-area projects. In addition to their upcoming Jordan Hall recital, Highland St. will present a series of concerts in April in Cape Cod in collaboration with From The Top.

Daniel Ching, violin | William Fedkenheuer, violin | John Largess, Viola | Joshua Gindele, Cello

Formed in 1995, the Miró Quartet is consistently praised for their deeply musical interpretations, exciting performances, & thoughtful programming. Each season, the they perform throughout the world on the most important chamber music series & on the most prestigious concert stages, garnering accolades from critics & audiences alike. Based in Austin, TX, the Miró Quartet took its name from the Spanish artist, Joan Miró, whose surrealist works — with subject matter drawn from the realm of memory and imaginative fantasy — are some of the most original of the 20th century.

Concert highlights of recent seasons include a highly anticipated and sold out return to Carnegie Hall to perform Beethoven’s complete Opus 59 Quartets; collaborations with award-winning actor Stephen Dillane as part of Lincoln Center’s White Lights Festival; Miró Quartet took first prizes at several national and international competitions including the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. In 2005, the Miró Quartet became the first ensemble ever to be awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant

Simin Ganatra, Violin  |  Austin Hartman, Violin  |  Guy Ben-Ziony, Viola  |  Brandon Vamos, Cello

Recognized for its virtuosity, exuberant performance style, and often-daring repertory choices, over the past two decades the Pacifica Quartet has gained international stature as one of the finest chamber ensembles performing today. The Pacifica tours extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia, performing regularly in the world’s major concert halls. Named the quartet-in-residence at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music in March 2012, the Pacifica was also the quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009 – 2012) – a position that has otherwise been held only by the Guarneri String Quartet – and received the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance.

 Formed in 1994, the Pacifica Quartet quickly won chamber music’s top competitions, including the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. In 2002 the ensemble was honored with Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award and the appointment to Lincoln Center’s CMS Two, and in 2006 was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, becoming only the second chamber ensemble so honored in the Grant’s long history. Also in 2006 the Quartet was featured on the cover of Gramophone and heralded as one of “five new quartets you should know about,” the only American quartet to make the list. And in 2009, the Quartet was named “Ensemble of the Year” by Musical America.

The members of the Pacifica Quartet live in Bloomington, IN, where they serve as quartet-in-residence and full-time faculty members at the Jacobs School of Music. Prior to their appointment, the Quartet was on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana from 2003 to 2012. The Pacifica Quartet also serves as resident performing artist at the University of Chicago.

The Pacifica Quartet is endorsed by D'Addario and proudly uses their strings.

For more information on the Quartet, please visit pacificaquartet.com.

Yael Weiss, piano | Mark Kaplan, violin | Peter Stumpf, cello

Combining the talents of three award-winning soloists, the Weiss Kaplan Stumpf Trio brings to each performance its distinctive fusion of authority and experience, energy, and passion. These three musicians comprise an ensemble that embraces the music of the future while offering fresh insights into three centuries of masterworks.

Hailed by The New York Times as “Three strong voices, locked in sequence,” the Trio was originally founded in 2001, and was joined in 2014 by the distinguished cellist Peter Stumpf.  The Trio has presented concerts throughout the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, with multiple appearances at The Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Baltimore’s Shriver Hall, Princeton, UCLA, Indiana and Oxford Universities, Tel-Aviv Museum, and for the Chamber Music Societies of Edinburgh, Santander, Pasadena, Phoenix, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City and Tucson, among others.

 The Weiss-Kaplan-Stumpf Trio is frequently engaged to appear as soloists in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with orchestras such as the Prague Chamber Orchestra, Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra, Bloomington Camerata, New Bedford Symphony and Sioux City Symphony. A performance of the Triple Concerto at the Prague Festival was praised for its “rare timbral refinement, nobility and virtuosic brilliance...among the brightest moments of this year's Festival” (Lidove noviny, Prague).  Other international festival performances have included appearances at the Changwon International Music Festival and Jeju Island Music Festival in Korea, and the Festival of the Sound in Canada.

 The group is committed to new music, and has commissioned many works, including Lera Auerbach’s “Triptych: The Mirror With Three Faces”, Paul Chihara’s, “Ain’t No Sunshine”, “Variations on a Poem” by Michael Hersch, and Paul Lansky’s new 2018 work, “Angles".  In the spring of 2015, the Weiss-Kaplan-Stumpf Trio performed the world premiere of Michael Gilbertson’s new concerto for trio and orchestra, “Outliers”, commissioned for the group by the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra.  

The Trio is also known for its stimulating and varied programming of the entire trio repertoire, and for performances of Beethoven’s complete cycle of works for Piano Trio, which are an ongoing part of its programming.  This year’s tours include multiple presentations of this complete cycle.

 The Weiss-Kaplan-Stumpf Trio records for Bridge Records.  They will shortly be releasing the complete set of Beethoven’s Piano Trios.

Newly available is a recording of works by Fred Lerdahl, taking its place in the Trio’s discography alongside other world premiere recordings of trios by Lera Auerbach, Chen Yi, Paul Chihara, Clancy Newman and Paul Schoenfeld.

The Trio’s 2011 release of Brahms and Smetana trios has received wide critical acclaim – Fanfare Magazine hailed it as “absolutely one fabulous chamber music recording you cannot afford to be without. . . This may just be the best of the best Brahms B Major Trio recordings.” 

  The Trio is well known to American radio audiences through nationwide broadcasts on shows such as NPR’s Performance Today and WNYC’s SoundCheck.  An appearance on St. Paul Sunday has been broadcast nationally several times, and was selected for St. Paul Sunday's “Best of the Year” CD.

 Please visit the trio’s website at www.weiss-kaplan-stumpf-trio.com

Education: New England Conservatory of Music; State University of New York /Stonybrook

Violinist Daria Adams, the founding Artistic Director of Music in the Vineyards along with her husband Michael, is a member of the world-renowned Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) where she is featured frequently in solo and chamber music performances. Since joining the SPCO in 1987, she has traveled the world in tours to Asia, Europe and across North America. An ardent Baroque music lover, Daria is a founding member of the Blue Baroque Band (BBB) made up of colleagues from the SPCO.  The BBB was a featured ensemble-in-residence at MITV in 2006 and 2009 and can be heard on the Thousand Lakes Label. Other festival appearances include Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society (WI), Banff Canada, Newport RI and the Cactus Pear Festival. Daria spent four years playing in the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, where she also took an interest in a musician sitting in the back of the pit — one Michael Adams. She now lives in suburban Minneapolis with her husband, three children (25, 23 and 21) and a dog.

Education: The Eastman School of Music; Mannes College of Music

Violist Michael Adams has carved out a unique career that has lead down many roads: as a chamber musician, an orchestral player, writer on music, radio commentator and producer, host of the Minnesota Orchestra’s “Adventures in Music” family concerts, and — along with his violinist wife Daria — the founding Artistic Director of Music in the Vineyards. As MITV’s concert commentator and emcee, his goal is to make the music sound so interesting  − through insightful  stories, musical explanations and analysis − that people cannot wait to hear it!

Michael joined the viola section of the Minnesota Orchestra in 1988 at the invitation of conductor Edo de Waart after a successful stint as a music producer and host for classical WCAL-FM in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and later, for Minnesota Public Radio. Before landing in Minnesota, his career path passed through many different orchestras: The Rochester Philharmonic, Denver Chamber Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera, The Tulsa Philharmonic and the Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra.

He is the father to three children, ages 25, 23 and 21 who are still baffled that anyone would be want to pay money to hear their father speak. Michael is an avid bicyclist, enjoys canoe camping in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Wilderness Area, sailing with friends on Lake Superior and planning fantasy vacation trips with his collection of maps. Someday, he will own a boat.

Born and raised in California, Robert has quickly become one of the most sought-after bassists on the West Coast. After completing his studies at UCLA and the San Francisco Conservatory, Robert won his first orchestral audition to become Principal Bass of the Marin Symphony.   Since then, Robert has also joined the Berkeley Symphony as Asst. Principal, Symphony Napa Valley as Asst. Principal, The Monterey Symphony, as a section player, and  most recently, he was appointed Asst. Principal Bass of Symphony Silicon Valley. Additionally, Robert is a frequent guest with the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Atlanta Symphony.

Robert records regularly at Skywalker Ranch, with both the Skywalker Symphony and outside groups.  He can be heard on numerous films and video games.

His primary teachers were Chris Hanulik, Principal Bass -  Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Scott Pingel, Principal Bass - San Francisco Symphony.

Winner of a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Michael Brown has been described by The New York Times as a “young piano visionary” and “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” Michael will make debut solo recitals in Berlin, Frankfurt, Antwerp, Zurich, Florence, and New York’s 92nd Street Y. He recently joined the artist roster of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s “Chamber Music Two” program where he performs with the Society in Alice Tully Hall and on tour. His recent schedule includes a performance with Seattle Symphony, a Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Youth Symphony, recitals at Wigmore Hall, the Louvre, Alice Tully Hall, performances at the Marlboro, Ravinia, Caramoor, Mostly Mozart, and Music@Menlo festivals as well as concerts with his regular collaborators: cellist Nicholas Canellakis and violinist Elena Urioste. Among his recent compositions: a Piano Concerto for the Maryland Symphony Orchestra and works for the Look & Listen Festival, Bargemusic, Concert Artists Guild, and Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series. A native New Yorker, He is the First Prize Winner of the 2010 Concert Artists Guild Competition and was recently appointed Adjunct Assistant Professor of Piano at Brooklyn College.

Education: The Curtis Institute of Music, New England Conservatory

Hailed as a “superb young soloist” (The New Yorker), Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, captivating audiences throughout the United States and abroad. In The New York Times his playing was praised as “impassioned” and “soulful,” with “the audience seduced by his “rich, alluring tone.” In the spring of 2015, Nicholas made his Carnegie Hall debut, performing Leon Kirchner’s Music for Cello and Orchestra with the American Symphony Orchestra. Nicholas is an artist of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and a member of The Canellakis-Brown Duo, in which he collaborates with the pianist/composer Michael Brown. He has been featured at the festivals of Santa Fe, La Jolla, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Verbier, Mecklenburg, Moab, Bridgehampton, Sarasota, Aspen and the Bargemusic series in New York City. Nicholas is on the faculty of the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music and is the Co-Artistic Director of the Sedona Winter MusicFest in Arizona.

The Spanish violinist Francisco Fullana, recipient of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant, has been praised as a “rising star” (BBC Music Magazine) and “a paragon of delicacy” (San Francisco’s Classical Voice), while his thoughtful virtuosity has led to collaborations with such conducting greats as the late Sir Colin Davis and Gustavo Dudamel -- who described Fullana as “an amazing talent.” Beside his many appearances as a soloist performing internationally, and his commitment to chamber music -- he has been named a member of the prestigious Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society Two to start in 2018 -- he is making an impact as an innovative educator, having created the Fortissimo Youth Initiative, a series of baroque and classical music seminars and performances in partnership with youth and university orchestras, which explore and deepen young musicians’ understanding of 18th Century music.

Fullana’s first CD, Through the Lens of Time (released by Orchid Classics) showcases both his incandescent virtuosity and the range of his artistic inquisitiveness. The album is centered around Max Richter’s recomposition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, recorded alongside the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Richter’s work is intertwined with three other contemporary solo scores that all re-examine and take flight from masterpieces of the baroque.

A graduate of The Juilliard School and the University of Southern California, Francisco currently performs on the 1735 Mary Portman ex-Kreisler Guarneri del Gesù violin, on loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

Education: The Julliard School of Music

Known for his thrilling performances and musical creativity, Ara Gregorian made his New York recital debut in 1996 at Carnegie Hall and his concerto debut in 1997 with the Boston Pops Orchestra in Symphony Hall. Since that time he has established himself as one of the most sought-after and versatile musicians of his generation. Ara has taken an active role as a presenter of chamber music as well, as the Founding Artistic Director of the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival in Greenville, North Carolina, which will be celebrating its 15th Anniversary Season. Ara has appeared at the music festivals of Santa Fe, Skaneateles, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Cactus Pear, Bravo! Vail and Music in the Vineyards Festival. Gregorian is the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival Distinguished Professor of Violin at East Carolina University where he has been on the faculty since 1998. He is married to violinist Hye-Jin Kim.

Dawn Harms' diverse career ranges from being a chamber musician, violin soloist, concertmaster, to being a music director and conductor. She is a member of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Associate Concertmaster for the New Century Chamber Orchestra, and Co-Concertmaster with the Oakland East Bay Symphony. She also records regularly at Skywalker Studios for movies and video games. She is the co-founder and music director of the Music at Kirkwood chamber music festival, and currently serves on the music faculty at Stanford University.

After an extensive search, Ms. Harms was recently appointed music director and conductor of the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony. Her inaugural gala concert in September featured Frederica von Stade as soloist.

Harms was chosen as a Fellow at the exclusive American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival, where she worked with some of the top conductors of the world. Her recent guest conducting engagements include appearances with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, the Livermore Amador Symphony, Chattanooga Festival Honor Orchestra, and Symphony Parnassus. She was also invited to conduct the extra shorts on the film Ratatouille, which is exclusively found on the DVD.

Her recent solo appearances include Folsom Symphony, Paradise Symphony, Bay Area Rainbow Symphony, Sacramento Symphony, Symphony Parnassus, and the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. She has appeared in chamber music concerts with Frederica von Stade, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Lynn,Harrell, Eugenia Zukerman, Zheng Cao, and has premiered works with and by Jake Heggie.

A strong advocate for music education, she was music director and conductor of the Amarillo Youth Orchestra. She designs and performs her own family show throughout the United States, New Zealand, and Japan. Dawn recently performed her one-woman family show with the Lincoln Symphony in Nebraska, the Oakland East Bay Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, and the Napa Youth Symphony. Dawn plays on her cousin Tom Waits's CDs "Alice" and "Blood Money. Dawn also has two solo CD's, "The Black Swan" and "The Hot Canary" that can be found on cdbaby.com.

For ten years Dawn was first violinist with the Harrington String Quartet, winners of the Grand Prize at the prestigious Fischoff and Evian International chamber music competitions. She played first violin for five summers with the Santa Fe Opera.

A First Prize winner of the Yehudi Menuhin Competition and Concert Artists Guild International Competition, Hye-Jin Kim has been lauded by The Strad magazine for her “heart-stopping, unrivalled beauty of sound … well-thought out, yet of the moment.” Hye-Jin has performed as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Pan Asia Symphony of Hong Kong and the Hannover (Germany) Chamber Orchestra, where she led the ensemble in Mozart’s A Major Violin Concerto at age twelve! She has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, Salzburg’s Mirabel Schloss, and in London at St. John’s, Smith Square, and Wigmore Hall. Festival appearances include Marlboro, Ravinia, Music from Angel Fire, Music@Menlo, Bridgehampton, Music in the Vineyards and Prussia Cove. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Violin at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. She is married to violinist Ara Gregorian.

Praised as “an outstanding musician…with an artful, expressive power” by Zürichsee Zeitung, Mari Lee has performed extensively throughout the UK, Europe, and the United States in such prominent venues as the South Bank Centre, Wigmore Hall, Le Fesitival de Radio France Montpellier, Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Harvard Music Association, and Jordan Hall. She has appeared as a soloist with the London Mozart Players and Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Pavel Baleff.

An avid chamber musician, Mari has been invited to internationally renowned festivals such as Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute, Krzyzowa Music Festival, and the Marlboro Music Festival. Artists she has collaborated with include Kim Kashkashian, Denés Varjon, Nobuko Imai, Bruno Canino, and members of the Cleveland, Guarneri, and Juilliard String Quartets.

Her interest in musical community engagement has led her to participate in numerous outreach programs in the UK, as well as performing in benefit of BBC’s Children in Need, Prince’s Trust, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, and Music for Food in Boston.

Born in Japan in 1990, Mari entered the Yehudi Menuhin School at the age of 11 where she studied with Natasha Boyarsky. She completed her Bachelor’s degree at the New England Conservatory of Music with honors under the tutelage of Miriam Fried, where she was the recipient of Irene M. Stare Presidential Scholarship. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree at the Universität der Künste Berlin with Nora Chastain. She is a holder of the DAAD scholarship and is a recipient of Tarisio Trust’s Young Artists Grants.

Mari plays on 1764 Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi kindly provided by Florian Leonhard Fine Violins.

www.marileeviolin.com

DAVID LEISNER is an extraordinarily versatile musician with a multi-faceted career as an electrifying performing artist, a distinguished composer, and a master teacher. “Among the finest guitarists of all time”, according to American Record Guide, Leisner is a featured recording artist for the Azica label, with 9 highly acclaimed recordings, including the most recent, Arpeggione with cellist Zuill Bailey and Facts of Life, with the music of Del Tredici, Golijov and Bach. Other recordings are on the Naxos, Telarc and Koch labels, with a concert DVD published by Mel Bay. David Leisner's recent seasons have taken him throughout the US, Canada and Mexico, Asia, Australasia and Europe. Celebrated for expanding the guitar repertoire, David Leisner has premiered works by many important composers, including David Del Tredici, Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, Philip Glass, Richard Rodney Bennett, Peter Sculthorpe and Osvaldo Golijov. He was also a pioneer in the rediscovery of 19^th-century guitar composers, Johann Kaspar Mertz and Wenzeslaus Matiegka. A frequent visitor to important chamber music festivals, he is also the Artistic Director of Guitar Plus, an innovative series in New York devoted to chamber music with the guitar.

His own compositions, noted for their emotional and dramatic power, are performed, recorded and published worldwide. Fanfare magazine described his music as “rich in invention and melody, emotionally direct, and beautiful”. An extensive discography includes the much-praised Cedille CD, Acrobats, performed by the Cavatina Duo, while his compositions are published mostly by Theodore Presser Co. A distinguished teacher as well, Leisner is currently Chair of the Guitar Department at the Manhattan School of Music.          

An artist deeply dedicated to the range of violin and chamber music repertoire, violinist Violaine Melançon has served on the violin and chamber music faculties of the Peabody Conservatory (www.peabody.jhu.edu), since 1987.

She has a special affection for the music of today and is a serious interpreter of works of Gyorgy Kurtag, Mauricio Kagel and Zhou Long. The Israeli composer Shulamit Ran wrote a violin concerto for her and she has premiered several works by other leading composers.

She has participated in many summer festivals as violinist, teacher and guest artists. For many years, she has served on the faculty of Yellow Barn (www.yellowbarn.org), an international gathering of artists who meet each summer to explore the vast riches of the chamber music repertoire. Violaine Melançon’s performances can be heard on the Naxos, Artek, CRI, and New World Records labels.

Born in Brussels, Belgian American viola player Dimitri Murrath has made his mark as a soloist on the international scene, performing regularly in venues including Kennedy Center (Washington), Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Royal Festival Hall, Kioi Hall (Tokyo) and Théâtre de la Ville (Paris).

A first prize winner at the Primrose International Viola Competition, Dimitri Murrath has won numerous awards, including second prize at the First Tokyo International Viola Competition and the special prize for the contemporary work at the ARD Munich Competition. In 2012, he was named laureate of the Juventus Festival, an award recognizing young European soloists. He is a recipient of a 2014 Avery Fisher Career Grant. With this award, Dimitri Murrath recorded and released his first solo album recording music by Vieuxtemps, Clarke and Hindemith last year.

Dimitri Murrath began his musical education at the Yehudi Menuhin School studying with Natalia Boyarsky, and went on to work in London with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He graduated from the New England Conservatory as a student of Kim Kashkashian. After 9 years teaching viola at New England Conservatory, he is now on the viola and chamber music faculty at San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Dimitri Murrath participates in the Music for Food project, which raises awareness of the hunger problem faced by a large percent of the population, and gives the opportunity to experience the powerful role music can play as a catalyst for change.

“(...) the warm and noble tome of Mr. Murrath’s viola glowed fiercely” New York Times

Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s performances as orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician garner great attention.  Gramaphone proclaimed Ms. Ngwenyama as providing “solidly shaped music of bold, mesmerising character,” and the Washington Post described her as playing “with dazzling technique...and deep expressiveness.”

Ms. Ngwenyama came to international prominence when she won the Primrose International Viola Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions at age 17.  Plaudits followed her debut recitals at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, and at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.  In 1998, she received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Ms. Ngwenyama has since performed with the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Indianapolis symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the National Symphony Orchestra.  She has been heard in recital at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, the Louvre, the Ford Center in Toronto, and the Maison de Radio France.  Summer festival appearances include Green Music, Vail, San Diego’s Mainly Mozart, Chamber Music Northwest, Marlboro Music Festival, Spoleto USA, and Burgundy’s Musique et Vin.

Recent highlights include an appearance with the Sinfonietta Cracovia performing Penderecki’s Viola Concerto, and at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and on the People’s Concert Series in New York City with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio.  She performed with the Phoenix Symphony and Maestro Ignat Solzhenitsyn, gave recitals in Los Angeles and Oakland with the world premiere of Byron Adams’s Sonata for Viola and Piano, and appeared with Bruno Mars on Saturday Night Live. Ms. Ngwenyama also performed at Nexus Hall in Tokyo’s Chanel Tower and the Xi’an Conservatory of Music, where she is a visiting professor.  In recent years, she was chosen for the coveted Duncanson Artist-in-Residency at the Taft Museum.

Ms. Ngwenyama’s performance at the White House, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the radio show Performance Today, also featured artists Wynton Marsalis, James Galway and Denyce Graves.  She has testified before Congress on behalf of the National Endowment for the Arts and is an avid educator, having served as visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame and at Indiana University.  She is past-director of both the Primrose International Viola Competition and the American Viola Society.  She spearheaded an award-winning string program for Biltmore Preparatory Academy, a public school in Phoenix, Arizona and performed with the Japanese group The Surfing Godzillas as both instrumentalist and vocalist.  Born in California of Zimbabwean-Japanese parentage, Ms. Ngwenyama studied at the Colburn School’s Community School of Performing Arts before attending the Curtis Institute of Music.  As a Fulbright Scholar, she attended the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris, and received a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard University.  

Ms. Ngwenyama has composed since childhood and was first recognized in a Los Angeles Unified School District competition.  She later studied theory, counterpoint and composition under Dr. Herbert Zipper, Mary Ann Cummins, and Warren Spaeth at the Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences.  While studying at the Curtis Institute of Music, her theory teachers included Edward Aldwell, David Loeb, and Jennifer Higdon.  Her works have been performed in the United States, China, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Czech Republic.  She is the first composer in residence of the Phoenix Chamber Music Society, appointed in their 57th season.

American soprano DIANA NEWMAN brings fresh and intense performances to opera houses and concert stages across the United States. Currently in her third year at the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center, she appears on the company’s mainstage this season as the Page in Verdi’s Rigoletto, a role she debuted with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl. Additional upcoming performances include her house and role debuts as cover Sophie at the Glyndebourne Festival in the summer of 2018, as well as her mainstage debut at The Dallas Opera in the fall of 2019.

On the concert stage, Diana has recently appeared as a soloist in Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks at the Lucerne Festival, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Eastern Sierra Symphony Summer Festival, and Vivaldi’s Gloria in Havana, Cuba.

Committed to the performance of art song and new works, Diana has attended numerous programs including the Ravinia Festival Steans Music Institute, SongFest, and the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar run by Stephanie Blythe. She has given multiple premieres of works by living composers, including Francesco Cilluffo, Dr. Alan L. Smith, and David Newman. 

As a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), Diana’s voice has been featured in a number of Hollywood films. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the USC Thornton School of Music, where she studied with Elizabeth Hynes. She currently studies with Patricia McCaffrey in New York.

Tara Helen O'Connor is a charismatic performer noted for her artistic depth, brilliant technique and colorful tone spanning every musical era. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a two-time Grammy nominee, she is now a Season Artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A Wm. S. Haynes flute artist, Tara regularly participates in the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, Spoleto Festival USA, Chamber Music Northwest, Mainly Mozart Festival, Music from Angel Fire, the Banff Centre, the Great Mountains Music Festival, Chesapeake Music Festival and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.

Tara is a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape, the legendary Bach Aria Group and is a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning New Millennium Ensemble. She has premiered hundreds of new works and has collaborated with the Orion String Quartet, St. Lawrence Quartet and Emerson Quartet. Tara has appeared on A&E's Breakfast for the Arts, Live from Lincoln Center and has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Bridge Records.

Tara is Associate Professor of Flute, Head of the Woodwinds Department and the Coordinator of Classical Music Studies at Purchase College School of the Arts Conservatory of Music. Additionally, Tara is on the faculty of Bard College Conservatory of Music, the Contemporary Performance Program at Manhattan School of Music and is a visiting artist, teacher and coach at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.  She lives with her husband, violinist Daniel Phillips on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

The Grammy Award-winning violist Masumi Per Rostad has received praise for his rich and expressive tone, energy, and commanding presence, and has been described by critics as an “electrifying, poetic and sensitive musician.” In addition to performing, Rostad teaches and has contributed to online and print publications.

Rostad started studying music, initially on the violin, at the Third Street Music School Settlement in New York City when he was three years old. He discovered the viola when he was twelve years old and four years later, attracted to the instrument’s warm and mellow sound, devoted himself to the viola.

As a member of the Pacifica Quartet, which he joined in 2001, Masumi has performed and toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. In 2009, the quartet received a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance and was named Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year. Other honors include the Cleveland Quartet Award and the Avery Fisher Career Grant. From 2009 to 2012, Pacifica was the quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a position that had been held only by the Guarneri String Quartet. The ensemble has served as quartet-in-residence at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago.

As a soloist, Rostad has appeared at prominent festivals including Spoleto USA, Music@Menlo, Marlboro, and Rockport Chamber Music; collaborated with such string quartets as the St. Lawrence, Pavel Hass, Emerson, and the Ying Quartet, which is the quartet-in-residence at the Eastman School of Music; and toured extensively and recorded as a former member of the International Sejong Soloists and the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra.

Rostad’s advocacy for the arts and passion to increase opportunities for audiences to hear chamber music led him to launch DoCha, a festival in Champaign, IL. Events feature multi-genre collaborative presentations from classical chamber music to contemporary dance to the spoken word. All programs are free and include performances for elementary school students and master classes, competitions, and performance opportunities for local music students.

Rostad has been a contributing writer to such publications as Strings, Gramophone, The Huffington Post, and The Guardian.

Rostad received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where he received the Lillian Fuchs Award for outstanding graduating violist. There, he studied with legendary violist and pedagogue Karen Tuttle from the age of 17; just three years later, when he was 20, she selected him as her teaching assistant. Rostad performed the world premiere of Michael White’s Viola Concerto in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, and gave the New York premiere of Paul Schoenfield’s Viola Concerto with the Juilliard Symphony.

Rostad has served on the faculties of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University, and given numerous solo and chamber music master classes at schools, venues, and festivals including the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Colburn School, the New York Youth Symphony, Suntory Hall, Sydney Conservatory, the Royal College of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the Aspen and Bowdoin festivals.

Education: University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire; Manhattan School of Music

Featured Appearances: Bellingham; Spoleto; Verbier; Tanglewood; Attergau/Salzburg; Music@Menlo Festivals

Scott Pingel began playing the double bass at age 17 because of a strong interest in jazz, Latin and classical music. In 2004, at age 29, he became principal bass of the San Francisco Symphony. Scott is also an active educator, having taught master classes at the Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, The Colburn School, Manhattan School of Music, Shanghai Conservatory and with the New World Symphony.

Committed to making music accessible to a wider audience, cellist Joshua Roman may be found anywhere from a club to a classroom, performing jazz, rock, or a solo sonata by Bach or Kodály, branding him a 'Classical Rock Star' by the press. Always seeking unique performance opportunities, Joshua was the only guest artist invited to play an unaccompanied solo during the YouTube Symphony Orchestra's 2009 debut concert at Carnegie Hall. Joshua was named Artistic Director of TownMusic in Seattle in 2007, where he creates programs that feature new works and reflect his eclectic musical influences and inspirations.

Maria Schneider’s music has been hailed by critics as “evocative, majestic, magical, heart-stoppingly gorgeous, and beyond categorization.” She and her orchestra became widely known starting in 1994 when they released their first recording, Evanescence. There, Schneider began to develop her personal way of writing for what would become her 18-member collective, made up of many of the finest musicians in jazz today, tailoring her compositions to distinctly highlight the uniquely creative voices of the group. The Maria Schneider Orchestra has performed at festivals and concert halls worldwide. She herself has received numerous commissions and guest-conducting invites, working with over 85 groups from over 30 countries.

Schneider’s music blurs the lines between genres, making her long list of commissioners quite varied, stretching from Jazz at Lincoln Center, to The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, to collaborating with David Bowie. She is among a small few to have received GRAMMYS in multiple genres, have received the award in both jazz and classical categories, as well as for her work with David Bowie.

Schneider and her orchestra have a distinguished recording career with twelve GRAMMY nominations and five GRAMMY awards. Unique funding of projects has become a hallmark for Schneider through the trend-setting company, ArtistShare. Her album,  Concert in the Garden (2004) became historic as the first recording to win a GRAMMY with Internet-only sales, even more significantly, it blazed the "crowd-funding" trail as ArtistShare’s first release. She’s been awarded many honors by the Jazz Journalists Association and DOWNBEAT and JAZZTIMES Critics and Readers Polls. In 2012, her alma mater, the University of Minnesota, presented Schneider with an honorary doctorate, and in 2014, ASCAP awarded her their esteemed Concert Music Award.

Schneider has become a strong voice for music advocacy and in 2014, testified before the US Congressional Subcommittee on Intellectual Property about digital rights. She has also appeared in CNN, participated in round-tables for the United States Copyright Office, and has been quoted in numerous publications for her views on Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Google, digital rights, and music piracy. Most recently, she and concerned colleagues in New York have launched a widespread campaign on behalf of music-makers, MusicAnswers.org. 

Her recent collaboration with her orchestra and David Bowie resulted in his single called, "Sue (Or In A Season of Crime),” and brought her a 2016 GRAMMY (Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals).  Schneider and her orchestra also received a 2016 GRAMMY for their latest work, The Thompson Fields (Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album).

Jonah Sirota is a violist and composer dedicated to the imaginative performance of viola music, both original and preexisting. His debut solo recording STRONG SAD, a 2018 National Sawdust Tracks release, features premiere recordings of new elegies for the viola by Nico Muhly, Paola Prestini, Arthur Joseph McCaffrey, Valgeir Sigur∂sson, Robert Sirota, Kurt Knecht, and Jonah himself (featuring "When You Lose You Win," his recorded composition debut). Other projects include The Flowering Viola: A recital of lush viola chamber music featuring pianist Molly Morkoski; and Mondegreen, an improvisation duo with organist/composer Kurt Knecht. Jonah is also a composer of music for film and media, as well as works for solo strings, chamber ensemble, and piano. 

Jonah has been the violist of the Chiara String Quartet for all of its 18 years. 2017-2018 represents the quartet's final full-time season, as its four original members expand into new creative orbits, a decision made by the entire group in gratitude and love. With the Chiara Quartet, he toured internationally and has recorded seven albums and played in numerous major venues worldwide. The Chiara Quartet performed much of the string quartet repertoire from memory ('By Heart"), including the complete string quartets of Béla Bartók, a recording of which was released in 2016 on Azica Records. The group was been honored with a Grammy nomination (2011, Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Jefferson Friedman's 3rd String Quartet on the New Amsterdam label), the ASCAP/CMA Adventurous Programming Award, the Guarneri Quartet Award, top prizes at the Paolo Borciani Competition and the Astral Artistic Services Audition, and a Gold Medal at the Fischoff Competition. Their albums have been featured on N.P.R., and in "Best of the Year" lists from the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. In the 2015-2016 season, the group was in residence at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, a venue to which the group returned for their farewell New York concert..

Jonah is also known as a viola teacher. He has an ongoing violinist.com blog series on switching from violin to viola. His "practice self-audit" has been used by viola students across the country to empower violists to motivate their own improvement and creativity in the practice room.  His Practice Tune-Up for professional and adult amateur violists has given many the chance to reconnect with their own inner passion on the instrument. Mr. Sirota teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Glenn Korff School of Music (where he has helped build a world-class chamber music program), at the Greenwood Music Camp, and in masterclasses and residencies throughout the country,

The first German artist to ever win the international Naumburg Violin Award in New York, Axel Strauss made his American début at the Library of Congress in Washington DC and his New York début at Alice Tully Hall in 1998. Since then he has given recitals in major North American cities, including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 2007 he was the violinist in the world première performance and recording of Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby, written for him by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis. Axel Strauss' discography include the Brahms violin concerto, the three last violin concertos by Kreutzer, the complete Caprices for solo violin by Pierre Rode and the complete works for violin and piano by George Enescu. Axel Strauss has performed as soloist with orchestras in Budapest, Hamburg, New York, Seoul, Shanghai, Bucharest, San Francisco and Cincinnati, among others, and has toured widely throughout the world as a recitalist and chamber musician. He has also served as guest concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony. In 2012 AxelStrauss was appointed Professor of Violin at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal, where he also serves as Chair of the String Area. Prior to that he served as Professor of Violin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Cellist Jeremy Tai, 19, has been recognized as an emerging artist of fierce energy, musical sincerity, and dynamic colors. At the age of thirteen, Jeremy made his solo debut at the Robert Mondavi Performing Arts Center performing with the UC Davis Symphony. Soon after, he performed with orchestras such as the California Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, and the Symphony Parnassus. 

Jeremy is the recipient of numerous top awards including 1st prizes in the Klein International String Competition, MTNA National String Competition, and the Mondavi Center National Young Artists Competition. Recently, he was named a winner (finalist) of the 2015 National Young Arts.

An avid chamber musician, Jeremy founded the award winning Konpeito Cello Quartet. He has been featured on the NPR program From the Top twice as a soloist and as a member of Konpeito. The quartet also collaborated with the show to make a music video that is featured on its YouTube channel.  

Jeremy currently studies with Hans Jørgen Jensen at Northwestern University. 

Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, cellist Tanya Tomkins is equally at home on Baroque and modern instruments. She has performed on many chamber music series to critical acclaim, including the Frick Collection, “Great Performances” at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y, San Francisco Performances, and the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal.

She is renowned in particular for her interpretation of the Bach Cello Suites, having recorded them for the Avie label and performed them many times at venues such as New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Seattle Early Music Guild, Vancouver Early Music Society, and The Library of Congress.

Tanya is one of the principal cellists in San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Portland Baroque Orchestra. She is also a member of several groups including Voices of Music and the Benvenue Fortepiano Trio (with Monica Huggett and Eric Zivian). On modern cello, she is a long-time participant at the Moab Music Festival in Utah, Music in the Vineyards in Napa, and a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. As an educator, Tanya has given master classes at Yale, Juilliard, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and runs the Benvenue House Concert Series in Berkeley.

Matt Young has played chamber music with members of the Cleveland, Juilliard and Takacs quartets, the Florestan Trio, members of the top orchestras of Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Concertgebauw, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. He was a founding member of the Verklärte Quartet, which won grand prize of the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition during his time with that group.

Matt is excited to be part of an artistic “start up” in San Francisco. He is focused on forming new connections with new and old audiences, under served or under connected to art music.

 Violist. Rebecca Young joined the New York Philharmonic as its youngest member in 1986. In October of 1993 she won her current position of Associate Principal Viola. She has also won the Principal Viola positions of the Boston Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic. Ultimately, she has chosen to remain in New York with her family. Ms. Young is the principal violist of the Classical Pops Orchestra of Barbados, as well as the All Star Orchestra, a televised educational project spearheaded and conducted by Gerard Schwartz. 

An avid chamber musician, Ms.Young has played with many world renowned artists, including Isaac Stern, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Edgar Meyer and Pamela Frank. Ms. Young appears often with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles and has played with the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and others.

Ms. Young was first introduced to classical music by her parents, who took her to hear the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts led by Leonard Bernstein. Today, she is the host and part of the creative team of the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young People’s Concerts, where her philosophy is less to educate the audience than “to make it so much fun that kids and parents alike want to come back!”  This ensemble made its European debut in London in April, 2017

American pianist William Wolfram was a silver medalist at both the William Kapell and the Naumburg International Piano Competitions, a bronze medalist at the prestigious Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow and finalist in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Wolfram has appeared with many of the greatest orchestras of the world and has developed a special reputation as the rare concerto soloist who is also equally versatile and adept as a recitalist, accompanist and chamber musician. In all of these genres, he is highly sought after for his special focus on the music of Franz Liszt and Beethoven and is a special champion for the music of modernist 20th century American composers.

His concerto debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony under the baton of Leonard Slatkin was the first in a long succession of appearances and career relationships with numerous American conductors and orchestras. He has also appeared with the San Francisco, Saint Louis, Indianapolis, Seattle and New Jersey symphonies, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington D.C.), the Baltimore Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Nashville Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the Edmonton Symphony, the Columbus Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, and the Grand Teton and San Luis Obispo Mozart festival orchestras, among many others. He enjoys regular and ongoing close associations with the Dallas Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, the San Diego Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra in the United States.

Internationally recognized conductors with whom he has worked include Andrew Litton, Jerzy Semkow, Mark Wigglesworth, Jeffrey Tate, Vladimir Spivakov, Gerard Schwarz, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Jeffrey Kahane, James Judd, Roberto Minczuk, Stefan Sanderling, JoAnn Falletta, James Paul, and Carlos Kalmar.

Abroad, Wolfram has appeared with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the RTE Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (Dublin), the Beethovenhalle Orchestra Bonn, the Warsaw, Moscow, and Budapest Philharmonics, the Capetown and Johannesberg symphonies of South Africa, L'Orchestre de Bretagne, and the National Symphony of Peru.

An enthusiastic supporter of new music, he has collaborated with and performed music by composers such as Aaron Jay Kernis, Kenneth Frazelle, Marc Andre Dalbavie, Kenji Bunch, and Paul Chihara. His world premiere performance of the Chihara re-orchestration of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, with the Milwaukee Symphony under the baton of Andreas Delfs, was met with great critical attention and acclaim.

Wolfram has extensive experience in the recording studio. He has recorded three titles on the Naxos label in his series of Franz Liszt Opera Transcriptions and two other chamber music titles for Naxos with violinist Philippe Quint (music of Miklos Rosza and John Corigliano). Also for Naxos he has recorded the music of Earl Kim with piano and orchestra - the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland behind him. For the Albany label, he recorded the piano concertos of Edward Collins with Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

In print and other media Wolfram was the focus of a full chapter in Joseph Horowitz's book, The Ivory Trade: Music and the Business of Music at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. On television, he was a featured pianist in the documentary of the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition.

A graduate of The Juilliard School, William Wolfram resides in New York City with his wife and two daughters.