Gallery of 2023 Performers
Click on an artist’s photo or name below to read their biography.
Schedule & Tickets
Support the Festival
The festival is supported by generous financial contributions, volunteers, housing providers and service donations.
Latest News
Jon Nakamatsu in an Interview on Your Classical
Jon Nakamatsu in an Interview on Your Classical It seems to be human nature that when something is forbidden it becomes all the more enticing. When Jon Nakamatsu was a boy, no one in his family was allowed to touch the piano. Can you see where this is going? The story...
Among the most distinguished classical artists of his generation, clarinetist Jon Manasse is internationally recognized for his inspiring artistry, uniquely glorious sound and charismatic performing style.
Recent season highlights include return performances with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and debuts with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Erie Philharmonic, The Chappaqua Orchestra, Montana’s Missoula Symphony Orchestra and Oregon’s Rogue Valley Symphony. With pianist Jon Nakamatsu, he continues to tour throughout the United States as half of the acclaimed Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo. The Duo’s activities include the world premiere performances of Paquito D’Rivera’s The Cape Cod Concerto with Symphony Silicon Valley, conducted by Leslie B. Dunner.
Jon Manasse’s solo appearances include New York City performances at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, Hunter College’s Sylvia & Danny Kaye Playhouse, Columbia University, Rockefeller University and The Town Hall, fourteen tours of Japan and Southeast Asia – all with the New York Symphonic Ensemble, debuts in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Osaka and concerto performances with Gerard Schwarz and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, both at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall and at the prestigious Tokyu Bunkamura Festival in Tokyo. With orchestra, he has been guest soloist with the Augsburg, Dayton, Evansville, Naples and National philharmonics, Canada’s Symphony Nova Scotia, the National Chamber Orchestra and the Alabama, Annapolis, Bozeman, Dubuque, Florida West Coast, Green Bay, Indianapolis, Jackson, Oakland East Bay, Pensacola, Princeton, Richmond, Seattle, Stamford and Wyoming symphonies, under the batons of Leslie B. Dunner, Peter Leonard, Eckart Preu, Matthew Savery, Alfred Savia and Lawrence Leighton Smith. Of special distinction was Mr. Manasse’s 2002 London debut in a Barbican Centre performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with Gerard Schwarz and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
During the 2009-2010 season, Jon Manasse gave the world premiere performances of Lowell Liebermann’s Concerto for Clarinet & Orchestra with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Music Director Neal Gittleman – performances that were recorded for commercial CD release. Subsequent performances included those with the symphony orchestras of Evansville, Juneau, Las Cruces, North State (CA), Roanoke and the University of Massachusetts.
An avid chamber musician, Jon Manasse has been featured in New York City programs with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Walter Reade Theatre (on Lincoln Center’s “Great Performers Series”), The Sylvia & Danny Kaye Playhouse and Merkin Concert Hall; at the Aspen Music Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Colorado Springs Music Festival, Newport Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival and France’s Festival International des Arts, as well as the chamber music festivals of Bridgehampton, Cape and Islands, Crested Butte, Georgetown, St. Bart’s, Seattle and Tucson. He has also been the guest soloist with many of the leading chamber ensembles of the day, including The Amadeus Trio and Germany’s Trio Parnassus and the American, Borromeo, Colorado, Lark, Manhattan, Moscow, Orion, Rossetti, Shanghai, Tokyo and Ying String Quartets, and has collaborated with violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jon Nakamatsu.
Manasse is also principal clarinetist of the American Ballet Theater Orchestra and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. In 2008 he was also appointed principal clarinetist and Ensemble Member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York City. As one of the nation’s most highly sought-after wind players, has also served as guest principal clarinetist of the New York Pops Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and New Jersey, Saint Louis and Seattle Symphony Orchestras, under the batons of Gerard Schwarz, Zdenek Macal, Jerzy Semkow, Robert Craft and Hugh Wolff. For several seasons, he was also the principal clarinetist of the New York Chamber Symphony. Mr. Manasse has been a guest clarinetist with the New York Philharmonic in concerts conducted by Valery Gergiev and André Previn, and, during the 2003-04 season, served as the principal clarinetist of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, performing under the batons of Artistic Director James Levine and, among others, Andrew Davis, Valery Gergiev and Vladimir Jurowski.
In addition to the premiere performances of Lowell Liebermann’s Clarinet Concerto, which was commissioned for him, Jon Manasse has also presented the world premieres of James Cohn’s Concerto for Clarinet & String Orchestra at the international ClarinetFest ’97 at Texas Tech University and, in 2005, of Steven R. Gerber’s Clarinet Concerto with the National Philharmonic.
Jon Manasse has six critically acclaimed CDS on the XLNT label: the complete clarinet concerti of Weber, with Lukas Foss and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra; the complete works for clarinet and piano of Weber, with pianist Samuel Sanders; recording premieres of 20th Century clarinet works; “Clarinet Music from 3 Centuries,” including Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet (with the Shanghai Quartet), as well as music by Spohr, Gershwin and James Cohn; James Cohn’sClarinet Concerto #2; and the concerti of Mozart, Nielsen and Copland, with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. Also available are his recordings of Steven R. Gerber’s Clarinet Concerto with Vladimir Lande and the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony on the Arabesque label and Lowell Liebermann’s Quintet for Clarinet, Piano and String Trio on KOCH International. His debut CD with pianist Jon Nakamatsu, a harmonia mundi album of the Brahms Clarinet Sonatas, was released to international rave reviews, early in 2008. 2010 saw the release of concerti by Mozart and Spohr with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, also on the harmonia mundi label.
Jon Manasse is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he studied with David Weber. Mr. Manasse was a top prize winner in the Thirty-Sixth International Competition for Clarinet in Munich and the youngest winner of the International Clarinet Society Competition. Currently, he is an official “Performing Artist” of both the Buffet Crampon Company and Vandoren, the Parisian firms that are the world’s oldest and most distinguished clarinet maker and reed maker, respectively. Mr. Manasse is currently on the faculties of The Juilliard School, The Lynn Conservatory, and The Mannes School of Music.
Now in his third decade of touring worldwide, American pianist Jon Nakamatsu continues to draw critical and public acclaim for his intensity, elegance, and electrifying solo, concerto and chamber music performances. Catapulted to international attention in 1997 as the Gold Medalist of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition — the only American to achieve this distinction since 1981 — Mr. Nakamatsu subsequently developed a multi-faceted career that encompasses recording, education, arts administration, and public speaking in addition to his vast concert schedule.
This season Mr. Nakamatsu returns to live performances throughout the United States and in Europe. Between 2020 and the spring of 2021 he was engaged in a myriad of online events, including recording, masterclasses, and virtual interviews and lectures for organizations such as the Chautauqua Institution Piano Festival, Colorado College Summer Music Festival, Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute, the Van Cliburn Foundation, and the Chopin Foundation of the United States.
Mr. Nakamatsu has been a guest soloist with over 150 orchestras worldwide, including those of Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Florence, Los Angeles, Milan, San Francisco, Seattle, Tokyo, and Vancouver. He has worked with such esteemed conductors as Marin Alsop, Sergiu Comissiona, James Conlon, Philippe Entremont, Hans Graf, Marek Janowski, Raymond Leppard, Gerard Schwarz, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Osmo Vänskä.
As a recitalist Mr. Nakamatsu has appeared at New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, the Musée d’Orsay and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and at major centers in Boston, Chicago, Houston, London, Milan, Munich, Prague, Singapore, Warsaw and Zurich. In Beijing he has been heard at the Theater of the Forbidden City, the Great Hall of the People, China Conservatory, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts. His numerous summer engagements have included appearances at the Aspen, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Caramoor, Vail, Wolftrap, Colorado, Brevard, Britt, Evian, Interlochen, Klavierfestival Ruhr, Sante Fe, and Sun Valley festivals. In 2022 he will participate in an extended residency at the Bowdoin Festival in Maine and will return to the Chautauqua Festival in New York, where he has served as Artist-in-Residence since the summer of 2018.
With clarinetist Jon Manasse, Mr. Nakamatsu tours as a member of the Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo. Following its Boston debut in 2004, the Duo released its first CD for harmonia mundi usa (Brahms Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano) which received the highest praise from The New York Times Classical Music Editor James Oestreich, who named it among the “Best of the Year” for 2008. A frequent chamber musician, Mr. Nakamatsu has collaborated repeatedly with such ensembles as the Emerson, Escher, Jupiter, Miró, Modigliani, Prazak, St. Lawrence, Tokyo, and Ying String Quartets, the Imani Winds, and the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet with whom he made multiple tours, beginning in 2000.
Mr. Nakamatsu’s 13 CDs recorded for harmonia mundi usa have garnered extraordinary critical praise. An all-Gershwin recording with Jeff Tyzik and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra featuring Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F remained in the top echelons of Biullboard’s classical charts for over six months. Other acclaimed discs include the recording premiere of Lukas Foss’ first Piano Concerto with Carl St. Clair and the Pacific Symphony, the Brahms Piano Quintet with the Tokyo String Quartet in the Quartet’s final recording as an ensemble, and a solo recording including Robert Schumann’s Second Piano Sonata whose YouTube posting has garnered over 500K hits.
Mr. Nakamatsu has been profiled extensively in print, radio, television and online. He has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, in Readers Digest magazine, and recently on Live from Here! with Chris Thile. In 1999 Mr. Nakamatsu performed at the White House at the special invitation of President and Mrs. Clinton. He has also performed for the United States Mayors Convention in San Francisco, and in 2001 was the featured guest artist during the opening and dedication of the Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II in Washington D.C.
A former high school teacher of German with no formal conservatory training, Mr. Nakamatsu studied privately with Marina Derryberry for over 20 years beginning at the age of six. He worked with Karl Ulrich Schnabel from the age of nine, and trained for ten years in composition, theory and orchestration with Dr. Leonard Stein of the University of Southern California’s Schoenberg Institute. Mr. Nakamatsu holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University in German Studies and secondary education. In 2015 he joined the piano faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Sinta Quartet
“Virtuosic to the core” (Textura) and hailed as “a tight-knit ensemble exploding with power and virtuosity” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), the Sinta Quartet is on a mission to bring the versatility, homogeneity, and excitement of the saxophone to audiences everywhere. Strengthening an already palpable connection with its audience by performing entirely from memory, the quartet provides a fresh take on chamber music that is at once beautiful, virtuosic, and a completely interactive experience.
The Sinta Quartet injects music and fun into the air for unsuspecting passersby by appearing in nontraditional venues such as grocery stores, bars, and other public places, but they have also performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Hall, and the Beijing Center for the Performing Arts. Since forming in 2010 as soloists for a tour of China with the University of Michigan Symphony Band, the quartet has concertized in 9 countries, 32 states, and 2 Canadian provinces, giving diverse audiences a chance to experience a classical saxophone quartet for the first time. The Sinta Quartet made history in 2013 as the first saxophone ensemble to win the Victor Elmaleh First Prize from the Concert Artists Guild Competition, and continued to achieve success on the competition circuit, winning the Gold Medal at the 2018 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, First Prize at the 2017 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition, the Alice Coleman Grand Prize at the 2013 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, and 1st Prize at the 2012 North American Saxophone Alliance Competition.
The quartet’s programming takes the audience on an adventure through time, geography, and genre, often mixing classics from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries with commissions by today’s composers and rollicking in-house arrangements from various folk traditions. In addition to their live performances, the quartet recently released two albums featuring predominantly recent commissions and winning pieces from Sinta Quartet’s annual National Composition Competition. The first, Collider, hailed as, “An exciting ride! The ensemble, intonation, and technique in this recording are beyond question” (The Saxophonist Magazine), was released in 2019, and the second, Ex Machina, which was praised as “tightly performed and flawlessly recorded in generous, in-your-face sound” (Musical America), was released in 2020.
All four members of SQ are also passionate and dedicated teachers and relish the opportunity to play for and work with students of all ages. They carefully craft and curate programs designed for all levels of public school students and every type of community venue.
While Dan, Zach, Joe, and Danny all grew up in drastically different parts of the country (NY, TX, MI, and CA), they met at the University of Michigan where they studied with the legendary saxophone professor, Donald Sinta, and decided to name the group after him for the profound influence he had on each member and the inspired coaching he gave to the group during their student years.
Managed by General Arts Touring, Inc., Sinta Quartet’s members are all Selmer-Paris Artists and perform exclusively on Selmer saxophones.
The Lee Trio
Since its critically acclaimed Wigmore Hall debut in 2002, The Lee Trio’s “gripping immediacy and freshness” and “rich palette of tone colours” [The Strad] continue to move audiences and critics around the globe. The Trio’s awards include the Recording Prize at the Kuhmo International Chamber Music Competition in Finland, 2nd Prize in the G. Zinetti International Chamber Competition in Italy, and the Gotthard-Schierse-Stiftung grant in Berlin for rising international artists. In recent seasons, the Trio has given recitals and masterclasses in cities from Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, San Francisco, New York and Toronto to London, Copenhagen, Berlin, Paris and Kiev. The Lee Trio has performed as soloist with orchestras such as the Shanghai Philharmonic, Kiev Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Shenzhen Symphony and Macao Youth Symphony. The Trio’s tours of China have included recitals and masterclasses in Hong Kong, Macao, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Shanghai, at the Zhongshan Culture and Art Center, Hong Kong’s City Hall Theatre and Lee Hysan Concert Hall, recordings for RTHK4, Hong Kong’s classical broadcast radio, and a guest appearance on the televised program, Music of Friends.
The Lee Trio is passionate about working with and performing the music of living composers. As a recipient of San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music Musical Grant, The Lee Trio commissioned and premiered Nathaniel Stookey’s Piano Trio No. 1 in 2009. Other piano trios by celebrated composers including Uljas Pulkkis, Philip Laser, Laurence Rosenthal, Julian Yu and Sylvie Bodorova have been given their world, American and European premieres by The Lee Trio. The Trio served as the first Ensemble-in-Residence of the Chelsea Music Festival in New York City, performing the world-premiere of Jane Antonia Cornish’s Duende there in 2010. The Trio’s recording of Duende was released on the Delos label in 2014 to critical acclaim. A new composition for the trio is in the works by Jerry Bilik, who has composed music for television series, Starsky and Hutch and Charlie’s Angels.
Educating the next generation of musicians is integral to the Trio’s mission. In addition to giving masterclasses at schools and universities at home and abroad, the Trio regularly performs outreach and concerts in areas where the arts have little or no exposure, partnering with organizations like BRAVO Youth Orchestras or Music Camp International. The Trio was the first classical ensemble to perform for students at the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy located in the heart of Las Vegas’ most at-risk neighborhood. In 2011, the Trio took part in a humanitarian trip to teach music and work with underserved youth in Ukraine. Other schools visited in recent years include the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C. and the Oakland School for the Arts. Each member of The Lee Trio is a recipient of the California State Assembly Recognition for Exemplary Service to the Community. The members of The Lee Trio regularly work with musicians and chamber ensembles both young and established, and have served on the faculty of institutions such as Boston University, the BU Tanglewood Institute, San Francisco- based Young Chamber Musicians and the Zephyr International Chamber Music Festival in Italy.
In 2010, the Trio had the distinguished honor to perform for German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Leo Baeck Institute during her official visit to New York City and in 2014, was invited to perform for former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the peaceful revolution and reunification of Germany. The members of The Lee Trio are graduates of The Curtis Institute, The Juilliard School, Yale and Harvard, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover. Lisa Lee plays on a 1872 Jean Baptiste Vuillaume; Angela Lee performs on a 1762 Nicolo Gagliano cello from Naples; Melinda Lee Masur is a Steinway Artist. To stay in touch with The Lee Trio, please visit facebook.com/theleetrio.
Isidore String Quartet
Winners of the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022, the New York City-based Isidore String Quartet was formed in 2019 with a vision to revisit, rediscover, and reinvigorate the repertory. The quartet is heavily influenced by the Juilliard String Quartet and the idea of ‘approaching the established as if it were new, and the new as if it were firmly established.’
The members of the quartet are violinists Adrian Steele and Phoenix Avalon, violist Devin Moore, and cellist Joshua McClendon. The four began as an ensemble at the Juilliard School, and following a break during the global pandemic reconvened at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in the summer of 2021 under the tutelage of Joel Krosnick. In addition to Mr. Krosnick, the ISQ has coached with Joseph Lin, Astrid Schween, Laurie Smukler, Joseph Kalichstein, Roger Tapping, Timothy Eddy, Donald Weilerstein, Atar Arad, Bob McDonald, Christoph Richter, Miriam Fried, and Paul Biss, while performing in venues such as Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Ravinia Festival.
Their Banff triumph brings extensive tours of North America and Europe, a two-year appointment as the Peak Fellowship Ensemble-in-Residence at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, performances at Haydn Hall in Eisenstadt and the Lucerne Festival, plus a two-week residency at Banff Centre including a professionally produced recording, along with extensive ongoing coaching, career guidance, and mentorship.
The Isidore Quartet’s 2022-2023 season will feature debut appearances in Pittsburgh, PA; Durham, NC; Burlington, VT; Kalamazoo, MI; Evanston, IL; San Antonio, TX; Laguna Beach, CA (with pianist Jeremy Denk and violinist Stefan Jackiw); and Seattle, WA (with violinist James Ehnes). The quartet will return Washington’s Kennedy Center as part of the Fortas Chamber Music Concert Series, and will also perform for Schneider Concerts at the Mannes School of Music. In Europe they will perform at Esterhazy Palace in Austria, and will spend time at the Britten Pears Arts Institute.
The quartet will be working as a resident ensemble with PROJECT: MUSIC HEALS US providing encouragement, education, and healing to marginalized communities – including elderly, disabled, rehabilitating incarcerated and homeless populations – who otherwise have limited access to high-quality live music performance. An ensemble actively dedicated to pushing the boundaries of music-making, the ISQ is the resident ensemble for the Contemporary Alexander School/Alexander Alliance International. In conjunction with those well-versed in the world of Alexander Technique, as well as other performers, the ISQ explores the vast landscape of body awareness, mental preparation, and performance practice.
The name Isidore recognizes the ensemble’s musical connection to the Juilliard Quartet: one of that group’s early members was legendary violinist Isidore Cohen. Additionally, it acknowledges a shared affection for a certain libation – legend has it a Greek monk named Isidore concocted the first genuine vodka recipe for the Grand Duchy of Moscow!
Vivian Fung
JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung has a unique talent for combining idiosyncratic textures and styles into large-scale works, reflecting her multicultural background. NPR calls her “one of today’s most eclectic composers” and The Philadelphia Inquirer praises her “stunningly original compositional voice.”
Fung has received numerous awards and grants, including the 2015 Jan V. Matejcek New Classical Music Award for achievement in new music from the Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), a Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the New York Foundation for the Arts’ Gregory Millard Fellowship, and grants from ASCAP, BMI, American Music Center, MAP Fund, American Symphony Orchestra League, American Composers Forum, and the Canada Council for the Arts. She is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre and served on the board of the American Composers Forum.
Many distinguished artists and ensembles around the world have embraced Fung’s music as part of their core repertoire, including the Chicago Sinfonietta, Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Montreal Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra (Canada), Detroit Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, San José Chamber Orchestra, American String Quartet, Staatskapelle Karlsruhe, Metropolis Ensemble, Civitas Ensemble, and Jasper Quartet, to name a few. Fung’s Glimpses for prepared piano has been championed by a diverse group of pianists, including Conor Hanick, Jenny Lin, Sarah Cahill, Margaret Leng Tan, and Bryan Wagorn. Conductors with whom she has collaborated include Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Alexander Shelley, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Peter Oundjian, Cristian Măcelaru, Mei-Ann Chen, James Gaffigan, Long Yu, Andrew Cyr, Rei Hotoda, Barbara Day Turner, Daniel Meyer, Edwin Outwater, Steven Schick, Gerard Schwarz, and Bramwell Tovey.
For more on Vivian Fung visit: https://vivianfung.ca/biography
Danish String Quartet
“What they do know is how to be an exceptional quartet, whatever repertory they play.” — Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
The Danish String Quartet celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2022-23, and the GRAMMY®- nominated quartet continues to assert its preeminence among the world’s finest string quartets.
Violinists Frederik Øland and Rune Tonsgaard Sørenson and violist Asbjørn Nørgaard met as children at a music summer camp where they played soccer and made music together. As teenagers, they began the study of classical chamber music and were mentored by Tim Frederiksen of Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Academy of Music. In 2008, the three Danes were joined by Norwegian cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin.
They are the recipients of many awards and prestigious appointments, including Musical America’s 2020 Ensemble of the Year and the Borletti-Buitoni Trust. The Quartet was named in 2013 as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists and appointed to The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). The Quartet was the awarded the 2010 NORDMETALL-Ensemble Prize at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival in Germany, and in 2011, they received the Carl Nielsen Prize, the highest cultural honor in Denmark.
Borromeo Quartet
The Borromeo String Quartet, formed in 1989, has had a rich and multi-faceted career performing all around the world. They have performed in many of the world’s great concert halls, including the Berlin Philharmonie, the Zürich Tonhalle, Dvorák Hall in Prague, Wigmore Hall in London, the Opera Bastille in Paris, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Oriental Arts Center in Shaghai, and the Seoul Arts Center in Korea.
They have worked extensively with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress and have, over many years, presented quartet cycles such as the complete quartet of Beethoven and Shostakovich at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
They are the Quartet-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory of Music. They have performed at the Tanglewood and Ravinia Festivals, where they also gave special presentations about their unique research into the manuscripts of Beethoven.
Parker Van Ostrand
Parker Van Ostrand began studying piano at the age of four. He has performed at Carnegie Hall three times and in numerous recitals throughout the US, Singapore, and Japan. As a competition winner, he performed with the Merced Symphony, the Central Valley Youth Symphony, the California Youth Symphony, the Auburn Symphony, and the Frist Symphony Orchestra, and was invited to perform with the Symphony Parnassus in 2017.
In 2027, he won the MTAC Concerto State Finals Competition. In 2018, he won the Mondovi Center National Young Artists Competition and was invited to tour with the California Youth Symphony in the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, performing the Gershwin Concerto in F. In the summer of 2019, he attended the Frost Chopin Piano Festival and Academy in Miami and the Philadelphia Young Pianists’ Academy, where he won first place and the Best Concerto Prize in the Philadelphia International Piano Competition. In 2020, he participated in the 10th National Chopin Piano Competition, where he received 3rd place along with the Best Sonata Prize. He was also a 2021 National Young Arts Finalist in Classical Music.
Imani Winds
Celebrating over two decades of music making, the twice Grammy nominated Imani Winds has led both a revolution and evolution of the wind quintet through their dynamic playing, adventurous programming, imaginative collaborations and outreach endeavors that have inspired audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
The ensemble’s playlist embraces traditional chamber music repertoire, and as a 21st century group, Imani Winds is devoutly committed to expanding the wind quintet repertoire by commissioning music from new voices that reflect historical events and the times in which we currently live.
Imani Winds regularly performs in prominent international concert venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Hall and the Kimmel Center. Their touring schedule has taken them throughout the Asian continent, Brazil, Australia, England, New Zealand and across Europe. Their national and international presence include performances at chamber music series in Boston, New York, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Philadelphia and Houston. Festival performances include Chamber Music Northwest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Ravinia Festival, Chautauqua, Banff Centre and Angel Fire.
Imani Winds’ commitment to education runs deep. In 2021 Imani Winds joined the Faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music, where they serve as the school’s first ever Faculty Wind Quintet. Imani Winds has also served as Resident Artists at Mannes School of Music, and as Ensemble-in-Residence at University of Chicago. The group participates in other residencies throughout the U.S., giving performances and master classes to thousands of students each year. Academic and institutional residencies include the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Duke University, the University of Michigan, The University of Texas at Austin, Da Camera of Houston and numerous others across the country. The ensemble launched its annual Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival in 2010, bringing together young instrumentalists and composers from across North America and abroad for exploration and performance of the standard repertoire and newly composed chamber music. Festival participants also take part in workshops devoted to entrepreneurial and outreach opportunities, with the goal of creating the complete musician and global citizen.
In 2021, Imani Winds released their latest album, “Bruits” on Bright Shiny Things Records, which received a 2022 Grammy nomination for “Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.” Gramophone states, “the ensemble’s hot rapport churns with conviction throughout.”
Imani Winds has six albums on Koch International Classics and E1 Music, including their 2006 Grammy Award nominated recording, The Classical Underground. They have also recorded for Naxos and Blue Note and released Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” on Warner Classics. Imani Winds is regularly heard on all media platforms including NPR, American Public Media, the BBC, SiriusXM, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
In 2016, Imani Winds received one of their greatest accolades to date: making a permanent presence in the classical music section of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.
Emerson String Quartet
For more than four decades, the Emerson String Quartet has maintained its status as one of the world’s premier chamber music ensembles. “With musicians like this,” wrote a reviewer for The Times (London), “there must be some hope for humanity.” The Quartet has made more than 30 acclaimed recordings, and has been honored with nine GRAMMYs® (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year” award. The Quartet collaborates with some of today’s most esteemed composers to premiere new works, keeping the string quartet form alive and relevant. The group has partnered in performance with such stellar soloists as Renée Fleming, Barbara Hannigan, Evgeny Kissin, Emanuel Ax, and Yefim Bronfman, to name a few.
The Quartet’s extensive discography includes the complete string quartets of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bartok, Webern, and Shostakovich, as well as multi-CD sets of the major works of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Dvorak. In 2018, Deutsche Grammophon issued a box of the Emerson Complete Recordings on the label. In October 2020, the group released a recording of Schumann’s three string quartets for the Pentatone label. In the preceding year, the Quartet joined forces with GRAMMY®-winning pianist Evgeny Kissin to release a collaborative album for Deutsche Grammophon, recorded live at a sold-out Carnegie Hall concert in 2018.
Formed in 1976 and based in New York City, the Emerson String Quartet was one of the first quartets to have its violinists alternate in the first chair position. The Quartet, which takes its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, balances busy performing careers with a commitment to teaching, and serves as Quartet-in-Residence at Stony Brook University. In 2013, cellist Paul Watkins—a distinguished soloist, award-wining conductor, and devoted chamber musician—joined the original members of the Quartet to form today’s group.
In the spring of 2016, the State University of New York awarded full-time Stony Brook faculty members Philip Setzer and Lawrence Dutton the status of Distinguished Professor, and conferred the title of Honorary Distinguished Professor on part-time faculty members Eugene Drucker and Paul Watkins. The Quartet’s members also hold honorary doctorates from Middlebury College, the College of Wooster, Bard College, and the University of Hartford. In January of 2015, the Quartet received the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chamber Music America’s highest honor, in recognition of its significant and lasting contribution to the chamber music field.
The Emerson String Quartet enthusiastically endorses Thomastik strings.
A staff writer for the New Yorker since 1986, Adam Gopnik was born in Philadelphia and raised in Montreal. He received his BA in Art History from McGill University, before completing his graduate work at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. His first essay in The New Yorker, “Quattrocento Baseball” appeared in May of 1986 and he served as the magazine’s art critic from 1987 to 1995. That year, he left New York to live and write in Paris, where he wrote the magazine’s “Paris Journal” for the next five years. His expanded collection of his essays from Paris, Paris To the Moon, appeared in 2000, and was called by the New York Times “the finest book on France in recent years.” While in Paris, he began work on an adventure novel, The King In The Window, which was published in 2005, and which the Journal of Fantasy & Science Fiction called “a spectacularly fine children’s novel…children’s literature of the highest order, which means literature of the highest order.” He still often writes from Paris for the New Yorker, has edited the anthology Americans In Paris for the Library of America, and has written a number of introductions to new editions of works by Maupassant, Balzac, Proust, Victor Hugo and Alain-Fournier.
In the past five years, Gopnik has engaged in many musical projects, working both as a lyricist and libretto writer. With the composer David Shire he has written both book and lyrics for the musical comedy TABLE, produced in 2016 by the Long Wharf theater under the direction of Gordon Edelstein. He wrote the libretto for Nico Muhly’s oratorio “Sentences”, which premiered in London at the Barbican in June of 2015. Other projects include collaborating on a one-woman show for the soprano Melissa Errico, “Sing The Silence”, which debuted in November of 2015 at the Public Theater in New York, and included new songs co-written with David Shire, Scott Frankel, and Peter Mills. Future projects include a new musical with Scott Frankel.
He has won the National Magazine Award for Essays and for Criticism three times, as well as the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting, and the Canadian National Magazine Award Gold Medal for arts writing. His work has been anthologized many times, in “Best American Essays”, “Best American Travel Writing,” “Best American Sports Writing,” “Best American Food Writing,” and “Best American Spiritual Writing.” In March of 2013, Gopnik was awarded the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Republic. Two months later, he received an honoris causa from McGill University. He lives in New York with his wife, filmmaker Martha Parker, and their two children, Luke Auden and Olivia Esme Claire.