Artists

With “probing seriousness” (Performing Arts Monterey Bay) and “a stunningly beautiful palette of colors” (Peninsula Reviews), pianist Kevin Lee Sun interprets music old and new. In 2011, Sun won the Silver Medal at the Virginia Waring International Piano Competition in California for his performances of the classical canon. In 2021, for his visionary programming of 20th-century music, he was the sole pianist to be named Finalist of the Berlin Prize for Young Artists in Germany. These honors have led Sun to perform a diverse repertoire around the world, including at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna, the Villa Elisabeth in Berlin, and the Banff Centre in Canada.

Dr. Kristín Jónína Taylor is an Icelandic-American pianist who has been enthusiastically received for her multitude of performances of Nordic piano works, including the North American premiere of Jón Nordal’s Piano Concerto in 2003 and programs by invitation in Washington DC for the Ambassador of Iceland and President Vigdís Finnbogadóttir. She has performed widely in the United States as well as in Iceland, France, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Serbia, Canada, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Stanislav Vavřínek is one of the most prominent Czech conductors and has been Chief Conductor of the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice since 2018. Having graduated from the Conservatory in Brno where he studied flute and conducting, he continued his education at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Subsequently, he also took master classes with Roberto Benzi in Switzerland, culminating with a concert in which he conducted the Biel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Dr. Patrick J. Brill is an American composer born and raised in Minneapolis/St. Paul MN. He has composed numerous classical compositions including a cappella sacred vocal works, instrumental chamber compositions, symphonic orchestral pieces, and compositions for both choir and orchestra. Dr. Brill composes with style predicated on a return to Western classical aesthetic principles.

Lyrebird Brass is a collective of musicians dedicated to performing the finest brass chamber music, with a mission to engage audiences through exceptional artistry and accessible programming. The members of Lyrebird Brass have each developed an international reputation, performing in many of the world’s premier ensembles, and bring a unique musical perspective to the group.

Philip Spray performs, records, and consults with period instrument ensembles and publishers across the country. He co-founded the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra under Barthold Kuijken and later Musik Ekklesia whose first recording The Vanishing Nordic Chorale was part of a 2011 GRAMMY® nomination for Best Classical Producer. He has long maintained interest in writing, composing, teaching, and arranging. His current ensemble Alchymy Viols offers performances from some of America’s finest players on the viola da gamba: Wendy Gillespie, Joanna Blendulf, and Erica Rubis.

Countertenor Michael Walker II (he/him/his) is celebrated as a brilliant soloist and versatile chamber musician, praised for his “luminous tone, weighted with pathos.” With a passion for celebrating diversity, equity, inclusion, and access within the classical arts, Walker has distinguished himself as a leading advocate and performer in the field. A dynamic recitalist and soloist, Walker captivates audiences nationwide with his transcendent performances. His repertoire spans a wide range of styles and eras, from the medieval, renaissance, and baroque periods to contemporary works.

Believing that creativity is an elemental and essential part of human nature, Rain Worthington has followed her own instinctive path. Self-taught and cross-disciplinary, her creative impulses include concert music and sculptural spaces for attentive reflection. American Record Guide notes a focus of “deep interiority” from “a composer of considerable imagination, emotional expressiveness, and poetic sensibility.”

The Armenian State Symphony Orchestra was created in 2005 by Sergey Smbatyan, the present Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the orchestra. From the very onset of its existence, the orchestra has been home to bright and energetic musicians, assembled around the shared vision of amplifying the cultural awareness in Armenia and elevating the spiritual excellence of human nature by the power of classical music.

Reza Vali was born in Qazvin, Iran, in 1952. He began his music studies at the Conservatory of Music in Tehran. In 1972 he went to Austria and studied music education and composition at the Academy of Music in Vienna. After graduating from the Academy of Music, he moved to the United States and continued his studies at the University of Pittsburgh, receiving his Ph.D. in music theory and composition in 1985. Vali has been a faculty member of the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University since 1988. Vali’s orchestral compositions have been performed in the United States by the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Baltimore Symphony, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra 2001.

Ovidiu Marinescu is internationally recognized as a cellist, composer, conductor, and educator. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall, Merkin Hall (New York), the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Holywell Room in Oxford, Oriental Art Center in Shanghai, and has appeared as soloist with the London Symphony, New York Chamber Symphony, the National Radio Orchestra of Romania, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Helena, Great Falls, Portsmouth, and Newark Symphonies, Southeastern Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Philharmonic, Limeira Symphony in Brazil, Orquesta de Extremadura in Spain, and most of the professional orchestras in his native Romania. The album LONDON CELLO CONNECTION features Marinescu and London Symphony Orchestra in eight newly commissioned cello concertos by North American composers.

Joanna Estelle (Storoschuk) is a Canadian composer, lyricist, and arranger, born of Ukrainian parentage. Her music has won critical acclaim from Parliament Hill, Ottawa (Canada) to London (United Kingdom), Barcelona (Spain), Carnegie Hall (New York City), and elsewhere around the world. Estelle studied classical piano and theory with the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto) as a young person, but her parents deterred her from pursuing music as a career. Instead, she graduated in Psychology and English (Brock, 1972), then went on to study management accounting. However, her enthusiasm for music never waned.

L Peter Deutsch is a native of Massachusetts, now living in Sonoma County CA, and British Columbia, Canada. He writes primarily for small instrumental or a capella vocal ensembles, spanning styles from devotional to romantic to jazzy, and from Renaissance to early 20th century. Works to date include four choral commissions; releases through PARMA Recordings include music for chorus, string quartet, woodwind and brass quintets, piano trio (featuring work with Trio Casals), and full orchestra.

John A. Carollo was born in Torino, Italy and brought to the United States by his adoptive parents. When he was in grade school, he studied classical piano and sang in the church choir. While attending college in San Diego CA, he studied music and psychology. During this time, Carollo took piano lessons and began composing his first piano works. He graduated from San Diego State University being granted a master’s degree in clinical psychology.

Ray Fahrner composes in eclectic styles and conducts all manner of music in Cambridge MA. Fahrner began his composition studies with Robert Wason and Arnold Franchetti at Hartt College of Music, University of Hartford, subsequently studying with Scott Huston and Norman Dinerstein at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, where he received his doctorate in 1980.

Paul Halley is one of Australia’s most popular composers of classical music, blending elements of traditional classical styles with a distinctive modern edge. Drawing on influences from the classical masters such as Beethoven, Bach and Mozart, Halley also draws inspiration from sources as varied as medieval music and film music. With his beautifully melodic and intensely dramatic music he has captivated audiences and made a reputation for himself as a composer of highly accessible contemporary classical music.

Catherine Neville (b. 1974) is a composer of concert music for instrumental ensembles and choir. An alumna of Interlochen Arts Academy, her experiences as a clarinetist and music theorist led to studying composition with Jeff Nichols. She holds degrees in composition from the Aaron Copland School of Music in Queens, NY, in Music Education from Hofstra University, and in Performance (clarinet) from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Pianist Noreen Cassidy-Polera ranks among the most highly regarded and diverse chamber artists performing today. She maintains a career that has taken her to every major American music center and abroad to Europe, Russia, and Asia. Recent performances include those at Alice Tully Hall, Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, 92nd Street Y, Jordan Hall, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Kennedy Center, and Salle Cortot. She has appeared at the Caramoor, Bard, Grand Teton, and Cape Cod music festivals, and has performed with the chamber music societies of Philadelphia and La Jolla. She has recorded for Sony, EMI, Audiophon, and Centaur Records.

Pianist, arranger, collaborative artist, composer, educator, and media personality Christopher O’Riley follows his passions into a fractal array of innovative directions, ever striving for the truest and deepest human connection, through performance and collaboration. It is with O’Riley’s dedication to the learning abilities, personalities, and imaginations of artists that he comes to his latest endeavor — a traversal of J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. O’Riley has produced an online archive of video lectures entitled “Everything We Need to Know About Playing the Piano We Learn From The Well-Tempered Clavier,” a series illuminating a new perspective on each Prelude and Fugue, expanding on the ways the paucity of Bach’s notation encourages us to engage creatively and imaginatively.

The Merian Ensemble is a chamber music group dedicated to promoting the standard of an inclusive repertoire. The group was formed in 2018 by five women musicians from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, determined to counteract the striking dearth of women composers programmed in classical music settings. Even today, research shows that of 111 major orchestras across 31 countries, only 7.7% of works played were written by women. (Donne – Women in Music, 2022). Through their “Listen: Works by Women” initiatives, the Merian Ensemble performs the abundant repertoire of music by women and commissions a new work each year.