Qian Zhou
Described by Philip Roth in The Strad as “a significant world-class artist”, Qian Zhou is recognized internationally as a violinist, recording artist and teacher of the first rank.
Born in Hangzhou, China, Qian had her early training at the Shanghai Conservatory, winning first prize in the China National Competition in 1984. In 1985, she went to the United States where she completed her studies with Berl Senofsky at the Peabody Conservatory, before being also personally mentored by Piero Weiss.
At the age of only 18, Qian received instant world-wide recognition with her brilliant triumph at the 1987 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris, breaking all precedent in the competition’s 50-year history by winning the First Grand Prize and all five major prizes. Her victory and the international attention it drew enabled her immediate access to the major halls and performing opportunities around the globe.
For more than twenty years, she has been a frequent recitalist and soloist with orchestras in Europe, United States, Asia and Africa. Past engagements include concerts with the Baltimore Symphony, Beijing Central Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish, Bournemouth Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, National Orchestra of Ile de France, New Japan Philharmonic , Osaka Symphony, Rome Symphony, Russian Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony, Shanghai Symphony, Spanish National, Taipei Symphony and the Vienna Chamber Orchestras amongst others while venue highlights include performances at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Centre, Royal Festival Hall, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and the Vienna Musikverein. While the Washington Post praised “her expressive talents, fluid phrases and delicate, at times almost weeping, vibrato , ” Le Figaro commended her “great violin playing”, acknowledging her as “a very great artist”, and La Nazione in Florence noted “her performance was an inspired force…accompanied by a technical polish, communicative capacity, and an expressive candor that was absolutely enchanting.” The Dauphiné Libéré offered “she is a poet in the etymological sense : one who creates beauty and happiness . ”
Qian's ten CDs with the Naxos, Hugo and Hungaraton labels have embraced a wide range of repertoire from Bach to Bartok have also drawn praise of the highest calibre. Her recording of the Beethoven concerto was described by Henry Roth in The Strad as “technically impeccable… burnished with beautifully-focused tone, a vibrato that spans the full gamut of colour, and an astute sense of pacing, all replete with sensitive nuances. “ He continued “her phrasing is breath-taking; not a note is ‘wasted’ or ignored, all delivered with a rare nobility of spirit”. Her Glazunov concerto was perceived as “extraordinary: full-blooded, suave and sophisticated, yet uncommonly thoughtful”, while her recordings of the complete Dvořák works for violin & piano were praised as “strikingly confident, each note invested with glowing lyrical import.”
As the founding Head of Strings at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, she has combined her very active performance career with a passion for teaching which has now received equivalent high-level endorsement to that of her playing. With students already achieving considerable international success in Europe, Asia, America and Australasia, she is in much demand world-wide for masterclasses and as a participant in international juries. She is currently the Head of Artistic Committee in the Singapore International Violin Competition. She is also the Founder and Artistic Director of the Singapore Violin Festival.
Qian plays a 1757 J.B. Guadagnini, on generous loan from the Rin Collection, Singapore.
Solenne Paidassi
French violinist Solenne Païdassi is the First Prize winner of the 2010 Long-Thibaud Competition. She has been
awarded many prizes in France and abroad, including in the 2009 Hannover Competition, the Sion-Valais
Competition, and the Gyeongnam Competition in Korea.
Solenne Païdassi has a very active concert career, giving recitals and concerts all over the world. She has
performed in Tonhalle Zürich, Carnegie Hall New York, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, as well as participated in
numerous festivals such as the International Festival of Colmar, the Festival of Radio-France in Montpellier, “La
Folle Journée”, the Festival International de Sion Valais, Menton International Music Festival… As a soloist she
has performed with the Orchestre de Radio-France, the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra, the Orchestre National de
Lille, the Shangaï Grand Theatre Orchestra, the Verdi Orchestra… under the direction of such conductors as
Lawrence Foster, Shlomo Mintz, Vladimir Spivakov, Darell Ang.
After graduating from Geneva Conservatoire de Musique, the Royal Academy of London, and the Curtis
Institute of Music in Philadelphia, she obtained a Künstlerische Ausbildung Diploma from the Hannover
Hochschule für Musik und Theater.
Her first CD “Art of the Violin”, recorded with the pianist Laurent Wagschal and released in 2013 for the label
Indesens was awarded 4 stars by the magazine CLASSICA.
Her new album “Szymanowski-Stravinsky “ released in November 2014 for the label Aparté with the pianist
Frédéric Vaysse-Knitter, has received tremendous critical acclaim, including a CHOC from the magazine
CLASSICA and 5 stars in DIAPASON.
She plays a Gian Battista Guadagnini violin of 1784, awarded by the Zilber-Vatelot Foundation in Paris.
Ben Sayevich
Lithuanian-Israeli violinist Ben Sayevich began his studies at the Churlonis School for the performing Arts in Vilnius. His teachers have included Felix Andrievsky, Dorothy Delay, and Eric Rosenblith. He is a recipient of the prestigious Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory, where he was also the Teaching Assistant to Eric Rosenblith.
Sayevich has concertized extensively throughout North America, Europe and the Far East and has appeared on radio and television both as soloist and chamber musician. He is featured as the soloist in a recording of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra. One of the most important works in his repertoire is the Violin Concerto by Alban Berg and his interpretation carries the tradition that comes down directly from the composer, through Sayevich’s work on the piece with the late Louis Krasner, the commissioner, dedicatee and the violinist at the work’s premiere. It was Krasner who chose Sayevich to perform the work in Boston at the celebrations of the composer’s centenary.
Sayevich was Professor at the University of Kansas from 1987 until 2006, and since then is Professor of Violin at Park University in Kansas. His other posts have included the Concert Master position of the Kansas City Camerata and the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, with whom he has made numerous concerto appearances, including Violin Concertos of Vieuxtemps, Glazunov, Mozart, and Beethoven. He has taught at the Hartt School of Music from 1987 to 1992, and at the New England Conservatory in Boston in 1995, as well as the Yellow Barn Music Festival in Vermont. He is also the leader of the Quartet Accorda, based in Kansas City.
He is now regarded as one of the finest violin teachers in America and several of his students are in the Chicago, Pittsburgh, Dallas and other major orchestras. More recent successes include the position of associate concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic and David Radzynski’s appointment as the new concertmaster of the Israel Philharmonic.
He now plays a Giovanni Grancino violin, Milano 1709, one of the master’s most admirable examples.
Midori
Midori is a visionary artist, activist and educator who explores and builds connections between music and the human experience and breaks with traditional boundaries, which makes her one of the most outstanding violinists of our time.
In concert around the world, she transfixes audiences, bringing together graceful precision and intimate expression. Midori has performed with, among others, the London, Chicago, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. She has collaborated with such outstanding musicians as Claudio Abbado, Emanuel Ax, Leonard Bernstein, Jonathan Biss, Constantinos Carydis, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi, Mariss Jansons, Yo-Yo Ma, Susanna Mälkki, Joana Mallwitz, Antonello Manacorda, Zubin Mehta, Donald Runnicles, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Omer Meir Wellber.
Midori’s latest recording with the Festival Strings Lucerne of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and two Romances was released in October 2020 by Warner Classics. Her diverse discography by Sony Classical, Ondine and Onyx includes recordings of Bloch, Janáček and Shostakovich and a Grammy Award-winning recording of Hindemith’s Violin Concerto with Christoph Eschenbach conducting the NDR Symphony Orchestra as well as Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violinfilmed at Köthen Castle, which was recorded also for DVD (Accentus).
As someone deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals, she has founded several non-profit organizations. Midori & Friends provides music programs for New York City youth and communities, and MUSIC SHARING, a Japan-based foundation, brings both western classical and Japanese music traditions into young lives in Japan and throughout Asia by presenting programs in schools, institutions, and hospitals. Throughout the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, she continued to create virtual programming for these organizations, which serve many different communities. She commissioned composer Derek Bermel to write a new piece, “Spring Cadenzas,” which was premiered (mostly virtually) by student orchestras in 2021 through Midori’s Orchestra Residencies Program (ORP) and will continue to be performed by ORP participants in future seasons; Midori also performed the piece this summer with the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, CO. Through Partners in Performance (PiP), Midori co-presents chamber music concerts around the U.S., focusing on smaller communities that are outside the radius of major urban centers and have limited resources. During the pandemic, she recorded recitals that were shared with PiP audiences, and provided a series of live, virtual workshops to accompany the recorded performances.
In recognition of her work as an artist and humanitarian, she serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In recognition of her lifetime of contributions to American culture, Midori is the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and was celebrated by Yo-Yo Ma, Bette Midler and John Lithgow, among others, during the May 2021 Honors ceremonies in Washington, DC.
During 2020 and 2021, she also continued to perform, when possible, and appeared in recital (virtually and/or in person) at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, at the 92nd Street Y, in a virtual concert also streamed by the Schubert Club and Lied Center for Performing Arts in Nebraska, and at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival. She performed live with the Houston and Detroit Symphonies and in European engagements with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, The OCM Symphony Orchestra in Spain, Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra in Turkey and Orchestra del Teatro Massimo di Palermo in Italy.
She began her 2021-22 season with the Festival Strings Lucerne on July 1, performing the concert that had been scheduled for March 2020, but was cancelled due to the pandemic. This season, she has performances scheduled with orchestras in Atlanta, New Mexico, Phoenix, Austin, Kansas City and Palm Beach, a U.S. recital tour and tours throughout Europe and Asia. She will perform the World Premiere of Detlev Glanert’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in November and will also perform the piece with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg the following month.
Midori was born in Osaka in 1971 and began her violin studies with her mother, Setsu Goto, at an early age. In 1982, conductor Zubin Mehta invited the then 11-year-old Midori to perform with the New York Philharmonic in the orchestra’s annual New Year’s Eve concert, where the foundation was laid for her following career. Midori is the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and is a Distinguished Visiting Artist at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.
Midori plays the 1734 Guarnerius del Gesù ‘ex-Huberman’. She uses four bows – two by Dominique Peccatte, one by François Peccatte and one by Paul Siefried.
Solomiya Ivakhiv
Violinist/Violist Solomiya Ivakhiv is praised for her “crystal clear and noble sound” (Culture and Life, Ukraine) and acclaimed for her “distinctive charm and subtle profundity” (Daily Freeman, New York). She is celebrated as a soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator, as a champion of new music and as a dedicated educator.
Solomiya Ivakhiv has performed in solo and chamber recitals at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, CBC Glenn Gould Studio, Curtis Institute Field Concert Hall, Italian Academy in New York City, Pickman Hall in Cambridge, MA, San Jose Chamber Music Society, Old First Concerts in San Francisco, Astoria Music Festival (Portland), Tchaikovsky Hall in Kyiv, Concertgebouw Mirror Hall, and at UConn’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts.
She has performed concertos with the Istanbul State Symphony, Charleston Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Hunan Symphony Orchestra in China, the AACC, and the Bach Festival Orchestra.
Featured appearances at prestigious national and international chamber music festivals include Tanglewood, The Embassy Series in Washington, Emerson Quartet Festival, Astoria Music Festival, San Jose Chamber Music Society, Newport Music Festival, Nevada Chamber Music Festival, Bach Festival of Philadelphia, The Banff Centre and Ottawa ChamberFest (Canada), Musique de Chambre à Giverny (France), Prussia Cove (England), Verbier Festival and Kammermusik Bodensee (Switzerland), AlpenKammerMusik (Austria), Modern Music “Contrasts” and KyivFest (Ukraine).
Ms. Ivakhiv is Artistic Director and frequent performer at the Institute (MATI) Concert Series in New York City, a position she has held since 2010. Highly sought after as a chamber musician, she frequently collaborates with Roberto Diaz, Steven Isserlis, Philip Setzer, Gilbert Kalish, Colin Carr, Marcy Rosen, Eugene Drucker and other renowned artists. Ms. Ivakhiv has premiered numerous new works for violin, including compositions by David Dzubay, Eli Marshall, David Ludwig, John B. Hedges, Bohdan Kryvopust, Yevhen Stankovych, Bruce Adolphe, and Oleksandr Shchetynsky, among others.
In 2019 and 2020, Solomiya Ivakhiv releases three recordings featuring works for violin and orchestra, and violin and piano and orchestra, with the pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi. The first of these albums, “Mendelssohn: Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Orchestra; Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra in D Minor” (Brilliant Classics 95733, released in fall, 2019) features two rarely heard early works by Mendelssohn with the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar, conductor.
Ms. Ivakhiv’s debut solo album, “Ukraine: Journey to Freedom – A Century of Classical Music for Violin and Piano”, with pianist Angelina Gadeliya (Labor Records, 2016) was featured in the Top 5 New Classical Releases on the iTunes billboard and was praised in Fanfare Magazine for its “superlative and consummate artistry.”
In addition to these studio recordings, Solomiya Ivakhiv’s performances are regularly broadcast on National Public Radio, Voice of America Radio, WRTI, KUNR, Ukrainian National Radio and Television, Netherland Public Radio and Chinese Hunan Television.
Solomiya Ivakhiv is the recipient of several international honors, including the Sergei Prokofiev and Yaroslav Kocian International Competitions, the Fritz Kreisler and Charles Miller Award from the Curtis Institute of Music, Award from the President of the Ukraine, 2019 Curtis Institute of Music Alumni Award and 2016 New Scholar Award from the University of Connecticut School of Fine Arts.
She is Assistant Professor of Violin and Viola and Head of Strings at the University of Connecticut and Professor of Violin at Longy School of Music of Bard College. A dedicated educator, Solomiya Ivakhiv has led master classes and coached chamber music at Yale, Columbia, Penn State, University of Hartford Hartt School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Curtis Summer Fest, University of Maryland, Bard College Prep, SUNY – Fredonia Universities, Oberlin, Guangzhou and Hunan Conservatories in China, and regularly collaborates with high schools in outreach programs throughout the United States. She is a member of the American String Teachers Association-Connecticut Chapter.
She graduated with honors from Curtis Institute of Music, where she was concertmaster of both the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and studied with Joseph Silverstein, Pamela Frank and the late Rafael Druian. Ms. Ivakhiv received her Master of Music degree from M. Lysenko Music Academy in Lviv, Ukraine, studying with Oresta Kohut, and holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University, where she studied with Pamela Frank and Philip Setzer.
Matthew Young
Matt Young grew up on a farm in Kentucky, and began playing music at an early age with his family. He eventually studied at the University of Kentucky, the Yale School of Music, and the Cleveland Institute of Music with his mentor Robert Vernon.
Young has performed with the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Minnesota and Saint Paul orchestras, among many others. He has won the Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Competition, and was the winner of a McKnight Fellowship for performing artists, as well as the Robert Vernon Prize in viola performance. In addition, Young has been featured as a soloist with the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra in Severance Hall, as a tenured member of the San Francisco Symphony in Beethoven's Opus 74 string quartet in a subscription concert, and as acting principal and soloist in Haydn's Symphony No. 6 under Raphael Frubeck de Burgos.
A founding member of nonprofit Ensemble SF, he's very involved with community engagement throughout the Bay Area in low arts access communities, including Raphael House in the Tenderloin, the LGBT Center on Market, Juvenile halls in San Francisco and Felton, and the Institute on Aging in SF.
Some of the students Young has taught and coached have won positions in the orchestras of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Saint Louis, as well as many regional orchestras. He is also on the faculty of the San Francisco Academy Orchestra and frequently at the National Orchestral Institute.
Matt is also a professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. .
Michael Kaufman
"A fine cellist with a well-developed sense of musical characterization, Michael Kaufman plays with intensity, commitment and deep understanding," says Robert Levin, internationally renowned Mozart scholar and piano virtuoso. An exciting cellist exploring the various facets of the classical music scene, Michael Kaufman was the soloist for the opening of the renovated Kodak Hall at Eastman Theater and has performed at prestigious venues such as Zankel and Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall. He has performed as soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Canada, England, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, and Switzerland. He recently joined the Los Angeles Opera and the faculty of the Colburn Community School of Performing Arts.
Concerto highlights include Michael’s performance of Wandering Viewpoint by Yuan-Chen Li with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra and the world premiere of Sean Friar's Dynamics for Cello and Chamber Winds with the Eastman Wind Ensemble. He also recently gave the west coast premiere of Dynamics with Thornton Edge.
"Helmut Lachenmann's solo, 'Pression,' played with rapt percussive presence by Michael Kaufman, explores sounds the cello isn't supposed to make, be they ethereal scraping of the strings or industrial level strumming and banging," said Mark Swed, LA Times. Passionately involved in contemporary music, Michael has premiered works written for him by composers such as BMI Competition winner Justin Hoke, Daniel Silliman, Jeffrey Parola and many others. He has worked with composers such as Thomas Adès, Jörg Widmann, John Adams, Donald Crockett and Stephen Hartke in interpreting their own music. After hearing Michael's performance of Lieux retrouvés, Thomas Adès (the composer) declared it to be "breathtakingly good." In April 2013, Michael participated in a Carnegie Hall professional training workshop with John Adams and David Robertson called American Soundscapes. In June 2014, he gave the west coast premiere of Sean Friar's piece Teaser. He has performed in the concert series Jacaranda, the Hear Now Festival, what's next? ensemble, and in the Callings out of Context series at RedCat.
Michael is a regular and avid chamber musician. He is a founding member of SAKURA, an ensemble of five cellists which has been described by the LA Times as "brilliant" and "superb." SAKURA has performed in Disney Hall as part of the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival and is currently Young Ensemble in Residence at the Da Camera Society. This season, it performs concerts in LA, Orange County, and the Bay Area.
In addition to regular chamber music groups, Michael has collaborated in concert with artists such as Leon Fleisher, Midori, Kim Kashkashian, Anthony Marwood, Donald Weilerstein, Steven Tenenbom, Roger Tapping, and the Calder Quartet. He has participated in music festivals such as Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove, Yellow Barn, Music@Menlo, Verbier, Kneisel Hall, Norfolk and Sarasota. Michael is the founder and artistic director of Sunset ChamberFest, which looks forward to its sixth season in June 2019.
Michael loves teaching and is on the music faculty of Loyola Marymount University. He also recently started coaching chamber music at Colburn. Additionally, he teaches privately in LA and has taught masterclasses at schools such as Bowling Green, UC Irvine, Caltech, Texas Christian University, and Saddleback College. He served on the USC faculty of student instructors from 2011 to 2014.
In an orchestral setting, Michael is a member of the Los Angeles Opera and former Associate Principal Cello of the Redlands Symphony. He has also performed as guest Principal Cello of La Monnaie in Brussels. He was a founding member of the LA-based conductorless orchestra Kaleidoscope.
Michael is also passionate about baroque cello, for which he received a minor at USC, studying with William Skeen. He has frequently played principal cello with Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra of Los Angeles and enjoys other small projects on period instruments.
Born in 1987 in New York City, Michael moved to Cleveland at the age of three. One year later, he began cello lessons with teacher Pamela Kelly, and continued with her into his teens. By the age of seventeen, he was already participating in music festivals in Sarasota and Norfolk. In 2004, he was the only cellist to be accepted to the Young Artist Program of the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Alison Wells. He then received a Bachelor of Music Degree with distinction and a Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, studying with Steven Doane. During this time, he had masterclasses with cellists such as Steven Isserlis, Frans Helmerson, Pieter Wispelwey and Miklós Perényi and chamber music coachings with Robert Levin, Pamela Frank, Daniel Hope and members of the Tokyo, Emerson and Orion String Quartets. Michael earned his Master’s Degree and Doctorate from the University of Southern California, studying with Ralph Kirshbaum.
Suren Bagratuni
Winner of the silver medal at the 1986 International Tchaikovsky Competition while still a student at the Moscow Conservatory, Bagratuni has gone on to a distinguished international career as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. In addition to performing throughout the former Soviet Union, he has toured worldwide, earning enthusiastic praise in both traditional and contemporary repertoire.
Born in Yerevan, Armenia, he began his musical education there at the age of seven. After winning several national and international competitions, he continued his studies at the Moscow Conservatory and later in the United States at the New England Conservatory of Music.
Bagratuni began performing at age ten, and by age fourteen appeared as a concerto soloist performing Saint-Saens’ Concerto with the Armenian State Radio Orchestra. Since then he has performed with all the major orchestras in the former Soviet Union, including the Moscow Philharmonic (under the direction of Valery Gergiev) and has also appeared with numerous orchestras in Europe, Asia, and North and South America.
His solo appearances include recitals in the major concert halls of the world. Chamber music appearances have included guest invitations with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Newport Music Festival, the “Russian Winter” Festival in Moscow, the El Paso Pro Musica International Festival, Bargemusic, and international festivals in Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Columbia, Brazil, Korea, China, and Taiwan.
Bagratuni has won critical acclaim for his CD releases on the Ongaku and BGR labels, featuring solo works for cello, solo suites by Bach, and sonatas by Beethoven, Debussy, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich. He also appears on the Marco Polo, Russian Disc, Cambria, and CMH labels. He has recorded for “Melodiya” and been featured on CBC Radio Canada, WNYC in New York, WGBH in Boston, NPR, and NHK TV Japan.
In addition to his solo activities, he performs as a member of Trio Nobilis, serves as artistic director of the Cello Plus music festival, and conducts master classes worldwide. A former faculty member of the New England Conservatory and the University of Illinois, Bagratuni is currently Artist-Teacher and Professor of Cello at the Michigan State University College of Music.