Pianist Yilin You is an active solo and chamber music performer who has given recitals throughout the United States and China. Winner of the 2004 Michigan State University Honor’s Concert Competition and 1998 Young Artist Competition in Seguin Texas, Ms. You appeared as the soloist with the Michigan State University Symphony Orchestra and the Mid-Texas Symphony Orchestra. Recently she has performed at Shandelee Music Festival in New York and Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival in Vermont. Ms. You started her piano studies at the age of eight in China. Her major professors include Panayis Lyras, Yong Hi Moon, and the late William Race. She took part in master classes of pianists Alexander Korsantia, Richard Goode, John Perry, Earl Wild, Alexander Slobodyanik, Willard Schultz, and composer Joan Tower. Ms. You holds Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees from Michigan State University and Bachelor of Music degree from University of Texas at Austin. Ms. You is a dedicated educator and currently serves on the piano faculty at Concord Conservatory of Music.
Violinist Annegret Klaua, a native of Hannover, Germany, is an avid chamber musician, soloist, and orchestral player, freelancing in the Greater Boston area. She performs regularly with the Gardner Chamber Orchestra, has played and recorded with Alea III, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and SONYC (String Orchestra of New York City), and has taken part in the New Music Brandeis concert series, collaborating with members of the Lydian String Quartet and other regional artists. Further appearances include chamber music performances at NECs Jordan Hall, the Longy School of Music, Gordon College, Rivers Music School, Middlesex Community College, and in Newport, Rhode Island. Ms. Klaua received her Bachelor and Master of Music from Indiana University, Bloomington where she studied with Paul Biss and Franco Gulli. She went on to earn an Artist Diploma from the Hochschule für Musik in Dresden, Germany, working with John Holloway. Before coming to Boston, Ms. Klaua lived in Berlin, performing with the Kammerakademie Potsdam and the Ensemble Oriol. She has appeared at the Aspen and Sarasota Music Festivals, the International Academy for Early Music, Innsbruck and was a member of the Spoleto, Italy and Verbier Festival Orchestras. Currently a Ph.D. candidate in musicology, Ms. Klaua is a teaching fellow and research assistant at Brandeis University. She was an associate instructor in violin at Indiana University, has taught in Brookline and Acton, Massachusetts, and is part of the Musika Teacher Group for the Greater Boston area. In 2005, Ms. Klaua joined the violin faculty of the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina.
Violist Mark Berger attended Boston University, where he completed his undergraduate studies in violin with Roman Totenberg and viola with Steven Ansell. Mr. Berger has performed in summer festivals such as the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and the Tanglewood Music Center. Mr. Berger is a highly active violist and violinist in the Boston area and has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Lyric Opera, Emmanuel Music, and Alea III Contemporary Music Ensemble, as well as the New World, Vermont, and Albany Symphonies. As a composer, Mr. Berger received his masters degree from Boston University where he studied with Lukas Foss and Theodore Antoniou. Mr. Bergers compositions have been performed by ensembles such as the Lydian String Quartet, Alea III, the Harvard Group for Contemporary Music, New Music Brandeis, Studio New Music (in residence at the Moscow Conservatory), and the Hellenic Ensemble of Contemporary Music (Athens, Greece). Mr. Berger is a member of the music faculty at Middlesex Community College, and is currently a PhD candidate at Brandeis University where he is Director of the New Music Brandeis concert series. He studies composition with David Rakowski and Martin Boykan.
Clarinetist Shirley Brill was born in Israel and studied with Sabine Meyer at the Musikhochschule Lübeck in Germany. She is currently studying with Richard Stoltzman at New England Conservatory. Winner of special prizes at the International ARD Competition in Munich and the Madeira International Clarinet Competition, Ms. Brill has performed as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Maestro Zubin Mehta, Jerusalem Symphony, Lübeck Philharmonic, Mannheim Chamber Orchestra, Potsdam Chamber Orchestra and more. She has taken part at the Ljubljana Festival in Slovenia and has also given chamber music concerts throughout Israel, France, Germany, England, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Russia and Jordan together with the Jerusalem Quartet, the Aviv Quartet, the Ariel Quartet, the Esprit Trio and the Tel-Aviv Trio. She has played in contemporary music ensembles conducted by Zsolt Nagy and Diethelm Jonas. Since 1999, she has been playing in the Brillaner Duo with pianist Jonathan Aner. Recently, they won First Prize at the Possehl Competition in Germany and took part at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and the International Lübeck Chamber Music Festival. In 2004, they played their Debut Concert at the Berliner Philharmonie. The Duos first CD was recently released.
Cellist Jing Li was born in Beijing, China, and immigrated to the United States when she was three years old. She received her first cello lessons from her father at the age of eight and has since performed numerous concertos as well as solo and chamber music recitals all over the world. She has appeared in festivals such as the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, Banff Centre for the Arts, and the Piatigorsky Seminar for Cellists, and her previous cello teachers include Janos Starker, Paul Katz, and Laurence Lesser. Ms. Li is a member of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and is Principal Cellist of the Gardner Museum Chamber Orchestra. As a teacher, she holds a position on the faculty of the Nantucket Community Music Center and the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra while maintaining an active private studio in the Boston area.
Pianist Jón Sigurðsson is a seasoned performer and educator. His degrees include a Master of Music in piano performance from Arizona State University, as well as a Final Exam and Teachers Diploma from the Conservatory of Reykjavík. He has studied with Helga Laxness, Halldór Haraldsson, Erika Haase, Gerrit Schuil, and Caio Pagano and participated in masterclasses given by Ruth Slenczynska, Edith-Picht Axenfeld and Roger Woodward. Mr. Sigurðsson has an active career in solo performance and has accompanied both instrumentalists and singers in many concerts in Iceland. He has performed as concerto soloist in Reykjavík, in both Beethovens First and Third Piano Concertos. The Icelandic Embassy in Washington, D.C. sponsored a soirée where he and baritone Árni Sighvatsson performed songs by the Icelandic composer Sigvaldi Kaldalóns. He was awarded a grant from the Guild of Icelandic Musicians to perform trio music in Iceland. He also organized the music festival, Music Without Borders, in Reykjavík, where students from the Reykjavík area worked with American composers Lauren Bernofsky and Wynn-Anne Rossi and performed their works in the Ýmir Musichall in Reykjavík. Mr. Sigurðsson performed at the Skandinavian Hjemkomst Festivalin Moorhead, Minnesota, in June 2005. His CD recording of music by Barber, Scriabin, Rossi, Bernofsky, and Moszkowski was recently released by Polarfonia Classics.
Pianist Margaret Cheng Tuttle, a native of Lincoln, Nebraska, performs frequently as a soloist and chamber musician in Greater Boston and the Midwest, and has also played in Taiwan and Iceland. She has performed concertos by Mozart, Ravel, Beethoven, and Chopin with orchestras including the Omaha and New England Conservatory Symphony Orchestras. In addition to appearing at Jordan Hall and most of the major colleges and universities in Greater Boston, she has given numerous concerts in Chicago, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Colorado. She has performed with Bostons Alea III and at summer festivals including Kneisel Hall in Blue Hill, Maine; the Aspen Music Festival; and Rocky Ridge Music Center. Her performances have aired on radio and television in Boston (WGBH), Israel, and the Midwest. While earning her Master of Music degree at New England Conservatory, she was a winner in both the Piano Honors and the Commencement Competitions. She has studied with Seymour Lipkin, Ronald Copes, Eugene Drucker, and Beth Miller Harrod. Ms. Tuttle enjoys collaborating with composers, including Samuel Adler, Stephen Halloran, and Lior Navok. She and her students have premiered several works, and she has made a CD of piano music by Harry Chalmiers. She also holds a Master of Science degree in mathematics from MIT. She is a former Emerson Instructor of Piano at MIT and a former member of the piano faculty at the Rivers Music School in Weston, Massachusetts.