Where Are They Now

Born in 1997 in Surgut, Siberia, pianist Simon Karakulidi was educated in the Russian piano tradition. He began studies with Prof. Mira Marchenko at the Central Musical School in Moscow in 2013. In 2016, he made the decision to relocate to Parkville, Missouri to work with Van Cliburn competition gold medalist Stanislav Loudenitch. An aspiring polymath with interests ranging from politics to philosophy, Karakulidi will be pursuing his master’s degree at the Yale School of Music, a tuition free program at Yale University.

Karakulidi is strongly enthusiastic about North American contemporary music, and has given a number of performances of works by David Lang and Nico Muhly. He is especially concerned with the format of classical music concerts (if “classical music” still means anything today), and hopes to ignite interest in art music by making performances more interactive and accessible.

Most recently, Karakulidi took the gold medal at the 2019 Wideman International Piano Competition and the third prize of the 2019 Olga Kern International Piano Competition. He is also a prizewinner of the First Vladimir Krainev Piano Competition in Moscow (Second Prize and two special awards), and the “Astana Piano Passion” Piano Competition (First Prize). In June 2018, Karakulidi was awarded the Enlight Prize at the Art of Piano Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2019, he received First Prize at the Ann & Charles Eisemann International Young Artists Competition and the Grand Prize of the Naftzger Competition. In the summer of 2019, Karakulidi was a laureate in the International Keyboard Institute & Festival Competition in New York City.

Following recent prize-winning successes at some of the world’s most prestigious international competitions, including Queen Elisabeth, Concours de Genève, and Paulo, Canadian-born, Berlin-based cellist Bryan Cheng has established himself as one of the most compelling young artists on the classical music scene. He made his sold-out Carnegie Hall recital debut at age 14, his Elbphilharmonie debut aged 20 with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (Joshua Weilerstein), and in 2022 was the first cellist to be awarded the coveted Prix Yves Paternot in recognition of the Verbier Festival Academy’s most promising and accomplished musician.

In the 2022-23 season, Cheng makes his Debüt im Deutschlandfunk Kultur with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (Alpesh Chauhan) at the Berliner Philharmonie playing Saint-Saëns No. 2, returns to the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (Laurence Equilbey) with Beethoven Triple and National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa (Yan Pascal Tortelier) with Saint-Saëns No. 1, and appears with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra (Christian Arming) playing Haydn No. 1, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (Daniel Raiskin) playing Korngold and Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations, Orchestre Symphonique de Sherbrooke (Jean-Michel Malouf) playing Elgar, Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra (Marc David) playing “Saint-Saëns No. 2,” and Wiener Stadtorchester.

Previous solo highlights include appearances with the Brussels Philharmonic at BOZAR, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande at Victoria Hall, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Lahti, Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, Springfield (MO) Symphony Orchestra, Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, and Schleswig-Holsteinisches Sinfonieorchester, as well as a coast-to-coast Canadian tour with the National Youth Orchestra as winner of the Canada Council for the Arts’ Michael Measures Prize. Cheng has collaborated with such esteemed conductors as Giordano Bellincampi, Jonathan Darlington, Stéphane Denève, Jacques Lacombe, Susanna Mälkki, Peter Oundjian, Matthias Pintscher, and Dalia Stasevska.

As member of the Cheng Duo, CelloFellos, and as chamber musician, Cheng performs extensively across the globe. He has had the privilege of working with partners such as Angela Hewitt, Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt, and Antje Weithaas. Recital and festival highlights this season include debuts at Munich’s Gasteig, Berliner Philharmonie’s Kammermusiksaal, and Orford Musique, re-invitations to the Großer Saal of the Elbphilharmonie, Brussels’ Flagey, Halifax’s Cecilia Concert Series and Port Hope’s Friends of Music, recital tours throughout South Africa, the Pacific Northwest (California, Idaho, Montana, Washington), and Vancouver Island, as well as appearances at Switzerland’s Verbier Festival, Germany’s Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Poland’s Krzyżowa Festival, and Québec’s OSM Virée classique, in recital with violinist Andrew Wan. Previous international festival appearances include Heidelberger Frühling, “Spannungen“ Heimbach, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Trasimeno, Usedom, Aspen, Ottawa Chamberfest, Toronto Summer Music Festival, Festival of the Sound, and Indian River.

Over the years, Cheng has accumulated a concert repertoire spanning five centuries, and is equally committed to both traditional masterworks and the music of his time. He has commissioned and given eleven world premieres, including two pieces by Canadian composer Alexina Louie at his second Carnegie Hall recital, the North American premiere of a cello concerto by British-Russian composer Gabriel Prokofiev (grandson of Sergei) at Koerner Hall with the Esprit Orchestra, and a multimedia project featuring five new Canadian works by composers from all regions of the country at the National Gallery of Canada.
Cheng has released a trilogy of critically-acclaimed albums on German classical label audite: Russian Legends (2019, selected by BBC Radio Scotland as Album of the Week), Violonchelo del fuego (2018), and Violoncelle français (2016, selected as one of WCRB Classical Radio Boston’s top 8 CDs of 2017). His recordings have further been lauded by The Times (UK), Süddeutsche Zeitung, ORF Radio (Austria), pizzicato magazine (Luxembourg), and WholeNote Magazine (Canada), for their “musical sensitivity,” “maturity and perfection,” “extremely imaginative and personal interpretation,” “taste, sure flair for phrasing, and beauty of sound.”

Formerly studying with the late cellist and conductor Yuli Turovsky and Hans Jørgen Jensen of Northwestern University, Cheng is currently pursuing his master’s degree at the Universität der Künste Berlin in the studio of Jens Peter Maintz. Over the years, he has also been mentored by David Geringas, Frans Helmerson, Menahem Pressler, Laurence Lesser, Richard Aaron, David Finckel, and Jian Wang.

Cheng plays the “Dubois” Antonio Stradivarius cello, Cremona, 1699 graciously provided to him by Canimex Inc. from Drummondville (Québec). He is a recipient of the Deutschlandstipendium and has been supported by the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation with generous multiyear scholarships.

His diverse artistic endeavors range from a TEDx talk comparing Mozart and “Seinfeld,” to his reconstruction of a forgotten 125-year-old work by Charles Martin Loeffler, to performances of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in its original form on an elongated clarinet that he commissioned. Johnson’s recent and upcoming performances include appearances at Chamber Music Northwest, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Ravinia, Phoenix Chamber Music Festival, Emerald City Music, Maverick Concerts, Music Mountain and Yellow Barn, as well as solo recitals at The Kennedy Center and Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess series. He is also a regular performer at the Annapolis Chamber Music Festival, Archipelago Collective Chamber Music Festival and Caroga Lake Music Festival. As a concerto soloist, he has performed twice with the Vienna International Orchestra, as well as with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Caroga Arts Ensemble, Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra and the CME Chamber Orchestra. Since 2022 he has served as the clarinetist of the award-winning quintet WindSync, one of only two American wind quintets with a full-time, international touring schedule. WindSync is represented by MKI Artists.

Driven by his interest in shedding fresh perspective on familiar music, Johnson has authored numerous chamber arrangements of repertoire ranging from Mozart and Debussy to Gershwin and Messiaen, and performed them around the country with such artists as the Miró Quartet, Valerie Coleman and Han Lash. Other distinguished chamber music collaborators include David Shifrin, Lucy Shelton, Ani Kavafian, Anthony Marwood, Allan Vogel, William Purvis, Imani Winds, the Callisto and KASA Quartets, New York New Music Ensemble, Frisson Ensemble, Metropolis Ensemble and American Modern Ensemble. Upcoming performances include collaborations with Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom, Peter Wiley and Timothy Cobb.

Johnson is the winner of the Hellam Young Artists Competition and the Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition; other recent accolades include the Saint Botolph Club Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award and the inaugural Lee Memorial Scholarship from the Center for Musical Excellence. He has recorded commercially for Hyperion Records, MSR Classics and Musica Solis Productions, as well as a recent recording project at Abbey Road Studios with WindSync.

Johnson’s writing about music has been published by the international journal The Clarinet, as well as in program booklets by Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Northwest, Yale and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and as liner notes accompanying albums by David Shifrin, Ricardo Morales, Lloyd Van’t Hoff and the Center for Musical Excellence. He holds graduate degrees from the Yale School of Music, where he was twice awarded the school’s Alumni Association Prize. Johnson’s major teachers include David Shifrin, Nathan Williams and Ricardo Morales, and he is now a doctoral candidate at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York under the mentorship of Charles Neidich and Kofi Agawu.

Korean cellist Chae won Hong is the 3rd prize winner in 2018 Aram Khachaturian International Competition , earning the privilege of Audience prize and Beethoven Prize which was given by Krzysztof Penderecki, with promising several engagements with Ludwig van Beethoven Easter festival Warsaw, Poland. Hong extensively performs with orchestras throughout Europe and the United States in such prominent venues as the Seoul Art Center Grand Concert Hall in Seoul, IBK Chamber Hall in South Korea, Rudolfinum in Prague, Czech Republic, Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall) in New York, Juanita K. Hammons Hall in Missouri, L’eglise Madeline, Politema Garibaldi in Sicily, Palermo. She has appeared as a soloist for a New Year’s gala concert at Dvorak Hall, Czech Republic. Most recently, Hong performed under the baton of Sergey Smbatyan at Khachaturian Grand concert hall in Yerevan, Armenia.

Among the number of concert halls she has been featured, her recent highlights include performance with Nürnberg Symphoniker, San Remo Symphony Orchestra, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, Korean Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Baroque Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Michigan, and Les Violons de France.

Her interest in musical and academical engagement has led her to participate in numbers of music festivals. She participated in Great Mountain Festival and Kronberg masterclass in Germany and Seoul, working with legendary mentors such as Bernard Greenhouse, Miklos Perenyi, Frans Helmerson, Jens Peter Maintz, and Gary Hoffman.

In collaborative participation, Hong collaborated in many music festivals such as Water Island Music Festival in St. Thomas and Curaçao in Dominican Republic, Gegen den Strom Piano Festival in Frankfurt, Bad Ems in Germany, Barbizon, Bordeaux and Gargilesse in France as a guest cellist. She is also regularly invited to appear as a soloist in the Jeanne d’Arc Festival in Paris and Orleans as she occasionally performs in Festival International Decordes in France. Most recently, Hong was invited to the prestigious music festival “Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival” in Warsaw, Poland.

Hong studied at Korea National University of Art with Myung-Hwa Chung, and Kang Ho Lee, at Jacobs School at Indiana University, at Michigan State University with Suren Bagratuni where she has been being the recipient of full scholarship for her entire academic years.

Hong has triumphed in multiple national and international competitions winning grand prize at Carnegie Hall competition in New York and the MAK Music Competition in Seoul, Korea, Hellam International Young Artist Competition in Missouri.

Besides of her recent musical achievements, Hong is a laureate of Haydn International Music Competition (grand prize), Japan-Osaka International Music Competition, the Music Journal Competition, Hanjun Music Competition (former KBS Music competition), Baroque Chamber Orchestra Music Competition, the Busan MBC music competition, the Ewha Music Competition as a second prize winner.

Hong plays on a 1865 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume.

Korean-American violinist and violist Brian Hong is forging a career as a soloist and chamber musician. Known for his commanding stage presence and thoughtful ear, Hong has performed concertos with such orchestras as the Julliard Orchestra, Fairfax Symphony, American Youth Philharmonic, Chesapeake Orchestra, US Army Orchestra, National Philharmonic, and the Springfield Symphony. A dedicated chamber musician, Hong’s festival credits include Marlboro, Yellow Barn, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, the Taos School of Music, Kneisel Hall, and the Perlman Music Program.

Hong is a graduate of Julliard’s Artist Diploma program under the guidance of Laurie Smukler and Catherine Cho. As a Fellow of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, he performed and taught in a variety of venues in New York City and abroad, as well as maintaining a two-year teaching-artist partnership with Celia Cruz High School for Music in the Bronx. Hong also holds a master’s degree from the Julliard School, where he was awarded a prestigious Kovner Fellowship. He earned his bachelor’s degree under Donald Weilerstein from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he was a member of three different honors ensembles and studied both classic and contemporary quartet repertoire with mentors including Laurence Lesser, Kim Kashkashian, Donald Weilerstein, and Lucy Chapman.

Hong is gaining recognition for his thoughtful and empathetic approach to teaching. As a guest artist, he has taught private lessons, public masterclasses, and chamber coaching on both violin and viola at George Mason University’s Reva and Side Dewberry Family School of Music, Missouri State University, and the Julliard School. He has also taught live virtual masterclasses for the Joven Camerata de El Salvador as well as the Edward Said National Conservatory of Palestine through the Project: Music Heals Us Novel Voices Distance Learning Program. His mission as a teacher is to provide thoughtful and well-rounded instruction to students that maximizes their musical inspiration while illumination the technical steps needed to achieve repeatable results. Hong believes in bringing the unique qualities of each student to life, and in the right of every student to have a high-quality musical education regardless of socio-economic status.

Hong is a Co-Artistic Director of NEXUS Chamber Music Chicago in Illinois, an artist driven collective of musicians whose mission is to make classical music culturally relevant through live concerts and multimedia content. He is also a musician and digital media editor for Project: Music Heals Us, currently recording and video-editing performance and lecture videos of the complete string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven for their course entitled “Music for the Future”. In his spare time, Hong can be found brewing espresso or single origin pour-overs at his home coffee bar.

Having already performed as soloist with the Houston Symphony and the Boston Pops, cellist Alexander Hersh has quickly established himself as one of the most exciting and versatile talents of his generation. He has received top prizes at competitions worldwide including the: 2022 Pro Musicis International Award, 2020 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, 2019 Astral Artists National Auditions, National Federation of Music Clubs Biennial Young Artists Competition, New York International Artists Association Competition, Friends of the Minnesota Orchestra, Ima Hogg, Schadt, Artist Concerts Series National Solo Competition, Luminarts Classical Music Fellowship, Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award, Hellam Young Artist Competition, Boston Pops/New England Conservatory Competition, Jefferson Symphony International Young Artists Competition, Society of American Musicians, Saint Paul String Quartet, and the Fischoff National Chamber Music competition.

The Musiq3 critics of the RTBF Belgian Radio company gave Hersh’s performance at the inaugural Queen Elisabeth Cello Competition in Belgium in 2017 a rave review: “With his scenic presence and charm, Hersh has everything to become the darling of the public.”

A passionate chamber musician, Hersh has performed the complete string quartets of Béla Bartok and Alban Berg and much of the rest of the chamber music canon at music festivals worldwide including: Marlboro, Caramoor, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Music@Menlo, I-M-S Prussia Cove, Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, Amsterdam Cello Biennial, Kneisel Hall, Lucerne, New York String Orchestra Seminar, Domaine Forget, and the Meadowmount School of Music.

Hersh is co-artistic director of NEXUS Chamber Music, a collective of international artists committed to stimulating interest in serious chamber music. NEXUS presents a two week chamber music festival across the city of Chicago each August, featuring new and obscure works alongside standard works of the chamber music canon. NEXUS plays to unusual and intimate venues with the mission of breaking down the barriers that often separate performers from audience members.

A fourth generation string player, Hersh’s parents, Stefan and Roberta, are both active professional violinists. His grandfather, Paul Hersh, is professor of viola and piano at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and his great grandfather, Ralph Hersh, was a member of the WQXR and Stuyvesant String Quartets, and principal violist of the Dallas and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras.

Raised in Chicago, Hersh began playing the cello at the age of 5. He studied with Steve Balderston and Hans Jørgen Jensen, and attended the Academy at the Music Institute of Chicago. Hersh received his B.M. from New England Conservatory (with academic honors) where he was a student of Laurence Lesser and recipient of the Clara M. Friedlaender Scholarship. In May of 2017, he received his M.M. from New England Conservatory where he studied under the tutelage of Paul Katz and Kim Kashkashian. Hersh was a recipient of the Frank Huntington Beebe fund for studies in Berlin during the 2017 – 2018 academic year where he studied with Nicolas Altstaedt at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule for Musik Berlin. He plays a G.B. Rogeri cello on generous loan from a sponsor through the Guarneri Hall Affiliate Artists program and Darnton & Hersh Fine Violins in Chicago, IL.

Steven O. Laraia joins the Boston Symphony Orchestra viola section in the fall of 2019 after serving as principal viola of the Sarasota Orchestra for from 2015 to 2019. He has performed at music festivals including the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Yellow Barn Music Festival, and Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, and has toured in the U.S., Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Cuba with Sejong Soloists, A Far Cry, and Sphinx Virtuosi.

Laraia has garnered top prizes at many competitions including the 2014 Hellam Competition, 2012 NEC Concerto Competition, 2012 MUSICCAS International Young Artists Competition, and Sphinx Competition, and he received the 2014 Borromeo Guest Artist Award. He holds bachelor and master of music degrees from the New England Conservatory, where he received the Abraham Skernick Memorial Presidential Scholarship. Laraia’s principal mentors include: Kim Kashkashian, Dimitri Murrath, Cathy Basrak, Byrnina Socolofsky, and Che-Hung Chen.

Cellist Matt Allen is quickly establishing himself as one of the leading young American cellists. Allen has won the gold medal in three of the world’s most important competitions; the Carlos Prieto International Cello Competition in Mexico, the Stulberg International String Competition in Michigan, and the Gaspar Cassado International Cello Competition in Japan, where he also received the highest spectator vote count for the Audience Award.

The Florida native began studying cello at the age of 4 with his father. After winning his first competition at the age of 8, he was introduced to the cello professor at Florida State University, the late Lubomir Georgiev. Georgiev, a prized student of the legendary cellist and teacher Janos Starker, immediately took Allen on as a student. After the passing of Georgiev, Allen resumed his studies with Greg Sauer. He also spent his high school summers at the Meadowmount School, studying with Hans Jorgen-Jensen.

Allen gave his first solo performance with orchestra and solo recital at the age of 11. Embarking on a solo career with a commanding repertoire of over 20 concerti, Allen has been featured with a number of orchestras throughout the United States including the symphonies of Cincinnati, Midland(MI), LaGrange(GA), Tallahassee, Kalamazoo, Lexington(MI), Asheville, and El Paso. Concerto performances have also been with the Orquesta de Concurso de Carlos Prieto, Cobb Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, Transylvania Symphony Orchestra, the Trinity Chamber Players, State Hermitage Orchestra of Saint Petersburg, Russia and the Tokyo Philharmonic. Allen has already been featured on the stages of the world’s most prominent venues including the Terrace Theater of Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, Chicago’s Cultural Center, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, and the Cleveland Orchestra’s Severance Hall, performing Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante for a sold out audience and live broadcast on Cleveland’s WCLV 104.9.

At age 16, Allen made his international recording debut with David Popper’s Hungarian Rhapsody alongside Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops for TELARC Records. Additionally, as a supplementary prize to receiving the Gold Medal at the Prieto International Competition, he will release a solo album on Urtext label.

Further studies have been at the Kronberg Academy Cello Meisterkurse, Pinchas Zukerman’s Young Artist Programme in Ottawa, Ravinia’s Steans Institute, and Itzhak Perlman’s Chamber Music Workshop, including close studies with Gary Hoffman, Janos Starker, Frans Helmerson, Tim Eddy, Ralph Kirshbaum, and Alisa Weilerstein. Allen has collaborated with Itzhak Perlman, Miriam Fried, Zuill Bailey, Don Weilerstein, Sergei Babayan, and members of the Cleveland, Cavani and Guarneri Quartets.

Allen completed his undergraduate studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music under the tutelage of Dr. Melissa Kraut. He currently studies as a Young Soloist at the Kronberg Academy with Frans Helmerson, and is the proud recipient of a cello made in 1898 by Vincenzo Postiglione generously on loan from the Strad Society.

Kyle Orth made his orchestral debut at the age of 15, playing “Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2” with the Plano Symphony Orchestra. Since then, he has appeared as a soloist with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Israel Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Oaxaca (Mexico), Dallas Chamber Symphony, Missouri Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Arequipa (Peru), Orquesta Sinfónica de Cusco, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, and the Richardson Symphony Orchestra, performing under the batons of Jaap van Zweden, Vahagn Papian, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Hugh Wolff, Anshel Brusilow, Hector Guzman, and others. He recently joined Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra on their subscription series “Tchaikovsky Marathon” to present Tchaikovsky’s underplayed Piano Concerto No. 2. His “unbuttoned enthusiasm” left a “sparkling impression” on critics, and the Star Tribune further commended his playing for its “thrillingly visceral” impact.

As a chamber musician, Orth has studied and performed in prominent international festivals including the Perlman Music Program, the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Pablo Casals Festival-Academie in France. He was a founding member of the Caspian Quartet, a competitively selected honors ensemble at the New England Conservatory. The quartet’s 2017 recital in Boston’s Jordan Hall attracted special attention for their performance of the Saint-Saëns Piano Quartet in E major, a work that remained unpublished until 1992. Orth has collaborated with artists including Donald Weilerstein, Jing Wang, Angelo Xiang Yu, and Rachel Lee Priday, and often appears as a violin-piano duo with his wife, Rachel Arcega Orth.

An internationally recognized competitor, Orth holds over twenty first-place wins in local, national, and international music competitions. Triumphs include Grand Prize in the Friends of the Minnesota Orchestra Young Artist Competition, as well as First Prize in the Dallas International Piano Competition and Hellam Young Artists Competition. He received top prizes at the Corpus Christi International Piano Competition and Wideman International Competition, as well as the Audience Award at the finals of the Washington International Piano Competition.

Recordings of Orth’s concerto and chamber performances have been broadcasted on WGBH-WCRB classical 99.5 in Boston and New Hampshire, as well as WRR radio, classical 101.1 in Dallas. During the coronavirus outbreak, he appeared in a long-distance collaboration recital with violinist Sean Lee for Salon de Virtuosi in New York, which was streamed live on The Violin Channel. A deeply committed educator, Orth spent several seasons with Cliburn in the Classroom, a program that brings live presentations of classical music to thousands of children in public schools across the DFW metroplex. He now serves on the faculty of Musicians for the World, a non-profit organization that provides lessons and masterclasses to vulnerable communities around the globe. He was a founding member and artist-faculty for the first MFW International Festival Peru (2022), a three-week festival featuring concerts and masterclasses in Lima, Cusco, and Arequipa.

Born in California in 1990, Orth spent much of his childhood in Texas and received a B.M. from Texas Christian University as a Nordan Young Artist. He holds a M.M. from New England Conservatory, and is now a doctoral candidate in NEC’s highly selective DMA program. During his time at NEC, he was awarded the Presser Foundation Graduate Music Award (2018) and a Presidential Scholarship (2016-2018); he also won the piano department concerto competition and performed Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto in Jordan Hall. His primary mentors were Wha Kyung Byun, John Owings, Alex McDonald, and Marcy McDonald; he also received coaching from Russell Sherman, Miriam Fried, Natasha Brofsky, Merry Peckham, and Vivian Weilerstein. Other meaningful contributions to his artistry include a love of nature, literature, poetry, religion, and his Latino-Jewish heritage.

Orth is currently on the piano faculty at Wheaton College Conservatory of Music in Wheaton, Illinois

Siwoo Kim is an “incisive” and “compelling” (Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times) violinist who plays with “stylistic sensitivity and generous tonal nuance” (John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune). Kim performs as soloist and chamber musician, and he is the co-founding artistic director of VIVO Music Festival in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

Kim gave the world premiere performance of Samuel Adler’s violin concerto which was written for him. He recorded the work on Linn Records to commemorate the composer’s 90th birthday, and the BBC Music Magazine praised his “notable fire & impassioned playing.” Kim made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut in Stern Auditorium with the Juilliard Orchestra. He has since performed with orchestras around the world including the Staatsorchester Brandenburgisches Frankfurt, Columbus Symphony, Gangneung Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Johannesburg Philharmonic, Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic, Orchestre Royal de Chambre, Seongnam Philharmonic, Springfield Symphony, and Tulsa Symphony in venues such as Walt Disney Concert Hall and Lotte Concert Hall.

As a chamber musician, Kim formed the “whip-smart” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker) Quartet Senza Misura, which performed at the Phillips Collection, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Seoul Arts Center and more during their three years together. He has had the honor of collaborating with artists such as Dénes Várjon, Itzhak Perlman, Jeremy Denk, Joyce DiDonato, Mitsuko Uchida and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard and Takács Quartets. Kim spent numerous summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, and he has been featured internationally as guest artist at the Tivoli Festival in Denmark, the Bergen International Festival in Norway, the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival in South Africa, the Fundación Juan March in Spain and with Ensemble DITTO in South Korea. He has been named top prizewinner in the California, Chengdu, Crescendo, Hellam, Ima Hogg, Juilliard, NFAA youngARTS, Schadt, Sejong, and WAMSO competitions.

Kim received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied under Robert Mann and Donald Weilerstein with full scholarship. He went on to complete a two-year fellowship with Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect. Prior to college, Kim studied under Roland and Almita Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago.

Kim performs on a 1753 “ex-Birgkit” Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin on generous loan through Rare Violins In Consortium.

Cellist Han Bin Yoon has captivated audiences internationally with his emotional performances and rich tone. A top prize winner at the Young Concert Artist International Auditions and the International Schoenfeld Cello Competition in Hong Kong, he has been praised by La Libre Belgique for his “superb resonances, deployed with elegance and a zest of sentimentality.”

Yoon’s 2022-2023 season includes a recital tour with pianist Henry Kramer, as well as European chamber music appearances with pianist Lily Maisky and violinist Sascha Maisky. Highlights from past seasons include solo performances with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, CASCO Phil, Vicente Chamber Orchestra, Thornton Symphony, Springfield Symphony (MO), Torrance Symphony, Palisades Symphony, Brentwood Westwood Symphony Orchestra, and the Huntsville Symphony, working with conductors such as James Conlon, Hugh Wolff, and Benjamin Haemhouts. In recital, he’s appeared at the Kennedy Center, the Scripps Research Auditorium, the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, BOZAR, and Flagey.

Based in Brussels, Yoon is the Artistic Director of the Belgium Cello Society, where his passion for programming is evidenced through the society’s diverse activities. In the last season alone, he has brought together an impressive list of international artists to Belgium including Gary Hoffman, Mischa Maisky, Frans Helmerson, Paul Katz, Pieter Wispelwey, Jan Vogler, Anne Gastinel, Roel Dieltiens, Marie Hallynck, and Jens Peter Maintz. In the most recent edition of the Brussels Cello Festival, Yoon also collaborated with the United Nations and the Pau Casals Foundation in a joint effort to show the power of culture for social awareness and change.

Yoon appears regularly at major music festivals such as the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove (UK), La Jolla SummerFest, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Sarasota Music Festival, the Yellow Barn Music School & Festival, and the Chamber Music Workshop at the Perlman Music Program. He has collaborated with the foremost artists of his time including Itzhak Perlman, Maria Joao Pires, Gary Hoffman, Ralph Kirshbaum, Paul Katz, Alexander Buzlov, Anthony Marwood, Antje Weithaas, Donald Weilerstein, Roger Tapping, Peter Frankl, Boris Berman, and members of the Cleveland, Juilliard, Orion and Tokyo String Quartets.

A dedicated and inspirational educator, Yoon is currently a professor of cello and chamber music at the Royal Conservatory of Mons (ARTS²). His artistic vision for the Belgium Cello Society Masterclasses and his leadership position as the Jury Chairperson of the BCS Cello Competition constantly attracts top cellists from around the world to his activities.

Yoon was an Artist in Residence at the famed Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth in Belgium from 2014-2017. During his residency, he was highlighted in major venues around Belgium including appearances at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel Festival in Flagey, Festival Musical du Brabant Wallon, Festival Musiq3, Korean Cultural Center Brussels, and BOZAR.

Yoon performs on a cello by Tanguy Fraval on special loan from the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth. He is an Official Artist of GEWA music and endorses PIRASTRO strings.

Madeleine Kabat is the newest tenured member of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s cello section. She was named Acting Assistant Principal Cellist in 2015, where she served as Acting Principal for her first 7 months with the orchestra. Prior to this appointment, she was principal cellist of the Amarillo Symphony in Texas and assistant principal in the Madison Symphony. Kabat has performed in the cello sections of the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Houston Symphony, and has appeared as guest principal cellist with the Orquesta Philarmonia Mexico, Madison Symphony, Mansfield Symphony, and CityMusic Cleveland.

Following her solo debut with the Cleveland Orchestra at age 18, Kabat has been featured as soloist with dozens of orchestras; most recently the Kettle Moraine Symphony (WI), Amarillo Symphony (TX), Renova Festival Orchestra (PA), Lima International Music Festival Orchestra (Peru), Gulf Coast Symphony (MS), Minot Symphony (ND), Red de Escuelas de Musica Orquesta (Medellin, Colombia), Cleveland Philharmonic (OH), Spoleto Festival Orchestra (SC), Festival Mozaic Orchestra (CA) and Marin Symphony (CA). In 2012 she made her solo debut at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC on an invitation to represent the Oberlin Conservatory. Kabat has stepped in at the last minute for soloist Alban Gerhardt to rehearse Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto with the Madison Symphony, to perform the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Springfield Symphony in Missouri, and with the Bach Dynamite & Dancing Society as a last minute replacement for Parry Karp.

An avid chamber musician, Kabat has recently performed in recital with pianists Simon Trpčeski in Houston and Orion Weiss in Los Angeles, and at the Lev Aronson Legacy Festival in Dallas and the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts in Brookfield WI. She performs regularly with violinist Frank Almond on his Frankly Music chamber series in Milwaukee, where in 2019 she performed alongside legendary cellist Lynn Harrell in Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht and Mendelssohn’s Octet. In 2011, Kabat was named Visiting Artist at La Sierra University in Riverside, CA. During the summer she performs at the Lakes Area Music Festival (MN), Festival Mozaic (CA), and is a faculty artist at the Renova Chamber Music Festival (PA). Kabat has appeared on faculty at Clazz, (a festival in the Tuscany region of Italy), twice as a featured artist for the Lima International Chamber Music Festival in Peru, and has also performed chamber music in China, Korea, and in Colombia (South America) numerous times as faculty artist of Medellin Festicamara. She has also taught masterclasses at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, Northwestern State University, Eastern Michigan University, Minot State University (ND), Sahmyook University (Seoul, Korea) and at La Jolla’s SummerFest.

Kabat began cello lessons in Cleveland at age 11, and has won top prizes in the competitions of Fischoff, Hellam, and Klein International. She holds diplomas from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Rice University, the Juilliard School, and most recently Oberlin Conservatory, where she was a teaching assistant for Professor Darrett Adkins. She resides in Milwaukee, WI and performs on a William Forster cello made in London in 1790.

YaoGuang Zhai is currently principal clarinet of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and associate professor of clarinet at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. As guest principal clarinetist, Zhai has played with the New York Philharmonic and the St. Paul Chamber orchestras. He has performed as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Victoria Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Summer Music Festival Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (China), Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra (Aspen), and the Springfield Symphony Orchestras.

During his study, Zhai won the Hellam Competition, Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, the Blount-Slawson Young Artists Competition, the Spotlight Award and the Pacific Symphony Concerto Competition. His instructors include distinguished clarinetists Yehuda Gilad, Donald Montanaro, Ricardo Morales and Joaquin Valdepeñas.

Zhai also serves as a clarinet faculty member at the Interlochen Summer Music Camp, the Curtis Institute Summer Music Camp, the Master-Players Summer Music Festival, and the National Youth Orchestra of China. He is a Buffet Crampon Clarinet and Vandoren artist.

Ben Gulley’s resume includes performances with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, Opera in the Ozarks, Chautauqua Opera, Minnesota Concert Opera and Cedar Rapids Opera. Gulley has also received awards from music festivals from around the country.

Boris Allakhverdyan was appointed Principal Clarinet of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2016. He previously served as Principal Clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Associate Principal Clarinet of the Kansas City Symphony. He is a founding member of the Prima Trio.

Allakhverdyan has appeared as a soloist with the Seattle, Tucson, Bakersfield and Springfield Symphony Orchestras as well as orchestras in Canada, South Korea, Dubai, Armenia and Kazakhstan. He has participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy (Switzerland), the Mecklenburg-Vorpommen Festival (Germany), the Emilia Romagna Music Festival (Italy) as well as Mainly Mozart San Diego, Twickenham, Colorado and Britt Music Festivals. Allakhverdyan is a winner of Rimsky-Korsakov International Woodwind Competition, Hellam Concerto Competition, the Tuesday Musical and the Oberlin Concerto competitions.

In addition, Allakhverdyan serves on the faculty at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music as well as at California State University at Fullerton. He previously taught at Peabody Institute of Music, Pacific Music Festival in Japan, Philadelphia International Music Festival and Interlochen Clarinet Institute in Michigan. He has given master classes at most prestigious schools in North and South Americas, Europe and Asia.

An active chamber musician, Allakhverdyan has performed in the MET Chamber Ensemble series at Carnegie Hall, at the Chicago Chamber Music Society, La Jolla Athenaeum, Dumbarton Oaks, the Dayton Art Institute, CityMusic Columbus, Da Camera Society, Fontana Chamber Arts, Cleveland Chamber Music Society and Shenzhen International Music Festival, to name a few. Allakhverdyan performs exclusively on Buffet Crampon clarinets and Vandoren mouthpieces and reeds.

Alexander Sprung is currently a member of the first violin section of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg. After finishing High School in Southern Germany, Sprung moved to the United States in order to study with Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he received his bachelor’s degree. Four years later, he moved to Berlin, Germany, to pursue a Master of Music degree at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler,” studying with Antje Weithaas. During that time, Sprung was able to further develop his musical personality by attending various masterclasses with artists including Ana Chumachenko, Donald Weilerstein, György Pauk, and Mihaela Martin.

Sprung has earned several prizes at competitions in Germany, Italy, France, and the United States resulting from successful musical development. As a soloist, he appeared with orchestras including the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.

Perhaps the biggest passion of Sprung’s musical career has been his focus on chamber music. As a teenager, he played in a piano trio, which won the German Youth Competition, and went on concert tours across Europe. Later, he attended countless chamber music festivals, such as Ravinia Steans Institute (Chicago), Yellow Barn (Vermont), Thy Chamber Music Festival (Denmark), or the Zermatt Festival (Switzerland). In these festivals, he had the opportunity to work with members of leading ensembles like the Juilliard, Borromeo, and Auryn Quartets, or the Sharoun Ensemble.

Some of his past chamber music partners include Frans Helmerson (Cello), Roger Tapping (Juilliard Quartet), Anthony Marwood (Violin), Atar Arad (Viola), and Karl Leister (Clarinet).

Sprung has a Japanese mother and a German father and speaks both languages fluently.

German-American cellist Paul Dwyer is fortunate to have a rich musical life playing both historical and modern cello. He is Assistant Principal cello of Lyric Opera of Chicago and teaches cello and chamber music at Notre Dame University. He is a founding member of the Diderot String Quartet and ACRONYM, loves to play chamber music and collaborate with young composers.

Dwyer was born in Munster, Indiana, but spent the most formative years of his life (according to Freud) in Vienna, where he decided to play the double bass, but was told he’s too small. At age eight his family moved to Munich, where Paul spent most of his time playing soccer, running subversive school newspapers and transcribing Metallica songs for a heavy metal cello quartet he formed with his best friends. In 12th grade, he made his opera debut singing the role of Polyphemus in Handel’s Acis and Galatea.

In 2003, Dwyer followed his roots back to the American Midwest for college, studying at the Oberlin Conservatory (Bachelor of Music ’07) and the University of Michigan (Master of Music ’08; Doctor of Musical Arts ’12), where he was the recipient of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship and a Theodore Presser Award. He also spent a year back in good old Europe as a Fulbright Fellow in Amsterdam, delving into contemporary music with Frances-Marie Uitti and baroque cello with Anner Byslma. In 2013, he completed additional graduate studies in the Historical Performance department of The Juilliard School.

Dwight Parry has been the principal oboist of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra since his appointment in 2007. Previously, he held the same position with the San Diego Symphony and was a Fellow with the New World Symphony. He has performed as guest principal oboist with groups including the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Korean Broadcasting Symphony, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Deutsches Symphonie of Berlin. Originally from coastal Southern California, he found his passion for music studying piano, voice, and jazz saxophone. It was not until late in high school, however, that he began playing the oboe, taking lessons from Joel Timm, and truly found his calling. He received his Master’s Degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music with John Mack and his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Southern California with Allan Vogel and David Weiss, a gentleman who also taught him to surf!

Parry performs and teaches internationally in concertos, recitals, masterclasses, and chamber music. Past appearances have featured the works of Mozart, Goossens, Haydn, Bach, Strauss, Vivaldi, Albinoni, Barber, Francaix and Marcello.

Parry is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Oboe at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Additionally, he has served as interim faculty or guest lecturer at the University of Michigan, Ohio University, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He also teaches privately and gives masterclasses at schools and festivals throughout the year. His summer activities include faculty positions at the Interlochen Academy for the Arts and the Stellenbosch Festival in South Africa. He was a judge and featured performer in the 2018 Sony International Oboe Competition held in Tokyo, Japan.

When not performing, you’ll often find Parry in the audience for concerts and shows, including Broadway, jazz, and bluegrass as well as opera and symphony performances. He spends the rest of his time hiking, running, volunteering, tossing frisbees, reading and creating curiosities in the kitchen.

Parry is a Loreé artist.

Pianist Aleyson Scopel is known for his insightful lyricism and refined technique as he imbues his interpretations with emotional charge. He constantly performs in the most prestigious halls of Brazil, often as soloist with leading orchestras, including the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra and the Minas Gerais Philharmonic. Other guest appearances with the Springfield Symphony and the New England Conservatory Symphony Orchestra in the United States, the Wollongong Symphony in Australia and the Orquestra do Norte in Portugal, as well as in solo and chamber settings in the United States, Europe and Asia. Venues comprise New York’s Carnegie (Weill) Hall and Boston’s Jordan Hall, Athens Conservatory (Greece), Steinway Hall (London), Palau de la música catalana and Reial Cercle Artístic (Barcelona), Sala São Paulo, Sala Cecília Meireles and Theatro Municipal (Rio de Janeiro).
A recipient of the Nelson Freire and Magda Tagliaferro awards, he has also been granted numerous prizes in international competitions such as the William Kapell, Villa- Lobos, Corpus Christi, Kingsville and Southern Highland International Piano Competition.

Besides the core masterpieces of the piano repertoire, Scopel has an avid interest in contemporary music that reflects the modern idiom of the instrument. He recorded, to great acclaim, the complete set of Cartas Celestes by Brazilian composer Almeida Prado for the Grand Piano / Naxos label. The fifteenth volume of the series was dedicated to him by the composer.

Scopel’s first piano chords were at the age of fourteen. Shortly after that he graduated with distinction in performance and academic honors from the New England Conservatory of Music, in Boston. During his years at the conservatory he studied with Patricia Zander and was also awarded the Blüthner prize. He then furthered his studies in Brazil with Celia Ottoni and Myrian Dauelsberg.

Violist Eric Nowlin has performed extensively throughout the United States as well as abroad. He currently serves as Principal Viola of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Nowlin’s performance of Berlioz’ Harold in Italy with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra was described by Classical Source as “outstanding…his distinctive timbre and sovereign musicianship at one with Slatkin’s perfectly paced account… totally compelling.”

Past accomplishments include receiving second prize in the prestigious Walter W. Naumburg Competition, first prize in the Irving Klein International String Competition; first prize in the Hellam Young Artists Competition; grand prize in the Naftzger Young Artists Competition; and winner of the Juilliard Viola Concerto Competition. Performances have included solo engagements with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Springfield Symphony in Missouri, Santa Cruz Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, and the Kumamoto Symphony in Japan, as well as recitals in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, and Mexico.

Nowlin is the violist of the Juno and Opus Award winning New Orford String Quartet. Other chamber music activities have included participating in festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont and the Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia. He was a regular member of the Jupiter Chamber Players in New York City, and also toured with Musicians from Marlboro and Musicians from Ravinia’s Steans Institute. Nowlin was previously the Associate Principal viola in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and has served as guest principal viola with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Metropolis Ensemble, and CityMusic Cleveland, as well as substitute viola with the New York Philharmonic.

Nowlin was an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, and also taught at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He spends time during the summer months teaching and performing at numerous music festivals in the United States and Canada.

He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, as a scholarship student of Samuel Rhodes. Nowlin plays on a 1757 JB Guadagnini viola on generous loan from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Lithuanian-American violinist Aleksandr Snytkin has been praised by critics as “an emerging virtuoso with delicate touch and a sense of intimacy, technical and artistic maturity.” Snytkin was born in 1977 in Potsdam, Germany and began his musical education at the age of seven, studying violin at the B. Dvarionas Music School. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Lithuanian Music Academy and Malmo Music Academy (Sweden). In 2001, Snytkin came to the United States to pursue a doctoral degree at the University of Kansas and later continued his education at the Southern Methodist University Artist Certificate program in Dallas, TX.

Snytkin has been soloist with several chamber orchestras in his native country, as well as being an active chamber musician, performing at festivals and participating in competitions in Lithuania, France, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Austria, Israel and the United States. He made his American orchestral solo debut, performing the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Springfield (Missouri) Symphony Orchestra, as a result of his winning the Hellam Young Artists Competition. He has also performed with many renowned musicians such as members of Accorda String Quartet (Kansas City), pianist Stanislav Ioudenitch, violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, violist Mikhail Iakovlev, Hansa String Quartet (Norway) and is a founding member of the ART Piano Trio (Lithuania) and the Emerald Piano Trio (Dallas, TX). Snytkin is a member of “I Palpiti” International Chamber Orchestra, former member of Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and served as guest concertmaster in the Irving and Plano Symphony Orchestras and the Bergen Philharmonic (Norway)

After serving as an assistant concertmaster of the Bergen Philharmonic in Norway for the 2009/10 season, Snytkin returned to become a permanent member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. He frequently performs in various chamber music groups and is a member of the PLUS string quartet. Most recent solo performances include Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra.

Vakhtang Kodanashvili made his New York City debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 2001. This was a result of his victory at The World Piano Competition in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. He is the prize winner of several international competitions: The Hellam Young Artist Competition in Springfield, Missouri, USA; The Nena Wideman Piano Competition in Shreveport, Louisiana, USA; The Bartok-Kabalevsky-Prokofiev International Piano Competition in Radford, Virginia, USA; 8th International Piano Competition “Spanish Composers” in Las Rozas, Spain; The 20th New Orleans International Piano Competition, Louisiana, USA.

In 1995, Kodanashvili moved to the United States and joined world renowned Alexander Toradze Piano Studio at Indiana University South Bend. As a member of the studio Vakhtang frequently performs throughout the world, appearing in such prestigious music festivals as Ravinia, Hollywood Bowl, Sandpoint, Edinburgh, Ruhr, Stresa, Ravenna, Rotterdam, Salzburg and many others. He has performed with numerous symphony orchestras, including South Bend, Elkhart, La Porte, Springfield, Spokane, Kingsport, Louisiana, Tbilisi, Orchestra Giovanile “Luigi Cherubini”, Post-Classical Ensemble, Mariinsky, BBC Philharmonic.

Kodanashvili earned both his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in piano performance at Indiana University South Bend and Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance at Michigan State University College of Music.

Pianist Shen Wen, a multifaceted performer, creator, thrives on making classical music fun and enjoyable to listeners.

Wen has performed across the globe. She has performed as soloist at Tchaikovsky Conservatory College, Shostakovitch Conservatory, Rachmaninov Hall, Powell Symphony Hall, Tsinghua University, Central Academy of Fine Arts, and Great Hall of People in China. Wen also continued to seize top prizes at various national and internal piano competitions. She is the first prize winner of the Kingsville International Piano Competition, Corpus Christi International Piano Competition, St. Louis Presentation Society, and Hellam Young Artist Competition. She was second prize winner at the Missouri Southern International Piano Competition and Maurice Hinson Piano Competition. Her performance was also heard on radio in Chicago and in Saint Louis.

Wen is an avid New Music performer who has numerous pieces written and dedicated to her. At Jordan Hall in Boston she performed Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire without a conductor and worked with the late Milton Babbitt before performing A Solo Requiem for two pianos and soprano. Also at Jordan Hall, Wen premiered “Whitman 5 songs” for soprano and piano at the request of the composer, Robert Ceely. In 2013 she recorded and released Joseph Tyldesley’s Sonata for Native American Flute and Piano; a piece which explored extended technique with Native American flute through traditional western musical forms.

Since moving to St. Louis in 2007, Wen has dedicated her time teaching young students to love music. Her students have served the community through giving recitals at nursing homes, organizing and performing fund-raising concerts for charities. Some of them competed and won top prizes at state, national, and international competitions such as the St. Louis Young Artist Competition, Missouri Music Teachers Association, Music Teachers National Association, American Protege International Competition, and Golden Key International Honor Society.

Wen is a graduate of New England Conservatory where she studied with Wha Kyung Byun. She also studied with Jane Allen and attended the Preparatory School to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China under the tutelage of Huisu Chen.

Megan G. Von Dreau is currently the 5th and 6th grade music teacher for Eubanks Intermediate School. She is the 2008-2009 K-6 District Teacher of the Year for the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, TX. She is also a percussionist with the Lone Star Wind Orchestra, and a freelance performer, adjudicator, and instructor in the Dallas area. Von Dreau received degrees from the University of Colorado (B.M.) and the University of Oklahoma (M.M.). Her major instructors have been Dr. Richard Gipson, Dr. Doug Walter, Leigh Howard Stevens, Steve Yates and Ralph Hardimon.

Von Dreau has maintained a busy career instructing students at elementary through university levels including experience at the University of Oklahoma, Encore Music Camp of Pennsylvania, Rappahannock Summer Music Camp (VA), Western Chamber Music Institute (CO), Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps, University of North Texas Summer Drumline Camp, and several high school programs throughout Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma.
She has performed in the United States, Europe, and Japan with such ensembles as the Lone Star Wind Orchestra, Boulder Philharmonic, Arapahoe Philharmonic, University of Colorado Wind Ensemble, Colorado Honor Band, Texas Wind Symphony, Metropolitan Winds, and the University of Oklahoma’s Percussion Ensemble, Steel Drum Band, and Symphony Orchestra. She has won two concerto competitions and performed Sarmientos’ “Concerto para Marimba y Orquesta” in 2000 with the Springfield, MO Symphony Orchestra. She can be heard on the Lone Star Wind Orchestra release “American Tapestry” on the Naxos Label.

Von Dreau has achieved a multitude of honors and awards including graduating cum laude from the University of Colorado, Best in Section with the Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps in 1993, and the Ronald J. Dyer Award for outstanding percussionist at the University of Oklahoma. In addition, she is a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda Honorary Music Society, the National Honor Society, and the Texas Music Educators Association.

Von Dreau resides in Texas with her husband Ron and their two amazing daughters Ella and Lilly.

Kourtova received a Bachelor’s Degree in Piano Performance from Florida State University in 2003, a Masters Degree in Musicology and Ethnomusicology from Florida State University in 2007, and a Doctorate in Musicology and Ethnomusicology from Florida State University in 2012.

Kourtova was a freelance accompanist from 1999 until 2016 and currently lectures at California State University – Monterey Bay. Kourtova is also an independent copyeditor and translator.

Praised for his “decisive, powerful playing” (Fanfare Magazine, USA) and “poetic grandeur and emotional depth” (The London Daily Press), pianist Tatsuya Nagashima first came to the international attention in 1993 when he captured the grand prize at Italy’s Ibla Grand Prize International Piano Competition, and the first prize at Berlin International Piano Competition.

Since then, he regularly performs at major festivals and venues around the world, from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, to Royal Albert Hall and Barbican Centre in London, Salle Pleyel Hall in Paris, Schauspielhaus and Deutsche Rundfunk Saal in Berlin, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society Hall and the Bolishoi Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in Russia, Musikverein in Vienna, Suntory Hall and Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo, as well as National Concert Hall of Taiwan.

As a guest soloist with orchestras, Nagashima has performed with world’s leading orchestras, including Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (London), Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchestra Berlin, Russian National Orchestra, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Russian Federal Orchestra, St. Petersburg Festival Orchestra, Kirov Orchestra, Czech National Symphony, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony, Houston Symphony Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra among many others. The conductors whom he worked with include Valery Gergiev, Daniel Gatti, Vaktang Jordania, Ian Hobson, Jahja Ling and Shigeo Genda.

As a conductor, he has lead the world’s distinguished orchestras include Czech National Symphony, Prague Radio Symphony, Saint Petersburg Symphony Orchestra (Russia), San Diego Sinfonietta, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra (USA), Kharkov Philharmonie Orchestra (Ukraine) as well as Rousse Philharmonic Orchestra (Bulgaria).

Nagashima have been featured on radio and TV all over Europe, Asia, Australia, South Africa, North and South America including NPR, PBS, ABC and NBC in the United States.

Voted into the DownBeat Magazine Critics and Readers Polls every year since 2013, Sara Caswell has released two highly-acclaimed albums under her own name — “First Song” and “But Beautiful” — and is slated to release her third in early 2023. She has been part of groups led by Esperanza Spalding (Chamber Music Society), Linda Oh (Aventurine), and David Krakauer (The Big Picture), and has performed and/or recorded with artists and ensembles including the WDR Big Band, Brad Mehldau, Brian Blade, John Patitucci, Donny McCaslin, Henry Threadgill, Dave Stryker, Helen Sung, Miho Hazama, Christian Sands, Regina Carter, Kishi Bashi, and Bruce Springsteen. She is a member of Joseph Brent’s 9 Horses trio, Chuck Owen’s The Jazz Surge, and the Caswell Sisters Quintet (a group she co-leads with her sister, vocalist Rachel Caswell). Caswell has performed at Carnegie Hall, Village Vanguard, Birdland, Jazz at Lincoln Center, SFJazz, Disney Hall, Barbican, and Blue Note (NYC and Tokyo), and at jazz festivals including Newport, Montreal, Montreux, North Sea, Banlieues Bleues, and Saratoga Springs, among others.

Currently on faculty at the Berklee College of Music, Manhattan School of Music, The New School, and New York University, Caswell’s formidable teaching experience also includes the Mark O’Connor String Camps, the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshops, the Indiana University String Academy, and a private studio. She has given numerous jazz string improvisation workshops and master classes and is involved with the Jazz Education Network and the American String Teachers Association.

As an award-winning classical violinist, Caswell has soloed with several orchestras, given numerous recitals, and performed as a chamber musician in a variety of settings.

A graduate of Indiana University which she attended under full scholarship as a Wells Scholar, Caswell received B.M. Degrees with High Distinction and an Artist Diploma in both Violin Performance and Jazz Studies. In 2006 she completed her M.M. Degree in Jazz Violin at the Manhattan School of Music. In addition to several years of study with the legendary Josef Gingold (classical), Stanley Ritchie (baroque), and David Baker (jazz), Caswell worked with many of today’s top jazz artists at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Summer Residency Program and at the Steans Institute for Young Artists at the Ravinia Jazz Festival.