Yehuda Hanani
Named “one of the most polished performers of the post-Starker generation and a consistently expressive artist” by The New York Times, Yehuda Hanani’s charismatic playing and profound interpretations bring him acclaim and reengagements across the globe. He has won wide international recognition as soloist, chamber musician and inspiring pedagogue. His concerto appearances have been with the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, San Antonio, New Orleans, Columbus, Chattanooga, Reno, St. Paul Chamber, Puerto Rico, Mexico City, Berlin Radio Symphony, Belgrade Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, BBC Welsh Symphony, Irish National Symphony, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony, Honolulu Symphony, Taipei and Seoul symphonies among many other orchestras, and he has toured with I Solisti di Zagreb, conducting from the cello. A frequent guest at Aspen, Bowdoin, Chautauqua, Yale at Norfolk, Great Lakes, Casals Prades, Finland Festival, Ottawa, Oslo, Round Top Institute, Manchester, and the Australia Chamber Music festivals, he has collaborated in performances with preeminent fellow musicians, including Leon Fleisher, Aaron Copland, Christoph Eschenbach, David Robertson, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Itzhak Perlman, Vadim Repin, Julian Rachlin, Dawn Upshaw, Yefim Bronfman, Eliot Fisk and the Tokyo, Vermeer, Muir, Escher, Ariel, Colorado, and Manhattan quartets. His recording of the monumental Alkan Cello Sonata received a Grand Prix du Disque nomination, and on CD and in live performances, he has given premières of works of Nikolai Miaskovsky, Lukas Foss, Leo Ornstein, Paul Schoenfield, Thea Musgrave, Joan Tower, Eduard Franck, Osvaldo Golijov, Lera Auerbach, Tamar Muskal, Virgil Thomson, Seth Grosshandler, Judith Zaimont, William Perry and Pulitzer Prize winners Bernard Rands and Zhou Long. In New York City, he has appeared as soloist at Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, Alice Tully, and the Metropolitan Museum. Among the early designers and proponents of thematic programming, he has captivated audiences with his engaging chamber-music-with-commentary series, Close Encounters With Music, from Miami to Kansas City, Omaha, Detroit, Calgary, Scottsdale, Phoenix, the Berkshires, and at the Frick Collection in New York City. A three-time recipient of the Martha Baird Rockefeller grant, Mr. Hanani studied with Leonard Rose at Juilliard and with Pablo Casals. He has inspired scores of cellists as Professor of Cello at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and previously served on the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory. Artistic director of the Berkshire High Peaks Festival, he presents master classes internationally at conservatories and for orchestras, including the Juilliard School, Indiana University Bloomington, New England Conservatory, McGill University, Paris Conservatoire, Berlin Hochschule für Musik, Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School in London, Tokyo National University, Jerusalem Academy of Music, the Central Conservatories in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, and the New World Symphony in Miami. In recognition of his distinguished teaching, he was given the title of honorary professor of the Tianjin Conservatory, China. His objective is to instill a sense of wonder and adventure in young musicians, to lead them to technical mastery and bridge tradition with innovation. He now is a member of the faculty of the Mannes College of Music in New York City.
Helena Baillie
London-born Helena Baillie was hailed by The Strad magazine for her “brilliance and poignance,” and stands apart for a rare ease on both violin and viola. American Record Guide praised her “gorgeous singing tone” in an album that “from the opening flourish will be a special recital.” A prizewinner in international competitions including Munich ARD, Banff and Tertis, Helena has performed throughout Europe and the United States, with broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and “Performance Today” for American Public Radio. She has collaborated in chamber music with Pinchas Zukerman, Midori, the Tokyo String Quartet, the Shanghai Quartet, and the Beaux Arts Trio, with whom she performed in a live broadcast from the Alte Oper in Frankfurt. Her love of chamber music has taken her to the La Jolla Summerfest, Tucson Winter Chamber Festival, and the Kronberg Academy Festival in Frankfurt. Ms. Baillie was honored by a Bard Fellowship from 2010-2015. While a Fellow, her projects included Bach Among Us at Bard’s Fisher Center, which she produced and performed in collaboration with dancers of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. In her continued commitment to outreach and education, she has traveled across the globe to engage new audiences under the auspices of Midori’s Music Sharing Foundation. Ms. Baillie graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied violin with Arnold Steinhardt and viola with Roberto Díaz. Pinchas Zukerman, Isaac Stern, Felix Galimir, and Leon Fleisher were formative influences. At Yale University, she studied violin with Peter Oundjian, and she spent a year in Berlin with the eminent violist Wilfried Strehle. She plays a 2012 violin made by Collin Gallahue in association with the studio of Brooklyn-based luthier Sam Zygmuntowicz. Her viola is a 2009 Sam Zygmuntowicz. In addition to her work for Bard, she teaches in the violin and viola program at the Hotchkiss School.
Rafael Castillo-Halvorssen
Rafael Castillo-Halvorssen is a New York–based trumpeter, vocalist, and composer whose work spans jazz, swing, and cabaret. Over the past decade, he has appeared with Catherine Russell, Bobby Sanabria, Howard Fishman, and the Hot Toddies Jazz Band. He leads The Rhythm Ruckus, performing for swing dancers at venues including the Back Room and You Should Be Dancing. His cabaret appearances with Yael Rasooly and pianist Daniel Rein include Café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie and A Hymn to Love at Don’t Tell Mama, where Cabaret Scenes praised him as “an exciting performer in his own right.” He also collaborates with vocalist Edith Hazel and pianist Jon Weber in the trio cabaret show Yes, And! Beyond the stage, Castillo-Halvorssen shares his knowledge of jazz history through his work at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens, where he leads tours exploring Armstrong’s life and musical legacy.
Michael Chertock
Fashioning a successful career as a piano soloist, Michael Chertock has collaborated with conductors such as Keith Lockhart, Jack Everly, Robert Bernhardt, John Morris Russell, Thomas Wilkins, Carmon DeLeone, and the late Erich Kunzel. His many orchestral appearances include solo performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Toronto Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Chattanooga Symphony, Utah Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Louisville Orchestra and the Dayton Philharmonic. Chertock has recorded John Alden Carpenter’s Concertino for Piano and Orchestra with the BBC Concert Orchestra, Abbey Road Studio; the Roger Davis Piano Concerto in F, with the Sofia Philharmonic; and the Rhapsodies for Piano and Orchestra of William Perry with the RTÉ Orchestra of Dublin, Ireland. Chertock made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1999 with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, performing Duke Ellington’s New World A-Comin’. He has toured Asia with the Boston Pops and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. His 2003 performance on the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Petrouchka with Paavo Järvi earned rave reviews in Gramophone and American Record Guide. In 2005, Chertock performed Gershwin’s Concerto in F Major with Maestro Lockhart and the National Youth Orchestra of London. Later that year, Chertock performed the world premiere of “Jeux Deux” for hyper-piano and orchestra by Tod Machover, commissioned by the Boston Pops expressly for him. His conducting began in 2001 when he stepped in for Maestro Carmon DeLeone in performances of Cincinnati Ballet’s The Nutcracker. Chertock is the conductor of the Blue Ash-Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, located in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, and he frequently composes and arranges music for the orchestra’s concerts. In 2015, 2016, and 2017, Chertock conducted the State Symphony Orchestra of Moscow and the Moscow Conservatory Orchestra in programs devoted to the music of George Gershwin. In 1994, Chertock released his first CD on the Telarc label, a collection of his original arrangements of music from movies entitled “Cinematic Piano.” American Record Guide wrote “(Chertock) plays beautifully, and Telarc’s lush sonics bathe the listener in an intoxicating wash of piano sonorities.” Cincinnati Enquirer critic Janelle Gelfand called it “one of the most gorgeous discs of the summer,” citing his “elegant techniques…just the right poetic tone.” The recording has sold more than 30,000 units worldwide. Since then, he has recorded three more discs with Telarc: Palace of the Winds, Christmas at the Movies and Love at the Movies, which have been praised for their lush, original arrangements and exquisite technical facility. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where he studied with Frank Weinstock and now serves as chair of the Piano Department.
Miranda Cuckson
Praised recently for “a rare style that fuse[s] precision and elegance with passionate intensity and successful risk-taking,” violinist/violist Miranda Cuckson’s playing generates tremendous audience excitement and critical acclaim. In her wide variety of solo and collaborative performances, she continues to evolve and explore. Engaging with Western classical traditions and the many modern musical avenues she has ventured on, Miranda has pursued a personal path motivated by sincere interest and exploration, the expression of any human feelings and experiences, and the realization of virtuosity, craft, and invention. Her particular interests include the playing of stringed instruments in musical cultures and contexts, and the porousness of the arts of interpretation and composition. In the past few years, Miranda has given celebrated concerto debuts at the Vienna Musikverein (playing Georg Friedrich Haas’ Violin Concerto No. 2, which she premiered in four countries), and with John Adams at the Ojai Music Festival. Her live performance of the Ligeti Violin Concerto with the UC Davis Orchestra was released as a commercial recording to great acclaim. In addition to her frequent live concerts around the USA and her hometown of New York City, she has been a featured performer internationally at festivals including Wien Modern, Grafenegg, Sinus Ton, Le GuessWho, West Cork, Bard, Frequency, TimeSpans, Lincoln Center, and Ojai, and such presenters as St. Paul’s Liquid Music, 92NY, Miller Theatre, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Library of Congress, and the Cleveland Museum. She is a core member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*), which is working at the forefront of interdisciplinary creation. She and her frequent pianist partner Blair McMillen recently presented recitals at San Francisco Performances, at Boston’s Gardner Museum and the Detroit Institute of Art. Recordings include their ECM Records album of duos by Bartok, Schnittke, and Lutoslawski, the Grammy-nominated “Songs and Structures” with a duo written for them by Harold Meltzer; Michael Hersch’s “the wreckage of flowers”, and a landmark run of albums of duo and solo violin music by American composers Elliott Carter, Jason Eckardt, Roger Sessions, Ralph Shapey, and Donald Martino. Her album, with sound artist Christopher Burns, of Luigi Nono’s haunting, 50-minute “La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura” was named a Recording of the Year by the New York Times, and they have performed it live a dozen times, exploring its spatial and theatrical possibilities in a wide variety of settings. Miranda’s solo albums, also acclaimed, include “Világ” featuring the Bartok Solo Sonata along with folk-flavored recent works; the Korngold and Ponce violin concertos; and “Melting the darkness,” a forward-looking compilation of seven microtonal/electronic pieces. A passionate performer and enthusiastic participant in many music groups and collaborations, Miranda is also the founder/director of non-profit Nunc, with which she has curated concerts and residencies and produced numerous premieres, including ensemble works and opera. She frequently writes and speaks to audiences about music, and she earned her doctorate (and all her music degrees) from The Juilliard School. Dedicated to education, she is on faculty at the Mannes School of Music at New School University.
Simone Dinnerstein
American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. The New York Times described her as “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.” The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. Highlights of the 2026-27 season include the premiere of Brad Mehldau’s Suite for Piano, commissioned for Simone by the Terezin Foundation, at Boston’s Symphony Hall; a tour with the Juilliard String Quartet and recitals at the Oregon Bach Festival and Toronto’s Koerner Hall. She will collaborate with the string orchestra A Far Cry to perform and record the arrangement of Bach’s Goldberg Variations that they have made together. The recipient of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Award from Washington Performing Arts, Dinnerstein is a prolific recording artist. Her first fourteen albums were recorded with the late Adam Abeshouse, Grammy Award winner and producer extraordinaire—repertoire ranging from Couperin to Glass. Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021) surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. Since 2025, Simone has worked with Adam’s friend and colleague, producer Silas Brown, recording Complicité (Supertrain Records, 2025), her first all-Bach album in over ten years. It features Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano, and Peggy Pearson, oboe d’amore, along with the string ensemble Dinnerstein founded and directs, Baroklyn (a portmanteau of Baroque and Brooklyn, her home New York borough). Complicité reached over one million streams on Apple Music in its first two weeks after release. In Hourglass, her most recent album and label debut with Naïve, Simone leads Baroklyn in Philip Glass’s Tirol Concerto and Suite from The Hours. Hourglass received a prestigious Diapason d’Or from the French music magazine Diapason, which called it “a major new addition to the Glass discography.” In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center and in presentations by LA Opera and the Cleveland Orchestra. She also premiered Philip Lasser’s The Circle and the Child, which he composed for her, with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and recorded it for Sony Classical. In New York, she regularly curates and performs on an innovative Bach series at the Miller Theatre, and she was an Artist-in-Residence at the Kaufman Music Center. Simone Dinnerstein is committed to giving concerts in non-traditional venues, including prisons, and to audiences who don’t often hear classical music, playing concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to the widespread dissemination of classical music. She has served on international piano juries and is on the faculty of the Mannes School of Music and a guest host of WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase. Simone Dinnerstein counts herself fortunate to have studied with three unique artists: Solomon Mikowsky, Maria Curcio, and Peter Serkin, very different musicians who shared the belief that playing the piano is a means to something greater. In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative.
Alexander Fiterstein
Alexander Fiterstein is recognized as one of today’s most exceptional clarinetists. He has performed in recital, with distinguished orchestras, and with chamber music ensembles throughout the world. He won first prize at the Carl Nielsen International Clarinet Competition and received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. The Washington Post has described his playing as “dazzling in its spectrum of colors, agility, and range. Every sound he makes is finely measured without inhibiting expressiveness” and The New York Times described him as “a clarinetist with a warm tone and powerful technique.” As soloist he has appeared with the Czech, Israel, Vienna, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras, Belgrade Philharmonic, Danish National Radio Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic, China National Symphony Orchestra, KBS Orchestra of South Korea, Jerusalem Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center, Kansas City Symphony, and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. He has performed in recital on the Music at the Supreme Court Series, the Celebrity Series in Boston, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Kennedy Center, the Louvre in Paris, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Tel Aviv Museum, and NYC’s 92nd Street Y. A dedicated performer of chamber music, Fiterstein collaborates with distinguished artists and ensembles and often performs with the prestigious Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Among the highly regarded artists he has performed with are Daniel Barenboim, Yefim Bronfman, Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Emanuel Ax, Marc-André Hamelin, Pinchas Zukerman, and Steven Isserlis. Fiterstein performed with the Brentano, Dover, New York Philharmonic, Jerusalem, Pacifica and Shanghai String Quartets as well as with Ensemble Wien-Berlin. He spent six summers at the Marlboro Music Festival and appeared at the Caramoor, Moab, Music@Menlo, Montreal, Toronto, Jerusalem, and Storioni Chamber Music Festivals. He is co-artistic director of the Friends of Chamber Music of Miami. Fiterstein is a founder of the Zimro Project, a unique ensemble dedicated to incorporating Jewish art music into chamber music programs. Fiterstein has a prolific recording career and has worked with composers John Corigliano and Osvaldo Golijov and had pieces written for him by Samuel Adler, Mason Bates, Paul Schoenfield, and Chris Brubeck, among others. Born in Belarus, he immigrated to Israel at the age of 2 with his family and later studied at the Interlochen Arts Academy. A Juilliard graduate, he won first prize at the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and received awards from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. He is currently Professor of Clarinet and Chair of Winds at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Fiterstein is a Buffet Crampon and Vandoren Performing Artist.
Luke Fleming
Praised by The Philadelphia Inquirer for his “glowing refinement,” violist Luke Fleming’s performances have been described by The Strad as “confident and expressive…playing with uncanny precision,” and lauded by Gramophone for their “superlative technical and artistic execution.” Festival appearances include the Marlboro Music School and Festival, the Steans Institute at Ravinia, Bravo! Vail, and Festival Mozaic. Formerly the violist of the GRAMMY-winning Attacca Quartet, he was awarded First Prize at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition and top prizes at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition. In 2015, Mr. Fleming became the Founding Artistic Director of both the Manhattan Chamber Players and the Crescent City Chamber Music Festival, and in 2024 he was named Artistic Program Director of Chamber Music Monterey Bay. He currently serves on the Viola and Chamber Music faculties of the University of New Orleans, Atlantic Music Festival, Festival del Lago, and The Woodlands Chamberfest. He has performed as guest violist with the Amernet, Escher, Modigliani, and Pacifica Quartets, the Eroica, Lysander, and Gryphon Piano Trios, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Mr. Fleming holds the degrees of Doctor of Musical Arts, Artist Diploma, and Master of Music from the Juilliard School; a Postgraduate Diploma with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music in London; and a Bachelor of Music Performance summa cum laude from Louisiana State University. Mr. Fleming performs on a tenor viola by Gasparo da Salò, ca. 1560, on generous loan to him from Steven Tenenbom.
Joshua Gersen
Joshua Gersen is widely respected as an engaging and inspiring conductor, able to communicate effortlessly with both young and established orchestras internationally. A native of the New York area, he made his debut as a conductor at the early age of 11 and has established himself as a dynamic presence on the podium ever since. Joshua recently concluded his tenure as the Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic, where he most notably made his subscription debut at just a few hours’ notice, taking over for an ill Semyon Bychkov. “Impassioned and incisive,” wrote The New York Times, “the performance earned a standing ovation and prolonged applause from his colleagues in the orchestra.” As an educator, Joshua has frequently worked with students and ensembles at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, Boston University, and the Curtis Institute of Music. During his time with the New York Philharmonic, he also conducted many of the orchestra’s celebrated Young People’s Concerts and worked extensively with both the Very Young Composers Program and the Harmony Program, which provides music education for students in underserved communities across New York City. Previously, he was Music Director of the New York Youth Symphony, where he conducted numerous concerts to critical acclaim, and successfully led the orchestra on its first international tour in over 50 seasons. Joshua studied composition with Michael Gandolfi at the New England Conservatory of Music before studying conducting at the Curtis Institute of Music. He has collaborated with many prominent contemporary composers, including John Adams, Steve Reich, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jennifer Higdon, and Mason Bates and is particularly committed to featuring works by the newer generation of composers, such as Gabriella Smith, Valerie Coleman, Carlos Simon, and Chris Rogerson, among others. In addition to his love of contemporary music, he remains passionate about the core classical repertoire, in particular the German and Russian masters, as well as the classic American composers. Joshua has enjoyed a very successful relationship with the New World Symphony, where he served as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Conducting Fellow, acting as assistant conductor to the symphony’s Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas. Recent guest conducting appearances include the San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Hannover Opera, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Music Festival and the Irish RTÉ Concert Orchestra. He is the recipient of 2015 and 2016 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Awards.
Matthew Guard
Matthew Guard is a conductor, curator, arranger, and editor who has spent fifteen years exploring a central question: what might vocal music be capable of if the concert itself were treated as a creative form? Guard believes that the collective human voice has an extraordinary capacity for emotional expression, but that its possibilities are often constrained by inherited conventions of presentation. As Founder & Artistic Director of Skylark, the six-time GRAMMY®-nominated professional vocal ensemble he founded in 2011, he has used the group to explore alternatives. His concerts may be shaped by literature, history, visual art, architecture, a museum collection, or the natural world. Repertoire and sequence, text and narrative, scholarship and collaboration can all become part of the form. Guard arranges and edits music, commissions and collaborates with composers, adapts texts, and creates new editions when a project requires material that does not already exist. Each project is a different experiment in the same investigation. Clear Voices in the Dark places Francis Poulenc’s Figure humaine, composed in Nazi-occupied France, alongside American Civil War songs, constructing a dialogue across two periods of national crisis. For A Christmas Carol, Guard abridged Dickens’s text and worked with composer Benedict Sheehan to create a continuous “story score” in which narration and choral music are inseparable; the project has been performed with Christine Baranski at the Morgan Library & Museum and The Breakers. At the Hispanic Society Museum & Library, Guard has created programs in response to the institution itself, drawing on its architecture, art, history, and collection of Renaissance musical manuscripts. Sub Rosa: Secrets Revealed, created with composer Gregory W. Brown and bestselling The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, explores hidden symbols and codes in music. Guard is now extending the same investigation beyond the conventional concert. Film projects growing from Clear Voices in the Dark and A Christmas Carol explore how music, narrative, history, and place can operate on screen. Harvard University has also commissioned Guard and Benedict Sheehan to expand A Christmas Carol into a new choral-orchestral version, extending an idea first developed with Skylark into a larger musical and dramatic form. Under Guard’s direction, Skylark has earned six GRAMMY® nominations and made more than fifteen studio recordings, now distributed by LSO Live. The ensemble has performed at institutions including the Morgan Library & Museum, the Met Cloisters, and the Hispanic Society Museum & Library. Guard has led residencies and workshops at Harvard, MIT, Wellesley College, and Phillips Exeter Academy, and his work and Skylark’s performances have been covered by The New York Times, the Associated Press, the BBC, NPR, and The Times of London. Guard’s path to this practice has been unconventional. He studied government at Harvard College before working as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company and later earned an MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. He also works independently as a producer and editor of choral recordings. He and his wife, Carolyn Guard, Skylark’s co-founder, co-founded Babiators, the children’s eyewear company named to Forbes’ list of America’s Most Promising Companies. Carolyn continues to lead Babiators today. Skylark returns to Close Encounters With Music for the third time in 2027.
Hye-Jin Kim
Violinist Hye-Jin Kim is known for her musical sensitivity and deeply engaging performances that transport audiences beyond technical virtuosity. Her distinguished career as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician includes winning First Prize at the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition at age nineteen and the Concert Artists Guild International Competition. Kim has performed as soloist with major orchestras worldwide, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, New Haven Symphony, BBC Concert Orchestra (UK), Seoul Philharmonic (Korea), Pan Asia Symphony (Hong Kong), and Hannover Chamber Orchestra (Germany). She has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall, the Kravis Center, Salzburg’s Schloss Mirabell, and London’s St. John’s Smith Square and Wigmore Hall. At the invitation of Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, she served as a cultural representative through concerts and outreach engagements in Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, including performances at the U.N. Headquarters in Geneva and New York. A passionate chamber musician, Kim has appeared at leading festivals including Marlboro, Ravinia, Four Seasons, Music from Angel Fire, Seoul Spring, Bridgehampton, Music in the Vineyards, and Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music in England. Deeply committed to nurturing young talent, she presents master classes throughout the United States and founded the Summer Chamber Music Institute at East Carolina University for gifted pre-college musicians. Her debut CD, “From the Homeland,” recorded with pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute, features works by Debussy, Smetana, Sibelius, and Janáček. American Record Guide praised the recording as “superb—warm, polished, expressive.” Born in Seoul, Korea, Kim entered the Curtis Institute of Music at age 14 and completed her master’s degree at the New England Conservatory. She currently serves as Associate Professor of Violin at East Carolina University and teaches at Taos School of Music as a member of the Cooperstown Quartet. Kim is the founder and artistic director of Lullaby Dreams, a non-profit organization bringing the healing power of music to babies, families, and medical staff in NICUs and children’s hospitals.
Siwoo Kim
Siwoo Kim is an “incisive” and “compelling” violinist (The New York Times) who “plays with stylistic sensitivity and generous tonal nuance” (The Chicago Tribune). Siwoo actively performs as soloist and chamber musician and is the founding co-artistic director of VIVO Music Festival in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Since his Carnegie Hall debut with the Juilliard Orchestra, he has gone on to perform as soloist with orchestras on four continents. As a chamber musician, Siwoo was trained at the Marlboro Music Festival and performs at chamber music series and festivals all around the world. An advocate of new music, Siwoo premiered and recorded Samuel Adler’s violin concerto with the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt on Linn Records. VIVO Music Festival annually co-commissions new chamber music works with Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain. Last season, Siwoo recorded and released the premiere recording of Michael Torke’s Last — a 12-movement concerto for violin and string orchestra — on Ecstatic Records with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO).
Max Levinson
Pianist Max Levinson’s career was launched when he won first prize at the Guardian Dublin International Piano Competition, the first American to achieve this distinction. He was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and, in 2005, the Andrew Wolf Award for his chamber music playing. The Boston Globe proclaimed: “The questioning, conviction, and feeling in his playing invariably remind us of the deep reasons why music is important to us, why we listen to it, why we care so much about it.” Levinson has performed as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, New World Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Oregon Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Utah Symphony, Boston Pops, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland among others. He has worked with such conductors as Robert Spano, Neeme Järvi, Uriel Segal, Joseph Swensen, Jeffrey Kahane and Alasdair Neale. Artistic Director of the San Juan Chamber Music Festival (Ouray, Colorado), he has appeared at major music festivals including Mostly Mozart, Santa Fe, Marlboro, Tanglewood, La Jolla, Bravo! Vail, Seattle, Killington, Vancouver, Cartagena, and Switzerland’s Davos Festival. Max Levinson garnered international accolades for his two recordings. Max Levinson, his debut recording, traces the musical lineage between Brahms, Schumann, Schönberg and Kirchner. American Record Guide declared Levinson’s second disc, Out of Doors: Piano Music of Béla Bartók, “an important recording and a great one. The disc blew me out of my chair….Hearing performances as riveting as these produces a rare frisson; indeed, this is the most brilliant and exciting Bartók piano disc I have heard. On the basis of only two recordings, Mr. Levinson has created the myth of a pianist with everything.” He has experimented with internet broadcast, served as Artist-in-Residence at Harvard University’s Lowell House for four years, and has been featured on NPR’s “Performance Today” and “A Note to You.” He has also taught master classes at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Harvard, MIT, Brigham Young University, Rutgers, the University of Washington, UCLA, the Colburn School, and Boston University. Mr. Levinson is chair of the piano department at the Boston Conservatory and is also a faculty member at the New England Conservatory.
Omar Najmi
Grammy-nominated artist Omar Najmi splits his time between composition and performance, maintaining a busy schedule as an operatic tenor. This season, he debuts with the Spoleto Festival as Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw, Boston Modern Orchestra Project as Demler in Frederick Douglass, the Tucson Symphony in Mozart’s Requiem, and he will return to Boston Lyric Opera as Enoch Snow in Carousel and Malcolm in Macbeth. Other recent appearances include Handel’s Messiah with Boston Baroque and the Seattle Symphony, Simon in Adoration with LA Opera and Beth Morrison Projects, and the American Opera Initiative with Washington National Opera, where his new opera Mud Girl (created in collaboration with librettist Christine Evans) was presented at the Kennedy Center to great acclaim. Other performing credits include Valcour in The Anonymous Lover with Boston Lyric Opera, Ruggero in La Rondine with Opera on the James, Lord Byron in the world premiere of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage with Guerilla Opera, Alessandro in Il Re Pastore with Orpheus PDX, Rodolfo in La Bohème with Opera Steamboat, Astolfo in Furiosus with Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, and Shakur in Thumbprint with Portland Opera. Najmi enjoys a long-standing relationship with Boston Lyric Opera where he began his professional career as an Emerging Artist (2013-2015). He has performed over 15 productions at the company, and he served as their first ever Emerging Composer in the 2020/2021 season. His other operatic engagements have included Opera Colorado, Chautauqua Opera, Annapolis Opera, Opera Saratoga, Opera Maine, Opera Fayetteville, Opera NEO, Opera North, Odyssey Opera, American Lyric Theater, and more. Najmi made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2018 as the tenor soloist in Mark Hayes’ Gloria. He has since returned as the soloist in Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living, and as a soloist in Talents of the World Inc.’s Caruso Tribute Concert. He has performed several times as a soloist with the touring concert Video Games Live, including an appearance with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at the Red Rocks Amphitheater. Najmi has been the recipient of the Harold Norblom Award from Opera Colorado, the Stephen Shrestinian Award from Boston Lyric Opera, 2nd prize from the Wilkinson Young Singers Fund, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellowship from Emmanuel Music, and he has been a regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. Najmi began his composition career with the production of his first opera, En la ardiente oscuridad, in 2019. While serving as the first ever Emerging Composer in residence with Boston Lyric Opera, he worked with Boston Youth Poet Laureate Alondra Bobadilla in the creation of the song cycle my name is Alondra. The piece received its live premiere on BLO’s Street Stage in 2021. In 2022, his motet The Last Invocation was premiered by Emmanuel Music. His second opera, This Is Not That Dawn, was premiered in concert by Catalyst New Music in 2022. He was a member of Washington National Opera’s 2025 American Opera Initiative, which commissioned and premiered his and Christine Evans’ opera Mud Girl.
Daniel Panner
Daniel Panner enjoys a varied career as a performer and teacher. As violist of the Mendelssohn String Quartet, he concertized extensively throughout the United States and Israel. He has performed at numerous music festivals, including Marlboro, Ravinia, Tanglewood and Aspen and has collaborated with members of the Cleveland, Emerson, Guarneri and Juilliard String Quartets. As a member of the Whitman String Quartet, Mr. Panner received the 1998 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and served as a teaching assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet for two years. Mr. Panner is co-chair of the string department of the Mannes College of Music, where he also teaches viola and chamber music. He has also taught at the Juilliard School, Rutgers University, SUNY Stony Brook, Queens College, and the Jerusalem Music Center Summer Courses, and he has given master classes at such schools as Peabody, Hartt and the North Carolina School of the Arts. He has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s; he has also toured with Musicians from Marlboro and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. As a guest artist, he has performed with the Juilliard String Quartet, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the Daedalus String Quartet, the Flux String Quartet and the Moscow Conservatory Trio. Mr. Panner has been heard on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” both as a soloist and chamber musician. He has served as the principal violist of such orchestras as the New York City Opera and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. An active performer of new music, he is a member of Sequitur and the Locrian Ensemble and has performed as guest with such new-music groups as Speculum Musicae, the Da Capo Chamber Players, and Transit Circle; he has recorded solo viola works by Thea Musgrave and Victoria Bond, both for Albany Records. Mr. Panner studied with Jesse Levine at Yale University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history. He continued his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with Joseph dePasquale and the Juilliard School with Samuel Rhodes.
Anna Polonsky
Anna Polonsky is widely in demand as a soloist and chamber musician. Ms. Polonsky has collaborated with the Guarneri, Orion, Juilliard, and Shanghai Quartets, and with such musicians as Mitsuko Uchida, Yo-Yo Ma, Richard Goode, and Emanuel Ax. She has given concerts in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Alice Tully Hall, and Carnegie Hall’s Stern, Weill, and Zankel Halls, and has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. A frequent guest at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, she was a member of the Chamber Music Society Two during 2002-2004. She is a recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. Anna Polonsky made her solo piano debut at the age of seven at the Special Central Music School in Moscow, Russia. She emigrated to the United States in 1990, and attended high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. She received degrees from The Curtis Institute of Music under the tutelage of Peter Serkin, and from the Juilliard School, studying with Jerome Lowenthal. In addition to performing, she serves on the piano faculty of Vassar College, and in the summer at the Marlboro and Kneisel Hall chamber music festivals. Together with violinist Jaime Laredo, violist Milena Pájaro-van de Stadt, and cellist Sharon Robinson, Polonsky is a member of the Espressivo! Piano Quartet. With the clarinetist David Shifrin and cellist Peter Wiley, she performs with the Polonsky-Shifrin-Wiley Trio. Ms. Polonsky is a Steinway Artist.
Yael Rasooly
Yael Rasooly is a critically lauded visual theater director, actress, singer and puppeteer. Growing up between Toronto, Jerusalem and Seattle, Yael trained as a classical pianist and singer from an early age when she began touring internationally. She studied theater design in London at Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design. Her distinct theatrical language, which she began developing at the School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem and further developed through training in France, is based on a multidisciplinary approach, combining different forms of theater, puppetry, visual art and music. Her shows include Paper Cut, winner of the Excellence Award at the New York International Fringe Festival, The House by the Lake, a musical cabaret for actresses, dolls and objects depicting three sisters in hiding during WWII that has been touring for 15 years, most recently at the Museum of Modern Art in Chicago (2025), Bon Voyage and Other Lies, based on the stories of, and in collaboration with, acclaimed author Etgar Keret, Silence Makes Perfect in collaboration with internationally renowned classical pianist Amit Dolberg (Meitar Ensemble) premiered at Le Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes de Charleville-Mézières, and her latest creation, Edith and Me—the third chapter in her trilogy shedding light on violence towards women, in collaboration with Norland Visual theater and numerous national theaters in France is currently touring extensively worldwide. Edith and Me has received 7 awards at International festivals in Europe in 2025, including several Grands Prix.
Daniel Rein
Daniel Rein is a pianist, composer, and music director with extensive international experience in musical theater. He served two years as Music Director for the European tour of Cats, was Associate Conductor on the Les Misérables 25th Anniversary Tour, and has performed as Associate Conductor and keyboardist on the Radio City Christmas Spectacular in New York. He is a member of the prestigious BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, widely regarded as the premier training ground for emerging musical theater composers, lyricists, and librettists. As a composer and songwriter, his recent projects and commissions include And the Sun Goes Up (commissioned by MasterVoices), Her Violet Eye, a song cycle based on the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, and Improvisations on Misirlou, a mini-concerto for piano inspired by a Greek folk song. An accomplished pianist, Daniel performs in both classical and jazz idioms. He has competed in international classical piano competitions and appeared with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, at the International Association for Jazz Education Conference in California, and in leading jazz venues in New York City. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and a Postgraduate Diploma from the Royal Academy of Music in London. Daniel grew up in Jerusalem, Israel, amid a cultural mosaic shaped by Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions — an influence that continues to inform the breadth and versatility of his artistic voice.
Hannah Sohn
Cellist Hannah Jieun Sohn made her solo debut with the Orchestra of Northern New York in 2017 after winning first prize in the James and Katherine Andrews Young Artist Instrumental Competition. Her subsequent honors include first prize in the 2019 Britten Concours in the Netherlands, which led to a solo appearance with the Britten Youth String Orchestra, and the 2023 Eastman Dvořák Cello Concerto Competition, which brought a performance with the Eastman Philharmonia. In 2025, she received the Glenn and Frances Harris Cello Prize and the Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. An active chamber musician, Sohn has given recitals for the Young Musicians Forum in Schenectady, New York, and performed as both soloist and ensemble member with the Westside Chamber Players. In 2026, she attended the Taos School of Music as a Young Artist. She has served as principal cellist of the Eastman Philharmonia and the Manhattan School of Music’s opera and symphony orchestras and performed with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in 2024. Sohn received her B.M. at the Mannes School as a student of Yehuda Hanani, received coaching from members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Concertgebouw Orchestra and participated in masterclasses with Steven Isserlis, Johannes Moser, Alisa Weilerstein, Zlatomir Fung, and Carter Brey. She is currently pursuing postgraduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music with Julia Lichten. Her mentors include Steven Doane, Rosemary Elliott, Monique Heidema, and David Bebe.
Samuel Solomon
Percussionist Samuel Z. Solomon has been responsible for dozens of world premieres of solo and small ensemble works and has been involved in numerous additional projects to perpetuate the music of young composers. He is author of How to Write for Percussion, a comprehensive guide for composers on percussion composition that has received critical acclaim worldwide and is available in three languages. He has also written several books on rhythm and percussion playing and curated two collections of percussion etudes and solos. Solomon currently teaches percussion at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Boston University. During the summers, he serves as Percussion Director of Juilliard Summer Music. From 2017-2025 he was Artistic Director of the Juilliard Summer Percussion Seminar, from 2004-2023 he was Percussion Director of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI), and from 2007-2011 he was the President of the Massachusetts Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society. Solomon is a founding member of the Line C3 percussion group and the Yesaroun’ Duo. From 2005-2010 he was percussionist-in-residence at Harvard University, and from 2003-2015 he was principal timpanist of the Amici New York Chamber Orchestra. He can be heard as soloist and chamber musician on GM, Albany, Bedroom Community, New Focus, and Tzadik labels, as well as performing the music of Björk on the soundtrack to Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 9. Solomon made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2000 as guest soloist with the New York Youth Symphony, and in 1999 he was featured in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, performing the American premiere of Iannis Xenakis’ O-Mega for percussion solo and chamber orchestra with the New Juilliard Ensemble. Appropriately titled, O-Mega would prove to be the final work Xenakis composed before his death. Solomon spent six summers as a student at Tanglewood, three as a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, and six years at Juilliard, receiving two degrees under the tutelage of Daniel Druckman, Roland Kohloff, and Gordon Gottlieb. He currently lives in Scituate, Massachusetts with his wife, Kristy Errera-Solomon, and three children. Solomon performs with Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth beaters, Black Swamp accessories, and Pearl/Adams drums, hardware, and keyboards.
Dana Varga
Praised for her “radiant soprano,” soprano Dana Lynne Varga has established herself as a dynamic interpreter of a wide variety of repertoire on opera and concert stages. She regularly solos at Carnegie Hall, most recently singing the Fauré Requiem and Mozart Requiem with the New York City Chamber Orchestra as well as the Brahms Requiem and Haydn Lord Nelson Mass with the New England Symphonic Ensemble. She sang the role of Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola with Boston Lyric Opera in 2023 and covered the role of Leontine in Bologne’s L’amant anonyme with BLO in 2024. Upcoming engagements include multiple performances of new opera-in-progress The Onion by Eric Sawyer, soloist in Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore with Coro Allegro and soloist in Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem with the Jameson Singers. Dana maintains a busy schedule on the concert platform. The Boston Globe noted that she “streaked up into the stratosphere and back down with ease” in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Cantata Singers. Past highlights include Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with Coro Allegro, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang with Greenwich Choral Society, Amy Beach’s Mass with the Commonwealth Chorale, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony with the Metropolitan Chorale, Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3 with the Springfield Symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Wellesley Symphony Orchestra, Bach’s Magnificat with the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra and Beethoven’s Mass in C at Tanglewood. She has given countless performances of Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation and Brahms’ Requiem with organizations across the eastern seaboard. Dana’s 2019 appearance as Pallas Athene in Gluck’s rarely heard Paride ed Elena with Odyssey Opera garnered critical acclaim for her “soprano of impressive scale …that nearly stole the entire show” (EDGE Media Network). Notable recent operatic engagements include Kayla in the workshop world premiere of Taking Up Serpents presented by MASSOpera and Washington National Opera under the baton of Lidiya Yankovskaya, Stacy Helson in On Behalf of a Madman with Grand Harmonie and zweite Zofe in Der Zwerg with Odyssey Opera. Dana received her MM from New England Conservatory and her DMA from Boston University. Also an accomplished voice teacher, life and career coach and lecturer, Dana is a fierce advocate for singers, devoted to progressive change in the classical vocal industry.
Vivace Chamber Orchestra
Composed of fourteen top-tier soloists who gather for periodic tours, Vivace String Orchestra performers are the crème de la crème of chamber music players. They are members of the legendary Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Sybarite5, Frisson, Eighth Blackbird, Seraphic Fire, Sejong Soloists, The Knights, A Far Cry, Music from Copland House, Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, and the Jasper String Quartet. Individually, they have performed as soloists with prestigious orchestras around the globe—Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Concert Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Saint Louis Symphony, Spanish National Orchestra, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, Columbus, Houston, Dallas, Detroit, and New Jersey symphony orchestras, Johannesburg Philharmonic, Venezuela Symphony, KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic, Orchestre Royal de Chambre and Montevideo Philharmonic in the most prestigious cultural venues and in chamber music settings with stars of the music world. Members have taken top prizes in competitions, including the Naumburg, Boston Symphony Concerto Competition, Avery Fisher, and a Rising Star Award by Tiffany & Co. They lead colorful and eclectic lives in music, performing jazz, tango, contemporary and Baroque; have mastered the violoncello da spalla (a five-stringed mini cello that is played on the shoulder!) and the Argentine bandoneon; compose, teach, and have found other exciting outlets for their creativity. Cellist Aaron Wolff had a lead role in the Coen brothers’ film A Serious Man and has provided string arrangements for Comedy Central’s sitcom Broad City. United in their excellence, experience and the excitement they generate, Vivace presents a precision-instrument orchestral voice.
Xiao-Dong Wang
Xiao-Dong Wang has been called the most talented violinist to emerge from China. He began his studies at age 3 with his father, concertmaster of the Shanghai Symphony; he then studied with the renowned teacher Zhao Ji-Yang at the Shanghai Conservatory. As first prize winner in the Menuhin International Violin Competition and the Wieniawski-Lipiński International Violin Competition at the ages of 13 and 15, he was brought to the attention of violin pedagogue Dorothy DeLay, who arranged a four-year scholarship at Juilliard. Mr. Wang has performed as soloist with orchestras around the world, including the London Royal Philharmonic, the London Mozart Players, Adelaide, Perth and Queensland symphony orchestras and Sydney Opera Orchestra. His recording credits include the Bartók Concerto No. 2 and Szymanowski Concerto No. 1 for Polygram. He has also appeared performing on both violin and viola in chamber music concerts at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Aspen, Ravinia and festivals and music series worldwide. Wang was the resident soloist of the Shanghai Symphony for the 2012-13 season, during which he also performed as a soloist with other major Chinese orchestras, including the China Philharmonic in Beijing. He is artistic director of the chamber music group Concertante, collaborating with world-renowned musicians and producing a vast number of recordings.
Nancy Zeltsman
“The velvety, rich-toned allure of Nancy Zeltsman” has delighted audiences and made a mark on a generation of marimbists, as have her commissioning efforts, recordings, and decades of teaching. She was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame in 2022. Nancy has performed and presented master classes across the U.S. and Europe, and in Japan, China, Mexico, and Brazil. Performance venues have included the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Ravinia Festival, subscription concerts with the San Francisco Symphony, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall and Merkin Concert Hall (New York), Shenzhen Concert Hall (China), and Harmony Hall (Fukui, Japan). She premiered over 130 solo and chamber music compositions including pieces by Gunther Schuller, Michael Tilson Thomas, Robert Aldridge, Steven Mackey, Lyle Mays, Paul Simon, Carla Bley, Louis Andriessen, Alejandro Viñao, and Paul Lansky. Besides three albums recorded with Sharan Leventhal / Marimolin, Nancy recorded four solo albums including drinking water (self-issued; 2025), purple music (self-issued; 2023) and two albums with Jack Van Geem including American Gifts for Marimba Duo (Bridge Records; 2020). She recorded William Thomas McKinley’s marimba concerto Childhood Memories with Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Zeltsman is professor of marimba and chamber music at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and at Berklee College of Music, having taught at both since 1993 in positions that were created for her. She has been a Guest Artist teacher at University of Michigan two weeks per year since 2021, and was guest professor of marimba at Conservatorium van Amsterdam from 2013-2024. Over 600 marimba-playing participants attended Zeltsman Marimba Festival events between 2001 and 2018. As Artistic Director, Nancy organized 14 two-week festivals at different venues across the U.S. and in Amsterdam, and performed and taught at ZMF On Tour (short festivals) in China, Japan, Luxembourg, and Boston. ZMF New Music (co-directed by Nancy and Shawn Michalek) fostered 24 new marimba solos published as Intermediate Masterworks for Marimba in two volumes (by C.F. Peters Corporation) and recorded by eight marimbists on a double-CD (Bridge Records). Currently, she serves as marimba editor for Percussive Notes (magazine of the Percussive Arts Society), and on the Advisory Board of The Gunther Schuller Society. Adams Musical Instruments released their Nancy Zeltsman Signature marimba in 2021. Her popular line of signature Encore Mallets is available through Salyers Percussion. Nancy graduated from New England Conservatory with a BM in percussion performance (1982), where she studied with Vic Firth. Other teachers included Ian Finkel, Robert Ayers, Donald Marrs, Dave Samuels (jazz improvisation), and William Thomas McKinley (composition). She grew up in northern New Jersey, then went to study in Boston where she has spent most of her life.
Past Performers
Close Encounters With Music Salutes the many great artists who have joined us over three decades of splendid and inspired music-making in the Berkshires.
Acronym Baroque String Band
Jane Alexander, actress
Amphion String Quartet
American Brass Quintet
Amernet Quartet
Daniel Anker, filmmaker
Ariel String Quartet
Nadine Asin, flute
Biava Quartet
Toby Appel, violin
Lydia Artymiw, piano
Shmuel Ashkenasi, violin
Lera Auerbach, composer
Avalon String Quartet
Aviv String Quartet
Maria Bachman, violin
Jordan Bak, viola
Christylez Bacon, beatbox artist
Helena Baillie, violin
Lucille Beer, mezzo-soprano
Yehonatan Berick, violin
Boris Berman, piano
Martin Bernheimer, critic
Paul Biss, viola
Javier Bonet, horn
Robert Bonfiglio, harmonica
Michael Boriskin, piano
Borromeo String Quartet
Jim Bouton, baseball legend
Misha Bouvier, baritone
Michael Brown, piano
Courtney Budd, soprano
David Bull, art restorer
Kenji Bunch, composer
Lissie Burns, double bass
Amy Burton, soprano
Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cello
Camarata San Marco
James Cammack, double bass
Richard Chamberlain, actor
Chamber Orchestra Kremlin
Michael Chertock, piano
Catherine Cho, violin
Edgar Choueiri, astrophysicist
Kevin Cobb, trumpet
Jean-David Coen, piano
Kenneth Cooper, harpsichord
Cuarteto Latinoamericano
Ran Dank, piano
Mikael Darmanie, piano
Andrew Dawes, violin
James Dick, piano
Arti Dixson, percussion
Dover String Quartet
Cornelius Duffalo, violin
eighth blackbird, sextet
Escher String Quartet
Inna Faliks, piano
Liu Fang, pipa
William Ferguson, tenor
Eliot Fisk, guitar
Alexander Fiterstein, clarinet
Luke Fleming, viola
Miriam Fried, violin
Erick Friedman, violin
Joanna Genova, violin
Vadim Gluzman, violin
Rivka Golani, viola
Gila Goldstein, piano
Osvaldo Golijov, composer
Ralf Gothoni, piano
Paul Green, clarinet
Joanne Greenberg, novelist
Ara Gregorian, violin
David Grossman, double bass
Matthew Guerrieri, composer
Renana Gutman, piano
Susan Heerema, violinist
Stephanie Houtzeel, mezzo-soprano
Heather Johnson, mezzo-soprano
Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano
Renee Jolles, violin
William Kanengiser, guitar
Erin Keefe, violin
Jonathan Keren, violin and composer
Elizabeth Keusch, soprano
Do Yeon Kim, cello
Hye-Jin Kim, violin
Soovin Kim, violin
Igor Kipnis, harpsichord
Phil Kline, composer, lecturer
David Krakauer, clarinet
Yoon Kwon, violin
Kyung Sun Lee, violin
Soyeon Kate Lee, piano
Richard Lalli, baritone
Owen Leech, composer
Karine Lethiec, viola
Michel Lethiec, clarinet
Ida Levin, violin
Michele Levin, piano
Max Levinson, piano
Cho-Liang Lin, violin
Seymour Lipkin, piano
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet
Benjamin Luxon, actor
Sivan Magen, harp
Kobi Malkin, violin
Manhattan Chamber Players
Manhattan String Quartet
Jorge Martin, composer
Emily Marvosh, contralto
Jeremy McCoy, double bass
Sarah McElravy, violin
Stefan Milenkovich, violin
Rainer Moog, viola
John Moore, baritone
Mount Holyoke College Chamber Singers
Muir String Quartet
Thea Musgrave, composer
John Musto, composer
Charles Neidich, clarinet
Adam Neiman, piano
Anton Nel, piano
Michael Nicolas, cello
Kelley O’Connor, mezzo-soprano
Tara Helen O’Connor, flute
Maureen O’Flynn, soprano
Sharon Olds, poet
Richard O’Neill, viola
Tina Packer, actor
Daniel Panner, viola
David Parsons, choreography
Lionel Party, harpsichord
William Perry, composer, lecturer
Daniel Phillips, violin
Ted Piltzecker, vibraphone
Walter Ponce, pianist
Rachel Lee Priday, violin
Prism Quartet
Stephen Prutsman, piano
Christian Puig, Flamenco guitar
William Purvis, horn
Roman Rabinovich, piano
Julian Rachlin, violin
Desmond Richardson, dancer
Alex Richardson, tenor
Jennifer Rivera, mezzo-soprano
Irene Rodriguez, Flamenco dancer
Seth Rogovoy, author
The Rose Ensemble
Ariel Rudiakov, viola
Stephen Sas, double bass
Marc Schachman, baroque oboe
Dov Scheindlin, viola
Giora Schmidt, violin
Bill Schimmel, accordion
Paul Schoenfield, composer
Sebastian Baroque Ensemble
Hagai Shaham, violin
Avirodh Sharma, tabla
William Sharp, baritone
Lucy Shelton, soprano
Yegor Shevtsov, piano
Lisa Shihoten, violin
Skylark
Alexander Shtarkman, piano
James Austin Smith, oboe
Michael Strauss, viola
Brian Suits, piano
Yekwon Sunwoo, piano
Arnaud Sussman, violin
Jeffrey Swann, piano
Emma Tahmizian, piano
Danielle Talamantes, soprano
Arve Tellefsen, violin
James Tocco, piano
Joan Tower, composer and pianist
Tragecomedia Baroque Ensemble
Dawn Upshaw, soprano
Elina Vahala, violin
Vermeer String Quartet
John Viscardi, baritone
Blythe Walker, soprano
Liang Wang, oboe
Xiao-Dong Wang, violin
Sam Waterston, actor
Sigourney Weaver, actress
Robert White, tenor
Calvin Wiersma, violin
Kerry Wilkerson, baritone
Carol Wincenc, flute
Robert Winter, musicologist
Hugo Wolf String Quartet
William Wolfram, piano
Sarah Wolfson, soprano
Angela Yoffe, piano
Judith Zaimont, composer
Peter Zazofsky, violin
Jennifer Zetlan, soprano
Itamar Zorman, violin
and many more …