Performers

Praised by The New York Times for her “thoughtful musicality” and “fleet-fingered panache,” Liza Stepanova has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Weill and Zankel recital halls at Carnegie Hall; Alice Tully, Merkin, David Geffen, and Steinway halls in New York City; and at the Kennedy Center. She has appeared as a soloist with conductors James DePreist and Nicholas McGegan and live on WQXR New York, WFMT Chicago, and WETA Washington.

The United States Army Field Band of Washington DC is the U.S. Army’s premier touring musical organization, traveling throughout the country and internationally to connect the American people to their Army and to represent the nation around the world. Members of the Army Field Band can be seen each year performing for the nationally televised “A Capitol Fourth,” the National Memorial Day Concert, and every four years leading the Army Element of the Presidential Inaugural Parade.

Having been praised by the press as “precise and keenly projective” and demonstrating “the highest level of proficiency,” Japanese-Canadian pianist Yoko Hirota is considered one of the leading interpreters of contemporary piano repertory of her generation. Hirota received her doctoral degree in piano performance under Louis-Philippe Pelletier at McGill University. Grants from the Canada Council for the Arts allowed her to study in Europe, with Gabor Eckhardt in Hungary, Herbert Henck in Germany, and Florent Boffard in France.

Soprano Jamie-Rose Guarrine is acclaimed for her “utterly thrilling, agile voice” and praised for bringing “pathos, beauty, and heartbreaking skill” to her performances. She has performed on the stages of Los Angeles Opera, Minnesota Opera, The Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Chicago Opera Theater, Austin Opera, Utah Opera, Fort Worth Opera, the Madison Symphony, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, The National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica, and the Santa Fe Symphony, among many others.

Formed in 2012, the Pangaea Chamber Players strives to expand the boundaries of traditional chamber music through innovative programming and community involvement. Comprised of flute, cello, and piano, the ensemble performs both traditional and contemporary works. Most recently, they have recorded a CD, Three Perspectives, which will be released with Parma Records.

John Winzenburg is a professor of music at Hong Kong Baptist University, where he conducts the Cantoría Hong Kong. He and the Cantoría have actively promoted Chinese choral music in dialogue with international repertoire since they first earned a Gold Medal at the Czech 2010 Festival of Songs Olomouc and they presented a Weekend Concert at the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing in 2012. Winzenburg performed as Choral Director of the premiere of Hong Kong Odyssey at the 2017 Hong Kong Arts Festival and served as Chorus Master of The Suppliant Women in collaboration with the Actors Touring Company (UK) and the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh at the 2018 Hong Kong Arts Festival.

Zephyr Quartet are Australia’s leading genre-defying explorers of dynamic cross-artform, music-focused collaborations. They are an award-winning string ensemble whose musicians compose, arrange, and improvise. This unique skill set, together with Zephyr’s open-minded approach, allows them to skillfully traverse musical worlds and gives them their own distinct voice.

The Chicago Arts Orchestra was established by a group of musicians and creative artists to perform great music and to make music accessible and affordable. Comprised of professional musicians with active performance schedules in Chicago, the CAO aims to achieve its mission by providing educational opportunities for the community through the performance of historic and new orchestral music. The CAO seeks to be innovative in its programming and presentation of concerts.

Honolulu-born violinist Patrick T.S. Yim has performed throughout the world at venues including Carnegie Hall and David Geffen Hall (New York), Seoul Arts Center, Harpa Concert Hall (Reykjavík), Hong Kong City Hall, Severance Hall (Cleveland), Orchestra Hall (Chicago), Teatro alla Scala (Milan), and the Musikverein (Vienna). Yim made his solo debut with the Honolulu Symphony and in recent years has performed concerti of Bach, Brahms, Bruch, Lalo, Mozart, and Vivaldi.

John McGuire has a vast array of performance and teaching experiences. He has performed with many orchestras around the country, most notably the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Opera, the Fort Worth Symphony, the New World Symphony in Miami FL, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, and the Florida West Coast Symphony. McGuire has also toured internationally with the acclaimed Fortress Brass Quintet, of which he is a founding member.

Houston TX based Apollo Chamber Players “performs with rhythmic flair and virtuosity” (The Strad) and has “found fruitful territory” (Houston Chronicle) through innovative, globally-inspired programming and multicultural new music commissions. Winner of Chamber Music America’s prestigious Residency Partnership award, the quartet has performed for sold-out audiences at Carnegie Hall, and it holds the distinction of being the first American chamber ensemble to record and perform in Cuba since 1960. Apollo is featured frequently on American Public Media’s nationally-syndicated program Performance Today.

Mike Fansler is Professor of Music and Director of Bands at Western Illinois University in Macomb IL, where he provides direction and leadership for its comprehensive band program. He serves as conductor of the university Wind Ensemble and Chamber Players and teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting. He has served Western Illinois University since 2001.

Harmonija Dissonance Ensemble evolved from the eponymous research and performance project that started at the Academy of Music in Zagreb in 2016. Guided by the idea of bridging the gaps between the worlds of academic and folk musicians, of traditional and art music, the project soon evolved into the lively and stimulating space of mutual learning, experimenting, and music-making of renowned traditional singers and the Academy’s students.

Jazz Orchestra of the Academy of Music in Zagreb was founded in 2016, following in the footsteps of the renowned Big Band of the Academy of Music of the early 1980s, founded and led by the distinguished professor Stanko Selak. The repertoire of the Orchestra encompasses standard pieces written for big band orchestra that in time became the canonical literature of big bands around the world, as well as works of contemporary composers of art music inspired by jazz.

Iris Graffman Wenglin is from a distinguished musical family. Joseph Graffman, Wenglin’s father, played the string bass in The New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch, and her cousin is pianist Gary Graffman. Wenglin made her first professional appearance as a pianist at age 13 on the Jinx Falkenberg TV program, and at age 16 she started working as a rehearsal pianist for NBC Opera Theatre. As a teenager she performed several times on WNYC’s “Young Artist” series. She graduated from Music and Art High School and holds a B.A. and an M.A. from New York University and a M.Ed. from the Manhattan School of Music.

Saxophonist Dr. Dave Camwell is a distinguished, versatile, and dynamic performer, and serves as the Director of Jazz Studies and Associate Professor of Music at Troy University in Alabama. Camwell has been a Yamaha Performing Artist since 2004, a D'Addario Performing Artist since 2009, a Beechler Artist since 2003, and has over 30 publications available through Jeanne, Dorn, and UNC Jazz Press.

A bright, young, accomplished singer on the opera and concert stages, soprano Katherine Jolly has appeared in leading roles with Opera Theatre Saint Louis, Florida Grand Opera, New York City Opera, Virginia Opera, Amarillo Opera, Piedmont Opera, Lyric Opera Cleveland, American Lyric Theatre, and Union Avenue Opera. In the concert arena she has performed in multiple seasons with Bach Society Saint Louis in Bach’s Coffee Cantata, The Kingsbury Ensemble in Bach’s Wedding Cantata and Handel’s Il Delirio Amoroso, as the soprano soloist in Handel’s The Messiah with the Evansville Philharmonic, the Richmond Symphony, and the Phoenix Symphony.

The Colorado-based Altius Quartet has dedicated itself to expanding traditional notions of the string quartet. Members Hannah Kennedy and Andrew Giordano (violins), Allyson Stibbards (viola), and Erin Patterson (cello) are equally at home as performers, mentors, and educators, and strive to fulfill each of those roles at the highest possible level. Altius has received critical acclaim for their recordings, including Fanfare Magazine describing their 2017 release Shostakovich: String Quartets Nos. 7, 8, and 9” as “visceral and wrenching”. Altius was also hailed as “rich” and “captivating” by the renowned music blog I Care If You Listen.

duo526 was founded in 2011 by violinist Kerry DuWors and pianist Futaba Niekawa at the Eastman School of Music (Rochester NY) where they worked extensively with professors Jean Barr and Charles Castleman. Invited to the Banff Centre for the Arts four times as Artists-in-Residence between 2011-2018, they worked with Henk Guittart, Roger Tapping, Lafayette String Quartet, Hardy Rittner, and Mark Steinberg. They have been featured on radio broadcasts including “Backstage Pass” WXXI (Rochester NY) and Classic 107 “Morning Light” (Winnipeg MB).

Matej Meštrović (b. 1969) is undoubtedly the most versatile artist on the Croatian cultural scene, and an exclusive artist of PARMA Recordings. In 2018, he premiered the Danube Rhapsody for piano and orchestra in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, thus becoming the first Croatian composer to have his own work premiered in that prestigious hall.