First prize winner of the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition, Korean-American pianist Soyeon Kate Lee has been lauded by The New York Times as a pianist with “a huge, richly varied sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style,” and by the Washington Post for her “stunning command of the keyboard.”
Violinist Jennifer Frautschi is a two-time Grammy Award nominee and an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient. She’s garnered worldwide acclaim as a deeply expressive and musically adventurous violinist with impeccable technique and a wide-ranging repertoire. She’s equally at home playing contemporary and classic repertoire, and recent seasons have featured performances and recordings of works by composers ranging from Robert Schumann and Lili Boulanger to Arnold Schoenberg and Barbara White. Frautschi has also had the privilege of premiering several works written for her by prominent composers of today.
Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist, and teacher. He serves as co-artistic director of the Music from Angel Fire chamber music festival with his wife, flutist Tara Helen O’Connor, and he’s a founding member of the 36-year-old Orion String Quartet, which regularly performs with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The quartet’s discography includes the complete quartets of Beethoven and Kirchner.
Toby Appel has appeared in recital and concerto performances throughout North and South America, Europe, and the Far East. He’s been a member of such renowned ensembles as TASHI and the Lenox and Audubon quartets; a guest artist with the Vermeer, Manhattan, Alexander, and Dover quartets; and a frequent guest with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and jazz artists Chick Corea and Gary Burton. His festival appearances include Mostly Mozart; Chamber Music Northwest; the Seattle Chamber Music Society; Music from Angel Fire; the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival; the Marlboro, Manchester, Colorado College Summer, and Bravo! Vail music festivals; and festivals in England, France, Korea, Germany, Italy, Finland, and Greece.
In 2019, Ida Kavafian completed her 35-year tenure as artistic director of the Music from Angel Fire chamber music festival in New Mexico. A frequent artist of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for more than 40 years and former violinist of the renowned Beaux Arts Trio, Kavafian currently performs as a soloist; in recital with her sister, violinist Ani Kavafian; as a guest with distinguished ensembles; and as a faculty member at the Curtis Institute of Music. She’s premiered many new works, toured and recorded with fiddler/composer Mark O’Connor and with jazz greats Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis, and had a solo feature onCBS Sunday Morning. She premiered and recorded Michael Daugherty’s violin concertoFire and Bloodwith the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and, as a violist, toured and recorded with the Guarneri Quartet and performed with the Orion, Shanghai, and American string quartets.
Cellist Eric Kim enjoys a diverse career as a recitalist, a chamber musician, an orchestral soloist, and a teacher. He made his solo debut at age 15 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; since then, he’s been a featured soloist with the Cincinnati, Denver, and San Diego symphony orchestras, and he’s collaborated with conductors Alan Gilbert, Zubin Mehta, Paavo Järvi, Jesús López Cobos, Lawrence Foster, Sergiu Comissiona, Gianandrea Noseda, and Stanisław Skrowaczewski. He was also a featured soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra during the ensemble’s critically acclaimed tour of the Far East.
Winner of both the Avery Fisher Career Grant (1987) and the Avery Fisher Prize (2000), David Shifrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator.
Mr. Shifrin has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras and the Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, Detroit, Fort Worth, Hawaii and Phoenix Symphonies, among many others in the United States, as well as with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan.
Stefan Dohr is blessed with both a “thundering tone that resounds valley-wide” (Berliner Zeitung) and a breathtakingly “delicate piano that sounds as if from afar” (Badische Zeitung). As an acclaimed soloist, chamber musician and principal horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker, he is a mainstay of the international horn scene. In the orchestra, he has a special task: on the one hand, the horn player is a “quasi mediator between the instrumental groups, on the other hand, a soloist in Mahler and Bruckner symphonies, for example”.
