Igor Begelman is a virtuoso clarinet player. [1] [2] He has performed solos with a number of orchestras. He also plays chamber music, and is a member of the TAGI ensemble (formerly known as the New York Lyric Chamber Players).
Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by The New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world. After gaining recognition for her first orchestral composition, Sequoia (1981), a tone poem which structurally depicts a giant tree from trunk to needles, she has gone on to compose a variety of instrumental works including Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which is something of a response to Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the Island Prelude, five string quartets, and an assortment of other tone poems. Tower was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her early works, including her widely performed Petroushskates.
Pamela Frank is an American violinist, with an active international career across a varied range of performing activity. Her musicianship was recognized in 1999 with the Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists. In addition to her career as a performer, Frank holds the Herbert R. and Evelyn Axelrod Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she has taught since 1996, and is also an Adjunct Professor of Violin at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music since 2018.
Gil Shaham is an American violinist of Jewish descent.
Ursula Oppens is an American classical concert pianist and educator. She has received five Grammy Award nominations.
David Shifrin is an American classical clarinetist and artistic director.
Derek Bermel is an American composer, clarinetist and conductor whose music blends various facets of world music, funk and jazz with largely classical performing forces and musical vocabulary. He is the recipient of various awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the American Academy in Rome's Rome Prize awarded to artists for a year-long residency in Rome.
The Shanghai Quartet is a string quartet that formed in 1983. The quartet is made up of: first violinist Weigang Li, second violinist Angelo Xiang Yu, violist Honggang Li, and cellist Nicholas Tzavaras. On November 20, 2020 the ensemble announced the newest member, Angelo Xiang Yu. The Shanghai Quartet accepted the resignation of former second violinist Yi-Wen Jiang on March 17, 2020. The group's tours have included North America, South America, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. Among their performances, the Shanghai Quartet has developed a long list of performance collaborators including Yo-Yo Ma, David Soyer, Eugenia Zukerman, Sharon Isbin, Ruth Laredo, Arnold Steinhardt, and Chanticleer.
Kirill Gerstein is a Russian-American concert pianist. He is the sixth recipient of the Gilmore Artist Award. Born in the former Soviet Union, Gerstein is an American citizen based in Berlin. Between 2007-2017, he led piano classes at the Stuttgart Musik Hochschule. In 2018, he took up the post of Professor of Piano at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule in Berlin in addition to the Kronberg Academy’s Sir András Schiff Performance Programme for Young Artists.
The Pacifica Quartet is a professional string quartet based in Bloomington, Indiana. Its members are: Simin Ganatra, first violin; Austin Hartman, second violin; Mark Holloway, viola; and Brandon Vamos, cello. Formed in 1994 by Ganatra and Vamos with violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson and violist Kathryn Lockwood, the group won prizes in competitions such as the 1996 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, the 1997 Concert Artists Guild Competition, and the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. In 2001, violist Masumi Per Rostad replaced Lockwood. The group subsequently received Chamber Music America's prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award in 2002, the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2006, and was named "Ensemble of the Year" by Musical America in 2009. In 2017, violinist Austin Hartman replaced Bernhardsson and violist Guy Ben-Ziony replaced Rostad.
The Avery Fisher Prize is an award given to American musicians for outstanding achievement in classical music. Founded by philanthropist Avery Fisher in 1974, it is regarded as one of the most significant awards for American instrumentalists. The award is decided by members of the Avery Fisher Artist Program, which is administered by the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; artists do not apply, and nominations are secret. Initially accompanied by an award of US$10,000, recent years have seen the cash allotment increase to US$75,000 and then US$100,000.
Anthony McGill is the principal clarinetist for the New York Philharmonic, after having served for a decade as principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
Stephen Burns is an American trumpet virtuoso, composer, and conductor. The New York Times said of his playing, "Burns uses his instrument with the lightness and flexibility of a singer in operatic arias. The tone is smooth and buttery, the ornamentation tasteful, the phrasing refined."
Ida Levin was an American concert violinist. Levin taught at the Sander Vegh International Chamber Music Academy in Prague and was a former faculty member of Harvard University, the Colburn School and the European Mozart Academy.
The Chiara String Quartet was an internationally performing professional string quartet based in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Group was the Quartet-in-residence at the School of Music in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University. The group was also in residence as faculty at the Greenwood Music Camp, a summer program for advanced high school musicians. The group's members were Rebecca Fischer and Hyeyung Julie Yoon, violins; Jonah Sirota, viola; and Gregory Beaver, cello.
Bion Yu-Ting Tsang is an American cellist and professor.
The Avery Fisher Career Grant, established by Avery Fisher, is an award given to up to five outstanding instrumentalists each year. The Career Grants are a part of the Avery Fisher Artist Program, along with the Avery Fisher Prize and Special Awards. They are administered by the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
The Escher String Quartet is an American string quartet based in New York City, where they serve as Artists of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Their name derives from the Dutch artist M. C. Escher.
Mark Peskanov is an American virtuoso violinist, known as a soloist, chamber musician, composer, conductor, and concert presenter.
Michael Stephen Brown is an American classical pianist and composer. He is the recipient of the 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center, and the 2010 Concert Artists Guild Competition. Brown has performed as soloist with the Seattle, Grand Rapids, North Carolina, Maryland and Albany symphony orchestras, and at Carnegie Hall, Caramoor, the Smithsonian, Alice Tully Hall, and the Gilmore Festival. He is an artist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and is a former member of CMS Two. He regularly performs duo recitals with cellist Nicholas Canellakis. He has received commissions from many organizations and some of today’s leading artists, and recently toured his own Piano Concerto around the US and Poland with several orchestras.
Kevin Zhu is an American concert violinist. He is a recipient of the 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant and was the first prize winner of the 55th edition of the International Paganini Competition in Genoa, Italy, aged just 17. He was also the first prize winner in the junior division of the 2012 Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists in Beijing, China. In 2019, he made his debut at Carnegie Hall at Weill Recital Hall.