(Click thumbnails for bios)
(Click thumbnails for bios)
Double bassist DAVID SCHOLL was recently appointed to the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He currently serves as principal bassist of the Madison, Quad City, and Dubuque Symphonies and frequently appears with the Elgin, Rockford, and South Bend Symphonies. He is also active in the new music community, including appearances as a guest artist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW series, the University of Chicago’s Contempo series, and the Spektral Quartet. He also appears as a guest clinician in music programs in and around the Midwest. As a product of the public school system, he makes it a priority to present in public schools and nonprofit music programs, including the UW-Madison’s Summer Music Clinic. Mr. Scholl received both his BA and MA degrees at Indiana University, where he studied bass with Bruce Bransby. While there he also studied historical performance from distinguished professor Stanley Ritchie, and spent the summers studying bass with Owen Lee, Jeff Turner, and Peter Lloyd. He continued studies as a Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and at the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, where he was principal bassist and studied with Alex Hanna.
Trumpet MATTHEW ONSTAD A Wisconsin native, Dr. Onstad serves as assistant professor of trumpet at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he teaches applied trumpet, coaches chamber music, and performs with the Whitewater Brass Quintet. While earning his Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees from UW-Madison, Dr. Onstad performed with the Wisconsin Brass Quintet, a faculty ensemble-in-residence. He holds the rank of staff sergeant in the 132nd Wisconsin Army National Guard Band and has performed with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Iowa, Illinois Symphony Orchestra, and the Isthmus Brass. He held the position of principal trumpet with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra from 2016-2021. Dr. Onstad has previously taught trumpet at St. Ambrose University, UW-La Crosse, and UW-Oshkosh. He has served as a master clinician with the Wisconsin Brass Quintet, the 132nd Army Band, and the Quad City Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Onstad received his Bachelor of Music degree from UW-Oshkosh. matthewonstad.com
Bassoonist ADRIAN MOREJON is a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician based in New York City. As a soloist, Mr. Morejon has appeared with the Talea Ensemble (New York City), the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the Miami Symphony, and has also performed in Vienna, Prague, and Memphis. He is co-principal of IRIS Orchestra and a member of the Dorian Wind Quintet, Talea Ensemble, and Radius Ensemble, and he has appeared with many other ensembles and festivals. Mr. Morejon is a prize-winner of the IDRS Gillet-Fox and Moscow Conservatory international competitions and a recipient of a Theodore Presser Foundation grant. He holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and Yale School of Music and currently teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Longy School of Music of Bard College, Purchase College Conservatory of Music, and Brooklyn College. (Website)
Harpist JOHANNA WEINHOLTS is principal harpist of the Madison Symphony Orchestra. She regularly performs with Madison Opera and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and has been a featured soloist with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. She is also Lecturer of Harp at the University of Wisconsin Mead Witter School of Music. Before moving to Madison in 2017, Ms. Weinholts was a freelance harpist in New York City and Toronto and has performed with orchestras all over the United States and Canada. She is an avid performer of both the standard symphonic repertoire and contemporary music and has performed with numerous contemporary ensembles in New York. She has recorded for musical artists in other genres and has been featured on hip-hop, pop, and folk albums. Ms. Weinholts holds a BA in classical harp performance from the University of Toronto and a graduate degree in performance from the Manhattan School of Music. She attended Interlochen Arts Academy where she studied with Joan Holland, professor of harp at the University of Michigan. Ms. Weinholts studied in Toronto with the renowned Judy Loman, one of the last pupils of Carlos Salzedo, a founder of the modern harp technique. (Website)
Horn player DAFYDD BEVIL is Acting Principal Horn of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and La Crosse Symphony. He is also Associate Lecturer of Horn at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, performs with the Whitewater Brass, and is the director of the UW-Whitewater Fall Horn Festival. He performs throughout the Upper Midwest as a symphonic, chamber, and solo musician. Dr. Bevil has performed at regional and international conferences of the International Horn Society and maintains an active recital schedule, performing for audiences throughout southern Wisconsin and at universities throughout the country. In 2019, Dr. Bevil completed an album titled “From Screen to Concert Hall” as part of his doctoral research. It is a collection of concert works for horn written by prominent film composers. The album includes the debut recording of Timeline (1945- ), a trio for horn, viola, and piano by Emmy-winning composer Bruce Broughton, as well as seldom recorded works by Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, and John Williams. He plays on Jungwirth horns crafted in Freischling, Austria. (Website)
Norma Sober, now retired, had a long career as an arts administrator in Madison as the director of outreach at the Madison Civic Center and as director of development and education at Madison Repertory Theatre. She is a member of the Madison Arts Commission and is an occasional consultant to cultural organizations, for which she sometimes gets paid.
David Polet was born in Holland, Michigan into a family of Dutch immigrants. One of his passions was living in Russia, studying language and literature, and attending the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Having worked at Epic Systems, and CUNA Mutual Group, he is currently employed at the State of Wisconsin Investment Board as a project manager. He likes to attend Chamber Orchestra concerts and is a member of the Salon series at Farley’s House of Pianos.
Beth Larson has a wealth of experience in nonprofit administration, fundraising, program development, and education as well as performance. As a violinist, Beth has performed with numerous ensembles including the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Willy Street Chamber Players, and Civic Orchestra of Chicago. She is the former Director of Development-Corporate Partnerships at Overture Center for the Arts in Madison. She is currently Vice President of Development for Habitat for Humanity.
Sarah Best is the award winning CEO/chief strategist of Sarah Best Strategy, a social media company. She has been invited to speak at various conferences around the country, and is an avid traveler, foodie, and multi-faceted creative. Sarah is also a poet who has been published in The Yale Review. She is a visual artist and film curator who has shown work at many significant Chicago institutions as well as the Echo Park Film Center, in Los Angeles. She is a Madison Downtown Rotarian and is secretary of the board of New Harvest Foundation.
Teri Venker has led arts marketing as the director of marketing for the Madison Symphony Orchestra, from which she recently retired, and for the Wisconsin Union Theater. Teri enjoys bicycling and international travel. She also volunteers at Lakeview Elementary School and with the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation.
Larry Bechler grew up playing music: first piano, then trumpet all the way through college marching band and into post-college bands. He has a love of live chamber music, spawned by BDDS and the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. He practices law at Murphy Desmond S.C and has served on various committees and commissions throughout his life.
Miriam Simmons served as the Assistant Dean for Professional Development in the Graduate School at UW-Madison. A major responsibility was directing the Wisconsin Idea Seminar, a five-day tour of the state that immerses forty faculty and academic staff members in the realities of Wisconsin. She is on the board of the Madison Civic Club and considers BDDS her new BFF.
Horn DANIEL GRABOIS is associate professor of horn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he plays with the Wisconsin Brass Quintet. He also conducts the UW-Madison Horn Choir; serves as curator of the interdisciplinary series SoundWaves, which he founded in 2012; and directs EARS (Electro-Acoustic Research Space), a research facility for faculty and students. For 30 years, Mr. Grabois has been a member of the Meridian Arts Ensemble, a New York-based new-music brass and percussion ensemble that performs around the world and has released twelve CDs. With Meridian, he has performed in 49 states, given over 75 world premieres, received two ASCAP/CMA awards for adventuresome programming, and has worked with students in the U.S., Europe, Latin America, South America, and Asia. Mr. Grabois has also played with many of the performing ensembles in New York City, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and New York City Ballet. As a composer, Mr. Grabois has published three etude books for horn as well as solo and chamber music. He recently released Air Names, his first solo CD recording, featuring his own compositions for electric horn, bass, and drums. Danielgrabois.com
Piano INNA FALIKS is an Ukrainian-born American pianist and professor of piano at UCLA. After her teenage debuts at the Gilmore Festival and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, she has performed with numerous orchestras, in solo appearances, and with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin and Keith Lockhart. Highlights of recent seasons include recital tours of China, and performances at the Ravinia Festival, the Festival Internacional de Piano in Mexico, the Fazioli Series in Italy, and Israel’s Tel Aviv Museum. Ms. Faliks collaborates with and premieres music by contemporary composers such as Billy Childs, Richard Danielpour, Timo Andres, and Clarice Assad. She created the poetry-music series Music/Words and regularly tours with her monologue-recital Polonaise-Fantasie, the Story of a Pianist, which tells the story of her immigration to the U.S. from Odessa. Her recordings include all-Beethoven and Rachmaninoff/Ravel/Pasternak discs for MSR Classics. Upcoming recordings include Reimagine Beethoven and Ravel (with nine world premieres) on Parma and the Master and Margarita project, with three world premieres and Liszt's Sonata in b minor, on Sono Luminus. Innafaliks.com
Viola KATARZYNA BRYLA-WEISS was born into a family of musicians and has gone on to earn more than two dozen prizes and awards in the U.S., France, and her native Poland. Ms. Bryla-Weiss regularly performs with orchestras, chamber groups, and as a soloist in an international career that has taken her across four continents. In 2019 she became a member of St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, the artistic core of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York City. She is also a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra and New York Pops Orchestra, and regularly appears with New York City Opera. Ms. Bryla-Weiss was a soloist with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra in their 2010 tour of China, and was soloist for the Maazel/Vilar Conducting Competition in Cracow in 2001. She has performed in numerous music festivals, including Classical Tahoe, Napa Valley Music Festival, Central Vermont Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Cactus Pear Music Festival, Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Singapore Sun Music Festival, and Las Palmas Music Festival in Grand Canary Island, Spain.
Violinist Paran Amirinazari, an avid chamber musician, is a founding member and artistic drector of the Willy Street Chamber Players. She is a former member of the Hunt String Quartet and has recently earned her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Cello TRACE JOHNSON, is committed to music-making of all styles and genres. Johnson has appeared as a chamber musician, soloist, and orchestral musician in a wide variety of settings in the U.S. and around the world. Equally at home teaching in the studio or performing on stage, he enjoys a varied career as a cellist, teacher, and musician. He is a cellist in the Sarasota Orchestra in Sarasota, Florida, the Madison Symphony Orchestra, and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. He is a regular substitute with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed in chamber recitals with faculty from SUNY Purchase, the University of Toronto, Florida Atlantic University, Palm Beach Atlantic University, Florida International University, Shenandoah University, and Queens College in New York City. Johnson is a Collins Fellowship Recipient at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree. (Website)
Pianist RANDALL HODGKINSON, grand prize winner of the International American Music Competition sponsored by Carnegie Hall and the Rockefeller Foundation, has performed with orchestras in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Boston, and Cleveland, and abroad in Italy and Iceland. In addition, he has performed numerous recital programs spanning the repertoire from J.S. Bach to Donald Martino. He is an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and performs the four-hand and two-piano repertoire with his wife, Leslie Amper. Festival appearances include Blue Hill (Maine), Bargemusic, Chestnut Hill Concerts (Madison, Connecticut), Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest (Portland, Oregon), and Mainly Mozart in San Diego. Mr. Hodgkinson recently released a CD of solo piano music on the Ongaku label. Other recordings include a live world premiere of the Gardner Read Piano Concerto for Albany records. Mr. Hodgkinson is on the faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and the Longy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Website)
Pianist CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR is known for his advocacy of music written in the past 100 years, but his repertoire spans four centuries and includes the complete Beethoven sonatas, the Liszt Transcendental Etudes, and Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Mr. Taylor has concertized around the globe, with his most recent international tours taking him to Korea, China, Singapore, Italy, and Venezuela. In the U.S. he has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Houston Symphony, and the Milwaukee Symphony. As a soloist he has performed in New York’s Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls, in Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and at the Ravinia (IL) and Aspen festivals. His recordings have featured works by Liszt, Messiaen, and present-day American composers William Bolcom and Derek Bermel. Mr. Taylor serves as the Paul Collins Associate Professor of Piano Performance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Website)
Cellist JOSEPH JOHNSON has been principal cello of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra since 2009, and previously held the same position with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He also serves as principal cellist of the Santa Fe Opera. Mr. Jonson was a member of the Minnesota Orchestra for 11 years. He is a founding member of the Prospect Park Players and the Minneapolis Quartet, which was honored with the McKnight Foundation Award in 2005. He has appeared throughout the world as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator. His festival appearances include performances at Santa Fe, Bard, Cactus Pear, Grand Teton, and Music in the Vineyards as well as the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, and the Virtuosi Festival in Brazil. Mr. Johnson's recent appearances include the Canadian Première of the Unsuk Chin Cello Concerto with the Esprit Orchestra, as well as Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with the Kingston Symphony and Etobicoke Philharmonic. He is also Assistant Professor of Cello at the University of Toronto as well as the cello coach for the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra and the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, FL. Mr. Johnson performs on a magnificent Paolo Castello cello crafted in Genoa in 1780. (Website)
Composer JOHN WINEGLASS has written several scores for shows on MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS and ABC as well as documentaries. He is a recipient of three Emmy Awards for outstanding achievement in music direction and composition for a drama series, and three ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards. He has received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pittsburgh Foundation, and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, along with a wide cadre of private sponsors. Recent commissioned works in the 2018-2019 season included four symphonic works, two with full chorus. His latest symphonic 2019 premiere of three movements, Unburied, Unmourned, Unmarked: Requiem for Rice, was dedicated to the lives of African and African-American forced laborers who cultivated the rice economy in the Lowcountry and based on research in South Carolina, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia. Mr. Wineglass is currently serving as composer-in-residence with the Monterey Symphony, where both of his pandemic response works, Alone for Solo Violin, Live EFX and Electronica and Alone Together for Percussion, Harp and Strings have been curated to be included in the permanent collection of COVID-19 response art at the Library of Congress. (website)
Cellist BION TSANG is the winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and bronze medal in the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Mr. Tsang has appeared with the New York, Mexico City, Moscow, Busan, and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestras, the Atlanta, Pacific, Civic, American and National Symphony Orchestras, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the Saint Paul and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestras, and the Taiwan National Orchestra. He has been a guest of the Chamber Music Societies of Boston, Brooklyn and Fort Worth, Chamber Music International (Dallas), Da Camera of Houston and Camerata Pacifica (Los Angeles), and has performed at the festivals of Marlboro, Portland, and Tucson, the Bard Festival, Bravo! Colorado, and the Laurel Festival of the Arts, where he served as Artistic Director for ten years. Mr. Tsang’s discography includes three live recordings: Beethoven: Sonatas and Variations for Cello and Piano (Artek), Brahms: Cello Sonatas and Four Hungarian Dances (Artek), and Bion Tsang and Adam Neiman: Live at Jordan Hall (BHM). Mr. Tsang released The Blue Rock Sessions (BHM) in 2017, featuring eighteen virtuoso cello and piano miniatures, Dvořák and Enescu Cello Concertos (Sony) in 2019, and Bach Cello Suites (Sony) in 2021. Mr. Tsang holds the Long Chair in Cello at the University of Texas-Austin.
Percussionist MIKE KOSZEWSKI is a member of Mr. Chair, Madison's genre-defying quartet, which recently released its second original album Better Days. With this ensemble he has toured extensively, held residence at Caroga Lake Music Festival, collaborated with Filipina vocalist and visual artist Leslie Demaso, created and performed a rearrangement of Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite, and is currently producing the debut album for hip hop/spoken word artist Dequadray. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison percussion studio, Mr, Koszewski performed, taught, and lectured throughout the Midwest and East Coast in the 2010s with the percussion ensemble Clocks in Motion. He is a member of the band Lovely Socialite, plays drum kit in the Ben Ferris Octet, and in recent years has performed with Oakwood Chamber Players, LunArt Festival, and Dubuque Symphony Orchestra. Mr, Koszewsk is also a versatile pit orchestra musician, performing regularly with Four Seasons Theatre, Forward Theater Company, Capital City Theatre, and Children's Theater of Madison.
Cellist LACHEZAR KOSTOV is associate principal cello of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 2009, performing rarely heard works for cello and piano by Ellen Zwilich, Nikolay Roslavets, and Dimitri Kabalevsky. Mr. Kostov was the national winner at the 2006 MTNA Young Artists Competition and has won the cello award at the Kingsville Competition, the grand prix at the International Music and Earth Competition in Bulgaria, and the concerto competitions at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and Rice University. With pianist Viktor Valkov, he won the first prize and all the special prizes at the Third International Liszt-Garrison Piano and Duo Competition. Prior to his appointment with the Baltimore Symphony Mr. Kostov was a tenured member of the San Antonio Symphony, and also performed with the Houston Symphony. He has appeared as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the Gewandhaus (Leipzig, Germany), and as a guest soloist and chamber musician throughout the U.S, Japan, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Bulgaria, and has performed at La Jolla Summer Fest and Cactus Pear Music Festival, and is a guest on faculty at the Texas Music Festival.
Oboist LINDSAY FLOWERS is the assistant professor of oboe at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music, where she is a member of the Wingra Wind Quintet and guides student-generated community engagement projects. She received a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Her background in athletics distinguishes her pedagogical approach through her emphasis on performance visualization, disciplined commitment, and supportive teamwork. Dr. Flowers is an oboist and English hornist with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and Quad Cities Symphony Orchestra. She previously was a member of the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, New Mexico Philharmonic, and Civic Orchestra of Chicago. Dr. Flowers was a founding member of the Arundo Donax Reed Quintet, bronze medal winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and has recorded a duo album with Dr. Andrew Parker released in 2023. She has performed with the Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Utah, and Nashville Symphony Orchestras and during recent summers with the Santa Fe Opera, Grant Park, Midsummer’s, Lakes Area, Apollo, Lake George, Castleton, Aspen, and Banff Music Festivals. In addition to performing and teaching, she is recognized for her maintenance and repair of oboe and English horn gouging machines. (Website)
Violist MADLEN BRECKBILL learned to play the violin in the Madison music scene—with the Suzuki Strings of Madison, the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Gene Purdue of the Buddy Conservatory of Music. She continued her studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and then at the Glenn Gould School of Music in Toronto, Ontario.. Breckbill lived in Berlin for four years, working as an orchestral trainee with Konzerthaus Berlin, as the violist of the TAIGA String Quartet in Denmark, and as a chamber music player for Villa-Musica in Rheinland Pfalz. Since her early years, Madlen has developed a love for the many-layered, communicative world of chamber music. She has participated in the Jupiter String Quartet at Madeline Island Music Camp, performed with violist Steve Dann at Domaine Forget (Quebec), and with Music by the Sea (British Columbia). In the summer of 2019, Ms. Breckbill started the Stoughton Chamber Music Festival. She enjoys working with both children and adults as a Suzuki teacher. (Website)
Percussionist DAVE ALCORN is a founding member of the percussion group, Clocks in Motion, committed to performing classic percussion literature and chamber music, as well as commissioning new repertoire. He was the principal timpanist of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra and has performed on a regular basis with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra and Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. In addition to western classical music, he is also active in music from various other cultures. He is the former president of the Brazilian Samba group Vencedores, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Mr. Alcon has studied instruments of the Middle East and is a former member of the University of Michigan Arabic Ensemble. Since 2007, he has been a staff arranger and composer for the Mt. Lebanon Percussion Ensemble. His arrangements and compositions have been performed by groups throughout the United States, including at the University of Michigan and the University of California-Los Angeles. Mr. Alcorn’s diverse background includes video and audio recording and editing of live concerts, closed studio sessions, and documentaries. He regularly records recitals and other musical events in the Madison, WI area. Mr. Alcorn holds a Master of Music degree in Percussion Performance from UW-Madison and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan.
Conductor KENNETH WOODS was appointed artistic director and principal conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra in 2013, and was recently appointed artistic director of both the Elgar Festival in Worcester, England, and the Colorado MahlerFest. As a guest, Mr. Woods has conducted ensembles including the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, D.C.), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the English Chamber Orchestra; has been featured on broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, National Public Radio, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; and has appeared at music festivals such as Aspen, Scotia and Lucerne. Under Mr. Woods’ leadership, the English Symphony Orchestra responded to the2020 Covid-19 lockdown, “Music from Wyastone," a series of virtual concerts including dozens of world-premieres of new works and new arrangements, such as a chamber version of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle. Mr. Woods’s blog, “A View from the Podium,” is one of the 25 most popular classical blogs in the world. He has spoken on Mahler on NPR’s All Things Considered and is a regular speaker on BBC radio programs. Kennethwoods.net
Bass NICK MORAN, a veteran of the Madison, Wisconsin, music scene, performs on both electric bass and the double bass in varied genres including jazz, Afro-Latin, hip hop, reggae, and funk. Mr. Moran has toured internationally and performed with a diverse collection of acts, including Ben Sidran, Lee ‘Scratch‘ Perry, Clyde Subblefield, and David ‘Fathead‘ Newman (Ray Charles’s sax player). He has also worked with such Madison music institutions as Harmonious Wail, the Gomers, Tony Casteneda, Anna Laube, Joy and the Boy, and the Tim Whalen Nonet. As a freelance bassist, Mr. Moran has recorded tracks and albums for a wide-ranging roster of artists including Gerri DiMaggio, University of Wisconsin-Madison music professor Les Thimmig, Clyde Stubbelfield, Hanah John Taylor, and reggae giants Natty Nation. His playing can also be heard in various Afro-Cuban, hip hop, R&B and funk loop libraries from Sony Music and Apple. In addition to his music career, Mr. Moran works as a production and development consultant for the Greater Madison Jazz Consortium. In 2014, he was named "Jazz Personality of The Year" at the Isthmus Jazz Festival by mayoral proclamation. In 2016, he joined the UW-Madison School of Music as jazz bass instructor.
Cellist KENNETH OLSEN joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as assistant principal cello in 2005. He is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and a winner of the school's prestigious concerto competition. His other awards include first prize in the Nakamichi Cello Competition at the Aspen Music Festival and second prize at the 2002 Holland-America Music Society Competition. His teachers have included Richard Aaron at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Joel Krosnick at New York's Juilliard School of Music and Luis Garcia-Renart at Bard College. He also has been a participant at the Steans Institute for Young Artists (the Ravinia Festival's professional studies program for young musicians) and at Boston University's Tanglewood Institute. A native of New York, Kenneth Olsen is a founding member of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, a conductorless string orchestra comprised of young musicians from orchestras and ensembles all over the country.
Violinist HYE-JIN KIM has performed as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and has appeared as a recitalist at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and London's Wigmore Hall. An active chamber musician, Ms. Kim has toured throughout the U.S. with Musicians from Marlboro and has made festival appearances at Marlboro (VT), Ravinia (IL), and Martha's Vineyard (MA). Ms. Kim has also served as a cultural representative for South Korea through concert and outreach engagement in Switzerland, Australia, and Kazakhstans. Awarded first prize at the Yehudi Menuhin Competition at age 19, Ms. Kim is also the winner of the 2009 Concert Artists Guild Competition and the Philadelphia Orchestra Concerto Competition. Ms. Kim's debut CD, From the Homeland, featuring music by Debussy, Sibelius, Smetana, and Janacek, in a collaboration with pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute, was released in spring 2014 on CAG Records. Born in Seoul, South Korea, Ms. Kim studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and earned her MA at the New England Conservatory. She is an assistant professor of violin at East Carolina University. She plays a Gioffredo Cappa violin crafted in Saluzzo, Italy, in 1687. (Website)
Baritone TIMOTHY JONES has performed in opera houses and with symphony orchestras in the U.S., Ecuador, Mexico, and the Czech Republic. He has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, St. Petersburg Chamber Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, and the Jacksonville Symphony. In opera houses he has performed leading roles in "The Marriage of Figaro," "Carmen," Die Zauberflöte," "Cosi Fan Tutte," "Don Giovanni," "Don Pasquale," "La Boheme," "Falstaff," "Macbeth," and "La Traviata." He has been a frequent guest with the Victoria Bach Festival, New Texas Festival, Round Top Music Festival, Ars Lyrica Houston, Cactus Pear Music Festival, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. As a committed performer of contemporary music, Mr. Jones has commissioned and premiered numerous compositions by leading composers of our time. He currently lives in Houston, where he serves on the faculty of the University of Houston.
Violist ARA GREGORIAN made his New Recital Hall debut and his debut as soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1997. Since then, he has performed in New York's Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and Alice Tully Hall; Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center; and in major cities throughout the world, including Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tel Aviv, and Helsinki. Throughout his career Mr. Gregorian has been active as a performer and presenter of chamber music. He is the founder and artistic director of the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival in Greenville, North Carolina, and has appeared at festivals worldwide. He has also performed as a member of the Daedalus Quartet, Concertante, and the Arcadian Trio, and has recorded for National Public Radio and the Bridge and Kleos labels. Mr. Gregorian is a member of the violin faculty at East Carolina University and has created opportunities for established musicians to mentor and perform with talented students through the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival's Next Generation concerts. Mr. Gregorian received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School. He performs on a Francesco Ruggeri violin from 1690 and a Grubaugh and Seifert viola from 2006. (Website)
Violin SUZANNE BEIA is co-concertmaster of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, concertmaster of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and second violinist in the Pro Arte Quartet. A native of Reno, Nevada, she began her musical studies on the viola at the age of ten. Three years later, she shifted her attention to the violin and made her solo debut at the age of fourteen with the North Lake Tahoe Symphony. Since that time, she has performed as a soloist with orchestras throughout the U.S. and Germany. Before coming to Madison, Ms. Beia held the position of principal second violin in the Wichita Symphony and has held concertmaster positions with the Reno Chamber Orchestra, Bay Area Women's Philharmonic, Spoleto Festival Orchestra, and Chamber Symphony of San Francisco. She also held the assistant concertmaster position in the New World Symphony. Her chamber music experience has been extensive: she has performed at festivals such as Chamber Music West, Telluride Chamber Music Festival, Token Creek, Festival de Prades, and Chamber Music at the Barn. Ms. Beia has served on the faculties of the Rocky Ridge Music Center and Florida International University.
Artistic Director and flutist STEPHANIE JUTT's performances of new music, transcriptions, and traditional repertoire have made her a model for adventurous flutists everywhere. Her transcriptions of Brahms sonatas were published by International Music Publishing, and an all-Brahms recording with pianist Jeffrey Sykes, Stolen Moments, was released in 2005 on Centaur. Trained at the New England Conservatory of Music, Ms. Jutt won the Concert Artist Guild and Pro Musicis International Soloist awards and received solo recitalist grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation. Ms. Jutt has performed in recital throughout the U.S., Europe, South America, and Asia. She has served as a board member and program chair for the National Flute Association. Ms. Jutt is principal flute of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and was awarded the Margaret Rupp Cooper Award in honor of her years of service, commitment to the orchestra, and musicianship. A recipient of a grant from the Kauffmann Foundation for Entrepreneurship, she is the founder of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Arts Enterprise, now Arts Business Initiative, a multi-faceted initiative that enables student artists to survive and thrive in today's creative economy. Ms. Jutt recently retired from the faculty of UW-Madison and resides in New York City. (Website)
Artistic Director and pianist JEFFREY SYKES has performed throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Western Europe. He made his Carnegie Hall debut with oboist Gerard Reuter and flutist Stephanie Jutt under the auspices of the Pro Musicis Foundation. He holds degrees with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden-bei-Wien, Austria, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he received his doctorate. He has garnered numerous awards, including the Jacob Javits Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education and a Fulbright grant to study at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt am Main. Dr. Sykes serves on the music faculty of the University of California-Berkeley and California State University, East Bay. He is a member of the San Francisco Piano Trio and resides in San Francisco. (Website)
SAMANTHA CROWNOVER is in her 25th year as Executive Director of Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society. A strong advocate for the arts, she is involved in many freelance arts and architecture-based projects, ranging from managing events for Performing the Jewish Archive at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Music, to consulting on works-on-paper purchases and collections management, to caring for historic buildings and property management. She recently restored the Brisbane House, a stone house on the National Register of Historic Places in Arena, WI, open to overnight guests. Past consulting projects include co-founding Arts Enterprise, now Arts Business Initiative, a UW-Madison program that teaches entrepreneurial skills to artists, and architectural studies for the cities of Racine and Milwaukee. She has served as interim director of the Madison Arts Commission and as a curator at Tandem Press, a fine art press affiliated with the UW-Madison Art Department. A college semester in Florence led to positions as an assistant at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and as staff for the American Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. She has also led the boards of directors of the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation, Capitol Neighborhood’s First Settlement, the Friends of the UW-Madison Geology Museum, and Wormfarm Institute in Reedsburg, WI. She is currently on the board at EAGLE School. She holds a BA and MA from UW-Madison. (Website)
Violist TOBY APPEL has appeared in recital and concerto performances throughout North and South America, Europe, and the Far East. He has been a member of the TASHI ensemble and the Lenox and Audubon Quartets. Mr. Appel has been a guest artist with the Vermeer, Manhattan, and Alexander Quartets and a frequent guest with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society and with jazz artists Chick Corea and Gary Burton. Festival performances include those with Mostly Mozart, Angel Fire, and Marlboro, as well as festivals in England, France, Korea, Germany, Italy, Finland, and Greece. Mr. Appel has narrated performances of A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten and L'Histoire du Soldat, by Igor Stravinsky, and is a frequent commentator for National Public Radio’s Performance Today. He has toured for the U.S. State Department and performed at the United Nations and at the White House. He is currently on the viola and chamber music faculties at the Juilliard School in New York City. Mr. Appel’s chamber music and recital recordings can be heard on the Columbia, Delos, Desto, Koch International, Opus 1, and Musical Heritage Society labels. (website)
Violist CAROL COOK has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in concert halls worldwide. Ms. Cook joined the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra in 2003 and was appointed principal violist in 2013. She has performed as soloist with the Chicago Philharmonic, Edinburgh Symphony, Guildhall Symphony, Cambridge Sinfonia, and Edinburgh Players and performed the Brahms Double Concerto alongside her brother Calum Cook with the Edinburgh Symphony. She has also appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and London Symphony Orchestra and is a member of the Rembrandt Chamber Players in Chicago, with whom she performs a wide variety of works ranging from baroque to contemporary commissions. She has appeared as a chamber musician at summer festivals in Banff, Verbier, Montreal, La Jolla, and San Antonio. At the Caramoor International Festival in New York, Ms. Cook was featured on the Rising Star series for two years running and performed as a member of the Caramoor Virtuosi. Ms. Cook is a former member of the Appalachia Waltz Trio with the Grammy Award-winning violinist Mark O’Connor. A native of Inverness, Scotland, Ms. Cook holds degrees from the Juilliard School, Oberlin Conservatory, and Guildhall School. (website)
Cellist JEAN-MICHEL FONTENEAU is a founding member of the San Francisco Piano Trio and Quatuor Ravel String Quartet, which was awarded two prizes at the Evian String Quartet Competition and won the first French Grammy Award, Les Victoires de la Musique Classique. The quartet has toured extensively around the world and created the first-ever string quartet residency program in France. Mr. Fonteneau performs frequently with such artists as Leon Fleisher, Menahem Pressler, Gilbert Kalish, Claude Frank, Peter Frankl, Kim Kashkashian, and members of the Amadeus, Juilliard, Pro Arte, Escher, Tokyo, and Fine Arts Quartets. He served on the faculty of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon, France, until 1999, when he moved to the U.S. to join the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He appears regularly at summer festivals, including the Yellow Barn Music Festival, Domaine Forget, Morges Summer Academy in Switzerland, and Oberlin at Casalmaggiore. Mr. Fonteneau's recordings can be found on the Musidisc-France and Albany Records labels. (Website)
Horn player KARL KRAMER JOHANSEN is a chamber musician and artist member of Dorian Wind Quintet, Jupiter Chamber Players, and Concerts in the Heights. He has appeared as guest principal with organizations such as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Munich Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Bergen Philharmonic. Recent solo appearances include Moscow’s 2014 Mozart-Marathon with the State Hermitage Orchestra of Saint Petersburg. Mr. Johansen is frequently invited to give masterclasses, lectures and recitals at leading institutions of higher education. In recent years, he often performs recitals comprised of his own original compositions. He has also has collaborated with composers in bringing new solo and chamber music repertoire to life: Wolfgang Plagge, David del Tredici, Bruce Adolphe, Billy Childs, Marc-Antonio Consoli and others. (website)
Textile artist CAROLYN KALLENBORN works with fabric and metal to create flowing garments and sculptural pieces. She shows her award-winning, hand-painted garments and sculptures in galleries and exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Her work has been shown in Beijing, China; Cheong-ju, Korea; the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona; Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Indiana; and other shows and galleries in St. Louis, Chicago, Atlanta and Cambridge, Mass. In addition, her work has been featured in such magazines as Fiberarts, Surface Design Journal and Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot. She received her BA and MFA in Textile Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ms. Kallenborn taught textiles and design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before jointing the faculty at Kansas City Art Institute. She is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Design Studies Department. She was an assistant professor in the Fiber Department at the Kansas City Art Institute from 2001 - 2007. Ms. Kallenborn currently serves as the coordinator for "Off The Grid," the 2009 Surface Design Association international textile conference. She was conference coordinator for "Uncovering the Surface," SDA's 2005 conference and was coordinator and juror for two major exhibitions for the SDA's 2003 conference.
Cello PARRY KARP is artist-in-residence and professor of chamber music and cello at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been cellist of the Pro Arte Quartet for the past 37 years. Mr. Karp is an active solo artist, performing numerous recitals annually in the U.S., and has recorded six solo CDs. As a specialist in new music, he has performed in the premieres of dozens of works, many of which were written for him, including concerti, sonatas, and chamber music. Unearthing and performing unjustly neglected repertoire for cello is a passion of Mr. Karp's. In recent years he has transcribed for cello many masterpieces written for other instruments, including all of the Duo Sonatas of Brahms. As cellist of the Pro Arte Quartet he has performed over 1,000 concerts throughout North, Central, and South America, Europe, and Japan. His discography with the Quartet numbers over two dozen recordings and includes the complete string quartets of Ernest Bloch, Miklos Rosza, and Karol Szymanowski. In 2012 he was a recipient of the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award at UW-Madison. In 2016 he was inducted as a Wisconsin Academy Fellow. (Website)
Pianist THOMAS KASDORF is active in the fields of chamber music, art song recital, opera, and musical theater and has concertized throughout the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Kasdorf has long held an interest in musical theatre. Beginning with his onstage debut at age 12 in The Wizard of Oz as a member of the Lollipop Guild, he has performed in over 200 productions as an actor, pianist, musical director, stage director, and conductor. With a special interest in the works of Stephen Sondheim, he has been called upon to prepare productions or perform in reduced orchestrations of Company, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Putting it Together, Side by Side by Sondheim, and Sweeney Todd. As a vocal coach, he has launched many of his students on careers in both musical theater and opera in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and internationally. He is currently artistic director of Middleton Players Theatre in Middleton, Wisconsin, and finishing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Mead Witter School of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a Paul Collins Distinguished Fellow.
Clarinetist ALAN R. KAY is principal clarinetist and a former artistic director of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and serves as principal clarinet with New York’s Riverside Symphony and Little Orchestra Society. Mr. Kay is the recipient of the Classical Recording Foundation’s Samuel Sanders Award, the C.D. Jackson Award at Tanglewood, a Presidential Scholars Teacher Award, and the 1989 Young Concert Artists Award with the sextet Hexagon. A founding member of the Windscape Quintet, he is a regular guest in chamber music venues throughout the world, including the Yellow Barn, Orlando (Holland), Bowdoin, and the Cape May Music Festival, where he curated a concert series for 25 years. Mr. Kay currently teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, the Juilliard School, and Stony Brook University, where he also serves as Executive Director of the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Kay has recorded with Orpheus, Hexagon, Windscape, and the Sylvan Winds; recent recording projects include Michael Torke’s Psalms and Canticles (2021) and Time (2022), and the Brahms Clarinet Quintet with Rusquartet for Etcetera Records and a full-length CD of the works of Rudolf Escher, both to be released in 2023.
Violinist LEANNE KELSO LEAGUE is the assistant concertmaster of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and associate concertmaster of the Madison Symphony Orchestra. She also teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and is a member of the Ancora String Quartet. Ms. League was a fellow at the New World Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas for three seasons, where she served as concertmaster and principal second violin. During that time, she also performed at the Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi in Italy for two summers. Ms. League enjoys playing the Baroque violin and has performed regularly with the Madison Bach Musicians, the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, and the Tallahassee Bach Parley. (Website)
Cellist BETH RAPIER has had a career as assistant principal cello of the Minnesota Orchestra and chamber musician that has taken her throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, Cuba, and South Africa. She was a founding member of the Rosalyra String Quartet and has twice been a recipient of McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowships. Ms. Rapier is a frequent guest at chamber music festivals, including Cactus Pear, Music in the Vineyards, Orcas Island, and Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society. With her husband, Anthony Ross, she gave the Minnesota Orchestra premiere of David Ott’s Concerto for Two Cellos, and appeared as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra in the world premiere of Sinfonia Concertante by Kevin Puts. Recordings include piano quartets of Fauré, string quartets of Beethoven, Bartok, Shostakovich, and Brahms, and a Grammy Award-winning Sibelius Symphony cycle. Most recently she had the honor of recording Five Spirituals by James Scott Balentine, with baritone Timothy Jones. She has organized numerous benefit concerts for Habitat for Humanity and the American Refugee Committee. (Website)
Cellist ANTHONY ROSS has been a member of the Minnesota Orchestra since 1988 and the leader of the cello section since 1991. Ross has appeared as soloist many times with the Minnesota Orchestra as well as the Moscow State Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, and many regional orchestras. Mr. Ross was awarded the bronze medal at the 1982 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. His numerous other prizes include the Stulberg Award, the G.B. Dealy Award, and the Parisot International Cello Competition. He was awarded a McKnight Artist Fellowship as a soloist, and again in 2005 as part of the Ross Rapier Cello Duo. Prior to the Minnesota Orchestra, Mr. Ross served as principal cellist of the Rochester Philharmonic in New York, taught at the Eastman School of Music, and served on the faculties of the Aspen Music Festival, Grand Teton Orchestral Seminar, and Madeline Island Music Camp. He has performed in many festivals throughout the U.S. and in Greece and France. Mr. Ross has recorded Rachmaninoff and Carter sonatas for Boston Records and the Bernstein Meditations with the Minnesota Orchestra. (Website)
Cellist ALISON ROWE is a doctoral candidate at Stony Brook University and a student of Colin Carr. Highlights of the 2018-2019 season include performances with the Three Village Chamber Players, the Steinem Quartet, and Taylor Ackley and the Deep Roots Ensemble, who recently released their debut album Songs from the Bitteroot (4Tay Records). In the past year, she performed with members of the Emerson String Quartet in the Chamber Music at the Barns series at Wolftrap in Virginia and the Hoch Chamber Music series at Concordia College in New York. As a soloist, she has performed numerous solo recitals throughout the U.S., including on Wisconsin Public Radio as a winner of the Neale-Silva Young Artists Competition and the Rising Stars series in Wisconsin. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Chicago College of the Performing Arts under the tutelage of Chicago Symphony Orchestra cellist Richard Hirschl. While at CCPA, she performed the Barber Cello Concero as a winner of the concert competition.
Violin STEPHANIE SANT’AMBROGIO enjoys a varied performing and recording career as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader. Ms. Sant’Ambrogio has performed as a soloist and chamber musician on the foremost stages of the U.S., as well as in Canada, Estonia, Sweden, Ghana, Italy, Peru, Chile and Mexico. In addition to her active performing career, she is devoted to teaching serious string players, many of whom have won positions in symphony orchestras and universities. She is currently Professor of Violin and Viola at the University of Nevada, Reno; violinist of the Argenta Trio; and Artistic Director Emerita of Cactus Pear Music Festival (TX), which she established in 1997 while serving as concertmaster of the San Antonio Symphony. Former First Assistant Principal Second Violin of The Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnányi, she toured and recorded internationally with this ensemble for eight seasons. Currently Concertmaster of the Fresno Philharmonic (CA) and Artistic Director of Chamber Music Reno, Ms. Sant’Ambrogio has a discography of over seventy-five orchestral and chamber music CDs. Ms. Sant' Ambrogio performs on a violin crafted in 1757 by J.B. Guadagnini of Milan. (website)
In 1998, violinist AXEL STRAUSS became the first German artist ever to win the Naumburg Violin Award. Mr. Strauss made his American debut at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and his New York debut at Alice Tully Hall in 1998. Since then he has given recitals in major North American cities, including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In 2007 he was the violinist in the world premiere performance and recording of Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby, written for him by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis. Mr. Strauss's discography includes the Brahms violin concerto, the three last violin concertos by Kreutzer, the complete Caprices for solo violin by Pierre Rode, and the complete works for violin and piano by George Enescu. Mr. Strauss has performed as soloist with orchestras in Budapest, Hamburg, New York, Seoul, Shanghai, Bucharest, and Cincinnati, and has served as guest concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony. In 2012 Mr. Strauss was appointed professor of violin at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal. Before moving to Canada, he was professor of violin and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Australian-born violist KATRIN TALBOT began her violin studies in Canada and continued them in Missoula, Montana, and Portland, Oregon, before abandoning violin for the lovely inner voice of the viola. On this instrument, she has appeared at the Red Hot Lava Chamber Music Festival in Hawaii, as a guest artist with the Pro Arte Quartet and Monte Verde Quartet, and with the Oakwood Chamber Players. She is a member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and, on occasion, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, as well as making an annual appearance in the Karp family Labor Day concerts. She has studied viola with Richard Blum and Guillermo Perich and violin with Eugene Andre and Raphael Spiro and has appeared on several chamber music CDs. Ms. Talbot is also a photographer; her book of photographs, Schubert’s Winterreise: A Winter Journey in Poetry, Image, and Song, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press, and her work has appeared recently in The New York Times. Combining music and imagery is a passion of hers, and she has collaborated on five such live concert presentations at the UW-Madison School of Music, including two of which are being presented this season at Interlochen, New York, and Miami.
Bayan player STAS VENGLEVSKI, a native of the Republic of Moldova,is a two-time first prize winner of the Bayan competition in the Republic of Moldova, which is part of the former Soviet Union. Mr. Venglevski is a graduate of the Russian Academy of Music in Moscow where he received his MA in music under the tutelage of Friedrich Lips. In 1992 he immigrated to the United States where he has made a career as an accordionist, musician, arranger, entertainer, and teacher. His repertoire includes his original compositions and a broad range of classical, contemporary, and ethnic music. He has toured extensively as a soloist throughout the former Soviet Union, Canada, Europe, and the United States, including numerous performances with Doc Severinsen, Steve Allen, and with Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion. He has also performed with symphony orchestras throughout the United States. He performed the world premiere of Concerto No. 2 by Anthony Galla-Rini and also the world premiere of Bayan and Beyond, composed for Mr. Venglevski by Dan Lawitts.He is a regular participant the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's Arts in Community Education Program (ACE); has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra (WA); has performed in television commercials and theater productions; produced 15 acclaimed albums, including a transcription of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite for Bayan as well as an album of original compositions. He has published several books of original compositions. Mr. Venglevski founded the Accordion XXI Century Series in 2010 to bring artists from all over the world to share their skills and cultures with Midwestern audiences. (website)
Violin CARMIT ZORI is the recipient of a Leventritt Foundation Award, a Pro Musicis International Award, and the top prize in the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition. She has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others, and has given solo recitals at Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Tel Aviv Museum and the Jerusalem Center for the Performing Arts. Her performances have taken her throughout Latin America and Europe, as well as Israel, Japan, Taiwan and Australia, where she premiered the Violin Concerto by Marc Neikrug. Ms. Zori appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has been a guest at chamber music festivals and concert series around the world. Ms. Zori is a regular participant at the Marlboro Chamber Music Festival in Vermont. She has participated in “Music for Food,” a concert series whose goal is to help relieve food insecurity across the nation. She also participated in concerts for Project Music Heals Us, a nonprofit outreach organization with a focus on the elderly and disabled, and is a member of the Israeli Chamber Project, an ensemble that performs chamber concerts in Israel and abroad as well as participates in educational outreach. Ms. Zori, who for ten years was an artistic director at Bargemusic, founded the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society in 2002. She is also professor of violin at Bard College Conservatory of Music, Rutgers University and at SUNY Purchase. (Website)