Monadnock Music


Performer Bios

Summer 2022

Amy Advocat

Amy Advocat, clarinet

Sought out for her “dazzling” (The Boston Globe) performances with “extreme control and beauty” (The Clarinet Journal), Dr. Amy Advocat, clarinetist, is an avid performer of new music having performed with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Guerilla Opera, Alarm Will Sound, Sound Icon, Firebird Ensemble, Callithumpian Consort, Collage New Music, Dinosaur Annex, and The New Fromm Players. Equally at home with more traditional classical music, Amy Advocat has performed with Odyssey Opera, Boston Pops, Harrisburg Symphony, Opera Boston, Boston Philharmonic, New Hampshire Music Festival, and Monadnock Music.

Dr. Advocat is a founding member of the bass clarinet and marimba duo, Transient Canvas, with whom she has commissioned and premiered hundreds of new works and released three albums to critical acclaim by The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, The Clarinet Journal, I Care If You Listen, Fanfare Magazine, and more. Transient Canvas regularly tours across the United States and Europe, including featured performances at Alba Music Festival (Italy), Tetractys New Music, Red Note New Music Festival, Festival of New American Music, Music on the Edge, and Outpost Concert Series, and engages the next generation of composers and performers at educational residencies across the country.

Amy Advocat is a proud endorsing artist with Conn-Selmer and Henri Selmer Paris Clarinets.

Eliko Akahori

Eliko Akahori, piano

Eliko Akahori has appeared as a recitalist, chamber musician, and collaborative pianist in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Recent performances include recitals with Mai Motobuchi, violist of the Borromeo Quartet, and Karl-Heinz Schütz , principal flutist of the Vienna Philharmonic. Collaboration with Karl-Heinz Schütz included the recording and release of two CDs. Ms. Akahori has also appeared in concerts with A Far Cry, Winsor Music, Community MusicWorks, Cantata Singers, and Music at Eden’s Edge.

Eliko received the first prize, Coleman-Barstow Award, in the 57th Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition. Past collaborators in recitals, chamber music concerts, recordings, and radio and television broadcasts have included members of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Chicago, Montreal, Boston and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, among others. Ms. Akahori has performed in many festivals including the Banff Centre in Canada, IMAI in Maine, and the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. 

Ms. Akahori holds a Doctorate of Music in Collaborative Piano and Master’s degree in Music Theory, both from the New England Conservatory of Music.  She is currently senior performance faculty and director of the music performance program at Wellesley College.

Deborah Boldin

Deborah Boldin - flute

Praised by The Boston Globe for her “surpassingly beautiful contributions” and the Boston Musical Intelligencer for a “stunning virtuosic display,” flutist and Artistic Director Deborah Boldin enjoys an active and diverse career as a recitalist, chamber musician and entrepreneur. Recent engagements include the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, the Martha’s Vineyard and IBIS Chamber Music Societies, Pentangle Arts Annual Mozart Festival in Woodstock VT, Alea III, the Saco River Chamber Music Festival, First Monday at Jordan Hall Boston, Trinity College Chamber Music Series, and the Wellesley Composers Conference. She has been a featured soloist on radio programs on WJHU, Baltimore, and WQXR, New York, and has made numerous appearances on WGBH Boston’s Classical Performances Live. She has also appeared with the New World Symphony, Opera Boston, the Boston Philharmonic, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and the Vermont and Portland Symphonies, among others.

As founder and Artistic Director of the celebrated Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston, Ms. Boldin’s innovative programming and sensibility have elicited unanimous acclaim from press and audiences alike. The Boston Globe praised her for “discerning ears and cosmopolitan tastes,” hailed “planning a good chamber music program is an art unto itself, and few in town have mastered it as persuasively.” Her programs received two Chamber Music America/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, as well as Koussevitsky Foundation Commission Awards for works by Barbara White and Laura Schwendinger. Chameleon was awarded one of only four 2015 National Endowment for the Arts music grants in Massachusetts for “Echoes of the Past,” a project she crafted to explore the influence of Bach on future generations, culminating in two performances of Bach’s complete Brandenburg Concertos.

Ms. Boldin designed and has overseen the growth of an innovative and highly successful music education outreach program for the Chameleon Arts Ensemble in partnership with Boston Public Schools, connecting children to the process of creating and enjoying music through direct interaction with the composer and performers. She was for many years the flute instructor and chamber music coach at the Reveille! Music Festival for the Vermont Youth Orchestra.

Deborah Boldin holds a BM from the Peabody Conservatory, where she received the Alice & Leary Taylor Prize in Performance, and a Graduate Diploma from the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Paula Robison. She can be heard on Argo and Albany Records.

Heinrich Christensen

Heinrich Christensen - organ

A native of Denmark, Heinrich Christensen came to the US in 1998 and received an Artist Diploma in Organ Performance from the Boston Conservatory, in addition to degrees from conservatories in Denmark and France. He was appointed Music Director of historic King's Chapel in the year 2000, after serving as affiliate organist under the direction of Daniel Pinkham during the final two years of Dr. Pinkham’s 42-year tenure at the church.

Heinrich was a prizewinner at the international organ competitions in Odense and Erfurt and has given solo recitals on four continents. He has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Ballet, Handel & Haydn Society, and numerous choruses in the greater Boston area. An avid proponent of contemporary music, he has premiered works by Daniel Pinkham, Carson Cooman, Graham Gordon Ramsay, James Woodman, and several others. He has recorded several organ and choral CDs, and Daniel Pinkham’s works for solo voice and organ with Florestan Recital Project.

Carley DeFranco

Carley DeFranco - soprano

Described as “sunny”, “supple” and “soaring,” Carley DeFranco is an adventurous soprano known for her committed dramatic portrayals. She has sung more than 70 cantatas with Emmanuel Music in their weekly Bach Cantata Series as well as the Mass in B Minor, St. Matthew Passion, St. Mark Passion, John Harbison’s Supper at Emmaus, Abraham, and Handel’s Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day. Carley was Angelo in Emmanuel’s staged recording of La Resurrezione and Lucy Lockit in Britten's The Beggar’s Opera.  Her solo cantata highlights include Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen! BWV 51, Selig ist der Mann BWV 57, Ach Gott wie manches Herzeleid, BWV 58 and Harbison’s Chorale Cantata. This season, she is a soloist in the Magnificat and St. John Passion.
2021-22 brings performances with Boston Cecilia (Our Transcendental Passion, Paul Rudoi) and Boston Art Song Society (new songs by Mason Bynes), as well as ensemble appearances with Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, True Concord Voices & Orchestra and Oregon Bach Festival. An avid concert soloist, Carley has performed with the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Master Chorale, Providence Singers and Arlington Philharmonic Orchestra.  Carley’s operatic credits include Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) with Boston Opera Collaborative, The Rose (The Little Prince) with NEMPAC Opera Project, the title role in Alcina with Opera del West and many premieres in Boston Opera Collaborative’s critically-acclaimed festival of ten-minute operas: Opera Bites. This year, Carley joined the Boston Lyric Opera chorus for Cavalleria Rusticana and Champion: an opera in jazz.

Carley was the 2018-19 Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow with Emmanuel Music and a 2019 Fellow with American Bach Soloists. She’s originally from Rush, NY and now lives in Somerville, MA, where she teaches voice and piano. www.carleydefranco.com

Gabriela Diaz

Gabriela Diaz - violin

Gabriela Díaz began her musical training at the age of five, studying piano with her mother, and the next year, violin with her father.  A childhood cancer survivor, Gabriela is committed to supporting cancer research and treatment as a musician. In 2004, she was awarded a grant from the Albert Schweitzer Foundation to organize a series of chamber music concerts in cancer units at various hospitals in Boston, this project is now a part of her chamber music organization, Winsor Music. A fierce champion of contemporary music, Gabriela has worked closely with many significant composers, including Pierre Boulez, Joan Tower, Jessie Montgomery, Tania León, and Helmut Lachenmann. Gabriela is a member of several Boston-area new music groups, she also appears frequently with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, A Far Cry, Sound Icon, Castle of our Skins, and other chamber music ensembles throughout the United States. Gabriela teaches at Wellesley College and the Longy School of Music at Bard College. Gabriela can be heard on New World, Centaur, BMOPSound, Mode, Naxos, and Tzadik records. Her recording of Lou Harrison's Suite for Violin and American Gamelan was highlighted in the New York Times Article, "5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Classical Music." Gabriela is proud to be a core member of the team that created Boston Hope Music, bringing music to patients and frontline workers during the pandemic. More info at gabrieladiazviolin.com!

Daniel Doña

Daniel Doña - viola

Daniel Doña has distinguished himself as an active performer and pedagogue. He serves on the viola faculty of the Boston University School of Music alongside his duties as Chair of the Antiracism and DEIA Committee and Coordinator of String Chamber Music. Daniel is also Co-Director of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute String Quartet Workshop. In addition to his teaching at BU, Dr. Doña serves on the faculty of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra Intensive Community Program. An avid chamber musician, he is a member of TriChrome and the critically acclaimed Arneis Quartet.

Performance highlights include appearances at the Beijing Modern Music Festival, Music on Main (Vancouver) and Stanford University’s Lively Arts series as well as broadcasts on CBC Radio 2, WGBH and WCLV. He performed with Filipina-American composer and percussionist Susie Ibarra and her DreamTime Ensemble as part of the Asia Society Triennial.  Daniel is featured on composer Ketty Nez’s CD Double Images. He performs regularly with Emmanuel Music and other ensembles in the Boston area. Daniel has presented guest masterclasses at the University of Connecticut, Swarthmore College, Northwestern University Music Academy and Miami University.

Daniel pursues interdisciplinary projects with a passion.  As a recipient of a Humanities Enhancement Project Award from the Boston University Center for the Humanities he curated concerts exploring relationships between poetry and music accompanied by lectures presented by members of the BU and Harvard English Departments. As a member of the Banff Festival Quartet he performed in collaboration with dancers, presenting Hans van Manenʼs Grosse Fuge and a world premiere of Heather Myersʼs Dedications. As part of his META fellowship with the Mass Cultural Council Dr. Doña explored connections between mindfulness practice and music pedagogy and performance.

Dr. Doña received his AB in Philosophy from the University of Chicago, where he was awarded the inaugural David Fulton Award for excellence in instrumental performance. He received his MM in Viola Performance from the University of Oklahoma where he studied with Matthew Dane (viola) and Felicia Moye (violin). At Boston University he studied with Michelle LaCourse, Steven Ansell and Ed Gazouleas. He received his PD and DMA from BU and was a two-time recipient of the String Department Award.

In his spare time Daniel enjoys traveling with his husband Scott and finding exotic places to run races and pursue culinary adventures. He ran the Berlin Marathon on his honeymoon and has also completed the NYC and Chicago Marathons.  Bookstores are his Achilles heel.

Aaron Engebreth

Aaron Engebreth, baritone

Aaron Engebreth enjoys a varied solo career in opera, oratorio, recital and devotes considerable energy to the performance of established music and contemporary premieres, frequently collaborating with many of today’s preeminent composers. He is twice GRAMMY-Award nominated for Best Operatic Recording for his featured roles with the Boston Early Music Festival Opera and Radio Bremen. In the U.S. he is frequently featured as a guest soloist on stages from Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and Boston's Symphony Hall, to international appearances from Sapporo Japan's Kitara Hall to Le Theatre de la Ville in Paris and the AmBul festival of Sofia, Bulgaria. He has been a guest of the Tanglewood, Ravinia, Rockport and Monadnock Music Festivals as well as many of the country's fine symphony orchestras. His recent New York City Opera debut as monodrama soloist in Argento’s A Waterbird Talk performed at Carnegie Hall, compelled the New York Classical Review to state, "Engebreth is a marvelous actor, capable of holding his character’s many facets and motivations in tension." 

As a recording artist, Mr. Engebreth is featured on over 25 commercially released recordings from the baroque to modern premieres, many with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. He produced and recorded The Complete Songs of Virgil Thomson with Florestan Recital Project and New World Records, which is garnering international acclaim. Other releases include the world premiere of the Six Early Songs of Samuel Barber and Libby Larsen’s The Peculiar Case of Dr. H. H. Holmes, both for Florestan Records and Jon Deak’s The Passion of Scrooge with the Firebird Ensemble.

Stephanie Fong

Stephanie Fong - viola

Violist Stephanie Fong enjoys a versatile career as a chamber musician, music educator, and orchestral musician. Stephanie has served on the chamber music faculty at the University of Michigan School of Music, the Innsbrook Institute Summer Music Academy, Center Stage Strings, and the Peaks to Plains Suzuki Institute in addition to regular appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. She is a member of the Boston-based chamber music group Mistral, and has performed extensively with the Alianza String Quartet, the Phoenix String Quartet, and Kailas String Quartet. She holds degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where her principal teachers were Martha Strongin Katz and Ian Swensen.

Alex Fortes

Alex Fortes - violin

A native of San Diego, violinist Alex Fortes is recognized for his versatility and warmth. Recent orchestral and chamber music performances have included performances in France, Germany, Denmark, Austria, and Indonesia, as well as throughout North America with groups such as the Henschel Quartett, Dalí Quartet, Franklin String Quartet, Momenta Quartet, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Knights, Quod Libet, and A Far Cry. His playing is featured on A Far Cry’s 2014 Grammy-nominated album, Dreams and Prayers, as well as on Law of Mosaics, which The New Yorker’s Alex Ross hailed as one of the top ten albums of 2014. He can also be heard on a forthcoming album with the Henschel Quartett and pianist Donald Berman featuring the music of Chris Theofanidis.

Fortes holds a strong interest in finding new contexts in which to experience familiar music. His recent arrangements of Schubert lieder and chamber music were hailed by the Boston Globe as “uniformly resourceful and complementary…smart, subtle.” In May 2016, A Far Cry premiered his arrangement with Sarah Darling of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in collaboration with pianist Simone Dinnerstein.

Alex has participated in educational residencies in both English and Spanish related to entrepreneurship, music performance and education, at colleges and public schools throughout the United States. He holds degrees from Harvard College and Mannes College, and his teachers include Mark Steinberg, Peter Zazofsky, Hernan Constantino, Mary Gerard, and Michael Gaisler.

Noriko Futagami

Noriko Futagami - viola

Violist Noriko Futagami performs with some of the area’s most celebrated ensembles. She is a member of the Radius Ensemble, voted “Boston’s Best Classical Ensemble of 2016” by the Improper Bostonian, as well as working with the Boston Musica Viva, Emmanuel Music, Cantata Singers and Winsor Music on a regular basis. She is principal violist for Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and section violist with Rhode Island Philharmonic. As principal violist for Albany Symphony, she has participated in several Grammy nominated recordings, winning in 2014 John Crigliano’s Conjurer/Vocalise.

Since moving to Boston in 2011, she has become a fixture of the freelance scene, performing regularly with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera Orchestra and Monadnock Festival Orchestra, as well the Boston Pops, Boston Ballet and Boston Landmarks Orchestras. She is a faculty member at Brown University.

Joshua Gordon

Joshua Gordon - cello

The cellist Joshua Gordon has won acclaim from audiences, critics, colleagues, and composers for his dramatic music making and rich tone. An experienced soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and educator who joined the Lydian String Quartet and the music faculty of Brandeis University in 2002, he is also an artist member of the Worcester Chamber Music Society and resident cellist at the annual Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center led by Kurt Rohde. He is equally at home whether performing on stage in famous concert halls around the world, in an Australian limestone arch cave, or with dancers on a Boston housing project basketball court. He has been a guest of many ensembles and festivals including the Apple Hill, Cassatt, DaPonte, Juilliard, and Ying Quartets, Boston Baroque, Boston Chamber Music Society, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Emmanuel Music, Fromm Players at Harvard University, Lighthouse Chamber Players, Monadnock Music, North Country Chamber Players, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Portland Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and Speculum Musicae. 

Joshua Gordon's duo with pianist Randall Hodgkinson has been described as "insightful and impassioned" by The New Yorker, and their New World recording Leo Ornstein: Complete Works For Cello and Piano was named one of the top 10 classical recordings of 2007 by the All Music Guide. As a Lydian, Gordon can be heard can be heard on critically acclaimed recordings of works by Beethoven (the late quartets), Martin Boykan, Mohammed Fairouz, John Harbison, Laurie San Martin, Vincent Persichetti, and Kurt Rohde. He is also featured playing music ranging from Roger Sessions and Charles Wuorinen to Morton Feldman and Gerry Hemingway on recordings from Albany Records, CRI, Cala, Koch International Classics, Naxos, and Tzadik. His web site can be found at joshuagordoncello.com.

Anna Griffis

Anna Griffis - viola

Equally at home on steel and gut strings, violist/violinist Anna Griffis keeps herself busy as a performer, teacher, and administrator. She has given recitals in Mexico, Turkey, Austria, Taiwan, and throughout North America and has performed at the Kennedy Center, Dumbarton Oaks, Boston's Symphony Hall, and Carnegie Hall. Anna is a member of the New Bedford Symphony (principal) and the Albany Symphony and performs regularly with the Portland Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Emmanuel Music, Blue Heron, Les Bostonades, Odyssey Opera, and Boston Lyric Opera. She co-founded Chicago-based Trio Speranza, prize winners at the Early Music American Baroque Competition, and performs with and is executive director of the new music group Ludovico Ensemble. Anna studied at Lawrence University, The Hartt School of Music, Tanglewood Music Center, and Boston University. She is on faculty at the Dana Hall School of Music, The New School of Music, and Tufts University, and is an affiliate artist at MIT. In addition to her playing and teaching, she oversees communications for the Tufts Music Department and is a freelance graphic designer specializing in concert program design. Originally from Annapolis, MD, Anna is the proud product of her public school music program. She now lives in the great neighborhood of Lower Allston with her bassoonist husband and their cat, Pig. She gets excited about fonts, road trips, diners, and being on a boat.

Omar Chen Guey

Omar Chen Guey - violin

Brazilian violinist Omar Chen Guey has performed internationally as a soloist with orchestras, in recitals and chamber concerts throughout Brazil as well as the United States, Europe, Qatar, Taiwan, Kenya and the Seychelles. He has been a featured soloist with the following orchestras, the Brazilian, Campinas, Goiania, Minas Gerais, Claudio Santoro National Theater, Sao Paulo University, Sao Paulo Municipal, and the State of Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Amazonas Philharmonic, Petrobras Pro-Musica, Experimental Repertoire, Qatar Philharmonic, Manhattan School of Music, Stony Brook University Symphony, Maidstone Symphony and the Seychelles International Music Festival Orchestras. Following a recital in Oslo, Norway, he had the honor of performing for the King of Norway, Harald V. He is a prizewinner at both Tibor Varga and Lipizer International Violin Competitions in Switzerland and Italy, respectively. In 2019, He performed the Britten Violin Concerto with the Fribourg Youth Orchestra in Switzerland. During the pandemic, he has streamed from home, recitals for solo violin and with his wife at the piano.

Mr. Guey premiered the Violin Concerto by Jean-Charles Gandrille with the Qatar Philharmonic. This performance has been released on the French label Paraty. He released the Bach Concerto for Two Violins on the Paulinas Label with the Brazilian soloist Elisa Fukuda and the Camerata Fukuda, of which he was also concertmaster. He premiered and released a work for solo violin of renowned French Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife on Nagan records. He participated in the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop and has collaborated with renowned musicians such as Lynn Harrell, Ani Kavafian, David Finckel, Lawrence Dutton, Kikuei Ikeda and Colin Carr.

He is a member of A Far Cry, assistant concertmaster of the Rhode Island Philharmonic and member of the New England Camerata Trio, which performs several chamber concerts in Vermont and New Hampshire each season. He is a regular guest artist with the Walden Chamber Players, Radius Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex and the Monadnock Music Festival, among others.

Mr. Guey has a Doctorate degree from Stony Brook University, Masters from Juilliard and Bachelors from Manhattan School of Music. His principal teachers were Sylvia Rosenberg, Robert Mann, Philip Setzer, Ani Kavafian, Pamela Frank and Elisa Fukuda. He was assistant concertmaster of the Orquesta de la Comunidad Valenciana, in Valencia, Spain, under the direction of Lorin Maazel. Mr. Guey has been teaching violin at Dartmouth College since 2020.

Lilit Hartunian

Lilit Hartunian - violin

Violinist Lilit Hartunian performs at the forefront of contemporary music innovation, both as soloist and highly in-demand collaborative artist. First prize winner in the 2021 Black House Collective New Music Soloist Competition, Ms. Hartunian’s "Paganiniesque virtuosity" and “captivating and luxurious tone” (Boston Musical Intelligencer) are frequently on display at the major concert halls of Boston, including multiple solo performances at Jordan Hall and chamber music at Symphony Hall (Boston Symphony Orchestra Insights Series), as well as at leading academic institutions, where she often appears as both soloist and new music specialist. Described as “brilliantly rhapsodic” by the Harvard Crimson, Ms. Hartunian can be heard on Mode Records, Innova Recording, SEAMUS records, New Focus Records, and on self-released albums by Ludovico Ensemble and Kirsten Volness. Ms. Hartunian frequently performs works written for her by leading composers, including a world premiere by Guggenheim Fellow Marti Epstein, duo recitals with composers John McDonald and Ryan Vigil, and both audio album and special video projects with composer Sid Richardson. As collaborative artist and ensemble musician, Ms. Hartunian regularly performs with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, A Far Cry, Sound Icon, Emmanuel Music, Callithumpian Consort, Guerilla Opera, and Ludovico Ensemble, and recently performed as guest artist with the Lydian Quartet and the Arneis Quartet. For recordings, photos, and news, visit www.lilithartunian.com

Jensen Ling

Jensen Ling - bassoon

Bassoonist Jensen Ling is an active orchestral and chamber musician in the New England area. Originally from Boca Raton, Florida, Jensen frequently appears in and around Boston with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, Cantata Singers, the Boston Ballet Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Back Bay Chorale, among others. He has also appeared at the Rockport and Monadnock Chamber Music Festivals and was named a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow for the 2016-2017 Season at Emmanuel Music. Currently, Jensen makes his home in the great neighborhood of Lower Allston, where he lives with his wife Anna, a violist, and their cat, Pig.

Clark Matthews

Clark Matthews - French horn

French hornist, Clark Matthews has been a fixture in the New England musical landscape since 2007. Serving as principal hornist of the Cape Symphony and interim principal hornist of Symphony New Hampshire, Mr. Matthews can also be heard regularly appearing with the Boston Pops, Boston Ballet, Boston Lyric Opera.  His forays into contemporary music include numerous recordings under the Boston Modern Orchestra Project label. Mr. Matthews can also be heard regularly performing at the Emmanuel Church of Boston, on the Bach Cantata series. Chamber music and solo performance affiliations include Walden Chamber Players and the Meeting House chamber music series.  Outside of musical performance, Mr. Matthews serves on New England Musicians Relief Fund board and the executive board for the Boston Musicians Association.  

Rane Moore

Rane Moore - clarinet

Clarinetist Rane Moore enjoys a busy international performing schedule as a sought-after interpreter of standard and contemporary repertoire. She is a member of the Talea Ensemble, Callithumpian Consort, Sound Icon, and the award winning wind quintet, The City of Tomorrow. Ms. Moore has given numerous premieres of new works and appeared with International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Guerilla Opera, New York New Music, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars among many others.  She is a frequent guest with Boston-based ensembles Emmanuel Music, A Far Cry, Boston Musica Viva, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Boston Ballet Orchestra. She is also the principal clarinetist of the Boston Philharmonic, Boston Landmarks Orchestra and Co-Artistic Director of Winsor Music. Ms. Moore has recordings on over a dozen labels including Tzadik, Pi, Wergo, and ECM records and is on the faculty at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Longy School of Music of Bard College. Critics have praised her “enthralling,” “tour-de-force,” and “phenomenal” performances.

Virginia Morales

Virginia Morales - horn

A native of El Paso, Texas, Dr. Virginia Morales is a freelance hornist and music educator in the Boston area. She has performed with orchestras across the United States, Mexico, and Japan. Prior to moving to Boston, Virginia was a member of the El Paso Wind Symphony, and performed regularly with the Juarez Symphony (Chihuahua, MX), the El Paso Symphony, and the Roswell Symphony, in Roswell, New Mexico. Here in New England, Virginia frequently performs with orchestras such as the Boston Chamber Orchestra, the Cape Symphony, the Plymouth Philharmonic, the New Bedford Symphony, and the Symphony of Indian Hill.

Virginia began her career as a soloist at the age of 17, performing Mozart’s Horn Concerto in D Major in concerts across Texas and California. Equally accomplished as a recitalist, she has performed as a soloist across the country, most recently in Boston, eastern Ohio, and Texas. As a chamber musician, Virginia has performed in several concert series in Switzerland and Bosnia and Herzegovina as a member of the Talis Festival and Academy. Recent career highlights include winning third prize at the 2022 International Women’s Brass Conference Solo Horn Competition.

Virginia currently serves as Director of Instrumental Music at The Fenn School in Concord, MA. As an educator, Virginia has presented master classes at The Boston University Tanglewood Institute, The University of Akron and Tufts University. In addition to having a private studio in Texas for three years, Virginia continues to teach horn in the Boston area and considers her efforts in music education to be as important as her career on stage.

Virginia graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Music from The University of Texas at El Paso. She then moved to Boston to continue her education, and received her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from Boston University.

Greta Myatieva

Greta Myatieva - violin

Violinist Greta Myatieva was born in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. Greta is an active chamber musician and has served first violin in summer quartet residency at Music in the Vineyards in Napa Valley, as well as a fellowship at Banff Center for Arts and Creativity. Her recent engagements include a CD release of Florence Price works with the Fermata Ensemble. Greta has served as guest artist at the Keuka Lake Festival and additionally she has performed in the violin sections of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Apex Ensemble, Plymouth Philharmonic, Odyssey Opera, Phoenix, and New World Symphony in Miami. Greta is a winner of the 2017/2018 NEC Honors Ensemble Competition with her quartet. She received her degree from New England Conservatory where she was a student of Paul Biss.

In addition to her classical engagements, Greta is a core member of the first female mariachi Band in Boston with whom she has enjoyed performing at the Celebrity Series of Boston, Fenway Park, and is preparing for an upcoming performance at the White House.

Tricia Park

Tricia Park - clarinet

Praised by critics for her “astounding virtuosic gifts” (Boston Herald), “achingly pure sound” (The Toronto Star), and “impressive technical and interpretive control” (The New York Times), MusicIC Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Tricia Park enjoys a diverse career as a violinist, educator, and writer.

Tricia is the creator of the podcast, “Is it Recess Yet? Confessions of a Former Child Prodigy.” She is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, a Fulbright Grant, and was selected as one of “Korea’s World Leaders of Tomorrow.” Since her first orchestral engagement at age 13 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, she has performed with the English and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras; the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra; the Montreal, Dallas, Cincinnati, and Seattle Symphonies; the Calgary, Buffalo, and Westchester Philharmonics, among others. Other highlights include appearances at the Lincoln Center Festival and Kennedy Center, her debut with the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) Orchestra and collaborations with composer Tan Dun. She also performs in the violin-fiddle duo, Tricia & Taylor.

Tricia founded the Solera Quartet, winner of the Pro Musicis International Award. The Soleras’ debut album, Every Moment Present, was hailed by The New York Times as “intoxicating....sensitive and finely articulated throughout and the sound bright and vivid.” Tricia received her Bachelor and Master of Music from the Juilliard School where she received a Starling-DeLay Fellowship. She has performed with Pinchas Zukerman, Cho-Liang Lin, Robert McDonald, and members of the American, Guarneri, Juilliard, Orion String Quartets and Eighth Blackbird.

Tricia has served on faculty at the University of Chicago, and the University of Iowa. She has also taught masterclasses and clinics at the Peabody Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, Dartmouth College, the Longy School of Music of Bard College, McGill University, and the Interlochen Summer Arts Academy.

Passionate about arts education and community development, Tricia is the co-founder and artistic director of MusicIC, a chamber music festival that explores the connections between music and literature. Tricia received an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Currently, she works for Graywolf Press, is Associate Director of Cleaver Magazine Workshops where she is also a Creative Non Fiction editor and faculty instructor, teaches for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and maintains a private studio of violin students and writing clients.

Rafael Popper-Keizer (photo credit Matthew Wan)

Rafael Popper-Keizer - cello

Hailed by The New York Times as “imaginative and eloquent” and dubbed “a local hero” with “silken tone and subtle attention to each note” by the Boston Globe, cellist Rafael Popper-Keizer maintains a vibrant and diverse career as one of Boston’s most celebrated artists. He is principal cellist of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Emmanuel Music, and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and a core member of many notable chamber music organizations throughout New England, including the Chameleon Arts Ensemble and Winsor Music. His 2003 performance with the Boston Philharmonic of the Saint-Saëns Concerto in A minor was praised by the Globe for “melodic phrasing of melting tenderness” and “dazzling dispatch of every bravura challenge;” more recent solo appearances include Strauss' Don Quixote with the Boston Philharmonic, Beethoven's Triple Concerto with Emmanuel Music; and the North American premiere of Roger Reynolds' Thoughts, Places, Dreams with sound/icon.

Mr. Popper-Keizer is a member of nationally acclaimed conductorless string ensemble A Far Cry, which has won recognition for both artistic excellence and its democratic model of collective decision-making at every level.  In 2017, A Far Cry commissioned, premiered, and recorded a new piano concerto by Philip Glass, with soloist Simone Dinnerstein.  The release of this recording was followed up a few months later by the group’s album Visions and Variations, which received two Grammy nominations.  A Far Cry’s recent and upcoming performance schedule includes tours of California and Colorado, regular appearances at the Rockport Music Festival and Central Park in NYC, and a concert at the Kennedy Center in DC featuring the Tchaikovsky Serenade played from memory.

In 2019, Mr. Popper-Keizer was appointed Artistic Director of Monadnock Music, where he has been in residence every summer since 2002.  Based in Peterborough, New Hampshire, the central mission of Monadnock Music is to bring free concerts featuring world-class artists to the villages and towns of the region.  Over the course of the festival’s more than fifty-year history, Monadnock Music has worked closely with composers including Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, Roger Sessions, and (in more recent years) Richard Danielpour, Dalit Warshaw, and Jing Wang.

Mr. Popper-Keizer has been featured on over two dozen recordings, including the premieres of Robert Erickson's Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra, Thomas Oboe Lee's cello concerto Eurydice, Yehudi Wyner's De Novo for cello and small chamber ensemble, and Malcolm Peyton's unaccompanied Cello Piece.  His most recent solo recording, on Musica Omnia, is a disc pairing two monumental works for unaccompanied cello: Zoltan Kodaly’s notoriously virtuosic Sonata for Solo Cello and Ralf Gawlick’s At the still point of the turning world, a powerful exploration of sonority and silence written for and dedicated to Popper-Keizer.

As an alumnus of the New England Conservatory (A.D. 1999, M.M. with honors 1997), Mr. Popper-Keizer studied with master pedagogue and Piatigorsky protégé Laurence Lesser; at the Tanglewood Music Center he was privileged to work with Mstislav Rostropovich, and was Yo-Yo Ma’s understudy for Strauss’ Don Quixote under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. His prior teachers include Stephen Harrison of Stanford University, and Karen Andrie at the University of California in Santa Cruz.  At the age of ten he began undergraduate coursework in mathematics at UCSC, where he was accepted as a full-time student two years later.

Mr. Popper-Keizer is currently on faculty at Gordon College in Wenham, MA, and has previously taught at Philips Exeter Academy, Brandeis University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  With A Far Cry, he has participated in college and university residencies nationwide, including guest lectures and presentations at Baldwin Wallace University and Connecticut College, and masterclasses at Yale University.

Mary Kay Robinson

Mary Kay Robinson - flute

Flutist Mary Kay Robinson has balanced a career in performance, leadership and academia.

She has risen to national prominence as a versatile musician who has performed, recorded and toured as guest artist with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Kansas City, Toledo, Portland, Vermont, Boston and Cleveland, among others. …“dazzling virtuosity...a hugely talented soloist” critics heralded of her New York solo debut playing concerti on two different instruments.  She has been a featured soloist with the Southern Tier Symphony (NY), Cleveland Pops at Severance Hall, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra. As a chamber musician, she has performed with Music from Angel Fire, ChamberFest Cleveland, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center musicians, Monadnock Chamber Music and the NHMF. She is the founder and director of the award winning mixed flex ensemble, Panorámicos whose three recordings that have earned international acclaim, including “Best of North America”, “Editor’s Choice”-Gramophone, with repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary, theater to jazz and world music.

Other orchestral positions include the Grammy Award winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Red {an orchestra}, Akron Symphony, Lyric Opera Cleveland, and the Playhouse Square Orchestra. She is the former Chair of the National Flute Association’s Piccolo Committee and founder of the Greater Cleveland Flute Society.  She has championed the commissioning of new solo and chamber works for Flute, Piccolo and Alto Flute, and can be heard on recordings by Polyhymnia, Hyperion, Azica, TelArc, Albany and PARMA Records, itunes and YouTube. She has served on the faculties of Case Western Reserve University, Ithaca College, Franklin Pierce University, the University of Akron and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Ms. Robinson is currently the Director of the Bascom Little Fund, previous leadership positions include Music from Angel Fire and ChamberFest Cleveland. Certified in Executive Leadership through National Arts Strategies, the University of Pennsylvania and Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management, Ms. Robinson’s Performance Coaching practice focuses on leadership, holistic performance and career coaching, Artist as Entrepreneur-utilizing the best research in performance and sports psychology, building towards excellence, creativity and success through health and wellness. www.mkrobinson.org

David William Ross

David William Ross - guitar

David William Ross is a New England based guitarist, tea drinker, and connoisseur of steel cut oats. His recordings and performances have been lauded for their sensitivity, virtuosity, and depth of musicality. Ross frequently works with contemporary composers and is active in cultivating new repertoire for the guitar. He has premiered works by Frank Wallace, Georges Raillard, Ferdinando DeSena, Peter Dayton, Pierre Schroeder, among many others. Trained in classical and jazz, Ross has developed a flexible approach, nuanced and uniquely personal, that is unconstrained and essentially musical.

Ross’ work as a session player has led to an extensive working knowledge of the recording studio. He has developed an approach to engineering and recording that goes beyond simply capturing a performance. Ross creates organic and original recordings that elucidate the creative motive of the artist and clarify the underlying aesthetic of the music. His engineering and mixing credits span many genres include classical, jazz, folk, indie rock, barbershop quartet, pop.

Ross holds degrees in music theory, composition, and guitar. As an educator, he has taught courses in jazz improvisation, music theory, ear training, composition, music history, and aesthetics, as well as individual instruction in guitar and recording.

Mika Sasaki

Mika Sasaki - piano

Pianist Mika Sasaki is an imaginative and versatile soloist, chamber musician, and educator whose performances and teaching have taken her to the U.K., Italy, Japan, Switzerland, and throughout the U.S. Her debut album, Obsidian: Mika Sasaki plays Clara Schumann, released on Yarlung Records in 2016, was highly acclaimed by the Online Merker as “illuminat[ing] the artistic inspiration and creative exchange between three Romantic souls,” Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. She has performed concertos with the Sinfonia of Cambridge (U.K.), New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, 92Y Orchestra, and more recently, Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto with the InterSchool Symphony Orchestra of New York.

Festival appearances include Music@Menlo, Tanglewood, Chigiana, pianoSonoma, Taos, Yellow Barn, Aspen, Focus!, Icicle Creek, Rushmore, Caramoor, Weekend of Chamber Music, and Summer Performing Arts with Juilliard in Geneva, Switzerland. She is the pianist of Ensemble Mélange and frequently concertizes with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble in Boston, Manhattan Chamber Players, Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, and with her duo partners. This summer she will be an artist faculty member at Music@Menlo’s Young Performers Program and a guest artist for the Taubman Piano Festival at Montclair State University and the Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra’s Charles Ives Music Festival.

Based in New York City, Mika is a faculty member at Juilliard, where she is the Supervisor of Secondary Piano and teaches Piano Topics and keyboard skills for pianists in the College Division as well as piano, chamber music, and keyboard skills courses in the Extension Division. She is an alumna of the Peabody Conservatory (B.M., M.M.), Ensemble Connect—a two-year fellowship program of Carnegie Hall, Juilliard, and the Weill Institute, in partnership with the NYC Department of Education—and The Juilliard School (D.M.A). When not at the piano, she can be found tending to her houseplants, hiking, or chasing after her cat. mikasasaki.com

Sophie et Adam

Sophie et Adam - voice and guitar

Sophie et Adam is a duo inspired by many singing traditions they have crossed paths with on their musical journey. Pub Songs from England, Cabaret chansons from 1940s Paris, 18th century Sacred Harp singing, Milongas from Argentina, Scottish Ballads, and Sing-Songwriter repertoire from Chile... Regardless of the origin or the time period, they share music that moves them with their audiences. Individually they collaborate musically with some of the most vibrant ensembles in New England: The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Early Music Festival, The Lorelei Ensemble, A Far Cry, Blue Heron, Harvard University, the Trinity Church of Boston, etc. But as a duo, they create a warm and intimate moment in which time stops, and music from around the world speaks. 

Matthew Vera

Matthew Vera - violin

Violinist and Violist Matthew Vera is known for his versatility as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader.

Matthew has been a member of the Boston Philharmonic’s first violin section since 2010. He recently stepped in as guest concertmaster to perform Ein Heldenleben to critical acclaim: “Playing with pure tone, terrific character, and not a bit of hesitation, Vera delivered an account of the solo part that was wholly captivating”. (Boston Arts Fuse); “Matthew Vera projected non-stop, drop-dead gorgeous tone, alternately flippant and ravishing, as directed. A virtual golden spotlight enwreathed him in laurels.” (Boston Musical Intelligencer). Orchestrally, Matthew performs in many ensembles including: The Boston Philharmonic, The Albany Symphony, The Portland Symphony, The Rhode Island Philharmonic, The Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Teatro Nuovo, Eureka Ensemble, and the New Bedford Symphony.

An avid chamber musician, Matthew is the first violinist of the emerging Izarra String Quartet. Izarra explores fresh interpretations of the classic repertoire with a keen focus on amplifying compositional voices of the lgbtqia + bipoc communities. Matthew is a violinist with Castle of our Skins, a concert and educational series dedicated to celebrating Black artistry through music. He has also been heard with Radius Ensemble, Juventas New Music Ensemble, and Ogunquit
Chamber Music Festival.

Matthew made his solo debut on the viola with the Tucson Philharmonia at age 14. He has appeared as soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic, The Tucson Philharmonia, The Tucson Symphony, The World Youth Symphony Orchestra, and The New England Conservatory Symphony. He has attended numerous festivals including Tanglewood, The Heifetz Institute,
Brevard Music Center, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, and more.

A native of Tucson, Arizona, Matthew’s early musical training was fostered through the Tucson Unified Public Schools and Tucson Junior Strings, a unique conductorless orchestral training program for young people. He is a graduate of The New England Conservatory where he studied with James Buswell, Lucy Chapman, and Donald Weilerstein. His mentors have included: The Borromeo String Quartet, Roger Tapping, Martha Katz, and John Heiss.

Geneva Wohlleben

Geneva Wohlleben - narrator

I grew up listening to the heavy, sad stories of what it was like to be born into a time a place where Indigenous people and their identities were being systematically and aggressively erased. My great-grandmother was born in Indian Territory in 1900. Her mother was Choctaw, and her husband’s Cherokee ancestry could be traced back to the Black Warrior Village in the 1790s. Their families were part of a band of displaced mixed-race families from several Nations who migrated west together ahead of the forced Removals. They continued to live, work, and migrate together through the 1930s, when the Dust Bowl drove them further west to California, where they were finally scattered amongst the other “Grapes of Wrath people,” more than two thousand miles from their ancestral lands.

Sundays were storytelling days, when the old women would talk about the difficulties of life in Indian Country and all the loved ones they had lost along the way. It was how they loved, how they remembered, and how they mourned. Meanwhile, my Irish grandfather, also a Dust Bowl migrant, would tell stories of his experiences as an infantryman and scout during World War II, and in Korea. He was a bard at heart and while he loved to entertain, his stories were meant to inform and to teach. Sitting at their feet as the stories rained down, sometimes in full flood, I learned to listen, always listen, because stories are truth, regardless of how they are dressed up or embellished. Storytelling is how we as a species moved from survival by instinct, to collective learning and the building of civilizations. In this modern world it can be hard to hear the old storytellers, but they are still among us. We need only listen.

Geneva is a teacher, writer, storyteller, and music historian. She has taught literature and poetry appreciation and analysis, storytelling techniques, writing, history, and project-based science in Cambridge, Massachusetts for over fifteen years. Geneva has given lectures in Cambridge Public Schools about the development of the Cherokee Alphabet, as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ practice of forcing Indigenous children into boarding schools where they were subjected to forced assimilation, while continuing to tell her grandmothers’ stories. As a mother of two brilliant, neurodivergent children, Geneva is passionate about accessible, child-centered education. She is the co-creator of the Riverbend Learning Co-operative, an educational community for gifted students who have learning disabilities. Geneva writes and teaches curricula crafted to provide a safe, enriching environment for students who are not best served by traditional classroom learning. During the Spring of 2020, Geneva began performing weekly readings of poetry and modern fiction in Cambridge.

Geneva earned her Associate of Arts degrees in Humanities and Literature from American River College in Sacramento before studying oral traditions and music at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she studied harpsichord with Linda Burman-Hall. She earned her Master of Music in Historical Performance from the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she studied harpsichord, organ, and virginals with Frances Conover Fitch; fortepiano with Peter Sykes; and Baroque dance with Ken Pierce.

Geneva was awarded the Alicia Monte Fellowship by the Boston Public Library, and presented a lecture in Rabb Hall about her work preserving and archiving the BPL’s Hale Collection, which documents the stories of musicians active in Boston at the turn of the 20th century – including the Yankton Dakota writer and political activist, Zitkala-ša, who studied violin at the New England Conservatory and co-wrote the first American Indian opera, The Sun Dance Opera, in 1913.

Geneva has worked as a chamber music librarian at the Tanglewood Music Center, and is the co-creator and archivist of the Special Collections for Early Dance at the Bakalar Library at Longy, including the Ingrid Brainard Collection, and the Margaret Daniels Girard Papers. Geneva has also created English translations and transcriptions of operas and art songs for the E-Braille Collaborative under the guidance of Bob Farrell.

Zsche Chuang Rimbo Wong

Zsche Chuang Rimbo Wong - viola

Zsche Chuang Rimbo Wong, from Hong Kong, made her concerto debut at Severance Hall and was critically acclaimed as a performer whose “prodigious technique and powerful ability to project was as stunning as her expressive playing” (ClevelandClassical.com). She participated as principal violist for many professional organizations as well as festivals around the globe such as Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein and Pacific music festivals. Wong performs regularly as a substitute with the Philadelphia Orchestra and A Far Cry, among many others.

As an avid chamber musician, Wong has participated in the Perlman Music Program, Norfolk School of Music, Music from Angel Fire, Taos, SLSQ seminar, Yellow Barn (YAP) among others.

After Wong’s undergraduate studies at the Cleveland Institute, she received an artist diploma from the Curtis Institute studying with Hsin-Yun Huang and Roberto Díaz. Wong received the Curtis ArtistYear fellowship in the following year. With her fellowship, she dedicated one year of service to help the underserved-community through music in Philadelphia. Her project partners included Project HOME and Penn Memory Center. Wong’s fellowship not only provided enjoyment, emotional relief and genuine care to the older adult population, but also helped many individuals to regain focus, sense of direction in society and community building skills through various creative music projects.

Wong received her Masters of Music degree from the school of music at Yale University in 2019 before moving immediately to Pittsburgh for a long-term position with the Pittsburgh Symphony. In addition to her musical activities, she enjoys cycling, baking and spending time with her cats Whisky and Dumpling. Since the whisky-drinking part is fairly straightforward, she loves experimenting with various ways of wrapping and eating dumplings.

Randall Zigler

Randall Zigler - bass

Hailed as “a revelation” for his “astounding agility…voiced with a beautiful baritone,” Randall Zigler enjoys a highly active and varied career as an orchestral and chamber musician throughout New England and New York.
A founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Zigler has performed new music extensively, and has been involved in countless premieres since the group’s inception in 2001. He can be heard on the New Focus, Mode, Sono Luminus, Naxos, Innova, and Minabel labels, and has recorded works by Iannis Xenakis, Mario Davidovsky, Du Yun, Dai Fujikura, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and Suzanne Farrin, among others.

As an orchestral musician, Zigler is currently a member of the Boston Ballet Orchestra, a frequent substitute with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, and has served as principal bass of both the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra. He is currently principal bass of Emmanuel Music, with whom he has extensive continuo experience in addition to larger ensemble performances.

A devoted educator, Zigler serves as Associate Professor of double bass and contemporary classical performance at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, as well as the bass coordinator for the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra (BYSO.) He has been on the faculty of BYSO’s Intensive Community Program for more than 15 years, with a focus on serving populations historically underrepresented in the study of classical music.

Zigler began bass studies as a high school student in St. Louis, Missouri, and received undergraduate degrees in bass performance and mathematics from Oberlin College. He received a Master of Music degree from Boston University, and has studied with Edwin Barker, Scott Haigh, Tom Sperl, Albert Laszlo, and Carolyn White.

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