Each week brings different chamber music faculty with our ensemble-in-residence and faculty members, giving students a breadth of input from renowned chamber musicians.
2025 Madeline Island Chamber Music Faculty
Jonathan Swartz
Artistic Director
Madeline Island Chamber Music
Violin (Strings Weeks 1-5)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Praised by The Strad for his “impeccable playing” and “gorgeously viola-like tone,” violinist Jonathan Swartz enjoys a multi-faceted career. His solo CD, Suite Inspiration (Soundset Recordings), received much critical acclaim. John Terauds of Musical Toronto comments, “Swartz sounds as if his bow were strung with threads of silk rather than horsehair,” and calls his performance of Bach’s Chaconne “something to treasure.”A devoted pedagogue, Swartz serves on the faculties of Arizona State University and Madeline Island Chamber Music. He has previously taught at the University of Texas at El Paso, Domaine Forget Academy, Round Top Festival, Interlochen Arts Camp, Innsbrook Institute, and the Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory. Sought after as a master clinician, and frequent presenter at the American String Teachers Association National Conferences, his approach to bow technique was featured in a STRINGS magazine article in 2006.Swartz is the founder and Artistic Director of the Visiting Quartet Residency Program at Arizona State University, a chamber music program that integrates visiting resident artists with a comprehensive chamber music curriculum. He has also been instrumental in shaping the curriculum for the violin program at the Domaine Forget Academy. He presently serves as Artistic Director for Madeline Island Chamber Music, and as Past President for ASTA-AZ.
WindSync
Ensemble in Residence (Winds Week 1)
Chamber Music for Winds
Biography
Versatile and vibrant, the musicians of WindSync “play many idioms authoritatively, elegantly, with adroit technique, and with great fun” (All About the Arts), showing off the uniquely wide-ranging sounds of the wind quintet. WindSync’s charismatic and personal performance style, combined with a three-pronged mission of artistry, education, and community-building, lends the group its reputation as “virtuosos who are also wonderful people, too” (Alison Young, Classical MPR).
Highlights of WindSync’s 2024-25 season include a weeklong residency at Ravinia’s Bennett Gordon Hall series, Chicago; a weeklong residency at Shelter Island Friends of Music, New York; performances at Corpus Christi Chamber Music Society with pianist Jon Kimura Parker; Harvard Musical Association, Cambridge, MA; Chamber Music Kelowna, British Columbia; and a return to Chamber Music Northwest and Emerald City Music, in Seattle and Portland. The group celebrated its 15th anniversary season in 2023-24.
WindSync has enjoyed an international touring career since winning the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
The group has regularly appeared on notable stages throughout the United States and abroad, including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, Ravinia, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Phoenix Chamber Music Society, Rockport Music, and Emerald City Music. Building a new repertoire, WindSync’s recent premieres include works by Viet Cuong, Marc Mellits, Ivan Trevino, Mason Bynes, Nathalie Joachim, and Pulitzer finalist Michael Gilbertson.
WindSync has also served in residencies with the Grand Teton Music Festival, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and the Lied Center, and they work with local partners to craft musical events for cities out of range of large arts organizations. Winner of the 2022 Fischoff Ann Divine Educator Award, the ensemble regularly coaches at training programs nationwide, collaborates with youth orchestras, and performs for thousands of young people each year.
On the heels of “All Worlds, All Times,” WindSync’s 2022 release that “will make you want to get up and dance” (The Whole Note), the quintet’s second commercial album, recorded with composer Miguel del Aguila at Abbey Road Studios, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Albums chart in 2024.
Wendy Chen
Piano (Weeks 1-2)
Fellowship Piano
Biography
Born in California, Wendy Chen debuted with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the age of 15 under conductor André Previn. She won First Prize in the National Chopin Competition, the Young Concert Artists auditions, was the inaugural recipient of the Gilmore Young Artists Award, and was named a Presidential Scholar by the National Foundation for the Arts.
Ms. Chen is an alumna of the predecessor to the Colburn School of Performing Arts, where she studied with Dorothy Hwang. She went on to study with Aube Tzerko and Leon Fleisher. Ms. Chen is one of the most sought after pianists and chamber musicians, performing on many of the world’s most prestigious concert stages. She has appeared in unique programs that also featured musical legends Art Garfunkel and James Taylor; and in a private concert for The Justices at the US Supreme Court presented by The Late Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Highlights have included performances at The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, The Kennedy Center, Zankel Hall, Château Chillon in Montreux, Switzerland, The Rudolfinum in Prague, an all Chopin recital at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw, recording with The London Philharmonic, touring with Spoleto USA, duo recitals with cellists Stephen Kates, Carter Brey, Andrés Diaz, violinists James Ehnes, Anne Akiko Meyers, Elina Vahala, Chee-yun, and Andrés Cárdenes, concert tours throughout Finland, South America, in The Forbidden City in Beijing, China, and at Festival Week in Tokyo, presented by CHANEL.
Ms. Chen’s performances are regularly heard on NPR’s Performance Today. She gives masterclasses and lectures throughout the world, and served many years as panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.
Tara Helen O’Connor
Flute (Winds Week 2)
Chamber Music for Winds
Biography
Tara Helen O’Connor, who Art Mag has said “so embodies perfection on the flute that you’ll forget she is human,” is an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, a two-time Grammy Award nominee, and, as a member of the New Millennium Ensemble, a recipient of the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award. A Wm.S. Haynes artist, she was the first flutist selected to participate in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program and is currently a season artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and a member of the Windscape woodwind quintet.
O’Connor serves as Visiting Associate Professor, Adjunct, of Flute at the Yale School of Music, and is Artistic Director of the Music from Angel Fire Festival. A champion of contemporary music, Ms. O’Connor has premiered hundreds of works and has appeared on numerous recordings and film and television soundtracks including Barbie, Respect, The Joker, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Only Murder in the Building and Schmigadoon! to name only a few.
An avid chamber musician, O’Connor regularly appears include the Bravo! Vail festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, Spoleto Festival USA, the Banff Centre, Rockport Music, Bay Chamber Concerts, Manchester Music Festival, the Great Mountains Music Festival, Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival and Music From Angel Fire.
O’Connor has appeared on A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts and PBS’ Live from Lincoln Center. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Bridge Records. She also serves on the faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music, and the Contemporary Performance Program at Manhattan School of Music.
She lives with her husband, violinist Daniel Phillips and their two miniature dachshunds, Chloé and Ava on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Keisuke Ikuma
Oboe (Winds Week 2)
Chamber Music for Winds
Biography
Keisuke Ikuma is a renowned oboist, English horn player, and conductor based in the New York metropolitan area. He is a member of Orchestra Lumos in Stamford, Connecticut, and the acclaimed woodwind quintet Windscape. Ikuma has performed with some of the world’s leading ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, and New Japan Philharmonic.
On Broadway, Ikuma held the oboe/English horn chair and served as assistant conductor for Tony Award-winning productions at Lincoln Center Theater, including “The King and I” (2015) and “My Fair Lady” (2018), as well as the 2023 revival of “Sweeney Todd”. His festival appearances include the Colorado Music Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Banff Centre, and Pacific Music Festival.
In addition to his performance career, Ikuma is a dedicated educator. He has served on the faculties of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Manhattan School of Music. Currently, he is the Director of Chamber Music for The Orchestra Now (TŌN), a graduate program at Bard College, and chamber music instructor at Bard Conservatory.
Ikuma earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music, where he studied on a full merit scholarship with Joseph Robinson, former principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic. He also holds a law degree from Keio University in Tokyo, Japan.
Alan Kay
Clarinet (Winds Week 2)
Chamber Music for Winds
Biography
Clarinetist Alan R. Kay was born in Rochester, N.Y. He is a member and former Artistic Director of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and a founding member of Windscape and Hexagon. He is principal clarinetist with Orpheus, the Riverside Symphony, Santa Fe Opera, Little Orchestra Society, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the American Symphony Orchestra. He has played as a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Da Camera of Houston, and Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival. He has played as a soloist with Mid-Atlantic Symphony, Westfield Symphony, New York String Orchestra, Orpheus, Riverside Symphony, Jupiter Symphony, and N.Y. Chamber Ensemble, among others.
Kay has had fellowships at Juilliard and Tanglewood (C.D. Jackson Award). He is music director and conductor of the N.Y. Chamber Ensemble. His albums are available on the Arabesque, Bridge, Koch, Delos, and CRI labels and his arrangements for wind quintet and mixed ensemble are published by International Opus and Trevco. He has played solo premieres of Charles Wuorinen’s Synaxis, Paul Moravec’s Brandenburg Gate, and Panos Liaropoulos’s Monogram. He has served as a panelist for the Fischoff Competition, Young Concert Artists, and Concorso Internationale di Trapani. He was a recipient of the Presidential Scholars Teacher Recognition Award in 2003. He has been a faculty member at Manhattan School of Music since 1996 and at Stony Brook University since 2008. Kay received his bachelor’s, master’s, and advanced certificate from The Juilliard School. Kay studied clarinet with Leon Russianoff and Charles Neidich. He studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller and Gustav Meier. Kay has been a faculty member since 1993 and a Pre-College faculty member since 1987.
Gina Cuffari
Bassoon (Winds Week 2)
Chamber Music for Winds
Biography
Bassoonist Gina Cuffari is a dynamic and versatile musician who performs a variety of roles in the New York City area as an orchestral musician, chamber musician, soloist, new music advocate, and educator. Praised for having a “sound that is by turns sensuous, lyric and fast-moving” (Palm Beach Daily News), Gina is the Co-Principal Bassoonist of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. For over a decade, Gina has performed and recorded throughout the USA, Europe, and Asia with this prestigious ensemble, and has been an active participant in their community engagement programs such as Access Orpheus (teaching at NYC public schools) and the Reflections program (performing for Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers). Gina is also the Associate Principal/2nd Bassoonist of the Lincoln Center-based Riverside Symphony, as well as a frequent performer with Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Composers Orchestra, Westchester Philharmonic, American Ballet Theater, Iris Orchestra in Memphis, TN, and many more. In addition, Gina has played in recent Broadway productions of Fiddler on the Roof, Sunset Boulevard, and My Fair Lady as a substitute bassoonist.
Gina’s passion for chamber music has led her to collaborate with many amazing musicians and ensembles over the years. She is currently a member of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players and Sylvan Winds, and a founding member of Trio Cabrini, a clarinet, bassoon/voice, piano ensemble. She performs throughout New England with the Boston-based Walden Chamber Players and has had recent engagements with the Exponential Ensemble, Tertulia Ensemble, and Camerata Pacifica in Santa Barbara, California.
Gina has always had a keen interest in new music and has endeavored to support composers throughout her career. She has been a longtime collaborator with Alarm Will Sound – performing as a bassoonist, vocalist, and keyboardist – and has worked with many composers over the years, premiering a plethora of new works with the group. In NYC she has performed with Argento New Music Project and ACME, and has commissioned and premiered several new works with her ensembles Sylvan Winds, Quintet of the Americas, Trio Cabrini, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. In an ongoing personal project, Gina has commissioned and premiered works that combine her two passions – singing and playing the bassoon – into one performing experience. Composers writing for her include Sunny Knable, Gregg August, Jenni Brandon, and more.
As an educator, Gina currently holds positions at NYU and Western CT State University where she teaches bassoon, coaches chamber music, and teaches a variety of other classes. She is a frequent guest clinician at Bard College for The Orchestra Now and has taught master classes at universities such as Yale, Auburn, and Louisiana State. She spends her summers performing and teaching at several summer festivals including the NYU Summer Woodwind Institute, Orpheus@Mannes, and the Mostly Modern Festival at Skidmore College.
David Byrd-Marrow
Horn (Winds Week 2)
Chamber Music for Winds
Biography
Hailed as “stunning and assured” by the New York Times, Atlanta native David Byrd-Marrow is the Solo hornist of the International Contemporary Ensemble, as well as a member of The Knights. Working with a uniquely wide range of performers, he has premiered works by Anna Webber, Arthur Kampela, George Lewis, Tyshawn Sorey, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Du Yun, Marcos Balter, Eric Wubbels, Jörg Widmann, Miguel Zenón, and Chick Corea.
David has performed at festivals including the Ojai Music Festival, the Spoleto Music Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Tanglewood Music Center, Summerfest! at the La Jolla Music Society and as faculty at the Festival Napa Valley. Formerly a member of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, he has also made appearances with the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Atlanta, Seattle and Tokyo symphony orchestras, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the Washington National Opera, the Metropolitan Opera and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has recorded on many labels including Tundra, More Is More, Nonesuch, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, and Naxos.
Mr. Byrd-Marrow received his Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School and Master of Music from Stony Brook University. He is the Associate Professor of Horn at the Oberlin Conservatory.
Arianna String Quartet
Ensemble in Residence (Strings Week 1)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Hailed for their outstanding musicianship, the Arianna String Quartet has firmly established itself as one of America’s finest chamber ensembles. Their performances have been praised for “tonal warmth, fastidious balance and expressive vitality” (Chicago Tribune) and “emotional commitment and fluent virtuosity,” (Pretoria News, South Africa). Formed in 1992, the ASQ garnered national attention by winning the Grand Prize in the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, First Prize in both the Coleman and Carmel Chamber Music Competitions, and were Laureates in the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition.
The Arianna Quartet has appeared throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and in South Africa. They have collaborated with many of the world’s finest musicians, including members of the Vermeer, Tokyo, Cleveland and Juilliard Quartets, and their live performances have been heard on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” and “Live from Music Mountain”, which broadcasts to 125 stations in the U.S. and to 35 countries. The ASQ has recorded for Albany Records and Urtext Digital Classics, and extensively with Centaur Records. In addition to their critically acclaimed recording of the two string quartets of Janácek, the ASQ has also recently completed their recordings of the Complete String Quartets of Beethoven.
Since 2000, the members of the Arianna String Quartet have been the full-time string faculty at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where they are professors of violin, viola, and cello, and coach student chamber music ensembles. On the UMSL campus, the Arianna Quartet enriches the academic experience of students outside of the Music Department by visiting classes in physics, business, history, philosophy, art, and language to actively demonstrate the interdisciplinary connections between music and these seemingly disparate disciplines. In the community, the ASQ are ambassadors for UMSL, teaching an average of 40 instructional clinics each year at high schools throughout Missouri and surrounding states, presenting a performance and lecture series at KWMU radio called “First Mondays with the ASQ”, and maintaining a national and international presence as educators and performers.
Highlights for 2022-23 have included concerts throughout the United States, returns to Madeline Island Chamber Music (WI), the Music Mountain Concert Series (CT), the Festival of Music in Santa Catarina (Brazil), the Cedar Falls Chamber Music Festival (IA), and performances at the Jazz and Classics Music Festival in Juneau, as well as concerts in Anchorage and Sitka (AK). The Arianna Quartet was also thrilled to once again host their two summer festivals in St. Louis, the UMSL String Orchestra Camp and the Arianna Chamber Music Festival (www.ariannacmf.org)
Min-Jeong Koh
Violin (Strings Week 1)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Praised for her “extreme versatility” and “simply unbeatable beauty of tone” (Berliner Zeitung), Min-Jeong Koh maintains a busy schedule as concert violinist, violist, and educator. As first violinist of the Cecilia String Quartet, Ms. Koh won First Prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, 2nd Prize at the Osaka International Music Competition, and the Prix de la Sacem at the Bordeaux String Quartet Competition. Their latest recording was chosen as Gramophone Magazine’s “Editor’s Choice”, “Top 10 Mendelssohn Recordings” and was nominated for a JUNO Award for Best Classical Album. With the ensemble, Ms. Koh has performed across Europe, Asia, and North America at such celebrated stages as London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus, Beethoven-haus, Prague’s Rudolfinum, Library of Congress, La Jolla Music Society, Stanford Live, Music Toronto, and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, among others. Ms. Koh’s performances and recordings can be heard on BBC Radio 3, Bayerischer Rundfunk, DeutschlandRadio, New York City’s WQXR, Public Radio International throughout the United States, and the Canadian Broadcasting Company. She has performed with Leon Fleisher, Menahem Pressler, Angela Cheng, Michael Tree, and Danilo Perez.
A passionate educator, she joined the faculty at The Glenn Gould School, The Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists, at The Royal Conservatory in Fall 2021. Previously, she has served as Associate Professor of Violin at University of Oklahoma, Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto, along with teaching posts at McGill University, San Diego State University, and Wilfrid Laurier University. A sought-after teacher, she has been invited as faculty to the Indiana University Summer String Academy, The Banff Centre, Chamber Music at Port Milford, Innsbrook Institute in Missouri, Madeline Island Chamber Music, MISQA, and Austin Chamber Music Center.
Misha Amory
Viola (Strings Week 1)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Since winning the 1991 Naumburg Viola Award, Misha Amory has been active as a soloist and chamber musician. He has performed with orchestras in the United States and Europe, and has been presented in recital at New York’s Tully Hall, Los Angeles’ Ambassador series, Philadelphia’s Mozart on the Square festival, Boston’s Gardner Museum, Houston’s Da Camera series and Washington’s Phillips Collection. He has been invited to perform at the Marlboro Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Vancouver Festival, the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center and the Boston Chamber Music Society, and he has released a recording of Hindemith sonatas on the Musical Heritage Society label. Mr. Amory holds degrees from Yale University and the Juilliard School; his principal teachers were Heidi Castleman, Caroline Levine and Samuel Rhodes. Himself a dedicated teacher, Mr. Amory serves on the faculties of the Juilliard School in New York City and the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.
Ms. Chen is an alumna of the predecessor to the Colburn School of Performing Arts, where she studied with Dorothy Hwang. She went on to study with Aube Tzerko and Leon Fleisher. Ms. Chen is one of the most sought after pianists and chamber musicians, performing on many of the world’s most prestigious concert stages. She has appeared in unique programs that also featured musical legends Art Garfunkel and James Taylor; and in a private concert for The Justices at the US Supreme Court presented by The Late Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Highlights have included performances at The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, The Kennedy Center, Zankel Hall, Château Chillon in Montreux, Switzerland, The Rudolfinum in Prague, an all Chopin recital at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw, recording with The London Philharmonic, touring with Spoleto USA, duo recitals with cellists Stephen Kates, Carter Brey, Andrés Diaz, violinists James Ehnes, Anne Akiko Meyers, Elina Vahala, Chee-yun, and Andrés Cárdenes, concert tours throughout Finland, South America, in The Forbidden City in Beijing, China, and at Festival Week in Tokyo, presented by CHANEL.
Ms. Chen’s performances are regularly heard on NPR’s Performance Today. She gives masterclasses and lectures throughout the world, and served many years as panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.
Felix Umansky
Cello (Strings Week 1)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Praised for his “sublime” playing by Cleveland Classical, cellist Felix Umansky is a frequently sought-after recitalist and pedagogue. As cellist of the world-renowned Harlem Quartet, Mr. Umansky is currently on the faculties at Montclair State University and Fundación por la Música, Santo Domingo. One of Mr. Umansky’s missions is to bring a wide range of music to as many communities as possible. A native of Carmel, Indiana, Mr. Umansky holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music and an Artist Diploma from Yale University. Outside of Harlem Quartet, Mr. Umansky performs with his wife, violinist Amy Schroeder, as the Schroeder Umansky Duo, and the two collaborate with pianist Yalin Chi as Trio Raconteur. These days he is also part of a band with his 3-year-old daughter, Aria, playing on found objects in and around the house. Mr. Umansky performs on an 1850 J.B. Vuillaume cello, generously on loan to him.
Calidore String Quartet
Ensemble in Residence (Strings Week 2)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
The Calidore String Quartet is recognized as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of a vast chamber music repertory, from the cycles of quartets by Beethoven and Mendelssohn to works of celebrated contemporary voices like György Kurtág, Jörg Widmann, and Caroline Shaw. For more than a decade, the Calidore has enjoyed performances and residencies in the world’s major venues and festivals, released multiple critically acclaimed recordings, and won numerous awards. The Los Angeles Times described the musicians as “astonishing,” their playing “shockingly deep,”approaching “the kind of sublimity other quartets spend a lifetime searching.” The New York Times noted the Quartet’s “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct,” and the Washington Post wrote that “four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one”.
The New York City based Calidore String Quartet has appeared in venues throughout North America, Europe, and Asia including Lincoln Center,Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Brussels’ BOZAR, and at major festivals such as the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia and Music@Menlo. The Quartet has given world premieres of works by Caroline Shaw, Anna Clyne, Gabriela Montero, Sebastian Currier, Han Lash, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Huw Watkins and collaborated with artists such as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Anthony McGill, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Marc-André Hamelin, Joshua Bell, Emerson String Quartet, Gabriela Montero, David Finckel and Wu Han and many more.
Throughout the 24/25 season, the Calidore perform the complete String Quartets of Beethoven at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, at the University of Delaware, and bring the complete cycle to the five boroughs of New York City through the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Initiative for Music and Community Engagement – a newly launched series dedicated to bringing chamber music into diverse neighborhoods and communities across New York City. The quartet also returns to their alma mater, the Colburn School in Los Angeles, to play the complete cycle of Korngold String Quartets. Other highlights of the 24/25 season include return appearances with San Francisco Performances, the Celebrity Series of Boston, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, the Warsaw Philharmonic and London’s Wigmore Hall; and premieres and performances of works by Han Lash, Sebastian Currier and Gabriela Montero.
In their most ambitious recording project to date, the Calidore is set to release Beethoven’s complete String Quartets for Signum Records. Volume I, containing the late quartets, was released in 2023 to great critical acclaim, earning the quartet BBC Music Magazine’s Chamber Award in 2024. The magazine’s five-star review noted that the Calidore’s performances “penetrate right to the heart of the music” and “can stand comparison with the best.” Volume II of the cycle comes out in the fall of 2024. Their previous recordings on Signum include Babel with music by Schumann, Shaw and Shostakovich, and Resilience with works by Prokofiev, Janáček, Golijov and Mendelssohn.
Founded at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2010, the Calidore String Quartet has won top prizes at major US chamber music competitions, including the Fischoff, Coleman, Chesapeake, and Yellow Springs. The quartet won the $100,000 Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition as well as the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship. The Calidore has been a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and recipients of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award.
The Calidore String Quartet serves as the University of Delaware’s Distinguished String Quartet in Residence. They have also served as artist-in-residence at the University of Toronto, University of Michigan and Stony Brook University. The Calidore is grateful to have been mentored by the Emerson Quartet, Quatuor Ébène, Andre Roy, Arnold Steinhardt, David Finckel, Günter Pichler, Guillaume Sutre, Paul Coletti, and Ronald Leonard.
Kyu-Young Kim
Violin (Strings Week 2)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Artistic Director and Principal Violin of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Kyu-Young Kim is one of the most versatile and accomplished musicians of his generation. His appointment as the SPCO’s Artistic Director in January 2016 marks the first time a playing member has been tapped to take the artistic helm of a major American orchestra. Previously, Kim served as Director of Artistic Planning with the SPCO while continuing to perform in the orchestra. Since assuming his dual role in 2013, the SPCO has named seven new Artistic Partners, opened its new Concert Hall at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts to great critical acclaim, toured throughout the U.S. and to Europe, and won a Grammy Award in 2018 for its disc of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja.
Kim has also toured throughout the world as a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet with whom he won the Grand Prize at the 2001 Banff International String Quartet Competition and was a member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two Program. As a former member of the Pacifica String Quartet, Mr. Kim won the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award. He has appeared as soloist with the Korea Broadcasting System (KBS) Symphony Orchestra, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Poland and the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra. He has also served as guest concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and is an Emeritus Member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Ivo van der Werff
Viola (Strings Week 2)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Ivo-Jan van der Werff has attained accolades as a chamber player, recitalist, guest artist and teacher throughout Europe and North America. As a member of the Medici String Quartet for 30 years, Mr. van der Werff has performed in well over 2,000 concerts in major festivals and venues worldwide, broadcasting regularly on radio and television. The Medici quartet made more than 40 recordings for EMI, Nimbus, Hyperion and Koch, and won many awards for works ranging from Haydn, Britten, Janacek, Schubert and the Beethoven cycle to more eclectic works of John Tavener, Saint-Saens, Wajahat Khan and Nigel Osborne. The quartet has had collaborations with many artists across the musical, literary and theatrical spectrum including the Royal Shakespeare Company, George Martin, Alan Bennett, John Williams, John Thaw and Jack Brymer.
Mr. van der Werff has performed as recitalist in places as far afield as New York, New Zealand and Hong Kong as well as numerous venues throughout the United Kingdom. His recordings for ASV and Koch include the sonata by Max Reger and the complete works for viola and piano/harp by Arnold Bax. His latest release on the Guild label featured works by Britten, Al-Zand and Shostakovich. Mr. van der Werff is regularly invited to perform with chamber ensembles throughout Europe, the USA and the Antipodes, such as the Alberni, Coull, Bridge and New Zealand string quartets, Trio con brio of Copenhagen, and the Montrose Trio.
Before joining the Medici Quartet, Mr. van der Werff’s freelance career saw him working under many conductors including Sir George Solti, Bernard Haitink and Klaus Tennstedt and he has since been invited to appear as guest principal viola and soloist with many of the United Kingdom’s leading orchestras.
Mr. van der Werff has been a professor of viola and chamber music at the Royal College of Music in London and is now a full time professor of viola at Rice University. He has also developed a private viola program near London and is director of the ‘Catskills Viola Retreat’ in Upstate New York. He has performed and taught at many summer schools including Dartington and Oxford in the UK, Schlern in the Italian Alps, in Sweden, at the Texas Music Festival, Domaine Forget, California Summer Music, Bowdoin, and Madeleine Island in the USA, and has also been an adjudicator on many competition juries. Mr. van der Werff has given masterclasses all over the world at schools such as Eastman, Colburn, Vanderbilt, and Santa Barbara in the USA, Trinity College, the Royal Northern College, and the Royal College in the UK, the Royal Academy in Stockholm, and the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts amongst others. Many of his former students hold principal and regular positions in orchestras such as the BBC Symphony, Philharmonia, London Symphony, and the English Chamber and English National Ballet as well as orchestras in Spain, Portugal, Norway, USA, and France.
For many years he played in London studios on literally hundreds of sound tracks for film, pop, and TV ranging from Harry Potter and James Bond to Madonna and Maria Carey to Pride and Prejudice and Doctor Who.
In 2011 he published A Notebook for Viola Players, a book consisting of exercises and explanations on and about viola technique, based in large part on his own studies with the great violist and pedagogue Bruno Giuranna and inspired by his viola mentors Margaret Major and Peter Shidlof.
Mr. van der Werff plays on a viola by Giovanni Grancino, of Milan, c1690.
Pitnarry Shin
Cello (Strings Week 2)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Cellist Pitnarry Shin has been praised in Strad magazine for her beautiful tone and passionate interpretations in her New York debut recital at Weill Hall, Carnegie Hall. She has toured throughout the United States, Europe, and her native Korea. Ms. Shin was the recipient of a Fulbright Grant to Germany, which allowed her to participate and perform in several European festivals such as the Manchester Festival, the Kronberg Festival, and the Ensemble InterContemporain Summer Festival, where she played solo cello under Pierre Boulez. Ms. Shin was a member of the Minnesota Orchestra from 2001 to 2006 and returned as a full time member again in 2012. In addition to her orchestral work, she serves as an artistic director of the Bakken Ensemble. Previously, she has served as guest co-principal cellist with the London Symphony Orchestra and as acting principal of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. She has also played with the New York Philharmonic on their historic tour to North Korea, and with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Shin received her musical education at the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale University Music School, where she received the Aldo Parisot-Yo Yo Ma Prize upon graduation.
Brooklyn Rider
Ensemble in Residence (Strings Week 3)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
With their gripping performance style and unquenchable appetite for musical adventure, Brooklyn Rider has carved a singular space in the world of string quartets over their fifteen-year history. Defining the string quartet as a medium with deep historic roots and endless possibility for invention, they find equal inspiration in musical languages ranging from late Beethoven to Persian classical music to American roots music to the endlessly varied voices of living composers. Claiming no allegiance to either end of the historical spectrum, Brooklyn Rider most comfortably operates within the long arc of the tradition, seeking to illuminate works of the past with fresh insight while coaxing the malleable genre into the future through an inclusive programming vision, deep-rooted collaborations with a wide range of global tradition bearers, and the creation of thoughtful and relevant frames for commissioning projects.
The upcoming concert season is strongly illustrative of the intrepid musical appetite of Brooklyn Rider. This coming fall, they will premiere a major new work by the great Argentinian composer and close friend, Osvaldo Golijov. The quartet also has two new collaborative projects for 2021-22. One is with Israeli mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital, and the other is a brand new phase of work with Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, where they will explore themes of love and death through the music of Franz Schubert and Rufus Wainwright. Looking further into the future, they will expand work already underway with Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and will launch a major new commissioning venture for the 2022-23 season called The Four Elements; an exploration of the four classical elements (earth, air, water, and fire) as metaphor for both the complex inner world of the string quartet and the current health of planet Earth.
Prior to the global pandemic, the 2019-20 season saw a veritable explosion of new projects and releases. Shared at the height of the US lockdown, the Grammy®-nominated recording Healing Modes (In A Circle Records) presented Beethoven’s towering Opus 132 — the composer’s late testament on healing and the restorative power of new creation — interwoven with five new commissions powerfully exploring topics as wide-ranging as the US-Mexico border conflict, the Syrian refugee crisis, the mental health epidemic, and physical well-being. Described by The New Yorker as a project which “…could not possibly be more relevant or necessary than it is currently,” the composers include Reena Esmail, Gabriela Lena Frank, Matana Roberts, Caroline Shaw, and Du Yun.Earlier in the same season saw the release of two projects from vastly different musical spheres. One with the master Irish fiddler Martin Hayes (In A Circle Records), an album which the Irish Times described as “a masterclass in risk-taking,” and the other, Sun On Sand (Nonesuch Records), featuring the music of Patrick Zimmerli with saxophone giant Joshua Redman and fellow collaborators Scott Colley on bass and Satoshi Takeishi, percussion.
In fall 2018, Brooklyn Rider released Dreamers on Sony Music Masterworks with Mexican jazz vocalist Magos Herrera. Celebrating the power of beauty as a political act, Dreamers amplifies the visionary artistry of Violeta Parra, Federico Garcia Lorca, Gilberto Gil, Joao Gilberto, Octavio Paz, and others, all who dared to dream under repressive regimes. Featuring gems from the Ibero-American songbook in evocative arrangements by Jaques Morelenbaum, Diego Schissi, Gonzalo Grau, Guillermo Klein, and Brooklyn Rider’s own Colin Jacobsen, Dreamers topped numerous charts and garnered a Grammy® nomination for best arrangement (Gonzalo Grau’s “Niña”). Touring widely to support the album, they appeared at venues ranging from New York City’s Jazz at Lincoln Center to Mexico City’s Deco masterpiece, the Palacio de Bellas Artes.Brooklyn Rider has remained steadfast in their commitment to generate new music for string quartet at nearly every phase of their history. To kick off the 2017-18 season, Brooklyn Rider released Spontaneous Symbols (In a Circle Records), featuring new commissions by Tyondai Braxton, Evan Ziporyn, Paula Matthusen, Kyle Sanna, and Colin Jacobsen. In the 2015-16 season, the group celebrated its tenth anniversary with the groundbreaking multi-disciplinary project The Brooklyn Rider Almanac, for which it recorded and toured 15 specially commissioned works by musicians from the worlds of folk, jazz, and indie rock, each inspired by a different artistic muse. The Fiction Issue, with singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane, featured his composition which was premiered in 2012 at Carnegie Hall by Kahane, Brooklyn Rider, and Shara Nova. Additionally, Brooklyn Rider has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with the music of the iconic American composer Philip Glass, which began with 2011’s much-praised recording Brooklyn Rider Plays Philip Glass and continued with two subsequent installments of Glass’s works for string quartet, all released on the composer’s label Orange Mountain Music.
Numerous other collaborations have helped give rise to NPR Music’s observation that Brooklyn Rider is “recreating the 300-year-old form of string quartet as a vital and creative 21st-century ensemble.” During the 2016-17 season, Brooklyn Rider released an album entitled So Many Things on Naïve Records with Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, comprising music by Colin Jacobsen, Caroline Shaw, John Adams, Nico Muhly, Björk, Sting, Kate Bush and Elvis Costello, among others. Some Of A Thousand Words, an evening-length program with choreographer Brian Brooks and former New York City Ballet prima ballerina Wendy Whelan, was an intimate series of duets and solos in which the quartet’s live onstage music is a dynamic and central creative component. Some Of A Thousand Words was featured at the 2016 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, before two U.S. tours, including a week-long run at New York City’s Joyce Theater. A collaboration with Dance Heginbotham with music written by Colin Jacobsen resulted in Chalk And Soot, an evening-length work presented by Lincoln Center’s White Lights Festival in 2014. Brooklyn Rider has also frequently teamed up with banjoist Béla Fleck, with whom they appeared on two different albums, 2017’s Juno Concerto and 2013’s The Impostor. And in one of their longest-standing musical friendships to date, Brooklyn Rider and Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor released the highly praised recording Silent City (World Village) in 2008, still touring the project to this day.
Peter Winograd
Violin (Strings Week 3)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Peter Winograd joined the American String Quartet, Artists in Residence at Manhattan School of Music, in 1990. He gave his first solo public performance at the age of 11, and at age 17 he was accepted as a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School. Recognized early as an exceptionally promising young artist, Winograd was a top prizewinner in the 1988 Naumburg International Violin Competition. He then made his New York debut to critical acclaim and has since appeared as a guest soloist with numerous orchestras and in recital across the country and abroad, including annual collaborative performances with cellist Andrés Díaz at the Florida Arts Chamber Music Festival. In 2002 Winograd performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Hartford Symphony; his father, Arthur Winograd, was the featured guest conductor.
Peter Winograd has been a member of the violin and chamber music faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music School (where the American is Quartet in Residence) since 1990. Born into a gifted musical family, Winograd began his studies with his parents. His mother was a professional pianist, and his father was the founding cellist of the Juilliard Quartet and a conductor of the Hartford Symphony in Hartford, Connecticut, where Winograd grew up. He holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Juilliard. His wife, violinist Caterina Szepes, is a regular participant in the Marlboro Festival and a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. His violin is by Giovanni Maria del Bussetto (Cremona, 1675).
Erika Eckert
Viola (Strings Week 3)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Erika Eckert, current Associate Professor of Viola at CU Boulder, has also been a faculty member of the Brevard Music Center since 2011. Previously, Eckert served on the faculties of the Cleveland Institute of Music, Baldwin Wallace College and the Chautauqua Institution in New York where she served as the coordinator of the chamber music program for the Music School Festival Orchestra for three summers.
As co-founder and former violist of the Cavani String Quartet, Eckert performed on major concert series worldwide, garnered an impressive list of awards and prizes, including first prizes at both the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Competition and the Cleveland Quartet Competition, and appeared on NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS and National Public Radio.
In recent seasons, Eckert has performed as guest violist with the Takács Quartet, appearing with them in Canada, California, Colorado, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Vermont. She has also performed on numerous faculty recitals at the University of Colorado Boulder and soloed with the CU Boulder Symphony Orchestra, Music in the Mountains Purgatory Festival Orchestra, Four Seasons Chamber Orchestra, Boulder Bach Festival and the Boulder Chamber Orchestra.
Performing engagements have included the 400th Galileo Anniversary at the American Academy in Rome, El Paso Pro Musica International Chamber Music Festival, Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Garth Newell Music Festival, Bravo! Vail, Music in the Mountains Chamber Music Festival, Sitka Summer Music Festival Autumn Classics, Niagara International Chamber Music Festival and Fontana Chamber Arts. Eckert has also performed chamber music recitals at the International French Horn, Flute and Double-Reed Conventions, and soloed at SEAMUS and ICMC electronic music national and international conferences.
Eckert’s teaching engagements have included presenting viola and chamber music pedagogy sessions, and coordinating the chamber music program at the American String Teachers Association International Workshops in Brisbane, Australia and Stavanger, Norway; presenting viola master classes at The Juilliard School, Cleveland Institute of Music, Eastman School of Music, Arizona State University, Governors School of South Carolina, Interlochen Arts Academy, University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, University of Memphis, University of Tennessee, Bowling Green State University and University of South Carolina; serving on the faculties of the Perlman Music Program, Takács Quartet Seminar and the North American Viola Institute at the Orford Center for the Arts in Quebec, Canada; and coaching chamber music at the Suzuki Association of the Americas, Inc. Ninth Conference, the International School for Musical Arts, Chamber Music Connection, Interlochen Arts Academy, Chamber Music Wyoming Young Artist Program, Britt Institute Chamber Strings and the Madeline Island Music Camp Adult Chamber Music Program.
Eckert serves on the board of the Rocky Mountain Viola Society and for three years served as an adjudicator for the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (NFAA) Arts Recognition and Talent Search, the exclusive nominating agency for the Presidential Scholars in the Arts, and appeared in their academy-nominated documentary, “Rehearsing a Dream.”
Felix Wang
Cello (Strings Week 3)
Chamber Music for Strings
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
In addition to being the cellist of the Blair String Quartet, Felix Wang is a founding member of the Blakemore Trio and co-principal cellist of the IRIS Orchestra under the direction of Michael Stern. His diverse career has brought him throughout the world as a chamber musician, soloist, and in recital, receiving critical acclaim for, “beautifully wrought,” “dazzling,” and “soulful” performances.
Mr. Wang has been the winner of several esteemed competitions, including the National Society of Arts and Letters Cello Competition, where he appeared with the Phoenix Symphony. Judges included Mstislav Rostropovich, Raya Garbousova and Laszlo Varga. Frequently invited to perform at festivals, recent engagements include the Portillo International Music Festival, the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, Strings in the Mountains Festival, the Highlands Chamber Music Festival and the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival. He has been heard live on NPR stations across the country and has recorded for the Albany, Blue Griffin, Centaur, Innova and Naxos labels.
Already established as a well known pedagogue, Mr. Wang is Professor of Cello at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. During the summer, he is on the faculties of the Chautauqua Music Festival and Madeline Island Chamber Music, and is co-artistic director of the Hilton Head Chamber Music Institute. In previous summers he has served on the faculties of the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, Brevard Music Center, Banff Centre Youth Arts Festival, the Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory, the National Music Festival and the Killington Music Festival.
Mr. Wang received a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan, a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory, and a Bachelor of Music from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Wang was also a recipient of the prestigious Frank Huntington Beebe Grant for study abroad, using it to study in London with William Pleeth. His teachers have included Erling Blondal Bengtsson, Laurence Lesser, Stephen Kates, Jeffrey Solow and Louis Potter, Jr.
Takács Quartet
Ensemble in Residence (Strings Week 4)
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Edward Dusinberre, Harumi Rhodes (violins), Richard O’Neill (viola) and András Fejér (cello) are excited about projects including a new concerto for them and the Colorado Music Festival orchestra by Gabriela Lena Frank. In November the group will release its latest Hyperion project, ‘Flow’ by Nokuthula Ngwenyama. A new album with pianist Marc Andre Hamelin will be released in the spring featuring works by Florence Price and Antonín Dvořák.
The Takács maintains a busy international touring schedule. In 2025 the ensemble will perform in South Korea, Japan and Australia. The Australian tour is centered around a new piece by Kathy Milliken for quartet and narrator. As Associate Artists at London’s Wigmore Hall, the group will present four concerts featuring works by Haydn, Britten, Ngwenyama, Beethoven, Janáček and two performances of Schubert’s cello quintet with Adrian Brendel. During the season the ensemble will play at other prestigious European venues including Barcelona, Budapest, Milan, Basel, Bath Mozartfest and Bern.
The group’s North American engagements include concerts in New York, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Washington DC, La Jolla, Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Tucson, Portland and Princeton, and collaborations with pianists Stephen Hough and Jeremy Denk.
The members of the Takács Quartet are Christoffersen Fellows and Artists in Residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder. During the summer months the Takács join the faculty at the Music Academy of the West, running an intensive quartet seminar.
The Takács has recorded for Hyperion since 2005. Their most recent album includes Schubert’s final quartet D887. This and all their other recordings are available to stream at https://www.hyperion-streaming.co.uk In 2021 the Takács won a Presto Music Recording of the Year Award for their recordings of string quartets by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, and a Gramophone Award with pianist Garrick Ohlsson for piano quintets by Amy Beach and Elgar. Other releases for Hyperion feature works by Haydn, Schubert, Janáček, Smetana, Debussy and Britten, as well as piano quintets by César Franck and Shostakovich (with Marc-André Hamelin), and viola quintets by Brahms and Dvorák (with Lawrence Power). For their CDs on the Decca/London label, the Quartet has won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, three Japanese Record Academy Awards, Disc of the Year at the inaugural BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Ensemble Album of the Year at the Classical Brits. Full details of all recordings can be found in the Recordings section of the Quartet’s website.
The Takács Quartet is known for its innovative programming. In 2021-22 the ensemble partnered with bandoneon virtuoso Julien Labro to premiere new works by Clarice Assad and Bryce Dessner, commissioned by Music Accord. In 2014 the Takács performed a program inspired by Philip Roth’s novel Everyman with Meryl Streep at Princeton, and again with her at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto in 2015. They first performed Everyman at Carnegie Hall in 2007 with Philip Seymour Hoffman. They have toured 14 cities with the poet Robert Pinsky, and played regularly with the Hungarian Folk group Muzsikas.
In 2014 the Takács became the first string quartet to be awarded the Wigmore Hall Medal. In 2012, Gramophone announced that the Takács was the first string quartet to be inducted into its Hall of Fame. The ensemble also won the 2011 Award for Chamber Music and Song presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London.
The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér, while all four were students. The group received international attention in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The Quartet also won the Gold Medal at the 1978 Portsmouth and Bordeaux Competitions and First Prizes at the Budapest International String Quartet Competition in 1978 and the Bratislava Competition in 1981. The Quartet made its North American debut tour in 1982. Members of the Takács Quartet are the grateful beneficiaries of an instrument loan by the Drake Foundation. We are grateful to be Thomastik-Infeld Artists.
Daniel Phillips
Violin/Viola Artist Faculty (Strings Week 5)
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
Violinist Daniel Phillips is co-founder of the Orion String Quartet which gave its last concert in April 2024, presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln after an illustrious 37-year career. A graduate of Juilliard, his major teachers were his father Eugene Phillips, Ivan Galamian, Sally Thomas, Nathan Milstein, Sandor Végh, and George Neikrug. Since winning the 1976 Young Concert Artists Competition, he has performed as a soloist with many orchestras, including the Pittsburgh, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix, San Antonio symphonies. He appears regularly at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, St Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, Heifetz Institute, Chesapeake Music Festival, the International Musicians Seminar in England, and Music from Angel Fire, where he is co-artistic director. He was a member of the renowned Bach Aria Group and has toured and recorded in a string quartet for Sony with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma. A judge in the 2022 Leipzig Bach Competition 2018 Seoul International Violin Competition, and the 2023 World Bartok Competition and the 2024 Prague Spring Competition, Phillips is a professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and on the faculties of the Bard College Conservatory, and the Juilliard School. He lives with his wife, flutist Tara Helen O’Connor, and their two dachshunds on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Christopher Costanza
Cello Artist Faculty (Strings Week 5)
Fellowship String Quartet
Biography
For nearly four decades, cellist Christopher Costanza has enjoyed a varied and exciting career as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. A winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and a recipient of a prestigious Solo Recitalists Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Mr. Costanza has performed to wide critical acclaim throughout the U.S., Canada, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and Europe. “Mr. Costanza demonstrated an unaffected, graceful approach to phrasing, a rugged, fearless technique, and, when necessary, and energetic headlong approach,” proclaimed the New York Times. And, from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, praise for a recent performance of Bach’s Unaccompanied Suites: “Costanza revealed himself to be a thoughtful interpreter as well as a technician of no small skill. Tempos were brisk but never rushed, and dynamics were carefully measured. In the Courante, Costanza demonstrated a nice continuity of bowing, while the Sarabande became in his hands an introspective but eloquent song. He used the lightest of touches in the subsequent Minuets and brought an infectious rhythmic impulse to the concluding Gigue.”
Mr. Costanza, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, actively toured as the cellist of the St. Lawrence String Quartet (SLSQ) from 2003-2023, performing over one hundred concerts annually throughout North America and in Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. Beginning with the 2023-2024 concert season, Mr. Costanza began to refocus his performance activities on solo performances and varied chamber music collaborations, including cycles of the complete Bach Unaccompanied Cello Suites at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, at Stanford University, and other locations; the complete Britten Cello Suites presented as a cycle; a collaboration with the Stanford Chamber Chorale on tour in Hawaii; solo and chamber music performances at multiple California Bay Area venues; and a concerto tour of France with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Costanza recently has embraced additional opportunities to express his musical passions, through pre-concert lectures, informal concert/lecture presentations, and program note writing.
Mr. Costanza is a full-time Artist in Residence at Stanford University, where he teaches cello and chamber music, serves as the Associate Director of Music for the Stanford Medical Humanities and Arts program, and performs concerts and gives lectures across campus. A strong proponent of contemporary music, Mr. Costanza has worked extensively with the world’s most notable composers, such as John Adams, Jonathan Berger, Osvaldo Golijov, Mark Applebaum, Pierre Boulez, Roberto Sierra, R. Murray Schafer, William Bolcom, and John Corigliano. As a student, he had the honor of studying Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time under the guidance of the composer.
Mr. Costanza’s discography includes chamber music and solo recordings on the Nonesuch, EMI/Angel, Naxos, Innova, Albany, and Summit labels. In 2006, he received a Grammy nomination for his recording of chamber works for winds and strings by Mozart. In 2012, Mr. Costanza recorded the Six Suites for Solo Cello by J.S. Bach at the beautiful Banff Centre in Canada; those recordings, along with his extensive commentary, are available for streaming on his website, costanzacello.com. In August 2019, the SLSQ released its recording of all six Op. 20 String Quartets of Haydn, and in the summer of 2023, the new recording label Phenotypic released the final two SLSQ recordings: two of the Op. 76 quartets by Haydn, and the Korngold Piano Quintet with pianist Stephen Prutsman.
Mr. Costanza is frequently heard on radio broadcasts worldwide, including the CBC in Canada, NPR in the United States, and on various European broadcasting networks. He is privileged to perform on an early 18th-century Venetian cello, part of the Harry R. Lange Collection of Musical Instruments and Bows at Stanford.
In addition to his varied musical interests, Mr. Costanza is an avid runner and hiker. A train enthusiast, he enjoys riding and exploring the passenger railways of the world. He is fascinated by architecture and seeks out innovative architectural offerings in his travels. At home in California, he is passionate about cooking, focusing his attention on new and creative dishes that take advantage of the abundance of remarkable organic local produce.