Conservatory Faculty

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Bradley Aikman

As a performer, Bradley Aikman has experience in symphonic, opera, and ballet repertoires with NYC’s premier ensembles, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the New York City Ballet. Other orchestral appearances include the Minnesota and Sarasota Orchestras, and the Pittsburgh Symphony. He is also the principal bass of the Albany Symphony (NY), and a member of the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra. He can be heard on two Grammy winning recordings: the Met’s Ring Cycle from 2012 and The Albany Symphony’s Conjurer by John Corigliano. He has participated in the Albany Symphony’s tradition of recording American composers including John Harbison, Michael Torke, and George Tsontakis. Bradley has also recorded numerous television and film scores, including an episode for Mozart in the Jungle where he performed at the infamous Rikers Island. Most recently, he recorded Mahler’s Sixth Symphony with the Minnesota Orchestra. Mr. Aikman has recorded for Naxos, Bis, Albany Records, and Exton labels. Mr. Aikman has performed chamber music at Carnegie’s Weil Recital Hall, the Sarasota Music Festival, the Saratoga School of Dance, and Montauk’s Third House. When he was assistant principal bass with the New Haven Symphony, he performed the east coast premiere of Charles DeRamus’ Greta’s Dream for double bass quartet and narrator. He has performed in North and South America, Asia, and Europe, most notably on the Metropolitan Opera’s Japan tour of 2011. He is currently on the faculty at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, The Allen-Stevenson School (NY), and has a private studio in Westchester, NY. Bradley has taught and given coachings at The Orchestra Now (TŌN), S.U.N.Y. New Paltz, the Metro Bass Workshop, and the Empire State Youth Orchestra. He was awarded a full-tuition Whitaker Scholarship to attend the Manhattan School of Music. This allowed him to complete both a master’s and professional studies degree in Orchestral Performance while studying with Timothy Cobb. Previously, he earned a Bachelor’s of Music Education at Ithaca College.

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Nadine Asin

Nadine Asin leads a varied career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral performer. She appears with many of the world's finest ensembles and conductors, including the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera. As an active advocate for new music written for the flute, Ms. Asin's premiere performance of Enchanted Orbits, a concerto for flute and chamber orchestra written for her by Augusta Read Thomas, won praise for her "virtuosic playing." Ms. Asin also commissioned and premiered After Hours for flute and piano, written for her by David Schiff. She has recorded Aaron Avshalomov's Flute Concerto, available on the Naxos label. Ms. Asin is a founding member of the Aspen Ensemble, a mixed quintet comprised of Aspen Music Festival artist-faculty members that tours internationally. In addition to being on the faculty of the Bard College Conservatory Ms. Asin serves as an adjunct faculty member at the Juilliard School. She has served as the head of the flute department at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She studied with Julius Baker at the Juilliard School, where she received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees.

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Edith Bers

Edith Bers received bachelor's and master's degrees from Columbia University and studied voice with Tourel, Callas, Popper, Berl, Guth, Faull, B. P. Johnson, Cuenod, Brown, Hotter, and Stader; and acting with Stella Adler. Among her performance credits are the United States premiere of Schumann's Des Sangers Fluch and the television production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw. She has presented master classes and served on juries throughout the world, including: Symposium on the Care of the Professional Voice, Aspen Music Festival, Metropolitan Opera Auditions, Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition (Brussels), Korean Broadcasting System, and the Bel Canto Institute (Florence). In addition to teaching at Bard, Edith Bers teaches at the Juilliard School (where she served as chair of the voice department from 1991 to 1995), Manhattan School of Music, and New York University.

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Teresa Buchholz

Mezzo-soprano. B.M., University of Northern Iowa; M.M., Indiana University; Artist Diploma, Vocal Performance, Yale University. Additional training as a Natchez Opera Festival Young Artist and as an apprentice artist at the Santa Fe Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. In recent years, she has performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and Alice Tully Hall in New York; the OK Mozart Festival in Bartlesville, Oklahoma; and the Bard Music Festival; and with Voices of Ascension in New York City, Tulsa Symphony, Collegiate Chorale, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Zubin Mehta conducting; and in concerts in Tel Aviv, Salzburg, and Vienna. She has soloed regularly with the Stamford Symphony, New Jersey Choral Society, Gateway Chamber Orchestra, and American Symphony Orchestra. Recordings include With Peace in Mind: The Choral Music of Nancy Wertsch, New York Virtuoso Singers; Kurt Weill’s Knickerbocker Holiday, Collegiate Chorale, conducted by James Bagwell; and Richard Strauss’s Die ägyptische Helena, American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein; among others. She previously taught voice at Yale University, Indiana University Bloomington, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy. At Bard since 2012.

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Eric Cha-Beach

A member of the ensemble So Percussion (proclaimed as "brilliant" and "consistently impressive" by the New York Times) since 2007, Eric has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Lincoln Center Festival, Stanford Lively Arts, and dozens of other venues in the United States. In that time, So Percussion has toured Russia, Spain, Australia, and other international destinations. He has had the opportunity to work closely with Steve Reich, Steve Mackey, Paul Lansky, David Lang, Matmos, Dan Deacon, and many others.

In addition to his work with So Percussion, Eric Beach is an active soloist, chamber musician, and composer. Studying with Robert van Sice, he received his Bachelor of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma at the Peabody Conservatory, where he won the Yale Gordon Concerto Competition, and his Master of Music at the Yale School of Music. He also received a Fulbright fellowship and pursued additional study with Bernhard Wulff in Freiburg, Germany. He has taught as Adjunct Professor of Percussion at the University of Bridgeport and in the Hearing and Undergraduate Percussion programs at the Yale School of Music. Eric's compositions for So Percussion are featured in Imaginary City, an evening length work that appeared on the Brooklyn Academy of Music's 2009 Next Wave Festival.

Eric is Co-Director and Principal Administrator of the So Percussion Summer Institute, an annual intensive course on the campus of Princeton University for college-aged percussionists. He joined the Bard Conservatory faculty in the fall of 2011.

Photo by Evan Chapman.

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Da Capo Chamber Players

Widely acclaimed for virtuosity and stimulating programs, Da Capo is synonymous with an exciting legacy of musical directions: openness to a wide spectrum of styles of new music, plus a special dedication to working with composers. Winner of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1973, Da Capo has long been a leader in building a strong heritage of present-day American chamber music, pointing with pride to more than 90 chamber music works written especially for the group by such diverse composers as Joan Tower, Philip Glass, Harvey Sollberger, Philippe Bodin, and many others.

The members of Da Capo are Curtis Macomber, violin; André Emelianoff, cello; Blair McMillen, piano; Patricia Spencer, flute; and Meighan Stoops, clarinet. The group's recent major commissions include Chinary Ung's Oracle (commissioned by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust) and John Harbison's Songs America Loves to Sing (commissioned with an award from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition). Future plans include a program featuring Russian composers, a new work by Richard Teitelbaum, a new work by Kyle Gann, a program of Pacific Rim composers, and a program specifically focusing on younger American composers. The group's recent CD, chamber music by Judith Shatin, was released on the Innova label.

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Elaine Douvas

Elaine Douvas, oboe, has been principal oboe of the Metropolitan Opera since 1977 and is on the oboe faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Since 1982 she has also served as oboe instructor at The Juilliard School and Woodwind Department Chairman there since 1997.

Her career highlights include the Strauss Oboe Concerto with the MET Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, James Levine conducting, and Dutilleux's Les Citations with the MET Chamber Ensemble. Her three CDs include a solo recital and her quartet project "Pleasure is the Law", issued by Boston Records, and "Oboe Divas" on the Oboe Classics label. One of the most influential teachers in the USA, her students hold important positions in more than a dozen major orchestras and university faculties. In the summers, Ms. Douvas is an artist faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School, and she teaches three intensive, one-week oboe seminars: Le Domaine Forget Academy in Quebec, Interlochen (MI) Arts Camp, and the Hidden Valley Music Seminars in Carmel, California. She has given master classes at the Curtis and Cleveland Institutes of Music, the Manhattan and Eastman Schools of Music, the New World Symphony, and the Conservatories of Beijing and Shanghai. Her three albums of demonstration and written commentary for Music Minus One are used by teachers and students across the country. Originally from Port Huron, Michigan, Ms. Douvas trained at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with John Mack, at the Interlochen Arts Academy. Her first job was principal oboe of the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Shaw. For many years she has devoted her spare time to figure skating and earned her Gold Medal for Adult "Moves in the Field" in 2006.

Photo by John Abbott.

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Luosha Fang

Violinist and violist Luosha Fang brings her adventurous spirit to music ranging from canonical repertoire to world premieres. As a violinist, she has performed as soloist with the Albany Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, and the West Virginia Symphony, and she was a winner of Astral Artists’ 2013 National Auditions and the S&R Foundation’s 2015 Washington Award. As a violist, she won 1st Prize in the 2019 Classic Strings International Competition in Vienna, performing Bartok’s Viola Concerto with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. She also won 1st Prize in the 2018 Tokyo International Viola Competition, performing Paul Hindemith's "Der Schwanendreher" concerto with the New Japan Philharmonic and subsequently touring in Japan with Antoine Tamestit and Nobuko Imai. She will return in 2019 for Bartok’s Viola Concerto with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, in 2020 for Toshio Hosokawa’s Viola Concerto with the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, and will perform at the Tokyo "Viola Space" festivals in 2019 and 2020. In 2020, she will present a Violin/Viola recital at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art Concert Series followed by performances of the Bruch Double Concerto for Clarinet and Viola with the Israel Camerata Orchestra Jerusalem.

Other recent performance highlights include Bartok’s Viola Concerto with the Atlantic Symphony, Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Bay-Atlantic Symphony and appearances in the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with the Suzhou Royal Chamber Orchestra in China (violin soloist) and at the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid (viola soloist). She is a frequent performer at Bard Music West (San Francisco) and Krzy?owa-Music (Poland), and she worked most recently with Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff and Steven Isserlis at the Kronberg Academy's "Chamber Music Connects the World" project. In 2019, she appeared with the "Musicians from Marlboro" tour as both violinist and violist.

Ms. Fang has a strong interest in championing contemporary works. She recorded George Tsontakis’s double violin concerto "Unforgettable" with the Albany Symphony Orchestra for release on NAXOS Records, and she worked closely with composer Krzysztof Penderecki in preparation for a 2014 Carnegie Hall performance of his Sextet. She premiered Chinese composer Shen Yiwen’s violin concerto "Mulan" with the American Symphony Orchestra and has commissioned a solo violin work by Michael Djupstrom, "Lautar."

As a chamber musician, Ms. Fang was awarded the Silver Medal at the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition as the first violinist of the Chimeng Quartet, of which she was a founding member. She has appeared in leading venues including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress, and her festival appearances include Marlboro, Ravinia, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Caramoor Evnin Rising Stars, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Norfolk, Aspen, Kneisel Hall, Music from Angel Fire, Incontri in Terra di Siena, and Bard. She has worked with such musicians as Mitsuko Uchida, Nobuko Imai, Viviane Hagner, Claudio Bohórquez, Matthias Kirschnereit, Pamela Frank, Timothy Eddy, Gilbert Kalish, Bruno Canino, Benita Valente, Marina Piccinini, Peter Wiley, Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom, Paul Katz, Hsin-Yun Huang and members of the Guarneri and Juilliard string quartets. In addition, she has been a guest artist with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

Ms. Fang made her debut at age eight in her native China with Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3, and at sixteen moved to the USA on a scholarship to the Bard College Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Ida Kavafian and Arnold Steinhardt. After graduating from Bard with degrees in violin and Russian Studies, she attended the Curtis Institute of Music as a violin student of Ida Kavafian and Shmuel Ashkenasi. At this time, she began viola studies with Steven Tenenbom, and in 2016, she entered the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid as a viola student of Nobuko Imai. Starting in Fall 2019, she will be teaching at the Bard College Consevatory of Music as instructor of violin/viola.

Always in pursuit of new artistic frontiers, Ms. Fang has also collaborated with the Almanac Dance Circus Theatre and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. She studied acting and theater at Bard College and the University of Pennsylvania. Fang plays on a Pietro Guarneri violin made in 1734 and a Dominique Peccatte bow kindly loaned by Dr. Ryuji Ueno. She will be lent the 'Josefowitz' 1690 Andrea Guarneri viola.

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Jack Ferver

Jack Ferver is a New York–based writer, choreographer, and director. His genre-defying performances, which have been called “so extreme that they sometimes look and feel like exorcisms” (New Yorker), explore the tragicomedy of the human psyche. Ferver’s “darkly humorous” (New York Times) works interrogate and indict an array of psychological and sociopolitical issues, particularly in the realms of sexual orientation, gender, and power struggles. His visionary direction blurs boundaries between fantastic theatrics and stark naturalism, character and self, humor and horror.

Ferver’s works have been presented in New York City at the New Museum; The Kitchen; The French Institute Alliance Française, as part of Crossing the Line; Abrons Arts Center; Gibney Dance; Performance Space 122; the Museum of Arts and Design, as part of Performa 11; Danspace Project; and Dixon Place. Domestically and internationally, Ferver has been presented by the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College; American Dance Institute (Maryland); Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (Illinois); Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (Oregon); Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA (Maine); Institute of Contemporary Art (Massachusetts); Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston (Texas); and Théâtre de Vanves (France).

His work has been critically acclaimed in the New York Times, La Monde, Artforum, New Yorker, Time Out NY, Modern Painters, Financial Times, Village Voice, and ArtsJournal. Ferver has received residencies and fellowships from the Maggie Allesee National Center of Choreography at Florida State (2012); Baryshnikov Arts Center (2013); Watermill Center (2014); Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art (2014); Live Arts Bard, the commissioning and residency program of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College (2014); and Abrons Art Center (2014-2015). He is a 2016 recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant.

He teaches at Bard College and is guest faculty at New York University. He has also taught at SUNY Purchase, and has set choreography at The Juilliard School. As an actor he has appeared in numerous films and television series. In 2018, he had premieres at the Guggenheim and New York Live Arts.

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Luis Garcia-Renart

Studied at the Music School of the National University and the National Conservatory, Mexico; conservatories of Bern and Basel, Switzerland; and Trossingen, Germany. Pupil of Sándor Veress, Sándor Vegh, and Pablo Casals. Scholarship to Conservatory of Moscow with Rostropovich and Khachaturian (1960). Prizes: Casals International Contest, Paris (1956); Xalapa (1959); Israel (1961); Harriet Cohen Cello Prize, London (1959). Solo performances in North and South America, Europe, the Soviet Union, and Israel. Faculty of Vassar College; Yale Summer Graduate School of Music and Art; University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Former music director, Woodstock Chamber Orchestra. (1962–2004) Professor Emeritus and Visiting Professor of Music.

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Richard Goode

Studied with Elvira Szigeti and Claude Frank, with Nadia Reisenberg at the Mannes College of Music, and with Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute. Prizes include the Young Concert Artists Award, First Prize in the Clara Haskil Competition, the Avery Fisher Prize, and a Grammy Award (with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman). Performed all five Beethoven concerti with the Baltimore Symphony and the complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas at New York�s 92nd Street Y and Kansas City�s Folly Theater. Has made more than two dozen recordings. Artistic co-director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival, Marlboro, Vermont.

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Benjamin Hochman

Winner of 2011's prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, pianist Benjamin Hochman has been described by the New York Times as a “gifted, fast-rising artist”. His eloquent and virtuosic performances have earned him critical acclaim and his rare combination of bravura and poetry has excited audiences and critics alike. His engagements have brought him to major cities as orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator with celebrated conductors and colleagues. A passionate interpreter of diverse composers from Bach and Mozart to Berg and Kurtag with a penchant for juxtaposing familiar works with the unfamiliar, Mr. Hochman has proven to be adept in expressing the essential heart of each composer.

After his successful recital debut in 2006 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he became a strong musical presence in New York through his concerts with the New York Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra, his Carnegie Hall debut with the Israel Philharmonic and his continuous presence at 92nd Street Y. Mr. Hochman has performed with the Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Houston, Seattle, San Francisco, Vancouver, New Jersey and Portland Symphonies, the New York String Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Istanbul State Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada under eminent conductors such as Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Leon Botstein, Nir Kabaretti, Jaime Laredo, Jun Märkl, Daniel Meyer, Lucas Richman, Bramwell Tovey, Joshua Weilerstein, Kaspar Zehnder and Pinchas Zukerman. He has appeared in his native Israel with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Tel Aviv Soloists, the Raanana and Jerusalem Symphonies. Following his debut with the Chicago Symphony in a Mozart Piano Concerto project with Pinchas Zukerman and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, he returned at the invitation of Emanuel Ax to participate in the 2012 “Keys to the City” Festival. During the festival he performed with the CSO, David Robertson, Trevor Pinnock, Orli Shaham, Kristian Bezuidenhout and Orion Weiss in two Mozart concertos and a recital of two-piano works by Ravel and Rachmaninoff.

Highlights of Mr. Hochman's 2012-2013 season include solo recitals in Boston and Tel Aviv and a tour of Mexico performing the music of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Janacek and Ravel. He returns for his third subscription series engagement with the Pittsburgh Symphony in performances of Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand Alone, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda and performs Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals in his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Vancouver Symphony and Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major with the Phoenix Symphony. He takes part in two chamber performances of Stravinsky, Beethoven and Fauré at New York's 92nd Street Y with Jaime Laredo, Steven Tenenbom and Sharon Robinson and collaborates with the Escher String Quartet in Buffalo and Bethlehem, Efe Baltacigil at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in Brooklyn and Manhattan and at the Schubert Club’s “Accordo” series with members of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

In 2009, he released his first album on Artek entitled Introducing Benjamin Hochman, featuring Bach's Partita No. 4 in D and Partita No. 6 in E minor, Berg's Sonata, Op. 1 and Webern's Variations Op. 27. He recorded Insects and Paper Airplanes: The Chamber Music of Lawrence Dillon in 2010 for Bridge Records. His forthcoming recording, entitled Hommage to Schubert featuring Schubert’s Sonata in A, D. 664 and Sonata in D, D. 850 alongside Jorg Widmann’s Idyll und Abgrund: Six Schubert Reminiscences and Kurtag’s Hommage to Schubert will be released by Avie Records in 2013.

Past festival highlights include Marlboro, Ravinia, Caramoor, Santa Fe, Bard, Gilmore, Vail and Vancouver in North America, as well as international festivals such as Lucerne, Spoleto, Verbier, Ruhr, Israel Festival and Prussia Cove. Mr. Hochman has performed internationally at such major halls as the Concertgebouw, the Louvre, Tivoli Theatre, l'Auditori de Barcelona, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and Kumho Art Hall in Seoul. A masterful collaborator, Benjamin Hochman has worked with the Tokyo, Mendelssohn, Casals, Prazak and Daedalus Quartets, Zukerman Chamber Players, members of the Guarneri, Juilliard and Orion Quartets, Jonathan Biss, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin and Ani Kavafian, Miklós Perényi, Ralph Kirshbaum and Sharon Robinson. A dedicated advocate for contemporary music, he has performed works by Kurtág, Carter, Lutoslawski and Andriessen, and has worked closely with such notable composers as Krzysztof Penderecki, Philippe Hurel, Osvaldo Golijov, Lawrence Dillon and Tania Leon, among others.

Benjamin Hochman has previously been selected to participate in prestigious residencies around the world such as CMS Two at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Isaac Stern's International Chamber Music Encounters in Israel and Carnegie Hall's Professional Training Workshops with Osvaldo Golijov and Dawn Upshaw.

In addition to the 2011 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Mr. Hochman received the "Outstanding Pianist" citation at the Verbier Academy, the Festorazzi Award from the Curtis Institute of Music, second prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, the "Partosh Prize" awarded by the Israeli Minister of Culture for best performance of an Israeli work and first prize at the National Piano Competition of the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Young Artist Showcase and Performance Today, WNET’s Sunday Arts, WQXR, CBC (Canada), ABC (Australia), Radio France and Israel's Voice of Music radio station, as well as on the European television network Mezzo.

Born in Jerusalem, Benjamin Hochman began his studies with Esther Narkiss at the Conservatory of the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem and Emanuel Krasovsky in Tel Aviv. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Mannes College of Music where his principal teachers were Claude Frank and Richard Goode. His studies were supported by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In addition to being on the faculty at Bard Conservatory he is currently on the piano faculty of the Longy School of Music of Bard College. Benjamin Hochman is a Steinway Artist and lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Jennifer Koh.

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Kayo Iwama

American pianist Kayo Iwama is the associate director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, working in tandem with the artistic director, the internationally acclaimed American soprano Dawn Upshaw. Other collaborations with Dawn Upshaw include master classes and a recital at the Britten-Pears Young Artist Program at the Aldeburgh Music Festival, and appearances at the International Vocal Arts Institute in Virginia, the University of Wyoming, Edward Pickman Hall at the Longy School of Music and the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. In addition, Kayo Iwama has concertized extensively with singers including Kendra Colton, William Hite, Rufus Müller, Christòpheren Nomura and Lucy Shelton throughout North America, Europe and Japan, performing at venues such as the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, The Morgan Library, Boston’s Jordan Hall, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, the Kennedy Center, the Token Creek Music Festival, Tokyo’s Yamaha Hall and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The Washington Post has called her a pianist “with unusual skill and sensitivty to the music and the singer” and the Boston Globe has praised her “virtuoso accompaniment…super-saturated with gorgeuos colors”. For over two decades she taught at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she also served as the coordinator of the Vocal Studies Program for fifteen years. There she has worked with some of today’s most promising young singers and collaborative pianists, and assisted Maestros James Levine, Seiji Ozawa and Robert Spano in major operatic and concert productions. In addition her teaching has taken her to some of the foremost universities of the United States and Taiwan to give master classes and performances. She is currently on the faculty of Songfest.

A former resident of the Boston, Massachusetts area, Kayo Iwama was a frequent performer on WGBH radio, and performed with such groups as the Florestan Recital Project, the Handel and Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music. In addition she was the pianist and music director of the critically acclaimed Cantata Singers Chamber Series, creating programs devoted to rarely-heard works of art song and vocal chamber music. She was formerly on the faculties of the Hartt School of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Ms. Iwama earned a bachelor of music degree at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a master’s degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook where she studied with Gilbert Kalish. She also attended the Salzburg Music Festival, the Banff Music Center, the Music Academy of the West and the Tanglewood Music Center, where she worked with such artists as Margo Garrett, Martin Isepp, Graham Johnson, Martin Katz and Erik Werba. She has served previously on the music staffs of the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She can be heard in recording on the Well-Tempered label, with baritone Christópheren Nomura in Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin, two ISMM discs devoted to French mélodies and the songs of Schumann with tenor Ingul Ivan Oak, and on the recently released The Reckless Heart with soprano Kendra Colton, a collection of 20th century American and British song.

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Ryan Kamm

Ryan Kamm has taught double bass and musicianship in the Preparatory Division since 2008. In 2011, with Susanne Son, he founded the Bard Music Camp, a two-week summer program serving 80 students annually, which is now in its 10th year. He has been codirector of the Preparatory Division since 2012.

As a double bassist, Kamm held a tenured position with the Nashville Symphony, was a New World Symphony fellow, and had a one-year appointment in the Cleveland Orchestra. Other performance experience includes substitute work with the New York City Opera, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Albany Symphony, Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, New Hampshire Symphony, and North Carolina Symphony. Festival appearances include Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival USA, National Repertory Orchestra, Kent/Blossom Chamber Music Festival, and Eastern Music Festival.

A dedicated teacher, Kamm’s teaching experience includes Middle Tennessee State University, the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts, and, in the New York area, the Diller Quaile School of Music, St. David’s School, and the JCC Thurnauer School of Music.

Kamm holds a bachelor’s degree with distinction in double bass performance from Indiana University and a master’s degree from Boston University, and as a postgraduate studied with Harold Robinson. His primary teachers include Edwin Barker, Lawrence Hurst, and Craig Brown.

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Bridget Kibbey

In demand as a soloist and chamber musician alongside today’s top artists, harpist Bridget Kibbey is a recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Classical Recording Foundation's Young Artist Award, a Salon de Virtuosi Grant, the only harpist to win a position with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society II, a winner of Concert Artist Guild's International Competition, Astral Artist Auditions, and Premiere Prix at the Journées de les Harpes Competition in Arles, France.

Ms. Kibbey's solo performances have been broadcast on NPR's Performance Today, on New York's WQXR and Q2 Radio, WNYC's Soundcheck, WETA’s Front Row Washington, WRTI’s Crossover, and A&E's Breakfast with the Arts. She has toured and recorded with Dawn Upshaw and Placido Domingo for SONY Records and Deutsche Grammaphon; and, her own solo debut album, Love is Come Again, was named one of the Top Ten Releases by Time Out New York. Bridget is featured annually with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Knights Chamber Orchestra, and Camerata Pacifica. She has appeared as featured soloist and chamber artist at the Bravo!Vail, Santa Fe, Spoleto, Chamber Music Northwest, Bridgehampton, Aspen, Bay Chamber, Pelotas, Savannah Music Festival, Music@Menlo Festivals, among others.

With a passion for expanding the scope and platform of the harp, Bridget spearheads and tours cross-genre collaborations that reignite an ancient instrument. This season Bridget presents J.S. Bach’s most iconic keyboard works adapted on the harp alongside the Sebastians, “New York’s leading early music ensemble (New York Times).” She travels across the country with a special appearance at the Colombian Embassy with Chalaca, a new trio exploring the cross-pollination of folk music in South America, alongside Colombian clarinetist Benito Meza, and percussionist Samuel Torres.

Bridget recently spear-headed a five orchestra concerto-commissioning consortium with Juno-Award winning composer Vivian Fung. Bridget performed five world-premiere performances with The Karlsruhe Badische Symphoniker (Germany), The Phillips Camerata in Washington, DC, The Alabama Symphony, The San José Chamber Orchestra, and the Metropolis Ensemble. This season Bridget announces a new concerto consortium, with participating orchestras launching performance in 2019/2020, featuring a new harp concerto by Brazilian-born João Luiz Rezende.

In addition to teaching at Bard Conservatory, Bridget maintains harp studios at The Juilliard School Pre-College Program, and The Curtis Young Artist Institute.

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David Krakauer

Internationally acclaimed clarinetist David Krakauer redefines the notion of a concert artist. Known for his mastery of myriad styles, he occupies the unique position of being one of the world’s leading exponents of Eastern European Jewish klezmer music, and at the same time is a major voice in classical music. As one of the foremost musicians of the vital new wave of klezmer, David Krakauer tours the globe with his celebrated Klezmer Madness! ensemble. While firmly rooted in traditional klezmer folk tunes, the band “hurls the tradition of klezmer music into the rock era” (Jon Pareles, The New York Times).

In addition to his annual European tours to major international festivals and jazz clubs, recent seasons brought Krakauer and his band to the Library of Congress, Stanford Lively Arts, San Francisco Performances, the Krannert Center, Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, the Venice Biennale, Krakow Jewish Culture Festival, BBC Proms, Saalfelden Jazz Festival, Transmusicales de Rennes, La Cigale, New Morning in Paris, and many others. His newest project, The Big Picture, re-imagines familiar themes by such renowned film music composers as John Williams, Marvin Hamlisch, Randy Newman, Wojciech Kilar and Vangelis, and interprets melodic gems by the likes of Sidney Bechet, Sergei Prokofiev, Mel Brooks, Ralph Burns, John Kander & Fred Ebb and Jerry Bock that have appeared in popular films.

In addition, Krakauer is in demand worldwide as a guest soloist with the finest ensembles including the Emerson, Orion and Kronos String Quartets, as well as orchestras including the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the Detroit Symphony, the Weimar Staatskapelle, the Phoenix Symphony, the Dresdener Philharmonie, and the Seattle Symphony. Krakauer’s discography contains some of the most important klezmer recordings of the past decade including six CDs under his own name: two on John Zorn's Tzadik Label and four on Label Bleu; plus collaborations with the Klezmatics, Itzak Perlman, the Kronos Quartet/Osvaldo Golijov and Socalled. Abraham Inc’s "Tweet-Tweet" on his own label, Table Pounding Records (and Label Bleu in Europe) was released in early 2010.
Composers who have written major pieces for him include David del Tredici, Paul Moravec, Ofer Ben-Amots, Jean Philippe Calvin, George Tsontakis, Anthony Coleman and Wlad Marhulets.

David Krakauer is on the clarinet and chamber music faculties of Mannes College of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, NYU and the Bard College Conservatory of Music. His unique sound can be heard as soloist in Danny Elfman's score for the film "Taking Woodstock" and throughout "The Tango Lesson".

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Julie Landsman

Recently retired from the Principal Horn chair with the Metropolitan Opera, a position she held for 25 years, Julie Landsman is now enjoying playing chamber music and chamber orchestra repertoire. Prior to her appointment with the MET Orchestra, Ms. Landsman was co-principal horn with the Houston Symphony. She has toured throughout the world with the New York Philharmonic and Orpheus. Ms. Landsman's recording credits include the Ring Cycle with the Metropolitan Opera, conducted by James Levine, where she is the featured horn soloist. Julie's summers have included The Marlboro Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, Mainly Mozart Orchestra, La Jolla Summerfest, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. In addition to being on the faculty at Bard Conservatory she teaches at The Juilliard School. Many of her students are in prominent positions throughout the United States. A graduate of Juilliard, her teachers have included James Chambers, Howard Howard, and Carmine Caruso. She currently resides in Nyack, New York.

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Weigang Li

Born into a family of well-known musicians in Shanghai, Weigang Li began studying the violin with his parents when he was 5 and went on to attend the Shanghai Conservatory at age 14. Three years later, in 1981, he was selected to go to study for one year at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music through the first cultural exchange program between the sister cities of Shanghai and San Francisco. In 1985, upon graduating from the Shanghai Conservatory, Weigang Li left China again to continue his studies at Northern Illinois University and later studied and taught at the Juilliard School as teaching assistant to the Juilliard Quartet. His teachers have included Shmuel Ashkenasi, Isadore Tinkleman, and Tan Shu-Chen.

Mr. Li was featured in the 1980 Oscar winning documentary film From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China. He made his solo debut at 17 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as soloist with Shanghai Symphony, China Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony and Asian Youth Orchestra.

Weigang Li is a founding member and first violinist of the world-renowned Shanghai Quartet since 1983. Now in its 32nd season, the Shanghai Quartet has performed well over 2000 concerts in 30 countries and recorded 35 CD albums, including the complete Beethoven string quartets on the Camerata label.

Weigang Li is on the faculty at the Bard College Conservatory of Music in New York and Montclair State University in New Jersey. He also holds the title of guest concert-master of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and guest professor at Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.

Mr. Li plays on the 1600 Giovanni Paolo Maggini violin (ex-Burmester), which is on a generous loan from Mr. Rin Kei Mei.

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Pascual Martínez-Forteza

A native of Mallorca, Spain, Acting Associate Principal and E-flat Clarinet Pascual Martínez Forteza joined the New York Philharmonic in 2001, the first and only Spanish musician in the Orchestra’s history. Prior to his appointment with the Philharmonic, he held tenure with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and at age 18 he was assistant principal and later acting principal of the Baleares Symphony Orchestra in Spain. He is regularly invited as guest principal clarinet or e-flat with some of the most important orchestras in USA including the MET, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Dallas, St Louis... He has performed as guest principal clarinet with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle.

Mr. Martínez Forteza appears regularly as a soloist, recitalist, and master-class teacher at international festivals and conservatories. Past and future engagements include solo performances of Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, Weber’s Clarinet Concertos, Krommer’s Concerto for Two Clarinets, Rossini’s Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra, and Luigi Bassi’s Fantasy on Themes from Verdi’s Rigoletto. He frequently collaborates with Philharmonic colleagues in New York City venues such as Avery Fisher Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, and Carnegie Hall.

Since 2003 Mr. Martínez Forteza and Spanish pianist Gema Nieto have played throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States as Duo Forteza-Nieto. Together they founded the Benifaio Music Festival in Spain, where Philharmonic colleagues have joined them for a week of master classes and concerts. The Duo Forteza-Nieto recently received the 2016 Sunshine Award for Outstanding Performing Arts Classical and Latin Music.

Pascual Martínez Forteza started playing clarinet at age ten with his father, Pascual V. Martínez, principal clarinet of the Baleares Symphony Orchestra for 30 years and teacher at the Baleares Conservatory of Music in Spain. Mr. Martínez Forteza earned his master’s degree from the Baleares and Liceo de Barcelona Music Conservatories in Spain and pursued advanced studies with Yehuda Gilad at the University of Southern California, where he won first prize in the university’s 1998 Concerto Competition.

Mr. Martínez Forteza is currently a faculty member at Manhattan School of Music, New York University and auxiliary teacher at Juilliard School.

A Buffet Crampon Artist and Vandoren Artist, he plays Green Line Tosca Buffet clarinets and uses Vandoren reeds and M30D mouthpieces.

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Leigh Mesh

Leigh Mesh, associate principal double bass, joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 1993. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, he began his professional career with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and later played with the Indianapolis and Chicago Symphony Orchestras.

He has taught master classes at the New World Symphony in Miami, Cincinnati Conservatory, Juilliard School, and Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Mesh is the double bass coach of the UBS Verbier Festival Youth Orchestra in Verbier, Switzerland. He has been a guest artist with the Verbier Festival, Linton Chamber Music Series, Pensacola Classicfest, Chamber Music Society of Martha’s Vineyard,Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, and the Salt Bay Chamberfest. Mr. Mesh has performed with the MET Chamber Ensemble, the Caramoor Virtuosi, and the Brentano and Tokyo String Quartets.

Mr. Mesh was a faculty member of the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles during the 2009–2010 school year. He joined the faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music in the fall of 2010. He lives with his wife, Nancy Wu, associate concertmaster of the MET Opera Orchestra, and their two children, Guinevere and Wolfram, in Pleasantville, New York. He pursues cycling and skiing whenever he can. Mr. Mesh is an exclusive artist for Thomastik-Infeld Strings.

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Isabelle O'Connell

Dublin native Isabelle O’Connell is a pianist who has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, and in solo/chamber concerts at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, and Symphony Space in New York; Princeton University; Chicago Cultural Center; Cleveland Museum of Art; Detroit Institute of the Arts; Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center; Millennium Hall in Tokyo; National Gallery of Ireland; and Sydney Conservatoire. Guest performances with Alarm Will Sound, Crash Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, ConTempo String Quartet, Meredith Monk, American Symphony Orchestra, and others. O’Connell, a Fulbright Scholar, previously taught at Diller-Quaile School of Music, Lucy Moses School, and Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division, in New York City; Masters School, Dobbs Ferry, New York; and Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin. She has given master classes and workshops at, among others, Queen’s University, Belfast; European Piano Teachers’ Association, New Zealand School of Music; Dublin Institute of Technology; and Cork School of Music. She is cofounder of Grand Band, which has recorded live on WQXR; has served as artistic codirector of “New Music, New Ireland, New York” at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall; and was collaborative pianist and artist in residence at Banff Centre for the Arts. Recordings on Diatribe, Innova, and Lyric labels. BA, Royal Irish Academy of Music; MM, Manhattan School of Music. At Bard since 2014.

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Daniel Phillips

Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist and teacher. He is a founding member of the 29-year-old Orion String Quartet, in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Available on recording are the complete quartets of Beethoven and the four quartets of the great recently deceased American composer, Leon Kirchner. Mr. Phillips has performed as soloist with many of the country’s leading symphonies, including Pittsburgh, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix, San Antonio and Yakima. He appears regularly at the Spoleto USA, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Chesapeake Music Festival, and the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England. He has also been serving on the summer faculties of the Banff Centre, Heifetz Institute, and the St Lawrence String Quartet Seminar. He is a member of the renowned Bach Aria Group, and has toured and recorded in a string quartet for SONY, with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma.
He teaches at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College CUNY, Bard College Conservatory, Mannes College of Music, and the Juilliard School. Danny lives with his wife, flutist Tara O’Connor, on Manhattan’s upper west side.
Website: http://www.orionquartet.com/

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Raman Ramakrishnan

Raman Ramakrishnan, cello, holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University and a master’s degree in music from The Juilliard School. His principal teachers have been Fred Sherry, Andrés Díaz, and André Emelianoff. Mr. Ramakrishnan was a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet, winners of the grand prize at the 2001 Banff International String Quartet Competition. During his eleven years with the quartet, he performed coast-to-coast in the United States and Canada, in Japan, Hong Kong, and Panama, and across Europe. The quartet has been in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University, where he also teaches cello. In 2011, he formed the Horszowski Trio with violinist Jesse Mills and pianist Rieko Aizawa.

Mr. Ramakrishnan has given solo recitals in New York, Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and has performed chamber music at Caramoor, at Bargemusic, with the Boston Chamber Music Society and Chicago Chamber Musicians, and at the Aspen, Bard, Charlottesville, Four Seasons, Lincolnshire (UK), Marlboro, Mehli Mehta (India), Oklahoma Mozart, and Vail Music Festivals. He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed, as guest principal cellist, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a guest member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, he has performed in New Delhi and Agra, India, and in Cairo, Egypt.

Mr. Ramakrishnan was born in Athens, Ohio, and grew up in East Patchogue, New York. His father is a molecular biologist and his mother is the children's book author and illustrator Vera Rosenberry. He lives in New York City with his wife, the violist Melissa Reardon. He plays a Neapolitan cello made by Vincenzo Jorio in 1837. Mr. Ramakrishnan joined the Bard Conservatory faculty in the fall of 2012.

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Marcus Rojas

Tubist Marcus Rojas has performed with such diverse groups as The Metropolitan Opera, The American Ballet Theatre, American Symphony Orchestra, Radio City Music Hall, and ensembles led by Lionel Hampton, David Byrne and P.D.Q. Bach.

An avid proponent of contemporary, improvised and classical music, he has performed the premieres of such notable composers as LaMonte Young, Gunther Schuller, and Peter Schickele. He has recorded with CBS Records, Sony Records, A&M Records and has been heard on countless film scores, including Interview With A Vampire and Sleepless in Seattle.

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Peter Serkin

Studied at Curtis Institute of Music with Lee Luvisi, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, and Rudolf Serkin; also studied with Ernst Oster, Marcel Moyse, and Karl Ulrich Schnabel. Has performed with the world’s major symphony orchestras and collaborated with Jaime Laredo, Pamela Frank, Yo-Yo Ma, Alexander Schneider, among others, and the Budapest, Guarneri, and Orion String Quartets. Founding member, TASHI. Has had many pieces written for him by Charles Wuorinen, Elliott Carter, Toru Takemitsu, and others. Recent recordings include The Ocean that Has No West and No East (Koch Records), with music by Webern, Wolpe, Messiaen, Takemitsu, Knussen, Lieberson, and Wuorinen, and the complete solo piano works of Arnold Schoenberg (Arcana).

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Arnold Steinhardt

Arnold Steinhardt began his studies in Los Angeles with Peter Meremblum and Toscha Seidel. At the Curtis Institute of Music he studied with Ivan Galamian and later, under the sponsorship of George Szell, with Josef Szigeti in Switzerland. Bronze medalist of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Steinhardt also won the Leventritt Competition in 1958. At age 14 he had his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and he has subsequently appeared with many major orchestras and in recital. Steinhardt's memoir, Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1998. Arnold Steinhardt is a member of the Guarneri String Quartet.

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Joan Tower

Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of the most important American composers living today. During a career spanning more than 50 years, she has made lasting contributions to musical life in the United States as composer, performer, conductor, and educator. Her works have been commissioned by major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras, including the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir quartets; soloists Evelyn Glennie, Carol Wincenc, David Shifrin, and John Browning; and the orchestras of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C., among others.

In 1990, Tower became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for her composition Silver Ladders. She was the first composer chosen for a Ford Made in America consortium commission of 65 orchestras. The Nashville Symphony and conductor Leonard Slatkin recorded that work, Made in America, with Tambor and Concerto for Orchestra for the Naxos label. The top-selling recording won three 2008 Grammy awards: Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Orchestral Performance.

From 1969 to 1984, she was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her most popular works. Her first orchestral work, Sequoia, quickly entered the repertory. Tower's tremendously popular five Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman have been played by over 500 different ensembles. She is currently Asher Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972.

Her composer-residencies with orchestras and festivals include a decade with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Composer of the Year for their 2010-2011 season, as well as the St. Louis Symphony, the Deer Valley Music Festival, and the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.

Among her recent premieres: White Water (2012), commissioned by Chamber Music Monterey Bay and premiered by the Daedalus Quartet; Stroke (2011), commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; White Granite (2009), commissioned by St. Timothy's Summer Music Festival, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, and La Jolla Music Society for SummerFest; Angels(2008), her fourth string quartet, commissioned by Music for Angel Fire and premiered by the Miami String Quartet; Dumbarton Quintet (2008), a piano quintet commissioned by the Dumbarton Oaks Estate (their third commission after Stravinsky and Copland) and premiered by Tower and the Enso String Quartet; Chamber Dance (2006), commissioned, premiered, and toured by Orpheus; and Copperwave (2006), written for the American Brass Quintet and commissioned by The Juilliard School of Music. A Gift (2007), for winds and piano, was commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest and premiered by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS). Other CMS premieres included Trio Cavany (2007) and Simply Purple (2008) for viola, performed by Paul Neubauer.

Her compositions cross many genres: Can I (2007) for youth chorus and percussionist; Copperwave (2006), written for brass quintet; DNA (2003), a percussion quintet commissioned for Frank Epstein and the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble; Fascinating Ribbons (2001), her foray into the world of band music, premiered at the annual conference of College Band Directors; Vast Antique Cubes/Throbbing Still (2000), a solo piano piece for John Browning; Tambor (1998), for the Pittsburgh Symphony under the baton of Mariss Jansons; and her ballet Stepping Stones (1993), commissioned by choreographer Kathryn Posin for the Milwaukee Ballet and revisited by Posin with the Bulgarian Ballet in June 2011.

Joan Tower's music is published by Associated Music Publishers.

Photo by Cynthia Del Conte.

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Ira Weller

Ira Weller received B.Music and M.Music degrees from the Juilliard School of Music, where he studied violin with Ivan Galamian. Now a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Weller has a wide range of performing experience and is highly regarded as a soloist and chamber musician. He plays regularly in New York with the Festival Chamber Players at their series in Merkin Hall, on the "Collection in Concert" series at the Morgan Library & Museum, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and with the Bard Music Festival Quartet.

A regular guest with Da Camera of Houston and at the Bard Music Festival and Kneisel Hall, Weller has also been an invited artist with Bargemusic, Da Capo, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, New York Chamber Soloists, Music From Marlboro, and Chamber Music Northwest. He has collaborated with many distinguished artists, including James Levine, Menahem Pressler, Dawn Upshaw, Rudolf Firkusny, Evelyn Lear, Robert Mann, Janos Starker, and Richard Stoltzman. His vital interest in contemporary music has led to premieres of works by Rorem, Laderman, Dello Joio, Picker, Ran, and Zwilich.

He is artistic director of the "Collection in Concert," which presents "aural exhibitions" of the collection of music manuscripts in the Morgan Library. Research at the library has also led to the discovery of a rare 18th-century original viola sonata by Felice Giardini. This work, edited by Weller and Ken Cooper, was published by International Music. As a founding member and violist for the first ten years of the Mendelssohn String Quartet, Weller has recorded works by Dvorák, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schoenberg, Weber, and Ran.

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Jan Williams

Jan Williams is a percussion soloist and conductor, who has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. Composers such as Lukas Foss, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Joel Chadabe, Morton Feldman, Orlando Garcia, Gustavo Matamoros, Luis de Pablo, Frederic Rzewski, Nils Vigeland, and Iannis Xenakis have all written music expressly for Jan Williams.

Born in Utica, New York on July 17, 1939, Williams later earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music at Manhattan School of Music, where he studied percussion with Paul Price and performed as a member of the American Symphony Orchestra from 1962-1964 under conductor Leopold Stokowski. He was invited to Buffalo as one of the first class of Creative Associates for the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in 1964 at the University at Buffalo.

While at the University at Buffalo, he created the University at Buffalo Percussion Ensemble in 1964. Later, in 1967, he was appointed to the Music Faculty, and served as Chair of the Music Department from 1981-1984. Prior to his retirement in 1996, he also served as artistic director of the Center of the Creative and Performing arts from 1974-1979 and as resident conductor from 1979-1980.

He is Professor emeritus at the University at Buffalo where he and John Bergamo founded the University at Buffalo Percussion Ensemble in 1964. He was the ensemble’s director until his retirement in 1996. He is Trustee of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music. He has recorded for Columbia, Vox/Turnabout, Desto, Lovely Music, Spectrum, Wergo, DGG, Orion, Hat-Art, OO, New World, Deep Listening, EMF Media, and Mode Records. With Yvar Mikhashoff, he was Co-Artistic Director of the North American New Music Festival from 1983-1993.

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Wang Zhou

A respected performer of the Shanxi Zheng genre, Zhou Wang is a Professor of Guzheng at the China Central Conservatory of Music, and the Director of the Chinese Music Department of CCOM. She also serves as Vice President of the China Guzheng Society.

Zhou Wang learned from her father, the world class musician in the Qin Zheng Shanxi genre Zhou Yanjia. She then studied with Maestros Zicheng Gao, Zheng Cao, Sihua Xiang, Xiuming Yang, Shange Fan, and Zhaoyuan Shi, combining north-south flavors and inheriting the true art of Zheng playing from different genres. Joining the Central Song and Dance Troupe in 1977, Zhou Wang has been an active performer in China and abroad. She was invited by the National Record Association to record The Tune of Qin Mulberry, a classical masterpiece of Shanxi genre.

As a musical ambassador and a soloist, she has toured internationally on behalf of the Ministry of Culture on many occasions. As a scholar of musical exchange, she has given lectures at institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2014, she held a Zheng recital at Carnegie Hall.
 
Zhou Wang has served as judge and chairperson for many national and international competitions: the Golden Bell Award, Mandarin Award, Central China Television, National Chinese Instrument Competition, and Hong Kong International Zheng Competition. In over forty years of teaching, she has been dedicated to fostering many outstanding young guzheng players, who have won prizes in major competitions around the world. Many of them continue careers as educators to teach the younger generations.

In promoting Chinese music, Professor Zhou Wang has published recordings of many core classical repertoires such as High Mountain and Running River and albums featuring traditional guzheng solo works of several traditional genre classic pieces: Famous Melody of the North, Geniuses Traditional Zheng as well as many internal course teaching materials for the China Central Conservatory of Music. Her publication, Qin Zheng Qin Ren Qin Sheng, has been widely cited in Chinese musical journals.

Zhou Wang also arranges and composes traditional and contemporary Zheng musical works. She arranged the Shanxi genre Zheng pieces Huan Music, Lao Long Cries the Sea and Ming Fei’s Resentment (a guzheng and erhu duet). Together with Professor Zhenyu Huang, she has composed the contemporary Zheng pieces Fantasia in the West, Reflection, and Slowly Voice
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