The Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) is a classical music festival held annually in Aspen, Colorado.
Garrick Olaf Ohlsson is an American classical pianist. He is the only American to have won first prize in the International Chopin Piano Competition, at the VIII competition in 1970. He also won first prize at the Busoni Competition in Italy and the Montreal Piano Competition in Canada. He was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in 1994 and received the 1998 University Musical Society Distinguished Artist Award in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ohlsson has also been nominated for three Grammy Awards, winning one in 2008.
Jenny Oaks Baker is an American violinist. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award, and is a former member of the National Symphony Orchestra. Baker has released eighteen studio albums, several of which have ranked high on the Billboard charts.
Jean-Philippe Henri Collard is a French pianist known for his interpretations of the works of Gabriel Fauré and Camille Saint-Saëns.
Robert DeMaine is an American virtuoso cellist, best known as Principal Cello of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Frank Xin Huang is a Chinese-born American violinist and teacher. Since 2015 he has been the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. Previous to his position in New York, Huang was the first violinist of the Ying Quartet and a professor of violin and chamber music at the Eastman School of Music, then served as the concertmaster of the Houston Symphony from 2010 to 2015. He has won several international music competitions, most notably the 2003 Naumburg Competition. Huang has concertized widely as a soloist, and his debut recording on Naxos was critically acclaimed.
The Maritime Hall is a historic 3,000-capacity concert hall in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood that operated from 1995 through 2001 as a popular music venue and nightclub. It was located at 450 Harrison Street at the Sailors Union of the Pacific building.
David Aaron Carpenter is an American violist and was the first Prize Winner of the 2006 Walter W. Naumburg Viola Competition. Together with his siblings he formed the Salomé Chamber Orchestra.
The Peninsula Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in the San Francisco Peninsula, California. The orchestra consists of over 90 community musicians. In 1995, the Peninsula Symphony was featured in a PBS broadcast.
Viviana Guzmán is a Chilean professional flutist, composer, dancer and poet, who performs over 80 concerts a year, and has played in 122 countries. She has been described by The New York Times as "an imaginative artist". It has also been said of her that "Guzmán may be the first flutist since her teacher Jean-Pierre Rampal, to be able to establish a sustaining solo career." She actively coaches at the Peninsula Youth Orchestra. Official Website
Reynold Tharp is an American composer of contemporary classical music. His music reflects a fascination with transitory physical aspects of sound, such as resonance and decay.
The Alexander String Quartet is a string quartet based in San Francisco. Formed in New York in 1981, the Alexander String Quartet has since 1989 been Ensemble in Residence of San Francisco Performances.
Eric W. Sawyer is an American orchestral composer, pianist and professor of music at Amherst College. He has studied as an undergraduate at Harvard College, where he was selected as a Harvard Junior Fellow. He undertook graduate studies at both Columbia University and the University of California, Davis. Before taking up the position at Amherst, Sawyer spent four years as Chair of Composition and Theory at the Longy School of Music.
Yoonjung "Yoonie" Han is a South Korean-born American classical pianist.
Mark Kosower is principal cellist of the Cleveland Orchestra. He was solo cellist of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in Germany from 2006 to 2010 and was Professor of Cello and Chamber Music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 2005 to 2007. He was on the faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music until his resignation in January 2020.
Di Wu is a Chinese-American pianist.
The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO) is a youth orchestra organized by the San Francisco Symphony. The SFSYO performs an annual concert series and has made several recordings. The orchestra rehearses in Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall and has been directed by Daniel Stewart since the 2019-2020 season.
Nikki Chooi is an American-Canadian classical violinist. He is a prize winner of the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition and Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition and 1st prize winner of the 2013 Michael Hill International Violin Competition, Montreal Symphony Manulife Competition, and Klein International Strings Competition. Nikki is a soloist, educator, and current Concertmaster of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. He previously served as Concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York.
Teng Li is a Chinese-Canadian violist. She is currently the principal violist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. From 2004 to 2018, she was the principal violist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. She is also the Artistic Director of Morningside Music Bridge and is a member of the Rosamunde String Quartet, led by Noah Bendix-Balgley.
Nastasja Vojinović is a Montenegrin classical violinist, soloist, and chamber musician. She is known for her work with the Philadelphia String Quartet and performances with numerous tango ensembles and chamber groups. She has studied with Gordana Matijević-Nedeljković, Eduard Schmieder, and Wen Qian. She appeared at the KotorArt Festival in her solo recital in 2019. In 2020, she performed with musicians from Santa Barbara for the Santa Barbara-Kotor Sister Cities program, between Kotor and Santa Barbara. Recently, one of the projects she has been a part of, Broadcast from Home, has been featured by the BBC Radio, Washington Post, and Guggenheim Museum in New York. Nastasja is currently performing with the Philadelphia String Quartet as their Lead Violinist, who she has been with since 2017.
