Musicians 2023

Michael Stephen Brown has been described as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers” (New York Times). Winner of a 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, he makes regular appearances with orchestras such as the National Philharmonic, the Seattle, Phoenix, Grand Rapids, North Carolina, and Albany symphonies and recently toured his own Concerto for Piano and Strings (2020) around the US and Poland with several orchestras.

As an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, he opened their season with Bach and Mendelssohn concertos and made European recital debuts at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn and the Chopin Museum in Mallorca.

He regularly performs recitals with his longtime duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and has appeared at numerous festivals including Tanglewood, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Gilmore, Ravinia, Saratoga, Bridgehampton, Caramoor, Bard, Sedona, Moab, and Tippet Rise.

He was the composer and artist-in-residence at the New Haven Symphony for the 2017–19 seasons and a 2018 Copland House Award winner. András Schiff invited him to perform an international recital tour, making debuts in Zurich’s Tonhalle and New York’s 92nd Street Y. He is the First Prize winner of the Concert Artists Guild competition and earned degrees in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where he studied with pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald and composer Samuel Adler.

A native New Yorker, he lives there with his two 19th-century Steinway D’s, Octavia and Daria. He also learns Italian, and plays a lot of Mendelssohn and works on discovering works by Mendelssohn’s forgotten muse, Delphine von Schauroth. 

michaelbrownmusic.com

Erin Burkholder grew up in the mountains of British Columbia, where her first violin teacher was her grandmother. She attended McGill University for her bachelor of music in performance, studying under Denise Lupien and Axel Strauss. She was the winner of the 2013 McGill Chamber Competition with her string quartet, the Vitus Quartet, and won a residency at the Summer Academy Mozarteum in Salzburg.

Erin attended the New England Conservatory for her masters degree under Paul Biss, graduating in 2018. While at school in Boston she freelanced and participated in outreach programs as a member of the Mazarine String Quartet, and played with the Boston Philharmonic along with other orchestras and chamber ensembles in the Boston area. She spent two summers as a fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center where she served as concertmaster and assistant concertmaster. 

Erin has been a member of the Calgary Philharmonic’s 2nd violin section since 2018. Outside of the orchestra, she is a passionate chamber musician, teacher and coach with a playful and spontaneous approach to music and performance.

Described by The New York Times as having a “Rich tone, and muscular style”, Canadian cellist Arnold Choi has performed to great acclaim throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

Choi is a first-place winner of numerous competitions including the Canadian Music Competition, Montreal Symphony Competition, Stepping Stones Competition, Pasadena Showcase Instrumental Competition, and Concert Artist Guild among others. He has performed as soloist with the Calgary Philharmonic, Calgary Civic Symphony, Red Deer Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Okanagan Symphony, Shanghai Opera House Orchestra, Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, Colburn Conservatory Orchestra, and the Banff Festival Orchestra. His discography includes chamber and solo recordings with Yarlung Records, Naxos, and Frederick Harris Music. Choi’s primary teachers were John Kadz (Mount Royal Conservatory), Ronald Leonard (Colburn Conservatory, B.Mus), Aldo Parisot (Yale School of Music, M.Mus), and Colin Carr (Stony Brook University, DMA). Arnold serves as the principal cellist of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and as cello faculty at Mount Royal University. He currently performs on a cello by an unknown maker, ca. 1850 from the School of Caussin in France.

GRAMMY Award-winning violinist Daniel Chong is one of the most exciting and versatile musicians of his generation. Since 2002, as the founding first violinist of the Parker Quartet, he has garnered wide recognition for his performances in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Musikverein, and Wigmore Hall. Additionally, recent solo engagements include appearances at National Sawdust in New York City, Seoul Arts Center, and Jordan Hall in Boston. Mr. Chong has received several awards and prizes such as the Cleveland Quartet Award and top prizes at the Concert Artists Guild Competition and the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition. In the recording realm, he can be heard on the Zig-Zag Territoires, Naxos, and Nimbus Records labels. Mr. Chong’s newest album was released on the ECM New Series featuring the Parker Quartet and Kim Kashkashian.

Mr. Chong has performed at major music festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival, Mostly Mozart, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and the Perigord Noir Music Festival. In addition to the core repertoire, Daniel is a strong advocate for new music. Some of the composers he has worked closely with are György Kurtág, Augusta Read Thomas, Helmut Lachenmann, and Chaya Czernowin. In 2011, he won a GRAMMY Award with the Parker Quartet for their recording of György Ligeti’s string quartets.

Actively engaged in pedagogy, Mr. Chong currently serves as Professor of the Practice at Harvard University.

Born in France in 1988, Hélène Clément has learned to combine her proud love for french wine with the cheese delicacies found in England when she moved to London in 2013. Her ferocious enthusiasm and thirst for the chamber music and viola repertoire leads her to constantly expand her musical horizons by performing with a wide range of different collaborations, playing in the most prestigious concert halls in Europe and around the World.

Following her passion as a chamber musician, she has performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Cité de la Musique in Paris. Her chamber music partners have included Mitsuko Uchida, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Nicolas Altstaedt, Benjamin Grosvenor, Alexander Melnikov and Peter Wispelwey, as well as the Brentano String Quartet and the Nash Ensemble. 

Since September 2013, she is the viola player of the Doric String Quartet, with which she fulfils her appetite for deep explorations of the repertoire, from Haydn String Quartets to newly commissioned pieces. Recent highlights include recitals at the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Hamburg Laeiszhalle and De Singel, and regular performances at the Wigmore Hall. Further afield they have toured to Japan, Israel, Australia, America, Asia and New Zealand. 

The Quartet has released a wide range of recordings, working exclusively with Chandos Records. Their most recent releases include works by Haydn, Britten, Mozart and Mendelssohn. 

Ms. Clément is a frequent guest at the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival in America and Prussia Cove in England. 

She is Principal Viola Player of the innovative Aurora Orchestra based in London, taking part in exciting projects such as playing symphonies by memory and chamber music projects in the most prestigious concert halls. She teaches viola and chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music of London. Mentoring and coaching young talents is taking a growing place in her life, and she is with her String Quartet the Artistic Director of the Mendelssohn on Mull Festival, a position that sees her play a key role in providing young professionals in the field of chamber music with a week of intensive mentoring, coaching and development. 

Ms Clement is currently playing on a 1843 Italian viola owned previously by Benjamin Britten and Frank Bridge. The viola is generously lent to her by Britten Pears Arts

Alexander Cohen has been the Principal Timpanist of the Calgary Philharmonic since 2011. A student of Paul Yancich and Richard Weiner, he graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2006. Shortly thereafter he was appointed as Principal Timpanist of the West Virginia Symphony- a position he held for five years. During those years, he maintained a busy freelance career, playing regularly with the San Diego Symphony, where he acted as Principal Timpanist during the 2007-2008 season. He has acted in the capacity of visiting Principal Timpanist with the Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Malaysian Philharmonic. He has also performed as timpanist with Marlboro Festival Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony, the New World Symphony, the National Repertory Orchestra, the New York String Orchestra, and the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen. Alex is a founding member of ChamberFest West and ChamberFest Cleveland, where he has performed with international soloists, chamber musicians, and members of the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra. Alex is also a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method, having completed a four year training program under the direction of Aliza Stewart in Boston. A passionate outdoorsman, he enjoys biking, hiking, scrambling, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. Alex plays a custom set of Mark XIV timpani built for him by the American Drum Company in Denver, Colorado.

Praised for her “incredible flair, maturity and insight,” violinist Diana Cohen leads a multi-faceted career as a concertmaster, chamber musician, soloist, and arts administrator. Appointed concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra in 2012, she previously served as concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra and Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra while maintaining an active freelance career in New York City. She has held the same position with Charleston Symphony (with which she performed numerous works as soloist), The National Repertory Orchestra, Iris Orchestra and Red {an orchestra}, and has been guest concertmaster with the Rochester Philharmonic and the Phoenix Symphony.

Cohen has performed regularly in concerts in New York and across the globe with the Grammy-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The International Sejong Soloists, The Knights, and as a substitute at the New York Philharmonic and The Cleveland Orchestra. She has also appeared as a soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic, National Repertory Orchestra, Kalamazoo Symphony, Valdosta Symphony, Hilton Head Symphony and Red {an orchestra}. She was concertmaster of the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, principal second of the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and has been rotating principal of the Iris Orchestra since its inception. Cohen’s
solo recital on the Dame Myra Hess Series was heard live on Chicago public radio.

As a founding member of the piano trio Trio Terzetto, Cohen has toured and recorded in cities across the United States and Canada. Trio Terzetto has been presented on chamber music series in cities including New York, Cleveland, Ann Arbor, Memphis, Charleston, Lansing, Detroit, Augusta, Charlotte, South Bend, and Asheville. They recently made their solo debut with the Lansing Symphony, performing Beethoven’s “Triple Concerto.” Trio Terzetto is committed to outreach, and often organizes these projects around their performances.

A passionate chamber musician, Cohen has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, The Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival, The Chamber Music Festival of Giverny, France, The Perlman Chamber Music Program, Aspen and Piccolo Spoleto as well as festivals in Maui, Dresden, Bennington, Saugatuck, Martha’s Vineyard and Gretna. She has also been a participant in The American String Project. Cohen has appeared in chamber concerts with members of the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall and has performed on faculty concerts at the Cleveland Institute of Music. ohen has regularly collaborated with members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Cleveland, Miro and Parker Quartets, as well as with renowned artists including Mitsuko Uchida, Kim Kashkashian, Garrick Ohlsson and many others. She has also played regularly with her family; Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinetist Franklin Cohen, Alexander Cohen, principal timpanist of the Calgary Philharmonic, and her late mother, bassoonist Lynette Diers Cohen. Works have been commissioned for the Cohen family quartet. Cohen and her father released a CD of Osvoldo Golijov’s “Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind” for clarinet and string quartet.

Cohen is Executive and Co-Artistic Director of ChamberFest Cleveland (chamberfestcleveland.com), which features the world’s most sought-after chamber musicians, and has partnered with several of the most esteemed organizations in Cleveland.

Cohen is an honors graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music where she was the recipient of the 2000 Jerome Gross Prize in violin and a winner of the Darius Milhaud competition. Her principal teachers were Donald Weilerstein, William Preucil and Paul Kantor and Joel Smirnoff.

Her solo and chamber performances have been heard on radio stations across the country. Many of her performances from the Marlboro Music Festival have been broadcast on New York’s WQXR. She can also be heard on recordings with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

In addition to her performance career, Cohen is a devoted teacher. Many of her students have won national awards. She has worked extensively in public schools and has served on the preparatory chamber music faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Diana Cohen has a multifaceted career as a concertmaster, chamber musician and soloist. She is Concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic, and founder and Artistic Director of acclaimed music festival ChamberFest Cleveland. As soloist, she has appeared with numerous orchestras, including Holland Symphony, Rochester Symphony, Lansing, and Grand Rapids, among others.

As a chamber musician, she has performed at some of the most prestigious festivals including Marlboro Music Festival and Ravinia Festival, and collaborated with renowned artists including Garrick Ohlsson, Mitsuko Uchida, Jonathan Biss, and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Miro, Cleveland, and Parker Quartets.

Cohen has toured and recorded with the Grammy-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and performed with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Sejong Soloists, The Knights, Cleveland Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic.

Cohen lives in Calgary with her husband and baby, Noa Lynette, who loves being danced to music. As a result of the pandemic, Cohen and her husband created a lauded concert series in their front yard, Garden Concerts YYC, performing weekly concerts to hundreds of music lovers from around Calgary. To be added to their mailing list, email gardenconcertsyyc@gmail.com.

Principal Clarinet of The Cleveland Orchestra since 1976, Franklin Cohen has distinguished himself as one of the outstanding clarinetists of his generation.   His playing has been described as “hypnotic, impeccable, brilliant… with a vocal quality that would be the envy of any singer.”   He first gained international recognition and acclaim when, at the age of 22, he became the first clarinetist awarded First Prize at the International Munich Competition (the other first prize that year went to soprano Jessye Norman).   Since then, Mr. Cohen has enjoyed an illustrious career as soloist, recitalist, recording and chamber artist, pedagogue and orchestral principal.

Since his first solo appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra in 1977, Mr. Cohen has been featured as soloist in nearly 200 performances — at Severance Hall, Carnegie Hall, Blossom Music Center, and on tour throughout the United States, Asia and Europe.  In 1992, he recorded the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Orchestra and Christoph von Dohnányi for Decca Records.   Mr. Cohen is also the soloist in Debussy’s First Rhapsody on a Deutsche Grammophon recording conducted by Pierre Boulez that won two Grammy Awards in 1996, and on a Decca recording of the Brahms Clarinet Sonatas with pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy.

With his daughter, violinist Diana Cohen, Franklin Cohen is the co-artistic director of the critically acclaimed ChamberFest Cleveland, the first international summer chamber music festival in Cleveland, which presented its inaugural season in 2012.  ChamberFest’s huge success has led to an expanded vision for growth locally and internationally.

Mr. Cohen’s professional music career was launched when Leopold Stokowski chose him as principal clarinet of the American Symphony Orchestra.

As a recitalist and chamber artist, Mr. Cohen has participated in the Aspen, Blossom, Casals, Marlboro, Santa Fe, and Sarasota music festivals.  He has also been a featured artist with many of the world’s leading chamber groups, including the Emerson, Guarneri, Takács, Tokyo, Miro, Miami, Orion, Shostakovich, Cavani and Ysaÿe string quartets and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.  In addition, Mr. Cohen has collaborated with leading artists including Emanuel Ax, Pinchas Zukerman, Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Jessye Norman, Menahem Pressler and Heidi Grant Murphy, among many others.  Mr. Cohen has given countless master classes and seminars at prestigious universities and conservatories throughout the world.  His former students hold principal positions in major orchestras in North America, Europe, Mexico and Asia.

A passionate advocate of music education, Mr. Cohen founded and funded “The Concert Club”, introducing young musicians to world class artists and performances at Severance Hall.

Mr. Cohen’s children are both members of the Calgary Philharmonic, Diana serves as concertmaster and Alexander is the principal timpanist.

To love music deeply and share that with her audience is Liza Ferschtman’s raison d’être.  A musical storyteller committed to the emotional language of every composer she interprets, the ever-widening path of her international career is as varied as the work she performs. For a musical chameleon like Liza, the romantic standard repertoire feels equally important as playing or collaborating with leading voices of our time such as Fagerlund, Zuidam, Kancheli, Lann and Wolfe. Her great affinity for Schubert and Beethoven stands right alongside a passion for the expressionistic world of the early 20th century composers. Her extensive discography lays further claim to that versatility, with music written from 1676 to 2014.

Liza has made a particular specialty of the high-wire daring of the solo violin recital. Widely known for her interpretations of Bach’s solo violin works and often performing them in one marathon concert, she is also one the few performers who dares play all the Rosary Sonatas of Biber in one performance, using a minimum of 7 different violins to do so.

As concerto soloist she performs with leading orchestras worldwide such as the BBC Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, the Helsinki Philharmonic and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, with conductors including Ivan Fischer, Antonello Manacorda, John Storgards, Juraj Valcuha and Stephane Denève. Also in demand as a director-soloist, she works with orchestras like Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Potsdam Kammerakademie, Lapland Chamber Orchestra,Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra and ORCAM Madrid.

Liza’s creativity as an artistic director, curator and collaborator has taken flight in a large dynamic range of international projects. Through her love for dance, she collaborated in creating a performance around her solo work with modern dance company LeineRoebana, which toured extensively, as well as being a frequent collaborator of the National Ballet of the Netherlands. At the young age of 27 she was named artistic director of the Delft Chamber Music Festival, and during her tenure of 14 years expanded the festival into a multi-arts annual event taking a unique place in the Dutch cultural landscape. Liza commissioned numerous new works, of which many have found a lasting place in the repertoire. Each year she also commissioned and co-created a musical theatre performance based around the festival theme. Most importantly, the festival built a broad circle of like-minded musicians and friends with whom she continues to perform on major concert stages throughout the world.

Growing up in family of professional musicians was deeply formative to the musician she became. Her first musical memories are of playing with her toys under the piano while her parents, immigrants from Russia to the Netherlands, worked on Beethoven cello sonatas, and of dancing to her sister practicing Chopin etudes. The choice of the violin might not have been all-encompassing for Liza until her early teens, but what was always very clear was her great love for music. Through the careful guidance of her teachers Alla Kim and Herman Krebbers, musical enthusiasm and instrumental expression united, resulting in her winning the Dutch National Violin competition at age 17. 

After spending some years at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she met many musicians who became lifelong collaborators, her most important teacher was David Takeno in London. Many musical mentors along the way were invaluable guides as she shaped her creative identity.  Philippe Hirschhorn, a close family friend for whom she played regularly from an early age until his untimely death, gave her essential understanding and knowledge about what can be searched for in music. Her early encounters with Nobuko Imai gave direction and a wider spectrum of possibility. Walter van Hauwe, Frans Bruggen and Anner Bylsma opened wider into the rich world of baroque music and interpretation, and Elisabeth Leonskaja shone as an example as a selfless performer. 

Next to her busy life on stage Liza is now herself much in demand as a teacher.

In 2006 Liza received the Dutch Music Prize, the highest governmental award for young musicians. In 2021 she was made Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau, a royal acknowledgment for her contribution to the Dutch cultural scene.

Born and raised in Bordeaux, France, Laurent Grillet-Kim studied with Atar Arad at Indiana University where he won the Viola Concerto and the String Quartet competitions. While at IU, he was regularly invited to play with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and actively collaborated with a number of faculty members such as Alex Kerr, Eric Kim, Emile Naoumoff and Atar Arad. Upon graduation, Laurent joined the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra as Principal Viola in 2014.

The Calgary Herald described him as ”a superlative first chair violist” whose performance was “a star turn with his sound beautifully clear and the music excellently shaped,” after his solo appearances with the CPO.

As a guest principal violist, he has performed with the Toronto Symphony and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Laurent is the father of two adorable children, Louis and Alma.

The recipient of a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Oliver Herbert’s natural musicianship and connective performances are carving a unique path in the world of music. As a soloist, Oliver’s collaborations include appearances with the San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia, Erfurt Philharmonic, and Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has worked with conductors such as Michael Tilson Thomas, Juanjo Mena, and Alexander Shelley. 

Driven by the living quality and relevance of the works he presents to audiences, Oliver sees his role as a cellist as being a conduit for magical musical messages. His work is fueled by a passion for music ranging from past centuries to the present, with concerto performances spotlighting works from C.P.E. Bach to Haydn, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Ibert, Elgar, Barber, Shostakovich, Schnittke, Lutoslawski, and Vasks, among others. Current collaborations with composers include premieres of a new solo work by Chelsea Komschlies as well as a piece for cello, percussion, and electronics by Andrew Moses. His recent projects include performances of the complete Bach Cello Suites at Capital Region Classical and the complete Beethoven Cello Sonatas at Guarneri Hall in Chicago. 

As a chamber musician, Oliver appears regularly at leading festivals and venues such as the Rheingau Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Marlboro, La Jolla SummerFest, Verbier Festival, ChamberFest Cleveland, Bridgehampton, Caramoor, CMS Palm Beach, and the Ravinia Festival. During his two summers at Marlboro, Oliver had the opportunity to work closely and perform with legendary pianist Mitsuko Uchida, the festival’s director.

Sam Loeck joined the Calgary Philharmonic as Principal Bass in 2016. A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, Sam completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Nebraska. He then earned a Master’s degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he studied with Bruce Bransby and was named winner of the IU Bass Concerto Competition. Sam has performed extensively as Guest-Principal Bass with the London Symphony Orchestra (UK), and served as a substitute bass with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Oregon Symphony.  

When he’s away from the instrument, Sam is an avid woodworker and enjoys solitude in the mountains.

Violist Jesse Morrison is currently in his third season as a member of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. He was recently living in Toronto where he frequently played with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, as well as the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Jesse graduated in May 2017 with a M.M from the New England Conservatory (NEC) in Boston, studying with Kim Kashkashian. He had his solo debut in Jordan Hall when performing as the winner of the Chamber Orchestra Competition at NEC in 2016 and again in 2017 with the Symphony Orchestra. Recipient of the 2016 Sylva Gelber Award, Mr. Morrison is an avid chamber musician and is an alumnus of festivals such as Yellow Barn, Kneisel Hall, the New York String Seminar, the Banff Centre and Domaine Forget. Jesse has also participated as artist in residence at the Flatirons Chamber Music Festival in Boulder, CO, “Concerts in the Barn” in Quilcene, WA, Sunset Chamber Music Festival in Los Angeles and NEXUS Chamber Music in Chicago. He was a member of the Neruda String Quartet in 2015-16 in Boston and from 2011-2015, he was the violist in the Arkadas String Quartet based in Toronto. A native of Toronto, Ontario, Jesse received a B.M. from the University of Toronto under Teng Li and an A.D from the Glenn Gould School under Steven Dann. Mr. Morrison is artistic director for Music for Food – Canada, which is a musician-led initiative that raises resources and awareness in the fight against hunger.

Praised for her evocative lyricism and joyful, genuine approach, young American violinist Aubree Oliverson is proving to be one of most compelling artists of her generation, distinguishing herself with clear, honest, and colourful performances, which have been described as “powerful… brimming with confidence and joy” (Miami New Times) and “masterful” (San Diego Story).

In demand as a concerto soloist, recent and forthcoming highlights include performances with the San Diego Symphony (under Edo de Waart), Utah Symphony (Conner Gray Covington), Pacific Symphony, Columbus and Des Moines Symphonies (Carl St. Clair), Roma Tre Orchestra, Brno Philharmonic (František Macek), and the Pasadena Symphony (Nic McGegan), in works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Bruch, Haydn, Saint-Saens, Dvorak and Barber. In 2021, she joined the Louisiana Philharmonic for a two-week residency during which she performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (under Carlos Miguel Prieto) as well as chamber music.

In recital, having made her Carnegie Hall Weill Hall recital debut at age twelve, she has gone to perform to sold out audiences at the Grand Teton Music Festival, SOKA Performing Arts Centre, and the SCERA Centre for the Performing Arts, and has upcoming recitals in Rome, Los Angeles, and in Ridgecrest, California as part of Midori’s Partners in Performance Recital Series. She has featured on NPR’s From The Top numerous times.

Alabama native soprano Susanna Phillips continues to establish herself as one of today’s most sought-after singing actors and recitalists. Ms. Phillips is a recipient of the prestigious Met Opera 2010 Beverly Sills Artist Award. She has sung at the Metropolitan Opera for 12 consecutive seasons in roles including Musetta and Countess Almaviva. Role highlights include Fiordigili, which The New York Times called a “breakthrough night”, and Clémence in the company’s premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de Loin.

Last season saw Ms. Phillips’s return to her native Huntsville, engagements with OSNY and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Celebrity Boston Series, Bravo! Vail, and a world premiere of Picker’s “Awakenings” at OTSL. Desired by the world’s most renown orchestras, Ms. Phillips opened the Oregon Symphony’s 125th Anniversary season performing Mahler’s Second Symphony. She has appeared with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra. She is dedicated to oratorio works with credits including Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and the Fauré and Mozart Requiems. Other career highlights include Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare and the title role of Agrippina with Boston Baroque, Stella in Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Renée Fleming, and Birdie in Blitzstein’s Regina.

The eloquent Israeli-US pianist Roman Rabinovich has been highly lauded by The New York Times, BBC Music Magazine, the San Francisco Classical Voice and others. He has performed throughout Europe and the United States in venues such as Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Centre in New York, the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and the Terrace Theater of Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Rabinovich has participated in festivals including Marlboro, Lucerne, Davos, Prague Spring, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. An avid chamber musician, he is also a regular guest at ChamberFest Cleveland.

Rabinovich has earned critical praise for his explorations of the piano music of Haydn. At the 2018 Bath Festival, he presented a 10-recital 42-sonata series, earning praise in The Sunday Times. Prior to that, in 2016 as artist in Residence at the Lammermuir Festival in Scotland, he performed 25 Haydn sonatas in 5 days, and over two seasons, in 2016 and 2017, he performed all Haydn’s sonatas in Tel Aviv. During the pandemic Rabinovich and his wife violinist Diana Cohen have been playing free weekly concerts outside their front yard.

Dubbed “a true polymath, in the Renaissance sense of the word” (Seen & Heard International, 2016), Rabinovich is also a composer and visual artist.

Rabinovich’s 2020-21 highlights include Berg Kammerkonzert with violinist Kolja Blacher and Scottish Chamber Orchestra, solo recital tours in UK and US, including three-concert Haydn Day in Wigmore Hall, debut at Lofoten Piano Festival. This season he appears in duo recitals with violinists Kristof Borati, Benjamin Beilman, cellist Camille Thomas, pianist Zoltán Fejérvári and chamber music with Escher and Dover Quartets. Rabinovich’s orchestral appearances include the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Sir Roger Norrington, Meiningen Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, the NFM Leopoldinum and Szczecin Philharmonic in Europe, and the Seattle Symphony, the Sarasota Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony, the Sinfonia Boca Raton and James Judd in the US.

Solo recital appearances include International Piano Series at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Ruhr Piano Festival, Liszt Academy, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully and Walter Reade Theatre, the Houston Society for the Performing Arts, the Washington Performing Arts Society, Vancouver Recital Society, Chopin Society in St Paul, MN, the Janáček May International Music Festival.and the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff. As a chamber musician Rabinovich appeared with violinist Liza Ferschtman in, among others, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus and the BeethovenHaus Bonn.

Roman Rabinovich made his Israel Philharmonic debut under the baton of Zubin Mehta at age 10. He was a top prizewinner at the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 2008, while in 2015, he was selected by Sir András Schiff as one of three pianists for the inaugural “Building Bridges” series, created to highlight young pianists of unusual promise. Born in Tashkent, Rabinovich immigrated to Israel with his family in 1994. He now resides in Canada with his wife violinist Diana Cohen and daughter Noa.

Violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti has a musical career of broad versatility. Before becoming the inaugural Director of Mercer University’s McDuffie Center for Strings, she was concertmaster of the Florida Orchestra and Oregon Symphony.

She has premiered concertos for GRAMMY winner Matt Catingub and her Mercer colleague Christopher Schmitz, collaborated with James Ehnes for Prokofiev’s “Sonata for Two Violins” and Bartók’s “44 Duos” — both contributions to Chandos recordings receiving consecutive Juno Awards for Classical Album of the year 2014 and 2015 — and she performed the complete cycle of Beethoven String Quartets in Seoul, Korea with the Ehnes Quartet. They have recorded Barber, Sibelius, Shostakovich and Schubert quartets, in 2021, mid and late Beethoven quartets, and most recently in 2022, Dvořák’s “American” String Quintet with violist Paul Neubauer.

Recognized as a deeply expressive artist, Moretti enjoys the opportunity to travel and perform concerts around the world. Her many festival appearances include Bridgehampton, ChamberFest Cleveland, Evian, La Jolla, Meadowmount, Seattle, Music@Menlo and Manchester Music Festival. She has served as guest concertmaster for the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Houston, Pittsburgh; the New York Pops and Hawaii Pops; and the festival orchestras of Brevard, Colorado and Grand Teton.

The Cleveland Institute of Music has honored her with an Alumni Achievement Award, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music their Fanfare Award, and she was named to Musical America’s “Top 30 Professionals” in 2018.  Director of the McDuffie Center since 2007, Amy Schwartz Moretti holds the Caroline Paul King Violin Chair and has developed and curates the Fabian Concert Series. She led the Center’s Young Artists in an ensemble performance at Carnegie Hall, was featured with a McDuffie Center student at the Supreme Court Grand Hall in Washington DC, and celebrates the many awards Center students achieve, including one of her violin students who won the 2022 MTNA National Young Artist String Competition.

Moretti lives in Georgia with her husband and two sons, enjoying swimming and being at the soccer field and tennis courts with her boys.

Chris Sies is a percussionist and sound artist who seeks to bring visceral sonic and performative experiences to audiences. A unique performer with “virtuoso flair” (Detroit Free Press), Chris has appeared with such groups as New Music Detroit, The National Arab Orchestra, Man Forever, The Black Earth Ensemble, My Brightest Diamond, and the Fulcrum Point New Music Project, among many others.

As a composer and collaborative artist, Sies has worked in many facets including dance, performance art, and multimedia with works presented The Percussive Arts Society, The American College Dance Association, The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Detroit’s Strange Beautiful Music, the Princeton Sound Kitchen, and The Bowling Green New Music Festival.

Chris is the percussionist with the cross-continental powerhouse ensemble Latitude 49, with recordings on New Amsterdam Records, Furious Artisans, and New Focus Recordings. He is currently based in Calgary, Alberta where he is on the music faculty at the University of Calgary and appears regularly with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.

Rising star of the cello Jonathan Swensen is the recipient of the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant and was recently featured as both Musical America’s ‘New Artist of the Month’ and ‘One to Watch’ in Gramophone Magazine.  Jonathan first fell in love with the cello upon hearing the Elgar Concerto at the age of six, and ultimately made his concerto debut performing that very piece with Portugal’s Orquestra Sinfónicado Porto Casa da Música.

September 2022 saw the release of Jonathan’s debut recording ‘Fantasia’, on Champs Hill Records, an album of works for solo cello, including Bent Sørensen’s ‘Farewell Fantasia’, composed for and dedicated to Jonathan and which he premiered in 2021. The album received rave reviews on its release,including from Gramophone, BBC Music, and The Strad which printed “An exciting young talent emerges. I would gladly buy a ticket to see Swensen on the strength of this appealing calling card.”

Jonathan has performed with orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, Mobile Symphony, and the Greenville Symphony.  He has performed recitals and community engagement activities at Ithaca College, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, and Arizona Friends of Chamber Music; and is a  frequent performer at festivals both in the U.S. and Europe, appearing among others at the Tivoli Festival, the Copenhagen Summer Festival, the Hindsgavl Summer Festival, Chamberfest Cleveland, Krzyżowa-Music, and the Usedomer Musikfestival.

The 2022-23 season sees Jonathan Swensen returning to the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra under Hartmut Haenchen  and the NFM Leopoldinum in a play-direct programme, as well as his debut with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra under Douglas Boyd. He will also perform the Dvorak Concerto with the Slovak State Philharmonic Košice both in Košice and at the Festival Allegretto Žilina following his recital debut in 2022, where he was awarded the Festival Prize for the most distinguished performance. In the U.S., he performs Shostakovich’s 2nd Concerto with the New England Conservatory Philharmonia and Hugh Wolff, Lalo Concerto with Aiken Symphony in South Carolina, give recitals at the Casals Festival and the Morgan Library and Museum, and performs chamber music at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Chamberfest West, and Camerata Pacifica.

Jonathan has captured First Prizes at the 2019 Windsor International String Competition, 2018 Khachaturian International Cello Competition, a recipient of the Musikanmelderringens Artist Prize in 2020,  and the Jacob Gades Scholarship in 2019 in Denmark.  He made his critically acclaimed recital debuts at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater and New York’s Merkin Concert Hall under the auspices of Young Concert Artists in 2020 after winning first prize in the YCA International Auditions in 2018.  A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Jonathan continued his studies with Torleif Thedéen at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, and Laurence Lesser at the New England Conservatory, where he will complete his Artist Diploma in May 2023.

Nicholas Algot Swensen (b. 1999) is a Danish/American violist and conductor. A top prize winner of competitions such as the Juilliard concerto competition, Primrose international viola competition (Los Angeles), Nedbal international viola competition (Prague) and Øresunds Soloist competition he has been a soloist in concertos by Walton, Bartok and Mozart collaborating with Odense Symphony orchestra, The Juilliard Orchestra and the Colburn Orchestra most recently in collaboration with conductor Sir Antonio Pappano.

He has received numerous acknowledgments from foundations such as Leonie Sonning prize, P2 Danish radio award, Carl Nielsen foundation, Wilhelm Hansen foundation and Jacob Gade foundation. He has played chamber music all his life and has performed with celebrated musicians such as Andras Schiff, Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, The Danish String Quartet, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Trio con Brio, and others.

His first serious music studies were taken in Lübeck, Germany with prof. Barbara Westphal whereafter he studied in Copenhagen with Lars Anders Tomter and most recently in New York with Heidi Castleman. He has studied conducting at the Malko Academy for young conductors in Copenhagen with Fabio Luisi and at the Panula Academy in Helsinki with the legendary Jorma Panula.

Nicholas plays on a viola by brothers Amati from 1616 kindly loaned to him by Anders Sveaas Almennyttige Fond.

Josué Valdepeñas enjoys a diverse career as a musician and is currently the Assistant Principal Cellist of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. Along with the Calgary Phil, he has also been engaged by other prominent Canadian orchestras including the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as guest principal cello and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as soloist. Born and raised in Toronto, he began his early musical studies as a pianist and later picked up the cello at the age of seven. Before further committing to the cello, he made his soloist debut as a pianist performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.20 in D minor conducted by Jacques Israelievitch with the Koffler Chamber Orchestra.

Mr. Valdepeñas received his undergraduate degree (B.M.) at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music as a student of Eric Kim. While at IU, he won the concerto competition with Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations and performed as soloist with the IU Chamber Symphony and Uriel Segal conducting. He was also a founding member of the Donatello String Quartet, with
whom he won the prestigious Kuttner Quartet Competition in 2012 and made their Carnegie Hall debut in Weill Recital Hall later that year.

After his time at IU, Mr. Valdepeñas then went on to pursue his Artist Diploma at the Colburn School with Clive Greensmith. During his graduate studies, some of his most notable performances included soloing with the Colburn Orchestra and going on tour with the Sphinx Virtuosi in 2014. The tour brought them to some of America’s truly great concert halls which
include Carnegie Hall, The Krannert Center for Performing Arts, and the Shalin Liu Performance Center, among others.

For many summers, Mr. Valdepeñas was a regular attendee of the Aspen Music Festival and School. Additionally, he has attended the Banff Chamber Music Residency, the Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s Program for Piano & Strings in 2014 and 2015, and the New York String Orchestra Seminar in 2011 and 2012.

In addition to his artistic endeavors, Mr. Valdepeñas currently serves as President of Calgary Musicians Association (Local 547).

Violinist Hojean Yoo was born in Seoul, South Korea, and has performed as a soloist and chamber musician at major venues.

Hojean regularly appears in recital series as a Young Artist of Kumho Art Hall Foundation since 2008, she was selected as a Fellow Artist of the La Jolla Music Festival, Schumann Festival Concert, and Seoul Spring Festival-fringe Festival in South Korea. Hojean has performed with Euro Asia Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonia, Seoul National University Philharmonic, and Seoul National University String Chamber orchestra, among others, and her performances broadcasted on Korean Radio station (KBS).

She is a recipient of top prizes at several competitions, at Music Education News Concours, Busan Music Competition, Seoul Chamber Music Competition, and Berlin International Competition in Seoul. She was also selected as a semi-finalist in the Schmidbauer International Competition and the Johannes Brahms Competition in Austria.

A dedicated passionate orchestral and chamber musician, Hojean is a member of Ardor Piano Trio and she served as a member of Huntington Quartet. She has performed at the Jordan Hall, Academy Art Museum, American Shakespeare Center, Friedberg Hall, Kumho Art Hall, and Seoul Art Center.

Hojean’s festival appearances include the Banff Chamber Music Society, Beethoven Institute, Great Mountains Music Festival, Heifetz Music institute, La Jolla Music Society, Sarasota Festival, and Verbier Festival. She has worked and collaborated with members of Borromeo, Brentano, Emerson, Guarneri, Parker, St. Lawrence Quartets, and renowned artists including Amit Peled, Anni Kavafian, Christoph Henkel, Daniel Philip, Frans Helmerson, Gil Kalish, James Dunham, Kim Kashkashian, Laurence Lesser, Mark Steinberg, Pamela Frank, Paul Coletti, and Philip Setzer.

Hojean commenced studies in Seoul at the age of 8. She graduated from Yewon Art School, Seoul Art High School, and received her Bachelor’s of Music from Seoul National University under Kyung Sun Lee. Furthermore, she studied with Soovin Kim and received Master’s Degree from Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and Graduate Diploma from New England Conservatory. Currently, she plays in the first violin section at Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.