Featured Musicians

We are honored to present a truly exceptional roster of musicians who are known worldwide for their mastery, artistry, and profound interpretations– promising an unforgettable series of performances.

Wendy Sutter

Cello
Founder & Artistic Director

  • Heralded as “one of the great leading cellists of the classical stage” by The Wall Street Journal, Wendy Sutter has proven herself as one of the foremost and most versatile soloists of her generation. Having performed extensively across five continents, she has been acclaimed by critics worldwide, with praise from The New York Times, Strad Magazine, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The San Francisco Chronicle.

    Ms. Sutter has appeared frequently as soloist with major orchestras including The Dallas Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Brussels Philharmonic, Shanghai Symphony, Shenzhen Symphony, Royal Residentie Orchestra of The Hague, Tucson Symphony, Northern Netherlands Orchestra, Juilliard Symphony, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, and La Jolla Symphony.

    She has toured internationally as soloist with The Youth Orchestra of the Americas and the Shanghai Symphony, performing throughout China, South America, Europe, the UK, and the United States. Her solo appearances include many of the world’s most prestigious venues, including The Kennedy Center, The Barbican, David Geffen Hall, and Bozar. She has collaborated with some of the world’s most esteemed conductors, including Jaap van Zweden, Marin Alsop, Gerard Schwarz, Dante Anzolini, Mikhail Jurowski, Michel Tabachnik, and Tan Dun.

    A highly sought-after chamber musician, Ms. Sutter appears regularly at major festivals including Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Spoleto, Ravinia, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, and the Gingold Festival. She has performed countless solo recitals worldwide, in venues such as The Barbican, Carnegie Hall, Bargemusic, Lincoln Center, and the Death of Classical series in New York City.


    Equally accomplished in the world of contemporary music, Ms. Sutter has been the dedicatee of nearly 20 new works for solo cello by some of the most significant composers of our time, including Philip Glass, Don Byron, John King, and Martin Matalon. In 2025, she was awarded the prestigious Koussevitzky Commission Grant from the Library of Congress, supporting the creation and premiere of a new cello sonata by composer Don Byron.


    Of particular note, Philip Glass’s Songs and Poems—his first-ever solo cello work, written for Ms. Sutter in 2007—earned worldwide acclaim from both critics and audiences. The recording was voted Best New CD of the Year by National Public Radio listeners and became the second-best-selling classical download on iTunes. The Wall Street Journal praised her performance:

    “Sutter throws herself into the music with something like ferocity, playing each repetition as if she’s never played the one before. Or maybe she’s just so intense that everything feels new. And so the music never stands still.”

    Immediately following her studies at The Juilliard School, Ms. Sutter was invited by Mikhail Baryshnikov to serve as the onstage solo cellist for the creation and world premiere of A Suite of Dances, choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Sutter and Baryshnikov went on to perform the piece over 100 times together, across every continent, including frequent guest appearances with the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center.

    Among her many notable solo recital appearances, Ms. Sutter was invited to perform for Bill and Melinda Gates at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and has presented the complete Britten Suites for solo cello in a single evening in both Seattle and New York City, as well as at The Winspear Opera House in Dallas. She also performed the complete Beethoven sonatas for cello and piano at Bargemusic in New York City.

    During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms. Sutter performed and livestreamed the complete Bach Cello Suites in a single day from Judson Church in New York City, reaching an online audience of over 10,000 viewers worldwide. The event was named “The Musical Event of the Week” by The New York Times and was widely praised for its emotional resonance, depth, and stamina during an unprecedented moment for the arts.

    In addition to her performing career, Ms. Sutter is a 2025 participant in the prestigious Stanford University Graduate School of Business LEAD Program in Corporate Innovation and Leadership, deepening her commitment to transformative leadership in the arts and expanding her work at the intersection of artistic excellence, entrepreneurship, and social impact.

    Ms. Sutter plays on a Giovanni Battista Ceruti Circa 1810.

    She is also the Founder & Artistic Director of Chamber Music at Churchtown– you can learn more here.

Todd Phillips

Violin

  • Todd Phillips made his solo debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony at the age of thirteen and has appeared with many orchestras throughout the United States, Europe and Japan since then, including the Brandenberg Ensemble, the Jacksonville and Honolulu Symphonies, Camerata Salzburg and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1982 with the New York String Orchestra and conductor Alexander Schneider.

    Mr. Phillips is a founding member of the highly acclaimed Orion String Quartet, which recently concluded their 37-year career as a group. The Orion Quartet has been the quartet-in-residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Mannes College of Music and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Their television appearances have included PBS’ “Live from Lincoln Center”, three performances on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, and A&E’s “Breakfast with the Arts”. The Quartet’s recordings of the complete Beethoven quartets have received unanimous acclaim from critics and audiences alike. They are in the process of preserving their legacy of music-making by posting both commercial recordings and recordings of live performances on their YouTube channel. So far, there are more than forty works available to listen to.

    Todd Phillips’ experience as a frequent leader of the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has led to engagements as conductor/leader with the Camerata Nordica of Sweden, the New World Symphony, the Brandenberg Ensemble, the Tapiola Sinfonietta of Finland, and the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra.

    Mr. Phillips serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music, the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he is also co-director of the new chamber music workshop, CMI@CIM.

    Mr. Phillips lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife, violinist Catherine Cho, and is the father of four children: Lia, Eliza, Jason, and Brandon, and the grandfather of Theo and Mila.

Catherine Cho

Violin

  • Catherine Cho is recognized for her remarkable virtuosity, combining technical mastery of her instrument with an extraordinary and distinctive musicality. Praised by The New York Times for her "sublime tone", she has appeared worldwide as soloist with many orchestras and chamber ensembles as well as in recitals. Her repertoire ranges from the traditional works by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms to those of Bartók, Korngold and Berg, in addition to music of our time.

    Catherine Cho's orchestral engagements have included performances with the Detroit and National Symphony orchestras, the Buffalo Philharmonic and Virginia Symphony, the Montreal, Edmonton, and National Arts Centre Orchestras in Canada, the Korean Broadcasting Symphony, the Barcelona Symphony, the Het Gelders Orkest in Holland, the Orchestra of the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and the Aspen Chamber Symphony. She has performed with the symphony orchestras of La Coruna and Mallorca in Spain; Caracas, Venezuela; and Daejon, Korea. Ms. Cho has toured Israel with the Haifa Symphony, and was the soloist on a concert tour in Japan and Korea with the Juilliard Orchestra and Hugh Wolff conducting. In 2002, she appeared as a special guest soloist with the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center for two ballets by renowned choreographer Peter Martins including the New York premiere of his ballet Viva Verdi. A regular guest on tour with "Musicians from Marlboro", Ms. Cho has also been a participant in their summer Music Festival in Vermont since 1993. In January 1999 she appeared as soloist with the Jeunesse Musicale World Orchestra including a concert at the Berlin Philharmonie Hall, and was immediately re-invited to be the soloist for a special New York concert at Riverside Church during the orchestra's North American concert tour in August 1999. Her collaborations with distinguished conductors include Mstislav Rostropovich, Robert Spano, Sixten Ehrling, Franz-Paul Decker, and Hugh Wolff.

    In broadcasts heard around the world, Catherine Cho has appeared on such stations as Radio Frankfurt (Germany), CBC (Canada), WQXR (New York City), and National Public Radio. Ms. Cho's concert performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons in December 2000, with the Buffalo Philharmonic under the baton of Jo-Ann Falletta, was taped live and broadcast nationwide on PBS in January 2002. Her live recording of the Vivaldi Four Seasons with the Korean Chamber Ensemble was released in June 2003.  She has also recorded works by Harbison, Lerdahl, and Moravec for Bridge Records.

    As a recitalist and chamber musician, Catherine Cho has performed on the prestigious stages of Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society at New York's Lincoln Center, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Casals Hall in Tokyo, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and the 92nd St. "Y", the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Boston, and on Ravinia's "Rising Stars" series in Chicago. In 2003, Ms. Cho opened the season in Seoul, Korea with performances of the complete cycle of Beethoven's violin sonatas. She has appeared at the Aspen and Marlboro music festivals, as well as Chamber Music Northwest, Bridgehampton, Eastern Shore, Rockport, Skaneateles, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festivals. She has participated in eleven Music from Marlboro tours, and is a founding member of the chamber ensemble, La Fenice.  She was a member of the Johannes String Quartet from 2003-6.

    Among her various awards, scholarships, and achievements, Ms. Cho was a recipient of both the 1995 Avery Fisher Career Grant designed to recognize outstanding American instrumentalists who exhibit strong potential for solo careers, and Korea's 1995 World Leaders of Tomorrow Award as presented by the Korea Central Daily News in recognition of outstanding achievement and commendable leadership in the Arts. She was the recipient of the 1994 Sony ES Award for Musical Excellence; a top prize winner at the 1991 Hannover International Violin Competition, the 1989 Queen Elizabeth Music Competition of Belgium, the 1987 Montreal International Music Competition; and a 1988 Presidential Scholar in the Arts. In 1995, Catherine Cho served on the jury of the Montreal International Violin Competition. In 1996, she was selected for the Janet and Avery Fisher Music Residency Program at Goucher College. Ms. Cho holds a Masters Degree from the Juilliard School where she studied with Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang, and coached chamber music with Felix Galimir. Her former teachers include Ruggiero Ricci, Franco Gulli, and Michael Avsharian. Now a member of the violin and chamber music faculty at the Juilliard School, Ms. Cho has also taught at the Starling-DeLay Symposium, Heifetz Institute, New York String Seminar, Seoul Music Festival and Academy, and the Perlman Music Program. Devoted to the cause of promoting peace through music, Catherine Cho is VP of the Board of Musicians For Harmony.

    Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Catherine Cho gave her first public performance at the age of four, and made her official concert debut at age eleven with the Tivoli Symphony Orchestra in Copenhagen, Denmark. She currently resides in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, Todd Phillips, and their son, Brandon.

Cynthia Phelps

Viola

  • A much-admired figure at the world’s foremost concert venues, violist Cynthia Phelps’ vibrant career includes appearances as soloist, chamber musician, and Principal Violist of the New York Philharmonic, with which she has appeared as soloist on major stages across the globe in a wide range of repertoire, including the premiere of a work written for her by Sofia Gubaidulina and Julia Adolphe. She has appeared as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra, Shanghai, San Diego, Vermont and Santa Barbara Symphonies, Eastern Music Festival, Orquesta Sinfonica de Bilbao, and Rochester and Hong Kong Philharmonics.    

     She has collaborated with artists including Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Daniil Trifonov. Yefim Bronfman, and has given recitals in the world’s major music capitals. Having premiered numerous works, including one commissioned for her with the American String Quartet by Stephen Paulus, she is a founding member of both the New York Philharmonic String Quartet and Les Amies trio, and regularly performs with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A guest with ensembles including the Brentano, Orion, St. Lawrence and Prague Quartets, she regularly appears at major festivals globally including the Mostly Mozart, Marlboro, Ravinia, La Jolla, Bravo! Colorado, Santa Fe, Moab, and Seattle Chamber Music Festivals, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Naples, Cremona, and Schleswig-Holstein Festivals in Europe. 

    She has been featured in several nationwide “Live from Lincoln Center” telecasts, and on NPR, Radio France, CBS Sunday Morning, PBS Newshour, and Italy’s RAI. Her numerous honors include the Pro Musicis International Award and first prize at the Lionel Tertis and Washington International String Competitions. She is on the faculty of The Juilliard School, Shanghai Academy, and the Music Academy of the West.

    Her discography includes a Grammy nominated album on Telarc (with Les Amies), Cala Records, Marlboro Recording Society, Virgin Classics, Arabesque, and New York Philharmonic labels.  

    Ms. Phelps appears by arrangement with Dworkin & Company.

Jesse Mills

Violin

  • Two-time Grammy nominated violinist Jesse Mills enjoys performing music of many genres, from classical to contemporary, as well as composed and improvised music of his own invention.  

    Since his concerto debut at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, Mr. Mills has performed throughout the U.S. and Canada. He has been a soloist with the Phoenix Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony, the Green Bay Symphony,  Juilliard Chamber Orchestra,  the Denver Philharmonic, the Teatro Argentino Orchestra (in Buenos Aires, Argentina), and the Aspen Music Festival's Sinfonia Orchestra.

    As a chamber musician Jesse Mills has performed throughout the U.S. and Canada, including concerts at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Metropolitan Museum, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Boston's Gardener Museum, Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, and the Marlboro Music Festival. He has also appeared at prestigious venues in Europe, such as the Barbican Centre of London, La Cité de la Musique in Paris, Amsterdam’s Royal Carré Theatre, Teatro Arcimboldi in Milan, and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels. Mills is co-founder of Horszowski Trio and Duo Prism, a violin-piano duo with Rieko Aizawa, which earned 1st Prize at the Zinetti International Competition in Italy in 2006. With Ms. Aizawa, Mills became co-artistic director of the Alpenglow Chamber Music Festival in Colorado in 2010.

    Mills is also known as a pioneer of contemporary works, a renowned improvisational artist, as well as a composer. He earned Grammy nominations for his performances of Arnold Schoenberg's music, released by NAXOS in 2005 and 2010. He can also be heard on the Koch, Centaur, Tzadik, Max Jazz and Verve labels for various compositions of Webern, Schoenberg, Zorn, Wuorinen, and others. As a member of the FLUX Quartet from 2001-2003, Mills performed music composed during the last 50 years, in addition to frequent world premieres. As a composer and arranger, Mills has been commissioned by venues including Columbia University’s Miller Theater, the Chamber Music Northwest festival in Portland, OR and the Bargemusic in NYC. 

    Jesse Mills began violin studies at the age of three. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School in 2001.  He studied with Dorothy DeLay, Robert Mann and Itzhak Perlman. Mr. Mills lives in New York City, and he is on the faculty at Longy School of Music of Bard College and at Conservatory of Music of Brooklyn College. In 2010 the Third Street Music School Settlement in NYC honored him with the ‘Rising Star Award’ for musical achievement.

Misha Amory

Viola

  • Misha Amory is a founding member of the Brentano String Quartet, with a distinguished career in performance and recording.

    Winner of the 1991 Naumburg Viola Award, Misha Amory has performed with orchestras in the United States and Europe, and has given recitals in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, and Washington, D.C. He has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival and the Vancouver and Seattle chamber music festivals, as well as with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Boston Chamber Music Society. 

    He released a recording of the Hindemith sonatas on the Musical Heritage Society label in 1993. Mr. Amory is a founding member of the Brentano String Quartet, which won the inaugural Cleveland Quartet Award and the 1995 Naumburg Chamber Music Award.

    He holds degrees from Yale University and the Juilliard School, and his principal teachers were Heidi Castelman, Caroline Levine, and Samuel Rhodes.

    Mr. Amory joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 2006. He has also been a member of the faculty at The Juilliard School since 1995.

Albert Cano Smit

Piano

  • A musician who has been praised as “a moving young poet” (Le Devoir), Spanish/Dutch pianist Albert Cano Smit enjoys a growing international career on the orchestral, recital, and chamber music stages. Noted for his captivating performances, storytelling quality and nuanced musicality, the First Prize Winner of the 2019 YCA Susan Wadsworth International Auditions has appeared as a soloist with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, the San Diego Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Montréal Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Elgin Symphony, Aiken Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Barcelona Symphony, Catalonia National Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Nottingham Youth Orchestra, and American Youth Symphony.

    Recital highlights have included his Carnegie Hall debut presented by The Naumburg Foundation, his Merkin Hall debut presented by Young Concert Artists, recitals at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, Paris’ Fondation Louis Vuitton (the performance was streamed live globally), the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater in Washington, D.C., Germany’s Rheingau Music Festival, and return performances at the Steinway Society in San Jose. He has been in residence at France’s Festival de Musique de Wissembourg for seven years, a piano fellow at Bravo! Vail Music Festival and Tippet Rise Art Center, and had his recital debut in Asia at Xiamen’s Banlam Grand Theater.

    Albert has been presented in recital by Festival Bach Montréal, Merkin Hall (New York City), the Cosmos Club (Washington, D.C.), University of Florida Performing Arts, the Krannert Center (Urbana, IL), and Matinée Musicale (Cincinnati, OH). He recently premiered Katherine Balch’s "Spolia" with flutist Anthony Trionfo taking them to the Morgan Library and Carnegie Hall. Recent recitals with Trionfo have included the Alys Stephens Center, Kravis Center, Evergreen Museum & Library, and others. Cano Smit is set to continue touring with violinist William Hagen, with whom he has recorded the CD, Danse Russe.

    In June 2024 Albert made his debut solo recording of J.S. Bach’s Art of the Fugue on the Little Tribecca label. During the 24-25 season he will be a featured soloist with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, continue chamber music collaborations with flutist Anthony Trionfo and violinists William Hagen and Paul Huang, and embark on a Spanish recital tour including performances in Barcelona and Madrid.

    An advocate for new music, Albert has premiered numerous solo works on his recital programs, commissioned for him by Stephen Hough, Miquel Oliu, and Katherine Balch. He has given four hand performances with Jean-Yves Thibaudet at the Wallis Annenberg Center Hall and Zipper Hall, taken part in the Jupiter Chamber Players in New York and the Bridgehampton Chamber Festival, and performed with such artists as Gary Hoffman, Andrej Bielow, Thomas Mesa, and Lev Sivkov. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with such ensembles as the Ebene, Szymanowski, Casals, Cosmos, Gerhard, and Verona Quartets, and has released an album of Austrian viola music for Champs Hills with Emma Wernig.

    Albert was First Prize winner at the 2017 Walter W. Naumburg Piano Competition. Additional special prizes at the 2019 Young Concert Artists International Auditions include The Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize, the Alexander Kasza-Kasser Concert Prize for support of his Kennedy Center debut, the Friends of Music Concert Prize (NY), and the Sunday Musicale Prize (NJ).

    Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Albert recently completed an Artist Diploma with Robert McDonald at the Juilliard School, where he was awarded the 2020 Rubinstein Prize for Piano. Early on, he studied music at Montserrat mountain’s Escolanía de Montserrat choir, where he sang as an alto. Later, he studied piano with Graham Caskie, Marta Karbownicka, and Ory Shihor. He is an alum of the Verbier Festival Academy and holds a BA in Piano Performance from the Colburn School, as well as a MM from the Juilliard School. He currently resides in New York City.

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.

Matthew Christakos

Cello

  • At age 23, Matthew Christakos was appointed as Associate Principal Cello of The New York Philharmonic in January 2024, becoming one of the youngest musicians ever to hold this prestigious position,  in January 2024. 

    Originally from Toronto, he studied with Peter Wiley and Gary Hoffman at the Curtis Institute of Music, and has served as principal cello of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra.

    Christakos’s recent honors include the 2019 Canada Council for the Arts’s Michael Measures Prize, second prize in the Canadian Music Competition’s 2019 Stepping Stone, and first prize in the 2017 Toronto Kiwanis Music Festival President’s Trophy Competition. CBC Music included him in its 2019 edition of 30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30.

    Before attending Curtis, Christakos studied in Toronto at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists, where he won the concerto competition and performed as soloist with the Academy Chamber Orchestra. In 2019 he toured Canada and Spain as a featured soloist with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. He is an alumnus of the Morningside Music Bridge program. He previously studied with David Hetherington and Hans Jørgen Jensen. He began cello at age four.

Mihae Lee

Piano

  • Praised by The Boston Globe as “simply dazzling,” Korean-born pianist Mihae Lee maintains a versatile career as soloist, chamber musician, and artistic director. Known for her poetic lyricism and scintillating virtuosity, she has been captivating audiences worldwide in solo and chamber music concerts, in such venues as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Jordan Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Academia Nationale de Santa Cecilia in Rome, Warsaw National Philharmonic Hall, and Taipei National Hall. 

    A devoted chamber musician, Mihae is a founding member of the Triton Horn Trio and was an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society for three decades. In addition, she has appeared frequently at numerous international chamber music festivals including Dubrovnik, Amsterdam, Groningen, Medellin Festicamara, Great Woods, Seattle, OK Mozart, Mainly Mozart, Music from Angel Fire, El Paso, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, Chamber Music Northwest, Rockport, Bard, Norfolk, Mostly Music, Music Mountain, and Chestnut Hill Concerts. She has also collaborated with the Brentano, Juilliard, Tokyo, Muir, Cassatt, and Manhattan string quartets; has been a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, and Bargemusic; and has premiered and recorded solo and chamber works by such composers as Gunther Schuller, Ned Rorem, Paul Lansky, Henri Lazarof, Michael Daugherty, and Ezra Laderman. 

    Mihae made her professional debut at the age of fourteen with the Korean National Orchestra after winning the prestigious May 16th  National Competition. In the same year, she came to the United States on a scholarship from The Juilliard School Pre-College and subsequently won many further awards including First Prize at the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition, the Juilliard Concerto Competition, and the New England Conservatory Concerto Competition. Mihae received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, studying with Martin Canin, and her artist diploma from the New England Conservatory with Russell Sherman. 

    Mihae is often heard over the airwaves on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today” and on other stations around the country. Her recordings include Paul Lansky’s “Notes to Self,” a solo piano work written for her, as well as Lansky’s “Etudes and Parodies” and “Pieces of Advice.” She has released compact discs on the Etcetera, EDI, Northeastern, BCMS, and Bridge labels. In addition to her concert career as pianist, Mihae is currently Artistic Director of Chestnut Hill Concerts in Connecticut and Music Director of the Sebago-Long Lake Music Festival in Maine.

    After 15 years of successful season, she recently stepped down as Artistic Director of the Essex Winter Series in Connecticut.

Cong Wu

Viola

  • Cong Wu joined the New York Philharmonic as Assistant Principal Viola in September 2018.  He is the winner of the Third Prize and the Chamber Music Prize in the Fourteenth Primrose International Viola Competition, and of the Special Prize in the Twelfth Tertis International Viola Competition. His performances throughout North America and Asia include solo appearances with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, New York Classical Players, and the Long Island Concert Orchestra. 

    An avid chamber musician, Wu has collaborated with renowned artists such as Christoph Eschenbach, Hilary Hahn, Steven Isserlis, Itzhak Perlman, Peter Wiley, Pinchas Zukerman, and many New York Philharmonic musicians. His festival engagements have included Marlboro Music Festival, Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music Seminar, Perlman Music Program, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Encounters, Music@Menlo, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Chestnut Hill Concerts, and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany. He also appears regularly with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and New York Classical Players. 

    Passionate about teaching, Wu is on the viola faculties at Manhattan School of Music, Mannes School of Music, and the Shanghai Orchestra Academy.  He had formerly served on the faculty of SUNY Purchase College Conservatory of Music and the National Arts Centre Summer Music Institute in Canada.  He has been invited to give masterclasses at the Mead Witter School of Music (University of Wisconsin-Madison), China Conservatory of Music, and Hong Kong Baptist University. 

    Born in Jinan, China, Cong (pronounced “Ts’ong”) Wu moved to New York in 2010 after graduating from Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. He holds a master’s degree from The Juilliard School and a doctoral degree with the Helen Cohn Award from Manhattan School of Music. His teachers have included Wing Ho, Heidi Castleman, Hsin-Yun Huang, Patinka Kopec, and Pinchas Zukerman.

William Purvis

French Horn

  • William Purvis pursues a multifaceted career in the United States and abroad as horn soloist, chamber musician, conductor, and educator. He is a member of the New York Woodwind Quintet, the Yale Brass Trio, and the Triton Horn Trio, and is an emeritus member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. 

    A passionate advocate of new music, he has participated in numerous premieres of pieces for solo horn, horn concerti, horn trios, and woodwind quintets by such composers as Krzysztof Penderecki, Steven Stucky, and Elliott Carter. Purvis has also been a frequent guest artist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Boston Chamber Music Society and has collaborated with many of the world’s most esteemed string quartets.

    At the Yale School of Music, Purvis teaches a studio of graduate-level horn students and has been featured many times in performances on the School’s Faculty Artist Series. 

    A Grammy Award winner, Purvis has recorded extensively for numerous labels including Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, Naxos Records, Koch Entertainment, and Bridge Records.