The Uplift Orchestra

Violinist Tallie Brunfelt enjoys a busy freelance career in New York, in addition to serving as Concertmaster of the Akron Symphony Orchestra and Assistant Principal Second Violinist of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra. Some of her Broadway credits include King Kong: Alive on Broadway, Mean Girls and Ain’t Too Proud, and she is looking forward to performing again this winter in the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, starring the Radio City Rockettes. She can be heard on recent motion picture and television soundtracks including The Greatest Showman, A Dog’s Purpose and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, among many others. Tallie is also an avid teacher, presenting interactive music appreciation concerts to a variety of young and adult audiences, as well as private and group lessons for primary and secondary school students in and around New York City.

Violinist Qianqian Li joined the New York Philharmonic as Principal, Second Violin Group, in December 2017. An avid chamber musician, she has performed with Donald Weilerstein, Roger Tapping, Natasha Brofsky, Brett Dean, Gilbert Kalish, Curtis Macomber, and Anthony Marwood. Her honors include First Prize at Kazakhstan’s inaugural International Violin Competition, the Jules C. Reiner Violin Prize at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Ishikawa Music Academy Award, and prizes won with the Clara Piano Trio, of which she was a member for one year.

Ms. Li has performed at major music festivals including Aspen, Tanglewood, Yellow Barn, and Sarasota. As a soloist, she has performed with orchestras in major concert halls in Asia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. Her performances have been broadcast live on the radio, including by WGBH Boston. Before joining the New York Philharmonic, she served as a member of the first violin section of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for three years, after winning positions with the orchestras of Seattle, Atlanta, and St. Paul in the same period. She has also performed in the Boston, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta symphony orchestras and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Born in Nanjing, China, Qianqian Li received both her bachelor and master of music degrees from the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Donald Weilerstein and served as his teaching assistant, and was granted the Laurence Lesser Presidential Scholarship. Her other mentors include Malcolm Lowe and Lina Yu.

Passionate young violinist Jennifer Liu has performed extensively throughout the United States as a soloist and chamber musician, including at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Born in Los Angeles, California, Jennifer moved to New York at age 15 to study with Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho at the Juilliard School. Currently, Ms. Liu is a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship at the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Sylvia Rosenberg and Donald Weilerstein.

A prize winner at the Alice and Eleanore Schoenfield Competition, Jennifer has received scholarships and awards from the Starling Foundation, the Young Musicians Foundation, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and has soloed with the Young Musicians Foundation under Maestro Case Scaglione and the New West Symphony under Boris Brott.

Jennifer Liu plays on a Giovanni Battista Guadagnini on generous loan from the Juilliard Rare Instrument Collection. Beyond the stage, Ms. Liu dedicates her weekends by sharing her passion for classical music at psychiatric hospitals around New York City as a Gluck Community Fellow.

www.jenniferliuviolin.com

Violinist Laura Lutzke enjoys a musically versatile career, with a passion for solo playing, chamber music and new ways of making music. Born in 1987 and raised in New York, she served as Concertmaster of the New York Youth Symphony from 2004 to 2007. Her playing has been described as “liquid, radiant and shimmering, with beautifully played solo lines” by The New York Times.

As a soloist, Laura’s most recent performances have been with the Santa Fe Pro Musica chamber orchestra and the Parahyangan Classical Music Festival Orchestra in Indonesia. She has given recitals at numerous venues and festivals worldwide including the Bowdoin, Caramoor, Great Mountains, and Holland Music Sessions international music festivals, the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove in the UK, Klavierhaus in New York City, and the Lausanne Academy in Switzerland.

Laura earned her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School as a student of Lewis Kaplan, and she has most recently completed a second postgraduate course in Violin Performance with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She performs on an 1822 violin made by Pierre Pacherele, on a generous loan from The Christophe Landon Rare Violins Collection.

Doori Na, a San Francisco native, took up violin at the age of four and began his studies with Li Lin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In the fall of 2018, he made his debut with The San Francisco Symphony performing Bach’s Double Violin Concerto with Itzhak Perlman and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Currently living in New York City, Mr. Na plays with numerous ensembles around the city. He has played with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with tours in the US, Japan, and Europe performing in venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York and the Musiverien in Vienna. Mr. Na is also a member of Argento Chamber Ensemble performing works of living composers such as Georg Friedrich Haas, Beat Furrer, Tristan Murail, and many more. New Chamber Ballet is where you can find Mr. Na regularly performing solo works for dance and he has been a part of the company since 2013. Recent tours include performing in Lake Tahoe, Germany, and Guatemala.

Chamber music has also been an integral part of Mr. Na’s musical career. He has collaborated with members of the Juilliard String Quartet, Orion String Quartet, New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera and has been fortunate to tour with Itzhak Perlman at venues such as the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Other notable experiences include performing at the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach with the Bonhoeffer Trio and Les Amies trio.

In addition to performing, Mr. Na has been active in teaching and doing outreach at schools. He has worked at the Juilliard School as a teaching assistant to Catherine Cho as well as working as a coach for the Pre-College Orchestra. Outreach to schools include going to Sarasota, Florida with the Perlman Music Program/Suncoast, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates with Juilliard Global Ventures, and the British International School of Chicago with The Juilliard School President, Joseph Polisi.

Mr. Na attended the Juilliard School with the Dorothy Starling and Dorothy Delay scholarships and holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree where he studied under Itzhak Perlman, Catherine Cho, and Donald Weilerstein. He was concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra and was fortunate to play on a Guadagnini and Vuillaume violin from the Juilliard School’s prestigious violin collection.

www.doorinaviolin.com

American violinist Kurt Nikkanen is an international soloist of the highest order. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, he began his violin studies at the age of three, later studying with Roman Totenberg and Jens Ellerman. At twelve he gave his Carnegie Hall debut, performing with the New York Symphony; two years later he was invited by Zubin Mehta to perform the Paganini Concerto No.1 with the New York Philharmonic for a Young People’s Concert. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he was a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay.

Mr. Nikkanen regularly receives invitations from the leading orchestras and presenters in the USA and Europe, and has toured Japan and the Far East. In North America he has appeared with the Dallas Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestra, and in Europe with the BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Dresden Staatskapelle. He has worked with many leading conductors.

An enthusiastic advocate of contemporary music, Kurt Nikkanen has given numerous performances of the John Adams Violin Concerto, with orchestras such as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Oregon Symphony, Hallé Orchestra and Cincinnati Symphony (all under the composer’s direction).

Highlights of recent seasons have included a UK tour with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, performances with the Gothenburg Symphony and Neeme Jarvi at the BBC Proms, and concerts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Prague Symphony and RTE Orchestra in Dublin; also with the Bayerischer Rundfunk and Suddeutscher Rundfunk orchestras, both with the late Yakov Kreizberg, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra with Junichi Hirokami. He has also appeared with the Belgian National Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony and the orchestra of RAI Turin, the Detroit Symphony and Orchestra of Galicia, the Bilbao Symphony, the Malaysian Philharmonic and performances of the Dvorak concerto with the Czech Philharmonic and Vladimir Ashkenazy, both in Prague and on tour in the USA, with concerts in New York and Chicago. In 2011, he was featured as soloist in a performance of the Barber Violin Concerto and Ravel Tzigane with the Turku Philharmonic in a live webcast that was streamed worldwide.

Mr. Nikkanen has had many works written for him, including Steven R. Gerber’s violin concerto, which he has recorded for Koch International. In 2009, Mr. Nikkanen performed the world premiere of Mikko Heinio’s concerto Alla Madre, subsequently recording it for Sony Classical with the Turku Philharmonic under Petri Sakari and released in 2010. His recording of William Walton’s Violin Concerto with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra was released on the Nimbus Alliance label in 2010 and was chosen as “Critics Choice for 2010” in Gramophone Magazine.

Mr. Nikkanen gave the New York premiere of the Violin Concerto by Thomas Adès in May 2010 and has since performed it in Australia with the Perth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paul Daniel.

In addition to his orchestral appearances, Kurt Nikkanen performs regularly as a recitalist both in the US and abroad with his wife, pianist Maria Asteriadou, presenting repertoire ranging from the complete Beethoven sonatas to Piazzolla tangos.

He is the Concertmaster of the New York City Ballet Orchestra and maintains a private teaching studio in New York, where he resides with his family.

www.kurtnikkanen.com

New York-based violinist Cecee Pantikian joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in September 2020. As a sought-after orchestral musician, Ms. Pantikian has been invited to perform as a substitute violin with the New York Philharmonic, among others. Since 2016 Ms. Pantikian has also played on Broadway as a substitute on Aladdin, Hello Dolly, SpongeBob, Kiss Me Kate and as a first violin member of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular during the 2018 and 2019 holiday seasons. She was guest concertmaster at the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and principal second violin with International Chamber Soloists under the direction of Dmitri Berlinsky. Ms. Pantikian has also toured with Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra under music director Gabor Takacs Nagy and Verbier Festival Orchestra under the baton of Charles Dutoit, with whom Ms. Pantikian has also collaborated at the Miyazaki Music Festival; associate concertmaster with the Artosphere Festival Orchestra; first violin at Sun Valley Summer Festival and as associate concertmaster with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas. Ms. Pantikian has also been a member of the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra since 2018.

In 2003 Ms. Pantikian made her Carnegie Hall, Isaac Stern Auditorium debut, performing Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto with the Senior Concert Orchestra of New York under the baton of David Gilbert. Having established herself as a reputable young soloist, Ms. Pantikian has also appeared with orchestras including the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra performing the Brahms Violin Concerto and Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante; Chelsea Symphony Orchestra; Bozeman Symphony Orchestra performing the Conus Violin Concerto; Manhattan School of Music Philharmonic Orchestra; Musica Bella Orchestra performing Sibelius’ Violin Concerto and Symphony in C and the Vivaldi Concerto for 4 violins.

Cecee Pantikian was a participant at a number of prominent festivals and academies including Pinchas Zukerman’s Young Artist Program of the National Arts Center of Canada, Itzhak Perlman’s Chamber Music Program, Verbier Festival, Artosphere Festival and the Miyazaki Music Festival. She has studied with renowned musicians Pinchas Zukerman, Glenn Dicterow, Lisa Kim, Patinka Kopec and Albert Markov. Cecee Pantikian holds a B.M, M.M. and a Professional Studies Certificate in Orchestral Performance from the Manhattan School of Music.

A founding member of the Catalyst Quartet, Karla Donehew Perez maintains a busy performance schedule throughout the US and abroad. Hailed by the New York Times at their Carnegie Hall debut as “invariably energetic and finely burnished…playing with earthy vigor,” the Catalyst Quartet is comprised of top Laureates and alumni of the internationally acclaimed Sphinx Competition for young Black and Latino string players.

Born in Puerto Rico, Karla began playing the violin at age three. At age twelve, Karla and her family moved to California where she continued her studies with Anne Crowden, director and founder of The Crowden School. Karla completed her Bachelors and Masters degrees at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying performance with the heralded violin teachers Paul Kantor, David Cerone, and William Preucil. As a chamber musician she has collaborated with artists such as Fredericka Von Stade, Garry Karr, members of the Guaneri, Juilliard and Takacs Quartets, among others. As a soloist she has performed with many ensembles including the Berkeley Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, Sphinx Chamber Orchestra and the New World Symphony. Karla also spent two years as a fellow at the New World Symphony, where she was often concertmaster or principal second violin.

Karla is married to Paul Laraia, Violist of the Catalyst Quartet. She performs on a violin made in 2013 by renowned German luthier Stefan Peter Grenier, supported in part by a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant, and a fine violin bow by Victor Fetique on generous loan from the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation.

Derek Ratzenboeck has been a violinist with the New York City Ballet Orchestra since 2011. He previously held the position of Principal Second Violin of the Louisville Orchestra and Concertmaster of the Louisville Bach Society and actively performs with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as well as the Florida Orchestra and the Sarasota Orchestra. Derek has performed in the premier concert halls of the USA, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Lithuania, Russia, Armenia, China, Mexico, and Brazil with the CSO, Vienna Mozart Philharmonic and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra.

Derek actively performs as a recitalist and has had numerous recitals and chamber music performances broadcasted by WUOL Louisville Classics, Radio Nederland, North German Radio (NDR), and the Bavarian Radio (BR). In addition, he’s been featured on WMP’s “Strad for Lunch” Series in NYC and has recorded on the Innova Label.

Derek has a BM in Violin Performance from Indiana University Jacob’s School of Music, has Post-Graduate training in Vienna and Amsterdam Conservatory, and a Master’s Degree from the University for Music and Theater in Munich, Germany. Throughout his studies he has had the privilege to study with renowned soloists and pedagogues such as Henryk Kowalski, Renee Staar, Vesko Eschkenazy, Alexander Kerr, and Jens Ellermann.

Internationally recognized, and locally acclaimed violinist, Una Tone enjoys a career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player. Born in Riga, Latvia, Una comes from a long line of classically trained performers. Her father, a former ballet dancer is now a successful photographer and her mother a celebrated pianist/harpsichordist and well known educator. Una began playing violin at the age of four and was accepted to the highly competitive, and exclusive Emīls Dārziņš Music School in Riga. One of Una’s first solo appearances was with a symphony orchestra, performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.

In New York City Una has worked with the Radio City Orchestra, the New York Pops, the Opera Orchestra of New York, and the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra among others. She is a Concertmaster for the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra, the New York Symphonic Ensemble, the New Choral Society, and the Fontenay Chamber Players, to name but a few. Una’s classically trained playing is often in demand by high profile entertainment names across musical genres and styles. Una has toured with Michael Bublé, U2, Andrea Bocelli, Jose Carreras, Savion Glover, Il Divo, Brian Wilson and many others.

Una has played numerous Broadway shows including Miss Saigon, Ain’t Too Proud, Fiddler on the Roof, On The Town, Les Miserable, Lion King, Kinky Boots, Pippin, Wicked, Ragtime, The Producers.

To be able to record music with Carly Simon, Diana Krall, Tony Bennett, and appearing on radio and television both domestically in the United States and across European television sets, is simply a silver lining to Una’s extensive, and long-standing career. She has appeared on Good Morning America, The Today’s Show, Conan O’Brien, and The View.

www.unatone.com

Born in New York City and raised in Japan, Chihiro Allen began playing the violin at the age of six and the viola at 17. She joined the NYCB Orchestra in the spring of 2017, and also performs with many groups in and outside of NYC such as the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Saito-Kinen Orchestra of the Seiji Ozawa Festival in Matsumoto, Japan, and is a member of the Mostly Mozart Orchestra. Previously, she has been a member of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, and assistant principal violist at the Valencia State Opera Orchestra of Spain. In 2006 and 2008 she received the Music Award from the New York Japanese-American Association and made her first recital appearances at Carnegie Hall’s Weil Recital Hall.

Ms. Allen is also known as a violin/viola instructor for young children and has taught at schools such as Opus 118 Harlem School of Music, and The Kaufman Center. She currently maintains a private studio (chihirofukuda.com) and also teaches at the JCC Tenafly Thurnauer School of Music. Ms. Allen received her Bachelor of Music degree at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music under Junji Suganuma, and Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School under Masao Kawasaki.

Based in New York City, violist Celia Hatton finds herself in a myriad of musical settings. From premiering new works for solo viola, to collaborating with dancers, to exploring the conductorless chamber orchestra process, Hatton’s ability to adapt to various creative backdrops has led her to a colorful career.

She is the violist in residence for Periapsis Music and Dance, a company that creates new compositions and choreography simultaneously while incorporating the musician on stage with dancer.

Hatton is the former violist of the Zorá String Quartet. She has given the world premiere of string quartets by Colin Matthews, Derek Bermel, and Felix Jarrar, as well as premieres of solo viola works by Ansel Chang at Carnegie Hall and by Jonathan Katz at Jacob’s Pillow Dance.

After performing in South Korea at the festival New York in Chuncheon, she was named Honorary Ambassador to the city of Chuncheon.

She is a founding member of Shattered Glass, an Associate Musician at the Metropolitan Opera, has performed with St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Knights, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, toured nationally with A Far Cry and Sphinx Virtuosi and toured internationally with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

Hatton has performed at the Apollo Theatre, Jazz at Lincoln Center in collaboration with Paquito D’Rivera, Smalls Jazz Club, The Blue Note Jazz Club, and Birdland Jazz Club. She can be heard on Mark Gross’ jazz album “+ Strings” and on BIGYUKI’s electronic album “Reaching for Chiron.”

She has performed on NBC’s Today Show in conjunction with NPR, and performed with Alicia Keys, Eminem, Frank Ocean, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Madonna, Michael Bublé, Nicki Minaj, Pharrell, and Stevie Wonder, among others. Hatton can be heard on movies Annie, Barbershop 3, A Dog’s Purpose, The Girl on the Train, Goldfinch, The Good Liar, Greatest Showman, Keeping Up with the Joneses, and Frank, Zoolander 2.

Hatton received her Professional Studies and Master’s Degree from Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Karen Dreyfus as the recipient of a William Randolph Hearst Scholarship. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree with Kim Kashkashian at New England Conservatory receiving a Presidential Distinction Award Scholarship and Frances O. and Elizabeth Hunnewell Scholarship.

www.celiahatton.com

Taiwanese born violist and erhuist (Chinese violin), Wei-Yang Andy Lin, is recognized as one of the most promising and the only active performers who specialized in both western and eastern instruments. Praised by The Strad “The great Molto adagio…..elicited some of the night’s most sensitive work, especially from Wei-Yang Andy Lin on viola.” and New York Times “Taiwanese-born violist Wei-Yang Andy Lin..…is also a virtuoso on the erhu, and he gave a brilliant performance.” He is the artistic director and co-founder of the New Asia Chamber Music Society. Andy came to the U.S. in 1997 to attend the Idyllwild Arts Academy and holds his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School with full scholarship, and received his Doctor’s degree in Musical Arts from SUNY Stony Brook also with full scholarship. His former teachers have included Donald McInnes, Michael Tree, Toby Appel, Hsinyun Huang, Katherine Murdock and Daniel Panner. Andy has won numerous competitions including Taiwan National Viola Competition, the Idyllwild Concerto Competition, First Prize in the 2008 Juilliard Viola Concerto Competition and subsequently made his Lincoln Center solo debut at the Avery Fisher Hall (now David Geffen Hall) with the Juilliard Orchestra. He was also the winner of the 2009 SUNY Stony Brook Concerto Competition. He has also appeared as soloist with orchestras such as Yonkers Philharmonic Orchestra, Orford Academy Orchestra, Incheon Philharmonic, New York Classical Players, and Children’s Orchestra Society.

In addition to his solo career, Andy is an avid chamber musician and is a founding member of the award winning string quartet, the Amphion String Quartet. The quartet was a winner of the 2011 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and was on the roster of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society CMS2 Program from 2013~2016. The quartet has released their debut album with the Nimbus Records in England, in which the album was selected by the New York Times as “The Best 25 Classical Music Recordings of 2015.” Andy is also a member of the Musicians of Lenox Hill and serves as principal violist of the New York Classical Players and the Solisti Ensemble. He has also served as a principal violist of the International Sejong Soloists. He has been invited to perform chamber music with Itzhak Perlman where The New York Times described “Mr. Perlman, playing first violin..… answered in kind by the violist Wei-Yang Andy Lin.”

In addition to his accomplishments as a classical musician, he is also an active erhu player. He has recorded film music for a number of movies and short films, including “The Blood Brothers” and the award winning short film “Daughters” (Best Original Score at NYU Tisch Film Festival). He has performed the erhu solo part at the U.S. Premiere of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Kommilitonen!” with the Juilliard Opera Production, as well as the world premiere of Jeeyoung Kim’s “Engraft” for solo erhu and string orchestra with Solisti Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. He also premiered Winnie Lan-In Yang’s “Fantasy for Erhu and Strings” with the New York Classical Players. He has been invited by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra of the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago to play the solo erhu part in “Iris dévoilée” by Chen Qi-Gang. He has also appeared as an erhu solo in the U.S. Premiere of Yeow-Kwon Chung’s “Red Cliff” Piano Concerto with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. In fall 2017, he performed a haegeum concerto “Choosang” on the erhu with Busan Metropolitan Traditional Music Orchestra at the Busan Maru International Music Festival in Korea. He has recently performed an erhu concerto “Wild Grass” by Wenjing Guo with the Juilliard Orchestra at its Focus! Festival final concert at Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center in which it was featured on the New York Times, this also made him the only person in the Juilliard history who performed concertos with the Juilliard Orchestra on both western and eastern instruments. He has also been invited by the Metropolitan Museum to give recitals at their Gallery Concert Series and Patrons Lounge Concert. He has appeared at OK Mozart and Chamber Music Northwest festivals, as well as a recital at the Caramoor Center for the Music and the Arts. He also performs annually at the Spring Celebration presented by the Chinese Cultural Arts Institute in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Andy plays on a viola made by one of his best friends Jacob Ho.

www.andylinviola.com

Triple-prized winner of the Lionel Tertis Competition, including Yuri Bashmet’s President Of The Jury Prize, Taiwanese-born Canadian Chieh-Fan Yiu has established himself as one of the most exciting young violists on the international stage today.

Artist-in-residence in Philosonia, Lisker Music Foundation, and New Asia Chamber Music Society, Dr. Yiu's performances have also taken him around the world in festivals such as Málaga Clásica, Music@Menlo, Moritzburg, Verbier, Aspen, and Sarasota Music Festivals. He is also a founding member of Ben Feng Music Festival in Taiwan, now in its sixth season. His solo engagements have included Aspen Festival Orchestra, New York Classical Players, Vancouver Academy Symphony, Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra, Stony Brook Symphony, and UBC Chamber Orchestra. He has collaborated with Thomas Bergen, Colin Carr, David Cohen, Nicholas Cords, Pedro R. Díaz, Alan Kay, Tessa Lark, Frank Morelli, Alfredo Muro, Paul Neubauer, Daniel Phillips, Sasha Sitkovetsky, Josu De Solaun, Carol Wincenc, as well as the Volta Piano Trio and the Emerson Quartet. Chieh-Fan Yiu is the violist of Deka Quartet, and their 2019/20 season includes a teaching residency with SUNY Schenectady County Community College.

An eclectic musician, Dr. Yiu has worked closely with Ensemble For The Romantic Century, whose unique productions meld all forms of art into a cohesive unity by combining fully staged plays with live chamber music and elaborate visual designs. He has starred in such multi-media productions as ‘The Dreyfus Affair’, 'Because I Could Not Stop: An Encounter With Emily Dickinson', and ‘Van Gogh’s Ear’, the latter of which was hailed by The New York Times as musically “ravishing.”

As a recipient of the coveted Jerome L. Greene Fellowship, Dr. Yiu completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, followed by Doctorate of Music degree from Stony Brook University, having been under the tutelage of mentors like Toby Appel, Heidi Castleman, Hsin-Yun Huang, Kim Kashkashian, as well as the great Emerson Quartet.

Media coverage of Dr. Yiu’s performances and interviews include Music@Menlo Live, medici.tv broadcast from Switzerland, and BBC News in the UK. Mr. Yiu’s live recording of Nataliya Medvedovskaya’s Fantasy for Viola and Piano can be heard on WQXR Radio and ArkivMusic.

www.yiuviola.com

Hailed by the New York Times for his "muscularity and shimmering lyricism", "insightful musicianship", and "sumptuous elegance”, cellist Andrew Janss' performances have been enjoyed across five continents in venues including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Sydney Opera House, and the Louvre.

Mr. Janss is the co-Artistic Director for Project: Music Heals Us, a non-profit organization that presents interactive classical music performances to diverse audiences by artists of the highest caliber in order to provide encouragement, education, and healing, with a focus on elderly, disabled, rehabilitating, incarcerated, and homeless populations.

Mr. Janss has collaborated in concert with a long list of iconic classical artists, including Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Lynn Harrell, Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, as well as chart-topping performers such as Lana Del Rey, Mary J. Blige, Estelle, Florence + the Machine, Erykah Badu, Kurt Elling, and The Roots. The performance of his arrangement of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon for singer and string quartet at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles was attended by over 5,000 people, to rave reviews.

Janss is cellist of the acclaimed Solera Quartet, winners of the 2017 Pro Musicis International award. Previously, Mr. Janss was the founding cellist of the Escher Quartet, one of the most highly acclaimed string quartets of its generation. The Escher Quartet was in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as part of Chamber Music Society Two from 2007-10.

He has served as Guest Principal Cellist of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and tours extensively with the Mark Morris Dance Group. Highlight performances with the company have included premieres of new choreography in Boston, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Miami, New Orleans, and internationally in China, Italy, and Australia.

Andrew also tours and records for the groundbreaking cello rock band Break of Reality both in the United States and as cultural ambassadors for the US Department of State. Recent tours through American Music Abroad have taken the band to Eastern and Central Asia, Haiti, and Brazil, collaborating with local musicians and composers in each country they visit.

www.andrewjanss.com

Cellist Patrick Jee joined the New York Philharmonic in July 2013. A native New Yorker, he has toured extensively in the United States, Europe, and Asia, making appearances at New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., London’s Wigmore Hall, Paris’s Salle Gaveau, and the Seoul Arts Center. He also performed on CNN’s American Morning as well as at the United Nations at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Korean War armistice.

As a soloist, he has performed with the Buffalo and Rochester Philharmonic orchestras, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, National Orchestra of Toulouse, Edmonton Symphony, and the Orchestre National d’Île de France. He has been a guest artist at major music festivals including Aspen, Banff, Caramoor, Casals, Kneisel Hall, La Jolla, and Olympic.

In 2006 Mr. Jee was the Grand Prize winner of the Carlos Prieto International Cello Competition, which earned him concerts throughout Mexico and a recording contract with Naxos’s subsidiary, Urtext Digital Classics. He has also won top awards at the Andre Navarra International Cello Competition, the Holland-America Music Society Cello Competition, and the Irving Klein String Competition.

An avid chamber musician, he is a member of the New Piano Trio, winners of the 2008 Fischoff, 2007 Coleman, and 2007 Plowman chamber music competitions and recipient of the Harvard Musical Association’s Arthur W. Foote Prize. Since 2001 he has performed with Sejong Soloists, collaborating with artists such as Barry Douglas, Vladimir Feltsman, Lynn Harrell, Cho-Liang Lin, and Gil Shaham. As a founding member of Ensemble Ditto, he helped introduce more than 15,000 people to chamber music as South Korea’s most popular classical musical presentation of 2008.

Before joining the New York Philharmonic, Patrick Jee served as assistant principal cello of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, principal cello of the Grant Park Orchestra, and was on faculty at Roosevelt University-Chicago College of Performing Arts. His transcription of Glazunov’s Meditation, published by International Music Company (IMC), recently won First Prize from the Music Publishers Association’s Paul Revere Awards, and his transcription of Corelli’s La Folia Variations will be released by IMC in 2013.

Mr. Jee holds a bachelor of music from The Juilliard School and a master of music from Yale University, where he studied with Aldo Parisot. He can be heard on the Albany, Urtext, and HM record labels.

He resides on the Upper West Side with his wife, violinist Nanae Iwata, and is an ardent New York Yankees fan.

Hailed by the press for his “bold, rich sound” (Strad Magazine) and “nuanced musicianship,” (New York Times) Israeli Cellist Michael Katz has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in venues such as Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Van Wezel Performing Arts Center (Sarasota, FL), Oji Hall (Tokyo, Japan), Philips Hall (Eindhoven, Netherlands), Teatro Cervantes (Malaga, Spain), Lucerne KKL (Lucerne, Switzerland), and Henry Crown Auditorium (Jerusalem, Israel). He has performed at music festivals such as Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Yellow Barn, Lucerne, Sarasota, Malaga Clasica, Orford, and Kfar Bloom, and has collaborated with conductors such as James DePreist, David Stern, Dongmin Kim, and Menachem Nebenhaus.

His musicianship has been recognized with many awards, among them all three awards at the 2011 Aviv Competition, first prizes at the 2010 Juilliard School’s Concerto Competition, and the 2005 Turjeman Competition, as well as scholarship awards from the America Israel Cultural Foundation and the Ronen Foundation.

High in demand as a chamber musician, Mr. Katz has collaborated and performed with artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Midori, Donald Weilerstein, Anthony Marwood, Peter Frankl, Charles Neidich, Roger Tapping, Lucy Chapman, and Paul Biss. He has participated in chamber music programs such as the Steans Institute for Young Artists and the Perlman Music Program.

Deeply committed to community outreach and education, from 2014-2016 Mr. Katz was a Fellow in Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect (formerly known as ACJW). He was previously selected to be part of a special string quartet led by Midori to present formal and outreach concerts in Myanmar and Japan as part of the 2013-2014 International Community Engagement Program, and was invited to return to the program in 2016-2017 for concerts in Nepal and Japan. As of 2015, Mr. Katz is on the faculty of Nyack College as an adjunct professor and has previously taught at the Csehy Summer School of Music and the Chamber Music Institute in Stamford, CT.

Born in Tel-Aviv Israel, Mr. Katz began his cello studies at age 7. Among his teachers in Israel were Zvi Plesser, Hillel Zori and the late Mikhail Khomitzer. Mr. Katz received his Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory where he studied with Laurence Lesser, his Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School where he studied with Joel Krosnick, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from SUNY Stony Brook as a student of Colin Carr.

www.michaelkatzcello.com

Praised for his “sublime” playing by Cleveland Classical, cellist Felix Umansky is a frequently sought-after recitalist and pedagogue. His versatile career has taken him all over Europe as well as North and South America where he has performed in some of the most prestigious concert halls including Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center.

One of Mr. Umansky’s missions as a performer is to bring a wide range of music to as many people as possible. He has been seen and heard playing everything from Bach to works written in the 21st Century in venues ranging from jazz clubs to 8th century abbeys to 1500-seat concert halls. An avid supporter of contemporary music, Mr. Umansky has performed and premiered works by numerous living composers such as William Bolcom, John Corigliano, Kelly-Marie Murphy, Vivian Fung, Chen Yi, Osvaldo Golijov, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Chick Corea, among many others.

Currently a visiting artist-in-residence at the Royal College of Music in London, Mr. Umansky has also previously held similar appointments at Yale University and the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, and he has given masterclasses at universities and conservatories around the world. He has also performed and taught at many of the premier summer festivals in the USA. Mr. Umansky holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and an Artist Diploma from Yale University.

Mr. Umansky is the newest member of the Harlem Quartet, having joined the ensemble in 2015. Prior to this, he spent six seasons as a founding member of the award-winning Linden String Quartet. He also currently performs in the Schroeder-Umansky Duo with his wife, violinist Amy Schroeder. In their spare time, they enjoy traveling the world and going on snorkeling and diving adventures.

Bassist Patrick Duff is based in New York City and holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School.

Ron Wasserman is a veteran, third generation musician, native New Yorker, and composer. Since his first professional gig in 1979 at age 18, he has logged close to 5,000 performances in virtually every imaginable musical genre, including over 900 performances of “The Nutcracker” as a member of the NYC Ballet Orchestra. As a composer he has three CDs of original music to his credit and his music has been performed in the US, Italy, Scotland, and the Dominican Republic.

Ron is a member of the world-class, JP Jofre Hard Tango Chamber Band and concertizes with them several times a year in NY and out of town.

In his spare time, he is the artistic director of the New York Jazzharmonic, the creation of which is the culmination of a life-long dream in that it succinctly merges an improvisatory and swinging jazz idiom with the forms, formality, and trappings of classical music, with a soupçon of world music thrown in.

Ron’s website is: www.trilaterus.com.

New York based musician, Jessica Han (Jesse), is Principal Flute of Opera Saratoga in Saratoga Springs, NY, a member of Jazz Band, The Gil Evans Project and is a substitute musician for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Symphony, and broadway musicals Wicked and The Lion King.

Additionally, Ms. Han performed as Guest Principal flute and piccolo for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (2014) and Opera National de Lorraine/Orchestra Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy (2012).

This past January (2018), Ms. Han made her debut with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra in Kuala Lumpur as Principal Flute, and will be on trial as their new Principal Flute during the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2018-2019 season.

As a member of the Gil Evans Project, Ms. Han performed on three time Grammy nominated album, Centennial: Newly Discovered works of Gil Evans) and Grammy nominated album Lines of Color. The Gil Evans Project was awarded two JJA Jazz awards for Large Ensemble of the Year (Ryan Truesdell’s Gil Evans Project) and Record of the Year (Centennial: Newly Discovered works of Gil Evans).

Ms. Han also had the privilege of performing flute and bass flute for Maria Schneider and the late David Bowie on Bowie's last single Sue (Or in a Season of Crime). Sue (Or in a Season of Crime) received Grammy awards for best arrangement, best instrumental and vocals for Maria Schneider.

After completing her conservatory training at the Juilliard School in 2010, Ms. Han returned to university to get a traditional liberal arts education. In 2015, she graduated cum laude from Columbia University with a B.A. in French literature.

Upcoming projects include scoring for short film, Redemption Song by August Dannehl, play, Dark was the Night by Maurice Decaul and short film, Printed in Fire by John Kowalchuk.

www.jessicajadehan.com

Described as ”one of the finest oboe players in the country" - The Jerusalem Post; ”Expressive, wonderful player” – SZ Magazine, Germany; ”Virtuoso and Elegant” – Double Reed Magazine, Germany; and ”Outstanding” and "the star soloist of the evening"– The New York Times -- Roni Gal-Ed is a first prize winner at the International Lauschmann Oboe Competition in Mannheim, Germany, and a recipient of scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, and from the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ms. Gal-Ed has worked with leading conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Valery Gergiev, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Christian Thielemann, Sándor Végh, and Yoel Levy. As a chamber musician she collaborated with distinguished musicians such as Daniel Barenboim, Nikolaj Znaider, Johannes Moser, Mathieu Dufour, Alex Klein, Dale Clevenger, Karl Heinz Steffens, Klaus Thunemann, the Jerusalem String Quartet, and the Carmel String Quartet. A recording of a concert with the Carmel String Quartet was broadcast live on The Voice of Music in Israel, and twice on WQXR. Ms. Gal-Ed has also recorded the Hindemith Oboe Sonata and Serenade for the German radio station, Hessischer Rundfunk in Frankfurt, as part of Hindemith's 100th birthday celebrations in Germany. Other recordings include the premieres of Oded Zehavi's "Erelim" (as a soloist with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra), and of Avner Dorman's "Jerusalem Mix."

Ms. Gal-Ed has been a regular participant in music festivals around the world, including the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, the PRO Festival Rolandseck, Germany, the Verbier Music Festival, Edinburgh Music Festival, and the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado.

From 2001 to 2003, Ms. Gal-Ed played with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra under James Levine. In 2003 she became the Principal Oboist of the Bavarian Chamber Orchestra, a position she held until 2007. Ms. Gal-Ed played, toured and recorded as a guest Principal Oboist with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer for eight years. She performed and toured with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Bremen Kammerphilharmonie, and was a frequent guest Principal Oboist with the Stuttgart and Munich Chamber Orchestras.

Back in her native Israel, she served as the Principal Oboist of the Israeli Opera for one year, and then as Associate Principal with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. Since moving to New York in 2009, Ms. Gal-Ed has continued to be an active Oboist who plays with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra. In 2018, she performed the U.S. premiere of Matthew Greenbaum's oboe concerto "the jig is up" at Lincoln Center.

Ms. Gal-Ed has studied with Paul Dombrecht at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. She then joined one of Europe’s leading oboe programs at the Musik Hochschule in Munich, under the leadership of the late Günther Passin, where she graduated with a Master’s degree.

www.ronigaled.com

A sought-after chamber music and orchestral musician, oboist Lillian Copeland is an active NYC freelancer who performs with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), among others. She currently holds the position of Principal Oboe with both the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic. She is on the pre-college faculties of Mannes School of Music and Manhattan School of Music, and maintains a private teaching studio in NYC.

After receiving degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Rice University, Lillian spent eight seasons as Principal Oboe with the Santiago Philharmonic Orchestra (Chile). Aside from the diverse opera, ballet, and symphonic repertoire, Lillian performed a variety of chamber music, toured the south of Chile with her woodwind quintet, and collaborated with the Ensamble Filarmónico. An ardent supporter of new music, Lillian premiered new works at the annual Contemporary Music Festival in Santiago.

Lillian has performed as a concerto soloist with the New Baroque Soloists, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, and in Chile with both the Philharmonic and the Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Orchestra, where she was also Professor of Oboe.

Born in Lexington, VA, Lillian is currently pursuing a doctorate at Rutgers University. Her teachers include James Caldwell, Robert Atherholt, and Nathan Hughes.

www.lilliancopeland.com

Brad Balliett enjoys being a musical omnivore, focusing equal parts of his career on composing, playing bassoon, and teaching artistry.

Brad is principal bassoon of the Princeton Symphony, a member of Signal and Metropolis Ensemble, a founding member and former Artistic Director for Decoda, a member of the composer-collective band Oracle Hysterical, and on faculty at The Peabody Institute, The Juilliard School, and Musicambia.

As a teaching artist, Brad regularly leads composition and song-writing workshops in prisons, schools, hospitals, and homeless shelters. His work with Musicambia has given him the opportunity to guide aspiring composers and performers at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Allendale Correctional Facility, Brooklyn Detention Center, and San Quentin State Prison. With Project: Music Heals Us, Brad has led music history and composition workshops at Radgowski-Corrigan and Bain Correctional Center. With Decoda, Brad has participated in workshops for over six years at Lee Correctional Institute.

As a bassoonist, Brad has performed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera, Houston Symphony, New York City Ballet, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, and at the Marlboro, Tanglewood, Stellenbosch, Newport Jazz, and Lucerne Festivals. He has performed as a soloist with the Houston Symphony and Johannesburg Symphony Orchestras.

As a composer, Brad has written orchestral, chamber, choral, operatic, and incidental music. Recent commissions have come from Carnegie Hall, Cecelia Chorus, Metropolis Ensemble, and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra Wind Ensemble.

Brad is a member of the band/composer-collective Oracle Hysterical, with whom he has released several critically acclaimed albums and produced several evening-length works, including a song cycle with the string orchestra A Far Cry and an opera premiered at the Lucerne Festival. With his brother, Doug Balliett, Brad teaches history courses at Juilliard, gives lectures for Carnegie Hall, and has developed a series of Interactive Shakespeare Reading Parties.

Raised in Westborough, Massachusetts, Brad graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 2005, where he studied composition with John Harbison, and holds an MM from Rice University. Brad spends as much time as possible outside, observing birds and trees.

www.bradballiett.net

Bassoonist Nanci Belmont, praised as "outstanding" by the New York Classical Review, is a dynamic musician enjoying a diverse career as a performer, educator, and arts advocate.

Recognized for her artistry as a soloist, Nanci is the Second Prize winner of the 2016 Fernand Gillet-Hugo Fox Competition of the International Double Reed Society. She has appeared as a concerto soloist in New York City on multiple occasions, including performances of the Strauss Duett Concertino for Clarinet and Bassoon and the Gubaidulina Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings.

Chamber music is an integral part of Nanci’s career; she enjoys programming and performing on concert series in New York and beyond. From 2012-2014 she was the bassoonist with Ensemble Connect - a Program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute. A proponent of the music of our time, she is a member of The City of Tomorrow, a wind quintet dedicated to the performance and expansion of contemporary repertoire. In other contemporary chamber music ventures, Nanci has collaborated with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Argento Chamber Ensemble, and Talea Ensemble.

As an orchestral musician, Nanci has performed with ensembles including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, and New York City Ballet. Memorable international experiences include performances of Peter Grimes in the United Kingdom for the Benjamin Britten Centennial and a European tour with Ensemble intercontemporain in collaboration with the Lucerne Festival.

Nanci is passionate about creating meaningful and relevant musical experiences for all audiences. She works as a Teaching Artist with the Bridge Arts Ensemble, and has taken part in numerous performances in community venues and public schools as a fellow of Ensemble Connect. In her roles as performer and educator, Nanci is driven by the desire to cultivate curious, lifelong learners in music. Nanci serves on faculty at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, MA and the Special Music School in New York City.

Originally from Florida, Nanci holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Florida State University and a Master's degree from Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Frank Morelli. Most recently, she completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University. Nanci currently resides in New York City, where she enjoys searching for the perfect cup of coffee, escaping the city for some hiking, and hanging out with her cat, Scherzo.

www.nancibelmont.com

Rachel Drehmann, aka Attila the Horn, grew up among the farms, cheese-lovers, and her fellow Packer fans outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

She began playing French horn at a young age and headed to Minneapolis to earn her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Minnesota, studying with such experts as Wayne Lu and Charles Kavalovski. After graduation, she trekked to New York City to study with Jerome Ashby at Manhattan School of Music, where she earned her Masters of Music degree. Since then, Rachel has been based out of Upper Manhattan and her performing career has thrived as she continues to perform in a wide range of musical genres—from classical to pop to Broadway to indie rock.

In the United States, Rachel has joined forces with Tilt Creative Brass Band, Banda de Los Muertos, Chamber Orchestra of New York and was also a member of the indie rock band A Whisper In The Noise. She performed Ligeti’s Horn Trio at the Hungarian Cultural Institute in 2008 and worked through the IHS Meir Rimon Commissioning Fund to commission and premier a piece by John Clark. As a soloist, Rachel performed Strauss’ Horn Concerto No. 1 with the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra and was the solo horn in Shakespeare in the Park’s Euripides’ The Bacchae in 2009. As an active New York City freelancer, Rachel has performed with orchestras such as the American Symphony Orchestra, the Albany Symphony, the Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic, The Knights, and Metropolis Ensemble, as well as with numerous Broadway shows. She is currently working with Ann Ellsworth to showcase a series of Baroque concertos for two soprano horns.

Kyle Hoyt is an active French Horn player and teacher in the NYC metropolitan area and beyond. Kyle can be heard frequently playing with the American, Detroit, New Haven Symphony Orchestras, Orchestra of St. Lukes, the Knights Chamber Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of New York. He performs regularly at the Bard Music Festival Orchestral and Chamber Music Programs. Previously he was Associate Principal horn of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and held full time positions with the Columbus and Syracuse Symphony Orchestras. He recently recorded with Yo-Yo Ma.

Kyle has also recorded for Naxos, Telarc, Nimbus Records, CBS, and NFL Films.

He currently serves as French Horn Faculty at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey. He has given masterclasses at the University of Michigan, the Ohio State University, Bowling Green State University, and the University of Kansas.

He studied at the University of Michigan and Manhattan School of Music. Kyle’s principal teachers were Bryan Kennedy, Erik Ralske, and Jeffrey Lang.

Leelanee Sterrett joined the New York Philharmonic in June 2013; she currently serves as Acting Associate Principal Horn. She was previously a member of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and a regular substitute with the New York Philharmonic. Ms. Sterrett is also an alumna of The Academy, Carnegie Hall’s collective of young professionals and music advocates, and a former member of Ensemble ACJW.

A northern-Michigan native, Ms. Sterrett grew up in a musically enthusiastic family and attended Interlochen Arts Academy. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a master’s degree from the Yale School of Music. Her primary teachers include William Purvis, Douglas Hill, and Julie Schleif. Ms. Sterrett has spent summers at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Pacific and Sarasota music festivals, the National Orchestral Institute, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. She is a past prizewinner in the International Horn Competition of America and the Yamaha Young Performing Artists Program.

In recent seasons, Ms. Sterrett has made solo appearances at Carnegie Hall, with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and at the 2015 International Horn Symposium with her Philharmonic colleagues. She currently serves on the horn faculties of Rutgers University and New York University.

Chad Yarbrough enjoys a varied career performing with many of New York’s top ensembles. He is the principal horn of the Riverside Symphony and a member of the American Symphony Orchestra. He has been Acting Assistant /Utility Horn of the New York Philharmonic since 2017 and has performed and toured with them regularly since 2008. He appears frequently with many local ensembles including the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Knights, New York City Opera Orchestra, American Ballet Theatre Orchestra, City Center’s Encores! Orchestra, and Mark Morris Dance Group. He has also performed with the Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Mariinsky Orchestra, and Tokyo Symphony. He was a member of the Colorado Symphony for the 1999-2000 season.

Mr. Yarbrough has enjoyed a long run in the Broadway hit “Wicked”. He has appeared and recorded with Bjork, Sting, Elton John, Andrea Bocelli, Rufus Wainwright, Michael Buble, and Josh Groban and recorded many television and film scores. Mr. Yarbrough earned a master’s degree from the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Jerome Ashby, and he holds a degree in education from Florida State University. Mr. Yarbrough lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Emily Bruskin Yarbrough, and their two children.