Christylez Bacon (pronounced: chris-styles) is a GRAMMY® Nominated Progressive Hip-Hop artist and multi-instrumentalist from Southeast, Washington, DC. As a performer, he multi-tasks between various instruments such as the West African djembe drum, acoustic guitar, and the human beat-box (oral percussion), all the while continuing the oral tradition of storytelling through his lyrics. In 2011, Mr. Bacon began a cross-cultural collaborative concert series in Washington, DC, “Washington Sound Museum” (WSM), a monthly intimate celebration of music featuring guest artists from diverse musical genres with Christylez Bacon and his progressive hip-hop orchestra. Since WSM’s inception, Mr. Bacon has collaborated with artists from various cultural backgrounds, ranging from the Hindustani & Carnatic music of India, the contemporary Arabic music of Egypt, and the music of Brazil.  With a mission of fostering cultural acceptance and unification through music, he is constantly pushing the envelope – from performances at the National Cathedral, to becoming the first Hip-Hop artist to be featured at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, composing and orchestrating an entire concert for a 12-piece orchestra commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Smithsonian Institute, or recording a Folk/Hip-Hop children’s album. He is the recipient of several honors awarded by the Washington Area Music Association including the 2013 Artist of the Year, and the Montgomery County Executive Award for Excellence in the Arts.  He has even been honored as a 2012 “Library Superhero” by Friends of the Library, Montgomery County.

James Cammack

In a feature article on James Cammack, Bass Player Magazine reviewer Richard Johnston nicknamed James, who was at the time a Chicago resident, “Chicago fire,” for his hard-driving, creative approach to playing both acoustic and electric bass. At rehearsals of even the most complicated jazz pieces, Cammack just puts a finger on his instrument to find the key, asks for the general feel, and takes off. As both sideman and solo player, Cammack demonstrates both virtuosity and musicality. Between 1984 and 2010, he performed continuously with legendary pianist Ahmad Jamal, visiting more than 30 countries. He also toured with singer Nancy Wilson, tubist Howard Johnson, and singer Vanessa Rubin. He has performed in some of the world’s most famous jazz clubs: the Village Vanguard in New York City and Yoshi’s in San Francisco; major jazz festivals, including the Montreal Jazz Festival, Italy’s Umbria Jazz Festival, and the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland. He has several recordings with Ahmad Jamal, including Rossiter Road (Atlantic), which reached the number-five position on the jazz chart billboard. A DVD called Ahmad Jamal Live in Baalbeck features the great drummer Idris Muhammad. He has also recorded with pianist Chris Neville, Russian actress Natalia Nazorova, tubist Howard Johnson, jazz pianist Joe Alterman and Senegal super star Youssou N’dour. Recently, he played Deon in the Off-Broadway hit, Lady Day with Dee Dee Bridgewater. A piano and trumpet student in his early years, Cammack is largely self-taught. He became interested in playing the bass through an uncle who was a professional musician and later was accepted into the West Point jazz band. A great mentor, pianist Frank Richmond, mentioned Cammack’s name to Ahmad Jamal, who snapped him up right after West Point.

Michael Chertock

Pianist, Michael Chertock has fashioned a successful career as an orchestral soloist, collaborating with conductors such as James Conlon, Jaime Laredo, Keith Lockhart, Erich Kunzel and Andrew Litton. His many orchestral appearances include solo performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Dallas Symphony, l’Orchestre Symphonique du Montreal, Toronto Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Chattanooga Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony and Cincinnati Symphony. He has won accolades abroad with his performances in Great Britain, Germany, Japan and Korea and toured Asia with the Boston and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras. Chertock made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1999 with the Cincinnati Pops, performing Duke Ellington’s New World A’Comin’. In 2005 with the Boston Pops, he performed the world premiere of a work by Todd Machover, commissioned by the Boston Pops expressly for Mr. Chertock. He reprised that performance with the Toronto Symphony in 2013. Chertock serves as chair of the piano department at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where he received his Master’s Degree as a student of Frank Weinstock. He has garnered numerous awards at major competitions, among them the top prizes in the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition and St. Charles International Piano Competition. He shared the silver medal in the 1991 World Piano Competition of the American Music Scholarship Association. He received the Rildia B. O’Bryon Cliburn Scholarship in 1986.

Arti Dixson

Percussionist Arti Dixson studied drum set concepts with the legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette. With folk-pop singer Janis Ian, he has performed in most major concert halls in the United States and toured Israel, Japan, Australia, Holland, Belgium, Spain and South Africa. He has also appeared with pianist Ahmad Jamal, throughout Europe as well as at Tanglewood, Saratoga, and Carnegie Hall and has worked at the the Foxwood Casino with Harry Connick and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. Born in Catskill, NY, he graduated from SUNY Albany where studied and performed with jazz and bepop pianist John Esposito. After graduation he played The Four Seasons Hotel circuit from Montreal to Vancouver, Canada and throughout the United States with the show band “Living Color” and toured with the British band “Sweet Box.” While in England he studied voice at the London School for Singing under the direction of Arnold Rose. Notable musicians with whom he has collaborated include Eartha Kitt, Bill Evans, pioneering fusion guitarist Larry Coryell, trumpeter Randy Brecker, composer/pianist Randy Klein, saxophonists Marion Meadows, Alex Foster and Sal Giorgiani, keyboardists Joey Melotti and Pete Levin, guitarist Kevin Jenkins, disco artist Vicki Sue Robinson, jazz flute pioneer Ali Ryerson, guitarist Ron Murray, jazz pianist and composer Rex Cadwallader, bassists Mike Asetta and Jim Cammack, “Cookie” Thomas, and many more. He has played for shows such as Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Ella off the Record, as well as an HBO Joe Louis sports special and The Pool Hall starring James Earl Jones. Mr. Dixson is the inventor of the Bass Drum Lift and The Spur Extender, both of which he has patented.

Ari Evan

William Ferguson

American tenor William Ferguson is a versatile artist whose repertoire ranges from early baroque to contemporary music and musical theatre. A graduate of The Juilliard School, he started his career with such roles as the title role of Albert Herring, Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw, Fenton in Falstaff, Normanno in Lucia di Lammermoor and Andres in Wozzeck. Recent performances have included Janacek’s Diary of One Who Vanished at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Haydn’s Armida with Victory Hall Opera, the title role of Candide with South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, Snout in Midsummer Night’s Dream in Palermo and Valencia, Guillot de Morfontaine in Manon, Spoletta in Tosca and Remendado in Carmen at the Dallas Opera, as well as key roles in Philip Glass’ The Trial with Salzburger Landestheater. He returns to Salzburg in 2021 as Harry King in Stuart MacRae’s Anthropocene and Enoch Snow in Carousel at Central City Opera. Other highlights have been Caliban in the North American premiere of Thomas Adès’ The Tempest at the Santa Fe Opera, Truffaldino in The Love for Three Oranges with Opera Australia in Sydney, recorded on the Chandos label, as well as Don Basilio/Nozze di Figaro with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. In New York he has performed Beppe in Pagliacci, Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte and Don Curzio in Le nozze di Figaro at The Metropolitan Opera as well as key roles with City Opera. He has sung with Opera Memphis, Opera Philadelphia, the Opera Orchestra of New York, and at the Aspen Music Festival. He was tenor soloist in a staged production of Händel’s Messiah with the Pittsburgh Symphony under Manfred Honeck and took part in world premieres of operas by composers Farberman, Adamo, Hoiby, Davis, Aldridge and Yarmolinsky. William Ferguson is also a sought-after recitalist and has performed a wide variety of works with the American Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. He appears as Brian on the DVD of Not The Messiah, an oratorio based on Monty Python’s Life of Brian recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall.

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 acclaim as soloist, chamber musician and inspiring pedagogue, and joined the faculty at the Mannes School in New York City this year. His concerto appearances have been with the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony, 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 de 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, 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, 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, his engaging chamber music with commentary series, Close Encounters With Music, has captivated audiences from Miami to Kansas City, Omaha, Detroit, Calgary, Scottsdale, the Berkshires, and at the Frick Collection in New York City. A three-time recipient of the Martha Baird Rockefeller grant, Mr. Hanani’s studies were 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 Berkshire High Peaks Festival, he presents master classes internationally at conservatories and for orchestras, including the Juilliard School, University of Indiana at Bloomington, New England Conservatory, McGill University, Paris Conservatoire, Berlin Hochschule für Music, 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.

Ieva Jokubaviciute

Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute’s powerfully and intricately crafted performances have earned her critical accolades throughout North America and Europe. Labor Records released Ieva’s debut recording in 2010 to critical international acclaim, which resulted in recitals in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Vilnius, and Toulouse. She made her orchestral debuts with the Chicago Symphony; in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and in February 2017 was the soloist with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Montevideo in Uruguay. Her piano trio—Trio Cavatina—won the 2009 Naumburg International Chamber Music Competition. Her latest recording: “Returning Paths: Solo Piano Works by Janacek and Suk” was also released to critical acclaim in 2014. In the fall of 2016, Ieva began a collaboration with the violinist Midori, with recitals in Canada, at the Cartagena International Music Festival in Colombia, and in Germany and Austria. Since, they have given recitals in Japan, Germany, Austria, Poland, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, India, and Sri Lanka. Jokubaviciute’s latest piano solo recording Northscapes will be released in 2021. This recording project weaves works, written within the last decade by composers from the Nordic and Baltic countries of Europe, into a tapestry of soundscapes that echo the reverberations between landscape, sound, and the imagination. It features works by Kaja Saariaho and Anna Thorvaldsdottir, among others. Appearances at international festivals include Marlboro, Ravinia, Bard, Caramoor Prussia Cove in England, Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany, festivals in Finland, and Music in the Vineyards in the Napa Valley.

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, Neemi 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.

Irina Muresanu

Praised by the Boston Globe as “not just a virtuoso, but an artist,” Romanian violinist Irina Muresanu has won the hearts of audiences and critics alike with her exciting, elegant and heartfelt performances of the classic, romantic and modern repertoire. She achieved early international acclaim as an outstanding young soloist, recitalist and chamber musician winning top prizes in several prestigious international violin competitions including the Montreal, Queen Elizabeth, Pro Musicis, Presser Music Award, and the Arthur Foote Award from the Harvard Musical Association. Recent solo engagements include appearances with the Boston Pops, Miami Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Geneva), Syracuse Symphony, Metropolitan Orchestra (Montreal), the Transvaal Philharmonic (Pretoria, S. Africa), Romanian National Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Radio Flamande (Brussels), and the Boston Philharmonic. In 2013, Muresanu introduced her “Four Strings Around the World” project, a solo violin recital featuring works of composers inspired by various musical cultures around the world. In November 2015 she received a Creative and Performing Arts Award from the University of Maryland that will allow the commissioning of new works for this project. Her recent recording releases include the Thomas Oboe Lee’s Violin Concerto (dedicated to Ms. Muresanu) on the BMOP label and the complete William Bolcom Violin and Piano Sonatas on the Centaur label with pianist Michael Lewin. An active chamber musician and recitalist, Ms. Muresanu is a member of the Boston Trio. Festival appearances have included Bay Chambers and Bowdoin in Maine, Strings in the Mountains and San Juan Music Festival in Colorado, Maui Chamber Music Festival in Hawaii, Festival van de Leie in Belgium, and the Renncontres des Musiciennes Festival in France. Irina Muresanu currently serves on the faculty the University of Maryland and Boston Conservatory and has taught in the Harvard and MIT music departments. She received an Artist Diploma degree and a Doctor in Musical Arts degree from the New England Conservatory. She plays an 1849 Giuseppe Rocca violin and an Etienne Pajeot bow.

Tamar Muskal

Educated both in Israel and the United States, Tamar Muskal’s music harmonizes the unique cultural aspects of both, writing in a carefully structured counterpoint style. Ms. Muskal studied viola, music theory and composition at the Rubin Academy for Music and Dance in Jerusalem and earned her BA in 1991, studying with Mark Kopytman. She subsequently earned her Master’s degree from Yale University, where she studied with Jacob Druckman and Martin Bresnick. At the City University of New York, she worked with David Del Tredici and Tania Leon. Recent and future commissions include a double concerto for saxophone and viola for the Williamsport Symphony, an orchestral piece for the Idyllwild Arts Academy, music for a documentary film about finding the cure for blindness narrated by Robert Redford, a song cycle commissioned by ASCAP, a piece for percussionist Steve Schick and to accompany a visual work by Daniel Rozin. Also noteworthy are music for the historic film La Venganza de Pancho Villa for string quartet and a Mexican musicians band (a collaboration with the Library of Congress), a piano solo piece for Benjamin Hochman for the New York 92nd Street Y, and a work for Lucy Shelton and the Colorado String Quartet on text by poet Hanoch Levin. Ms. Muskal served as the Westchester Philharmonic’s education composer-in-residence, and in that capacity composed three orchestral pieces based on students’ artwork and poetry. She also focuses on music for theater. Recent works include Angels in America performed in Cincinnati, The Labor of Life and The Seven Beggars performed at La Mama Theater in New York, and Cristabel and Trojan Women performed in New Haven. Her 2017 homage to Sojourner Truth was part of a Quilt in the Close Encounters With Music celebration of the centenary of Womens’ Suffrage.

PRISM Quartet

Intriguing programs of great beauty and breadth have distinguished the PRISM Quartet as one of America’s foremost chamber ensembles. “A bold ensemble that set the standard for contemporary-classical saxophone quartets” (The New York Times), PRISM has been presented by Carnegie Hall, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and throughout Latin America, China, and Russia. PRISM has also appeared as soloists with the Detroit Symphony and Cleveland Orchestra, and conducted residencies at the nation’s leading conservatories, including the Curtis Institute and the Oberlin Conservatory. Two-time recipients of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, PRISM has commissioned nearly 300 works by eminent composers, including Pulitzer Prize-winners Julia Wolfe, William Bolcom, Jennifer Higdon, Zhou Long, and Bernard Rands; MacArthur “Genius” Award recipients Tyshawn Sorey, Bright Sheng, and Miguel Zenón; and US Artists Fellow Susie Ibarra. PRISM’s discography is extensive, with releases on Albany, BMOP/Sound, ECM, innova, Koch, Naxos, New Dynamic, New Focus, and its own label, XAS Records. The Fifth Century, PRISM’s ECM recording with The Crossing, was awarded a 2018 Grammy for Best Choral Performance. In 2016, PRISM was named by its alma mater, the University of Michigan, as the first recipient of the Christopher Kendall Award in recognition of its work in “collaboration, entrepreneurship, and community engagement.”

Dov Scheindlin

Acclaimed by the New York Times as an “extraordinary violist” of “immense flair,” Dov Scheindlin is a member of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and an associate member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He has also been violist of the Arditti, Penderecki and Chester String Quartets. His chamber music career has brought him to 28 countries around the globe and won him the Siemens Prize in 1999. He has appeared as soloist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, the Paris Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic. Mr. Scheindlin has recorded extensively for EMI, Teldec, Auvidis, and Mode, and won the Gramophone Award in 2002 for the Arditti Quartet’s recording of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Pulse Shadows. As a member of the Arditti Quartet, he gave nearly 100 world premières, among them new works by Benjamin Britten, Elliott Carter, György Kurtág, Thomas Adès and Wolfgang Rihm. He has also been broadcast on NPR, BBC, CBC, and on German, French, Swiss, Austrian, Dutch and Belgian national radio networks. Dov Scheindlin was raised in New York City, where he studied with Samuel Rhodes and William Lincer at the Juilliard School. He has taught viola and chamber music at Harvard, Wilfrid Laurier University and Tanglewood. He regularly participates in summer festivals such as Salzburg, Luzern, and Tanglewood, and has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Met Chamber Ensembles. His chamber music partners have included members of the Juilliard, Alban Berg, Tokyo, and Borodin String Quartets, as well as concertmasters of many major symphony orchestras. He plays a viola made by Francesco Bissolotti in 1975.

Avirodh Sharma

Avirodh Sharma is considered one of today’s leading exponents of the tabla, carrying on the tradition of percussion rhythm that originated on the Indian Subcontinent. Trinidadian born, Mr. Sharma was trained by his father, Dr. Ravideen Ramsamooj, managing director of the East Indian Music Academy who, together with his mother, Bharati Ramsamooj, have produced over 20,000 students in New York City. As a resident teacher at the Academy for over 24 years, Sharma has trained tabla players nationwide. A multifaceted artist, he is also a composer and producer, with work featured in films, documentaries, fashion shows, on radio and in television commercials. He has been featured in The New York Times, NY Daily News, TV Asia, STARZ NETWORK, Zee TV and NPR Radio. Sharma has worked with Grammy-winning artists including Shakti and Masters of Percussion, Vikku Vinayakram, Dhrubesh Regmi and Sukarma, Suresh Wadhkar, and many more. He has also collaborated with Asian Underground musician Karsh Kale, fiddler Patrick Mangan, and David Bowie drummer Sterling Campbell. In 2015, his debut recording as s a tabla soloist was nominated for the 14th Independent Music Awards “Best World Beat Album.” He was recently commissioned by Parsons Dance Company to compose and perform Microburst in NYC’s Joyce Theatre, receiving critical acclaim. In the realm of theater, he composed and performed for Dishwasher Dreams which was developed at the Joseph Papp Public Theater. His performances have captivated audiences in Italy, Switzerland, Nepal, India, Dominican Republic, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and the U. S. This past January, he performed at Kumbh Mela, in India, the biggest religious festival in the world, where millions were in attendance. He has appeared recently at the international festivals Artisti in Piazza (Italy), and Taj Mahotsav (Taj Mahal, India).

Rachel Lee Priday

Violinist Rachel Lee Priday is a passionate and inquisitive explorer in all her musical ventures, in search of contemporary relevance when performing the standard violin repertoire, and in discovering and commissioning new works. Her wide-ranging repertoire and eclectic programming reflect a deep fascination with literary and cultural narratives. She has appeared as soloist with major international orchestras, including the Chicago, Saint Louis, Houston, Seattle, Buffalo and National Symphony Orchestras, the Boston Pops, and the Berlin Staatskapelle, and with orchestras in Graz, Austria, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korea, where she performed with the KBS Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic and Russian State Symphony Orchestra on tour. Recital appearances have brought her to eminent venues including the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, Musée du Louvre, Verbier Festival, Ravinia Festival and Dame Myra Hess Memorial Series in Chicago, and tours of South Africa and the UK. Recent seasons have seen a new violin sonata commissioned from Pulitzer Prize Finalist Christopher Cerrone and the premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s “The Orphic Moment” in an innovative staging that mixed poetry, drama, visuals, and music. Rachel has collaborated with Ballet San Jose, and was lead performer in Tchaikovsky: None But The Lonely Heart during a week-long theatrical concert with Ensemble for the Romantic Century at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Her work as soloist with the Asia America New Music Institute promoted new music relationships and cultural exchange between Asia and the Americas, combining new music premieres and educational outreach in the US, China, Korea and Vietnam. Ms. Priday began her violin studies at the age of four in Chicago. Shortly thereafter, she moved to New York to study with Dorothy DeLay, and continued at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division with Itzhak Perlman. She holds a B.A. degree in English from Harvard University and an M.M. from New England Conservatory, where she studied with Miriam Fried. As of Fall 2019, she serves as Assistant Professor of Violin at the University of Washington School of Music. She has been profiled in The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, Family Circle Magazine, and The Strad. Praised by the Chicago Tribune for her “irresistible panache,” Rachel Lee Priday enthralls audiences with her riveting stage presence and “rich, mellifluous sound.” She performs on a Nicolo Gagliano violin (Naples, 1760) double-purfled with fleurs-de-lis, named Alejandro.

Skylark

Skylark, “the cream of the American crop” (BBC Radio 3), is a premier ensemble of leading American vocal soloists, chamber musicians, and music educators. Skylark’s dramatic performances have been described as “gripping” (The Times of London), “exquisite…thrilling” (Gramophone Magazine), and “awe-inspiring” (Boston Music Intelligencer). With “some of Boston’s best singers” (Boston Globe), the voices of Skylark “can sway you softly into calm and then all but throw you across the room with sheer harmonic force” (Thought Catalog). Skylark strives to set the standard for innovative and engaging programs that re-define the choral experience for audiences and singers alike. Artistic Director Matthew Guard’s well-researched and creative programs have been described as “engrossing” (WQXR New York) and “original, stimulating, and beautiful.” Their most recent three recordings all reached the top 10 of Billboard’s Traditional Classical Chart, earning praise for “imaginative” programming (Limelight Australia) and “singing of the highest standard for any area or any repertoire” (Classics Today). Since its founding in 2011 in Atlanta and Boston, Skylark has branched out to perform its dynamic programs in museums, concert halls, and churches across the U. S. Skylark made its international debut in 2018 at St. John’s Smith Square, London, as part of the UK choir Tenebrae’s Holy Week Festival. The Times of London declared that Skylark was “the highlight” of a festival that included some of the UK’s leading choirs, including The Tallis Scholars, Polyphony, Tenebrae, and the Gabrieli Consort. In 2017, Skylark embarked on a historic tour with “Clear Voices in the Dark,” a program featuring Francis Poulenc’s notoriously difficult Figure Humaine paired with songs of the American Civil War. A performance at the French Institute Alliance-Française in New York was described as “fascinating…singing in a shimmering pianissimo that rises to a triumphant crescendo, the Skylark ensemble practically opens the heavens with the beauty of their sound…” (Stage Buddy NYC). The previous year, Skylark made its debut at Atlanta’s celebrated Spivey Hall with a chamber performance of Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil. In addition to numerous outreach workshops in public schools across the country, Skylark has conducted residencies at premier colleges and elite secondary schools including Harvard, MIT, Wellesley College, Endicott College, Milton Academy and Philips Exeter Academy.

Danielle Talamantes

“It’s not often that a fortunate operagoer witnesses the birth of a star!” critics hailed Danielle Talamantes’ recent role début as Violetta in La traviata. This season, Talamantes sings Mimì in La bohéme with Fairfax Symphony and returns to The Metropolitan Opera to sing Frasquita for their productions of Carmen. In addition, she will appear as a soloist in multiple classical masterworks including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at Carnegie Hall, Verdi’s Requiem with the National Philharmonic, Fauré’s Requiem and Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music with Eugene Concert Choir, and in the National Philharmonic’s Bernstein Choral Celebration concert. In recent seasons, Talamantes performed the role of Marzelline in Beethoven’s Fidelio with the Princeton Festival; Mimì in La bohéme with the St. Petersburg (FL) Opera and Symphony of Northwest Arkansas; the title role of Susannah with Opera Roanoke; Anna in Nabucco and Frasquita in Carmen with The Metropolitan Opera; Violetta in La traviata with Finger Lakes Opera and Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre; Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at Cedar Rapids Opera Theater; a début at Spoleto Festival USA as Sergente in Veremonda. Additional concert works include “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman!” with Close Encounters With Music in Great Barrington and at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts; Mozart’s Requiem with Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, Cathedral Choral Society, and Fairfax Symphony; Brahms’ Requiem with National Philharmonic, Choralis and St. Mary’s College; Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras No. 5, Bach’s Magnificat, and Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte with the National Philharmonic; Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Handel’s Laudate pueri dominum, and Charpentier’s Te Deum with The City Choir of Washington; Händel’s Messiah with Phoenix and La Jolla symphony orchestras, United States Naval Academy, National Philharmonic, The New Choral Society, and Austin Symphony & Chorus Austin; Poulenc’s Gloria with Arizona State University’s Symphony Orchestra; Verdi’s Requiem with Choral Artists of Sarasota and the Oratorio Society of VA; soprano soloist in Bob Chilcott’s Requiem at Alice Tully Hall; Dvorák’s Stabat Mater at North Carolina Master Chorale; Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with Manchester Symphony Orchestra; and recitals and masterclasses with El Paso Pro Musica, Washington & Lee University, James Madison University and Point Loma University. Her debut album, Canciones españolas, was recently released on the MSR Classics label and the album Heaven and Earth, A Duke Ellington Songbook has followed.

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-Lipinski 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, Queensland symphony orchestras and Sydney Opera Orchestra. His recording credits include the Bartok 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.

Sarah Wolfson

A “keenly intelligent artist” (New York Times), lyric soprano Sarah Wolfson brings to the stage her gifts of dynamic presence and a natural, luxurious instrument. With vitality, wit, and technical precision, she is equally at home singing the leading ladies of Mozart or jumping through the tetrachordal hoops of Elliott Carter. A Juilliard graduate and Winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition, she performs regularly in recital halls across America and has sung at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and Alice Tully Hall in New York; Kennedy Center in her native Washington, D.C.; and with opera companies such as Opéra de Montpellier, Santa Fe Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Aspen Opera Theater, Gotham Chamber Opera, Kentucky Opera, and with Brevard Music Festival and Spoleto Festival USA. An avid performer of new music, Ms. Wolfson has sung world premieres by such noted composers as Jake Heggie, Paul Moravec, Paola Prestini, Carl Bettendorf and John Dawe. Making her Off-Broadway debut, she introduced the role of Jane/Aeola in The New Group’s world premiere production of Wallace and Allen Shawn’s play/opera, The Music Teacher. She also recorded the opera for Bridge Records. She has performed music by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Caroline Shaw with Longleash Ensemble, and performed both the Berio Sequenza III, and Berio Folk Songs with the critically acclaimed Axiom Ensemble conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky. Ms. Wolfson serves on the Voice Faculty of William Paterson University and Hofstra University