Brooklyn Chamber Music Society: Artists

Carmit Zori, violinist and artistic director

Violinist Carmit Zori came to the United States from her native Israel at the age of fifteen to study with Ivan Galamian, Jaime Laredo and Arnold Steinhardt at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Ms. Zori is the recipient of a Leventritt Foundation Award, a Pro Musicis International Award, and the top prize in the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition. As a soloist, she has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others, and has performed in recital at Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Tel Aviv Museum and the Jerusalem Center for the Performing Arts. She has performed throughout Latin America and Europe, as well as in Israel, Japan, Taiwan and Australia, where she premiered the Violin Concerto by Marc Neikrug. In addition to her appearances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Ms. Zori has performed chamber music at festivals and concert series around the world, including Chamber Music at the "Y" in New York, Festival Casals in Puerto Rico, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music festival, the Bard Music festival, Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Bach Dancing and Dynamite in Madison, Wisconsin, Peasmarsh music festival in England, and the Orcas Island chamber music festival. She is also a senior artist at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. Ms. Zori, who for ten years was an artistic director at Bargemusic, founded the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society in 2002. She has performed in concerts sponsored by Music for Food, an organization providing local hunger relief, and Project Music Heals Us, a nonprofit community outreach organization targeting underserved populations. She is also a member artist of The Israeli Chamber Project. Ms. Zori has recorded on the Arabesque, Koch International, and Elektra-Nonesuch labels. She serves on the faculties of Bard College and Rutgers University.

Edward Arron, cello

A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Arron made his New York recital debut in 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since that time, he has appeared in recital, as a soloist with major orchestras, and as a chamber musician, throughout North America, Europe and Asia. The 2025- 26 season marks Mr. Arron’s 13th season as the co-artistic director with his wife, Jeewon Park, of the Performing Artists in Residence series at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Mr. Arron tours and records as a member of the renowned Ehnes String Quartet and he is a regular performer at the Boston and Seattle Chamber Music Societies, the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, Caramoor, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival, Seoul Spring Festival in Korea, Music in the Vineyards Festival, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Manchester Music Festival, and the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland. Other festival appearances include Salzburg, Ravinia, Tanglewood, Mostly Mozart, PyeongChang, Bridgehampton, Spoleto USA, Santa Fe, Evian, La Jolla Summerfest, Chamber Music Northwest, Chesapeake Chamber Music, and the Bard Music Festival. Mr. Arron’s performances are frequently broadcast on American Public Media’s Performance Today. In 2021, Mr. Arron’s recording of Beethoven’s Complete Works for Cello and Piano with pianist Jeewon Park was released on the Aeolian Classics Record Label. The recording received the Samuel Sanders Collaborative Artists Award from the Classical Recording Foundation. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Mr. Arron currently serves on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Catherine Cho, violin

Catherine Cho, violin, has appeared as a soloist with the Detroit, National, Edmonton, Montreal, National Arts Center, Barcelona, Haifa, New Zealand, Buenos Aires, KBS, Seoul, and Daejon orchestras, and has appeared in recitals and chamber music performances at the Kennedy Center, Ravinia, 92nd St. Y, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Casals Halls among others. She has appeared in 12 national tours with Musicians From Marlboro and participated in the festivals of Aspen, Chamber Music Northwest, Santa Fe, Four Seasons, Bridgehampton, and Vivace. She was a member of the Johannes String Quartet and La Fenice and was awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant as well as top prizes in the Montreal (1987), Queen Elisabeth (1989), and Joachim (1991) Competitions. As a member of the Juilliard faculty, Cho is devoted to fostering the next generation of performers, teachers, and leaders through the development of artistic excellence, curiosity, and clarity of vision through a holistic view of the artist. Her work as a teacher in the Juilliard Chamber Music Community Engagement Seminar highlights her passion for community connection through art and communication. She is a Music For Food artist, the artistic director of the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival, a member of the Perlman Music Program faculty (since 2007), and the artistic advisor for the Starling-Delay Symposium at Juilliard. Cho received her BM and MM degrees at Juilliard, where she studied with Dorothy Delay, Hyo Kang, and Felix Galimir. Her mentors include Ruggiero Ricci, Franco Gulli, and Michael Avsharian Jr.

Ara Gregorian, violin

Known for his thrilling performances and musical creativity, violinist and violist Ara Gregorian made his New York recital debut in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and his debut as soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra in Symphony Hall. He has since performanced in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center and in major metropolitan cities throughout the world including Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Cleveland, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Ulaanbaatar, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Helsinki. Throughout his career, Gregorian has taken an active role as a performer and presenter of chamber music. He is the founder and artistic director of the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival which is celebrating its 26th Anniversary Season, and has appeared at festivals worldwide including the SpringLight (Finland), Storioni (Holland), Summer Solstice (Canada), Casals (Puerto Rico), Intimacy of Creativity (Hong Kong), Voice of Music in the Upper Galilee (Israel), Taos, Bard, Bravo! Vail Valley, Santa Fe, Skaneateles, Music in the Vineyards, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Cactus Pear, Chesapeake, Madeline Island, Kingston and Manchester festivals. He is a member of the Cooperstown Quartet, has performed extensively with Concertante and the Daedalus Quartet, and has recorded for National Public Radio, New York’s WQXR, and the Bridge and Kleos labels. An active and committed teacher, Gregorian is the Chair of String and Piano Chamber Music at New England Conservatory. He has served on the violin/viola/chamber music faculty at East Carolina University since 1998, has taken a leading role in creating opportunities for talented students and young professionals through Four Seasons’ Spring Workshop and Next Generation initiatives, and is on the summer faculty of the Taos School of Music. He performs on a Francesco Ruggeri violin from 1690 and a Grubaugh and Seifert viola from 2006.

Benjamin Hochman, piano

In all roles, from soloist to chamber musician to conductor, Benjamin Hochman regards music as vital and essential. Born in Jerusalem in 1980, he attended the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Claude Frank, and went on to study with Richard Goode at the Mannes School of Music. At the invitation of Mitsuko Uchida, he spent three formative summers at the Marlboro Music Festival. At 24, Hochman debuted as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall conducted by Pinchas Zukerman. Orchestral appearances followed with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago and Pittsburgh Symphonies, and Prague Philharmonia under conductors including Gianandrea Noseda, Trevor Pinnock, David Robertson, John Storgårds and Joshua Weilerstein. A winner of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant, Hochman performs at venues and festivals across the globe, including the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Louvre, the Kennedy Center in Washington, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Austria’s Schubertiade, Germany’s Klavierfestival Ruhr and Lucerne and Verbier festivals in Switzerland. In 2015, Hochman developed an auto-immune condition affecting his left hand. He decided to pursue his longstanding interest in conducting, studying with Alan Gilbert at Juilliard where he was granted the Bruno Walter Scholarship and the Charles Schiff Award. He assisted Louis Langrée, Paavo Järvi, Rafael Payare, Thierry Fischer, and Edo de Waart, and created the Roosevelt Island Orchestra, consisting of some of New York’s finest orchestral and chamber musicians alongside promising young talent from top conservatories. Invitations to conduct the orchestras of Szeged in Hungary, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Orlando, Bridgeport, and The Orchestra Now at Bard New York follow. Fully recovered, Hochman re-emerged as a pianist in 2018, recording the Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 17 and 24. He presented the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas at the Israel Conservatory in Tel Aviv, performed Beethoven sonatas for Daniel Barenboim as part of a filmed workshop at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, and played both Beethoven and Kurtág for György Kurtág himself at the Budapest Music Centre. His fifth recording, Resonance, was released on Avie Records to critical acclaim in November 2024. Hochman is Artistic Director of the Kurtág Festival at Bard College in New York. He is a Steinway Artist and a Lecturer at Bard College Berlin.

Hsin-Yun Huang, viola

Since 1993, Hsin-Yun Huang has been firmly established as one of the leading violists of her generation. In that year she won the top prizes in the ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the highly prestigious Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award, which included a scholarship grant and concerto and recital appearances in Japan. Ms. Huang was also the youngest-ever gold medalist in the 1988 Lionel Tertis International Competition on the Isle of Man. A native of Taiwan, Ms. Huang currently resides in New York and is an active soloist and chamber musician in the U.S., the Far East, and Europe. She is in constant demand in her native Taiwan, appearing annually with the National Symphony of Taiwan. Ms. Huang also recently appeared in a nationally televised solo recital for President Chen Shui-Bian. She has participated in various prominent chamber music festivals including the Rome Chamber Music Festival, Spoleto Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Marlboro Music Festival; Prussia Cove, England, St. Nazaire in France, Bridgehampton, the El Paso Chamber Music Festival, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, Festival de Divonne in France, the Newport Festival, and many others. Ms. Huang was a member of the Borromeo String Quartet from 1994-2000. With the Quartet, she participated in festivals worldwide and in such prominent venues as New York's Alice Tully Hall, London's Wigmore Hall, Berlin's Philharmonie, and Japan's Casals Hall. In 1998 the Borromeo String Quartet was awarded the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award and was chosen by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to be members of "CMS Two" and featured in a "Live from Lincoln Center" telecast. Hsin-Yun Huang went to England at the age of fourteen to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School with David Takeno. She continued her studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia with Michael Tree, where she earned her Bachelor of Music degree, and at the Juilliard School with Samuel Rhodes, where she earned her Master of Music. She is a dedicated teacher and currently serves on the faculties of the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute.

Gilbert Kalish, piano

Gilbert Kalish, piano, leads a musical life of unusual variety and breadth. His profound influence on the musical community as educator and as pianist in myriad performances and recordings has established him as a major figure in American music-making. A native New Yorker and graduate of Columbia College, Mr. Kalish studied with Leonard Shure, Julius Hereford and Isabella Vengerova. He was the pianist of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players for thirty years and was a founding member of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, a group devoted to the new music that flourished during the 1960's and 1970's. He is a frequent guest artist with many of the world's most distinguished chamber ensembles. His thirty-year partnership with the mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani was universally recognized as one of the most remarkable artistic collaborations of our time. He maintains long-standing duos with cellists Timothy Eddy and Joel Krosnick, and appears frequently with soprano Dawn Upshaw. As an educator, Gilbert Kalish is Distinguished Professor and Head of Performance Activities at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. From 1968 to 1997, he was a faculty member at the Tanglewood Music Center, and served as Chairman of the Faculty at Tanglewood from 1985 to 1997. He participates at the Banff Centre, the Ravinia and Marlboro Festivals. Mr. Kalish's discography consists of more than 100 recordings, including his solo recordings of Charles Ives' Concord Sonata and sonatas of Josef Haydn, an immense discography of vocal music with Jan De Gaetani, and many musical landmarks of the 20th century. In 1995, Gilbert Kalish was presented with the Paul Fromm Award by the University of Chicago for distinguished service to the music of our time. In January 2002, he was the recipient of Chamber Music America's Service Award for exceptional contributions in the field of chamber music.

Ani Kavafian, violin

Violinist Ani Kavafian enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, chamber musician, and professor. She has performed with many of America’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. In the 2019-20 season, she continued her longtime association as an artist of the Chamber Music Society with appearances in New York and on tour. Last summer she participated in several music festivals, including the Heifetz International Institute and the Sarasota Chamber Music, Bridgehampton, Meadowmount, Norfolk, and Angel Fire festivals. She and her sister, violinist and violist Ida Kavafian, have performed with the symphonies of Detroit, Colorado, Tucson, San Antonio, and Cincinnati, and have recorded the music of Mozart and Sarasate on the Nonesuch label. She is a Full Professor at Yale University and has appeared at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall numerous times with colleagues and students from Yale. She has received an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions award and has appeared at the White House on three occasions. Her recordings can be heard on the Nonesuch, RCA, Columbia, Arabesque, and Delos labels. Born in Istanbul of Armenian heritage, Kavafian studied violin in the US with Ara Zerounian and Mischa Mischakoff. She received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School under Ivan Galamian. She plays the 1736 Muir McKenzie Stradivarius violin.

Alan Kay, clarinet

Praised by the New York Times for his “spellbinding” performances and “infectious enthusiasm and panache,” Alan R. Kay is Principal Clarinetist and Principal Clarinet of New York’s Riverside Symphony and Little Orchestra Society. He is the recipient of the Classical Recording Foundation’s Samuel Sanders Award, the C.D. Jackson Award at Tanglewood, a Presidential Scholars Teacher Award, and a Young Concert Artists Award with Hexagon, featured in the prizewinning film, “Debut.” A founding member of the Windscape Quintet, Mr. Kay performs regularly at the Yellow Barn, Orlando (Holland), Bowdoin, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, and Cape May Music Festivals. A frequent performer of the clarinet quintet canon, he has collaborated with the Orion, Calidore, Miró, Shanghai, Guarneri, Mendelssohn, Weinberg, Fine Arts, Chester and Colorado string quartets. He teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard and Stony Brook University, where he also serves as Executive Director of the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra. In 2023, anonymous donors established the Alan R. Kay Music Scholarship at The Juilliard School. Mr. Kay has recorded with Orpheus, Hexagon, Windscape and the Sylvan Winds. Recent recordings include CDs of the works of Rudolf Escher and Hans Kox, Michael Torke’s “Psalms and Canticles,” “TIME” and “Unseen.” He has served as a panelist for the Trapani, Italy and Rolduc, Holland competitions, as well as for Young Concert Artists, Concert Artist Guild, and the Fischoff Competition. Also a conductor, Mr. Kay studied conducting at Juilliard with the late Otto-Werner Mueller and has led ensembles at Juilliard, Stony Brook and in the New York City area.

Jaime Laredo, violin

Performing for over six decades before audiences across the globe, Jaime Laredo has excelled in the multiple roles of soloist, conductor, recitalist, pedagogue, and chamber musician. Since his stunning orchestral debut at the age of 11 with the San Francisco Symphony, he has won the admiration and respect of audiences, critics, and fellow musicians with his passionate and polished performances. His education and development were greatly influenced by his teachers Josef Gingold and Ivan Galamian, as well as by private coaching with eminent masters Pablo Casals and George Szell. At the age of 17, Laredo won the prestigious Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Competition, launching his rise to international prominence. In past seasons Laredo has conducted and performed with the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Detroit Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others. Abroad, Laredo has performed with the London Symphony, BBC Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Royal Philharmonic, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which he led on two American tours and in their Hong Kong Festival debut. His numerous recordings with the SCO include Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (which stayed on the British best-seller charts for over a year); Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “Italian” and “Scottish” symphonies; Beethoven’s Violin Concerto; Rossini overtures; and Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll. Dedicated to the fine art of chamber music, for forty-five years Mr. Laredo toured the world with the beloved Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, and also performed and recorded the piano quartet repertoire for fifteen years alongside colleagues Isaac Stern, Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax. His latest chamber group, the piano quartet ESPRESSIVO!, premieres Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s JOY STEPPIN’ in twenty cities from coast to coast during the 2024-25 season. Mr. Laredo and his wife, cellist Sharon Robinson, have been named Distinguished Artists in Residence at Oberlin Conservatory beginning in 2025.

Julia Lichten, cello

Julia Lichten enjoys a varied career as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher in the New York City area and beyond. She was a member of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra from 1995 to 2014, and has toured with Musicians from Marlboro, the American Chamber Players, and as an artistic ambassador for the U.S. State Department. Her festival engagements have included the Marlboro Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, Taos Chamber Music Festival, Library of Congress, Caramoor, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Chesapeake Chamber Music, and Rencontres Musicales d’Evian. She has recorded for Marlboro Recording Society, Arabesque, Koch International Classics, Music Masters, Sony Classical, and Deutsche Grammophon. Lichten has served as artist faculty at National Orchestral Institute, Kneisel Hall, Heifetz International Music Institute, Meadowmount School of Music, Yellowbarn, and Vivace. She is a member of the faculties of Manhattan School of Music and the CUNY Graduate Center. A native of New Haven, CT, Lichten graduated from Harvard-Radcliffe and New England Conservatory. Her principal teachers and mentors included Mischa Nieland, Paul Tobias, Felix Galimir, David Soyer, and Leon Kirchner.

Sophia Mockler, violin

A native of Brooklyn, New York, violinist Sophia Mockler joined the second violin section of the Minnesota Orchestra in 2019. She earned her master’s degree from the Yale School of Music under the tutelage of Ani Kavafian. Her previous teachers include Catherine Cho at the Juilliard School, Carmit Zori and Itzhak Perlman. She has attended multiple summer music festivals including the Verbier Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Program, the Lakes Area Music Festival and the Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop. In 2020 she made her debut on the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society alongside her former teachers, Carmit Zori and Ani Kavafian. In 2019, she toured throughout Europe with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under the direction of Iván Fischer, performing at the Concertgebouw, Elbphilharmonie and Carnegie Hall. She has served as the concertmaster for the Verbier Festival Orchestra as well as the Yale Philharmonia Orchestra. In addition to playing violin, she enjoys singing opera and sang the titular role of Dido in Dido and Aeneas at Princeton University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in French Comparative Literature.

Paul Neubauer, viola

Violist Paul Neubauer's exceptional musicality and effortless playing led the New York Times to call him “a master musician.” In 2025 he will release two albums for First Hand Records that feature the final works of two great composers: an all Bartók album including the revised version of the viola concerto and a Shostakovich recording including the monumental viola sonata. At age 21, Mr. Neubauer was appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic, and he held that position for six years. He has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras including the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki philharmonics; Chicago, National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco, and Bournemouth symphonies; and Mariinsky, Santa Cecilia, English Chamber, and Beethovenhalle orchestras. He’s also premiered viola concertos by Béla Bartók (revised version of the Viola Concerto), Reinhold Glière, Gordon Jacob, Henri Lazarof, Robert Suter, Joel Phillip Friedman, Aaron Jay Kernis, Detlev Müller-Siemens, David Ott, Krzysztof Penderecki, Tobias Picker, and Joan Tower. He performs with SPA, a trio with soprano Susanna Phillips and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, with a wide range of repertoire including salon style songs. He has been featured on CBS's Sunday Morning, A Prairie Home Companion, and in Strad, Strings, and People magazines. A two-time Grammy nominee, he has recorded on numerous labels including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Red Seal, and Sony Classical. Mr. Neubauer appears with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is the artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey. He is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Mannes College.

Angela Park, cello

Equally at home as a soloist and chamber musician, Angela Park has performed throughout the North and South Americas, Europe, and East Asia. Notable appearances are solo concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Seoul Philharmonic, and chamber music appearances at the Marlboro, Verbier, and Ravinia Festivals. In recent seasons, Angela has performed with Helsinki Baroque, Anne-Sophie Mutter on her Virtuosi European Tour, Incheon Philharmonic, and has returned to the Marlboro Music Festival, Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music, and Festival de los Siete Lagos in Argentina. She has been awarded the Silver Medal and SeongYawng Park Talent Award at the International Isang Yun Competition, in addition to prizes at the Stulberg International Competition and the Young Tchaikovsky Competition. She has worked with Leonidas Kavakos, Peter Wiley, Bruno Canino, and Richard Goode, and has also performed the concerto repertoire with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Korean Broadcasting System Orchestra, and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. Angela is increasingly in demand as a baroque cellist. She often performs the Bach Suites in a baroque setup, and has played continuo at the Pyeongchang Music Festival with Helsinki Baroque, as well as for the Gamut Bach Ensemble Philadelphia. Sha also has a deep interest in the music of our times, and has taken part in dozens of world premieres. Born in 1987 in California to Korean parents, Angela started playing the cello at age 10 with Sungeun Hong and Kyungmi Lim. Performing from an early age soon thereafter, Angela won virtually every competition in Korea and made her debut with the Seoul Philharmonic at the age of 12. At age 14, she started her studies at the renowned Curtis Institute of Music with Peter Wiley and the late Orlando Cole. There started her long relationship and love for chamber music while working with luminaries such as Pamela Frank, Joseph Silverstein, and MengChieh Liu. While at Curtis, she made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Christoph Eschenbach. Upon graduation, Angela studied with Laurence Lesser at the New England Conservatory, and with Jens Peter Maintz at the Universität der Künste Berlin in the Konzertexamen Program, where she was a DAAD Scholar (German Academic Exchange), graduating with highest distinction in 2013. She also seeks mentorship from the baroque cellist Kristin von der Goltz. Angela plays a Paolo Antonio Testore cello and a 19th century Flemish baroque cello, both generously on private loan.

Daniel Phillips, violin

Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist, and teacher. He serves as co-artistic director of the Music from Angel Fire chamber music festival with his wife, flutist Tara Helen O'Connor, and he was a founding member of the Orion String Quartet. The quartet's discography includes the complete quartets of Beethoven and Kirchner. Phillips is a graduate of The Juilliard School and a winner of the 1976 Young Concert Artists competition. His major teachers were his father, Eugene Phillips; Ivan Galamian; Sally Thomas; Nathan Milstein; Sandor Vegh; and George Neikrug. Throughout his career, Phillips has performed as a soloist with ensembles such as the Boston, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, and Yakima symphony orchestras. His festival appearances include Chamber Music Northwest, the Spoleto Festival USA, and the Chesapeake Music Festival. He's performed at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival every season since 1979, and he's participated in the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England, since its inception. Phillips's faculty appointments include the Mannes School of Music, Juilliard, the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, and the Bard College Conservatory of Music as well as the summer faculties of the Heifetz International Music Institute and the St. Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Seminar at Stanford. Daniel Phillips is a former member of the renowned Bach Aria Group, and he's toured and recorded in a string quartet for Sony Classical with violinist Gidon Kremer, violist Kim Kashkashian, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. In 2018, he served as a judge for the Seoul International Violin Competition, and last summer he served as a judge for the Leipzig International Bach Competition, where he won third prize in 1976. Phillips lives with his wife and two cute dachshunds on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Todd Phillips, violin

Todd Phillips made his solo debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony at the age of thirteen, and has appeared with many orchestras throughout the United States, Europe and Japan since then, including the Brandenburg Ensemble, the Jacksonville and Honolulu symphonies, Camerata Salzburg and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1982 with the New York String Orchestra and conductor Alexander Schneider. Mr. Phillips is a founding member of the highly acclaimed Orion String Quartet which recently concluded their 37 -year career as a group.The Orion Quartet has been the quartet-in-residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Mannes College of Music and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Their television appearances have included PBS’ “Live from Lincoln Center,” three performances on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and A&E’s “Breakfast with the Arts.” The Quartet’s recordings of the complete Beethoven quartets have received wide critical acclaim. They are in the process of preserving their legacy of music-making by posting both commercial recordings and recordings of live performances on their YouTube Channel. Todd Phillips’ experience as a frequent leader of the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has led to engagements as conductor/leader with the Camerata Nordica of Sweden, The New World Symphony, The Brandenburg Ensemble, the Tapiola Sinfonietta of Finland, and the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Phillips serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music, the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and the Cleveland Institute of Music where he is also Co-Artistic Director of the new chamber music workshop, CMI@CIM. Mr. Phillips lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife, violinist Catherine Cho and is the father of four children: Lia, Eliza, Jason, and Brandon and is grandfather of Theo and Mila.

Raman Ramakrishnan, cello

Raman Ramakrishnan was a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet, winners of the grand prize at the 2001 Banff International String Quartet Competition. During his eleven years with the quartet, he performed coast-to-coast in the United States and Canada, in Japan, Hong Kong and Panama, and across Europe. The quartet has been in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University. In 2011, he formed the Horszowski Trio with violinist Jesse Mills and pianist Rieko Aizawa. He has given solo recitals in New York, Boston, Seattle and Washington, D.C., and has performed chamber music at Caramoor, at Bargemusic, with the Boston Chamber Music Society, and at the Aspen, Charlottesville, Four Seasons, Lincolnshire (UK), Marlboro, Mehli Mehta (India), Oklahoma Mozart and Vail Music Festivals. He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed, as guest principal cellist, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a guest member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, he has performed in New Delhi and Agra, India and in Cairo, Egypt. Mr. Ramakrishnan was born in Athens, Ohio and grew up in East Patchogue, New York. His father is a molecular biologist and his mother is the children's book author and illustrator Vera Rosenberry. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University and a master's degree in music from The Juilliard School. His principal teachers have been Fred Sherry, Andrés Díaz and André Emelianoff. He lives in New York City with his wife, the violist Melissa Reardon. He plays a Neapolitan cello made by Vincenzo Jorio in 1837.

Amalia Rinehart, piano

Amalia Rinehart is a pianist from Brooklyn, NY. In 2021 she received her doctorate degree in piano performance from Stony Brook University, where she studied with renowned pianist Gilbert Kalish, and was a recipient of the Gilbert Kalish Endowed Scholarship. She previously earned her Master of Music degree from Stony Brook, and her Bachelor's in music from Columbia University, from which she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. While at Columbia, she was awarded the Rapaport Prize for Summer Music Study, as well as the 9/11 Memorial Fund Scholarship, given to distinguished student musicians, artists and athletes. Ms. Rinehart loves ensemble playing of all kinds, and has performed chamber music in venues across the country. In past summers she has participated in the Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival (WA), Colorado College Summer Music Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival as a Kaplan Fellow (ME), Sarasota Music Festival (FL), Kneisel Hall Young Artist Chamber Music Program (ME), the Olympic Music Festival in (WA), and Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival (AL). Her ensemble playing has been featured on WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase. In addition to Prof. Kalish, her major teachers have included Reiko Uchida and Molly Morkoski. Ms. Rinehart is passionate about art in addition to music, and is a trained organist. She has taught piano to students of all ages and levels for the past ten years, and currently teaches more than two-dozen students at the Lucy Moses School in Manhattan.

Robert Rinehart, viola

Violist Robert Rinehart, a member of the New York Philharmonic, is a familiar figure on the New York chamber music scene. A founding member of the Ridge String Quartet, Mr. Rinehart has performed in every major music center in the United States, as well as in Europe, South America, Canada, Australia and Asia, and has collaborated with Benny Goodman, Rudolf Firkusny, and the Guarneri String Quartet, among many others. He has appeared at the Spoleto Festival, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, the Bridgehampton Festival, Chamber Music/West, Chamber Music Northwest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, at the 92nd Street Y in New York, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. His recordings include albums which have received a Grammy Award, two Grammy nominations and the Diapason d'Or. A native of San Francisco, Mr. Rinehart studied violin there with Isadore Tinkleman, and at the Curtis Institute of Music with Jaime Laredo, David Cerone and Ivan Galamian. He is a member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music.

Sharon Robinson, cello

Winner of the Avery Fisher Recital Award, Piatigorsky Memorial Award, Pro Musicis Award and a GRAMMY nominee, cellist Sharon Robinson is recognized worldwide as a consummate artist and one of the most outstanding musicians of our time. Whether Ms. Robinson appears as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, or member of the exciting new Espressivo! piano quartet, critics, audiences, and fellow musicians respond to what the Indianapolis Star has called “a cellist who has simply been given the soul of Caruso.” Her guest appearances with orchestras include the Philadelphia and Minnesota orchestras; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, National, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and San Francisco symphonies; and in Europe, the London Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Zürich’s Tonhalle Orchestra and the English, Scottish and Franz Lizst chamber orchestras. Recipient of the 2012 Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts from the state of Vermont, Robinson divides her time between teaching, solo engagements, performing with her husband, violinist and conductor Jaime Laredo, and is much in demand as a chamber player. She is co-artistic director of the Linton Chamber Music Series in Cincinnati and of the Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle at Bard College. From 2012 till 2024 she served on the renowned instrumental and chamber music faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music. She previously was a full professor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and has an Honorary Doctorate from Marlboro College. In 2015, Robinson established the Cleveland Chapter of Music for Food, which raises funds for food assistance for hungry families in NE Ohio. Highly sought after for her dynamic master classes, she brings insight to her teaching from the rare combination of her lifetime experiences as member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Ciompi String Quartet of Duke University, 45 years with the Kalichstein‐Laredo‐Robinson Trio, plus countless solo recitals and concerto performances. Committed to the music of our time, Robinson has worked closely with many of today’s leading composers, including Ned Rorem, Leon Kirchner, Arvo Pärt, Stanley Silverman, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Joan Tower, David Ludwig, Katherine Hoover, Richard Danielpour and André Previn. She is admired for consortium building, putting together multiple presenters as co‐commissioners of both chamber music works and concertos with orchestra. She gathered ten presenters to co-commission Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s Elegy for Piano Quartet which was written as a response to the tragic events and social reckoning of 2020. Robinson put together a consortium to commission Shawn Okpebholo’s Wind Quintet, which mourns racial inequity. During the 2024-25 season, ESPRESSIVO! premieres JOY STEPPIN’ by Nokuthula Ngwenyama in twenty concerts coast to coast. Ms. Robinson and her husband, violinist Jaime Laredo, have been named Distinguished Artists in Residence at Oberlin Conservatory beginning in 2025.

Marcy Rosen, cello

Marcy Rosen has performed in recital and with orchestras throughout Canada, Japan, Europe, and all fifty of the United States. She made her concerto debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of eighteen and has since appeared with the Dallas Symphony, the Phoenix Symphony, the Caramoor Festival Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Jupiter Symphony and the Tokyo Symphony. In recital she has appeared throughout the United States, and for many years hosted a series at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington entitled "Marcy Rosen and Friends." With pianist Diane Walsh she performs as half of the Rosen/Walsh Duo and she is a founding member of the ensemble La Fenice. She is also a founding member of the Mendelssohn String Quartet. She appears regularly at festivals both here and abroad. Since 1986 she has been the co-artistic director of the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival in Maryland and as a long-time participant at the Marlboro Music Festival, she has taken part in sixteen of their "Musicians from Marlboro" tours. Marcy Rosen won the 1986 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and was further honored with the Walker Fund Prize and the Mortimer Levitt Carreer Development Award. She is the winner of the Washington International Competition for Strings, and was the first recipient of the Mischa Schneider memorial award from the Walter W. Naumberg Foundation. Her performances can be heard on the Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, CBS Masterworks, and Phillips labels, among many others. Ms.Rosen is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, and teaches at Queens College and at the Mannes College of Music in New York.

Jeffrey Sykes, piano

Pianist Jeffrey Sykes has earned a reputation for his captivating interpretations and profound musical insight, particularly as a collaborative pianist in chamber and vocal music. His work with some of the world’s finest musicians has graced stages across the United States and internationally. A passionate educator, he has worked with university piano and voice students at the University of California, Berkeley and California State University–East Bay, blending technical rigor with a deep understanding of musical expression. As artistic director of the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society and the Cactus Pear Music Festival, Sykes designs seasons that bridge tradition and innovation, inviting audiences to experience the intimate, transformative power of chamber music. Sykes’s 17 years as music director of Opera for the Young underscore his commitment to engaging diverse communities with the beauty of classical music. Sykes earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison as a recipient of the prestigious Javits Fellowship from the US Department of Education, focusing on solo piano performance, musicology, and historical performance practice. A Fulbright Scholar, he pursued advanced studies in piano, chamber music, and Lied accompaniment in Austria and Germany. He also holds a Bachelor of Music degree, summa cum laude, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where his honors thesis received the university's top prize for senior research.

Peter Wiley, cello

Cellist Peter Wiley enjoys a prolific career as a performer and teacher. He is a member of the piano quartet, Opus One, a group he co-founded in 1998 with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, violinist Ida Kavafian and violist Steven Tenenbom. Mr. Wiley attended the Curtis Institute of Music as a student of David Soyer. He joined the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1974. The following year he was appointed Principal cellist of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for eight years. From 1987 through 1998, Mr. Wiley was cellist of the Beaux Arts Trio. In 2001 he succeeded his mentor, David Soyer, as cellist of the Guarneri Quartet. The quartet retired from the concert stage in 2009. He has been awarded an Avery Fischer Career Grant, nominated for a Grammy Award in 1998 with the Beaux Arts Trio and in 2009 with the Guarneri Quartet. Mr. Wiley has participated at leading festivals including Music from Angel Fire, Chamber Music Northwest, OK Mozart, Marlboro, Santa Fe,Bravo! Great Lakes and Bridgehampton. Mr. Wiley teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music and Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Shai Wosner, piano

Pianist Shai Wosner’s performances of a broad range of repertoire—from Beethoven to Ligeti to music of today—reflect a degree of virtuosity and intellectual curiosity that has made him a favorite among audiences and critics. Highlights of Wosner’s 2024-25 season are a tour of the northeastern United States and Canada with clarinetist Martin Fröst and violist Antoine Tamestit. Wosner brings the same musicality, intellect, and sensitivity to his arrangements as he does his piano playing. He has arranged Beethoven’s Symphony Nos. 1, 4 and 6 as trios for cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Emanuel Ax, and violinist Leonidas Kavakos. The latter two arrangements are featured on the trio’s “Beethoven for Three” recordings from Sony Classical. This season, Wosner also performs a recital program of Schubert and David Lang with baritone Benjamin Appl commemorating the centenary of legendary baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau at New York’s Town Hall, presented by the Peoples’ Symphony Concerts (PSC) where Wosner is Artist-in-Residence; a performance with the JACK Quartet on the Music Mondays series in New York, and performances with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Additionally, he tours Europe with violinist Joshua Bell, and continues to perform as part of the Zukerman Trio with violinist Pinchas Zukerman and cellist Amanda Forsyth. Wosner has appeared with the major orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Berkeley, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, San Francisco, and Toronto, among others. He has performed abroad with the BBC orchestras, the Barcelona, Bournemouth, and Gothenburg Symphonies, LSO St. Luke’s, Staatskapelle Berlin, and the Vienna Philharmonic, among others. Wosner performs regularly at chamber music festivals, including Chamber Music Northwest, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. His acclaimed recordings for Onyx Classics range from Schubert sonatas, to chamber works by Bartók and Kurtág, to concerti by Haydn and Ligeti. Recent albums include a recording of Beethoven’s 33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120 also released on Onyx. Born in Israel, Wosner enjoyed a broad musical education from a very early age, studying piano with Opher Brayer and Emanuel Krasovsky, as well as composition, theory, and improvisation with André Hajdu. He later studied with Emanuel Ax at The Juilliard School, where Wosner is also now on the piano faculty. He is a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. For more information on Wosner go to shaiwosner.com.