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JAY CAMPBELL is a cellist actively exploring a wide range of creative music. He has been recognized for approaching both old and new music with the same curiosity and commitment, and his performances have been called “electrifying” by the New York Times and “gentle, poignant, and deeply moving” by the Washington Post.

The only musician ever to receive two Avery Fisher Career Grants — in 2016 as a soloist, and again in 2019 as a member of the JACK Quartet — Jay made his concerto debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2013 and in 2016, he worked with Alan Gilbert as the artistic director for Ligeti Forward, part of the New York Philharmonic Biennale at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2017, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Lucerne Festival along with frequent collaborator Patricia Kopatchinskaja, where he also gave the premiere of Luca Francesconi’s cello concerto Das Ding Singt with Matthias Pintscher. In 2018 he appeared at the Berlin Philharmonie with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He has recorded the concertos of George Perle and Marc-Andre Dalbavie with the Seattle Symphony, and in 2023/24 will premiere a new cello concerto, Reverdecer, by Andreia Pinto-Correia with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Portugal and in Brazil with the Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo. In 2022 he returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic as curator and cellist for his second Green Umbrella concert, where he premiered new concertos by Wadada Leo Smith and inti figgis-vizueta.

Jay’s primary artistic interest is the collaboration with living creative musicians and has worked in this capacity with Catherine Lamb, Helmut Lachenmann, John Luther Adams, Liza Lim, Marcos Balter, Tyshawn Sorey, and many others. His close association with John Zorn has resulted in two discs of new works for cello, Hen to Pan (2015) and Azoth (2020). Deeply committed as a chamber musician, he is the cellist of the JACK Quartet as well as the Junction Trio with violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Conrad Tao.

MAIYA PAPACH is the principal violist of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. A member of the orchestra since 2008, she has made solo appearances with the SPCO in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with concertmaster Steven Copes, solo directed Benjamin Britten’s Lachrymae and as soloist in Woolrich’s Ulysses Awakes. 

Papach has made frequent national and international appearances as a chamber musician, with a versatile profile in her performances of both traditional and contemporary repertoire. She is a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), with whom she has performed frequently at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and dozens of experimental venues. She has toured extensively in the former Soviet Union with the Da Capo Chamber Players, across North America with Musicians from Marlboro, and has made appearances at Prussia Cove (UK), the Boston Chamber Music Society, the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival, the Chattanooga Chamber Music Festival and Chamber Music Quad Cities. She is also currently a member of Accordo, a Twin Cities-based chamber music group. 

Papach is a 2013 recipient of the McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians administered by the MacPhail Center for Music. Through this fellowship and in collaboration with ICE, she co-commissioned a viola concerto by Anthony Cheung, performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival to critical acclaim by the New York Times. She is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory and the Juilliard School, and her principal teachers include Roland Vamos, Karen Tuttle, Benny Kim and Hsin-Yun Huang. She performs on a 19th century Turinese viola by Annibale Fagnola.

She enjoys spending time with her wife, kids, and furry animals in her free time. 

KIRSTEN DOCTER is associate professor of viola and chamber music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. First prize wins at the Primrose International and American String Teachers Association Viola Competitions launched her on a career that includes a 23-year tenure with the Cavani Quartet, concerts on major series and festivals, and numerous appointments as a master class clinician and teacher.
 
Docter’s festival appearances include performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society, and Kneisel Hall. Her work can be heard on the Azica, Albany, and New World labels.
 
Docter formerly served on the chamber music and viola faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Michigan. She has been a jury member of the Primrose International Viola, Fischoff National Chamber Music, and Sphinx competitions. In the summer she serves on the viola faculty of the Perlman Music Program and Bowdoin International Music Festival.

JESSICA BODNER, described by the New York Times as a “soulful soloist”, is the violist of the Grammy award-winning Parker Quartet. A native of Houston, TX, Jessica began her musical studies on the violin at the age of two, then switched to the viola at the age of twelve because of her love of the deeper sonority.

Ms. Bodner has recently appeared at venues such as Carnegie Hall, 92nd Street Y, Library of Congress, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Wigmore Hall (London), Musikverein (Vienna), Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Seoul Arts Center, and has appeared at festivals including Chamber Music Northwest, Chamberfest Cleveland, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Yellow Barn, Perigord Noir in France, Monte Carlo Spring Arts Festival, San Miguel de Allende, Istanbul’s Cemal Recit Rey, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Hitzacker, and Heidelberg String Quartet Festival. As a member of the Parker Quartet, she has recorded for ECM, Zig-Zag Territoires, Nimbus, and Naxos.

Recent collaborators include mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, clarinetists Charles Neidich and Jörg Widmann, pianists Menahem Pressler, Shai Wosner, Gloria Chien, and Orion Weiss, violinists Soovin Kim and Donald Weilerstein, violists Kim Kashkashian and Roger Tapping, cellists Deborah Pae, Marcy Rosen, Natasha Brofsky, and Paul Katz, and percussionist Ian Rosenbaum.

Jessica is a faculty member of Harvard University’s Department of Music as Professor of the Practice in conjunction with the Parker Quartet’s appointment as Blodgett Quartet-in Residence. She has held visiting faculty positions at the New England Conservatory and Longy School of Music, served as faculty at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Yellow Barn Festival, and has given masterclasses at institutions such as Eastman School of Music, San Francisco Conservatory, Amherst College, University of Minnesota, and at the El Sistema program in Venezuela.

Outside of music, Jessica enjoys cooking, running, practicing yoga, and hiking with her husband, violinist Daniel Chong, their son, Cole, and their vizsla, Bodie.

Awarded the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award for 2014, violinist ITAMAR ZORMAN is the winner of the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia. 

Mr. Zorman has performed as a soloist with such orchestras as the Mariinsky Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, KBS Symphony Seoul, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, German Radio Philharmonic, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Kremerata Baltica and American Symphony, conductors Valery Gergiev, Zubin Mehta, Michael Tilson-Thomas, David Robertson, James DePreist, Karina Canellakis, Nathalie Stutzmann and Yuri Bashmet, at Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Tonhalle Zurich, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and Amsterdam Concertgebouw. As a recitalist he performed at Carnegie Hall’s Distinctive Debut series, Wigmore Hall, People’s Symphony Concerts, the Louvre Museum, Suntory Hall and Frankfurt Radio.

Mr. Zorman was invited to the Verbier, Marlboro, Rheingau, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Bowdoin and Radio France Festivals. He is a member of the Israeli Chamber project, and a member of the Lysander Piano Trio, which won the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Competition. 

He has released solo CD’s with First Hand Records, BIS Records, and Hänssler Profil.

Mr. Zorman studied at the Jerusalem Academy, The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music and the Kronberg Academy, working with Sylvia Rosenberg, Christian Tetzlaff and Mauricio Fuks. He is currently a Visiting Guest Artist at the Eastman School of Music. Mr. Zorman plays a 1734 Guarneri Del Gesù violin from the collection of Yehuda Zisapel.

Violinist AMY SCHWARTZ MORETTI has a musical career of broad versatility. Before becoming the inaugural Director of Mercer University’s McDuffie Center for Strings, she was concertmaster of the Florida Orchestra and Oregon Symphony. She has premiered concertos for GRAMMY® winner Matt Catingub and her Mercer colleague Christopher Schmitz, collaborated with James Ehnes for Prokofiev’s “Sonata for Two Violins” and Bartók’s “44 Duos” – both contributions to Chandos recordings receiving consecutive Juno Awards for Classical Album of the year 2014 and 2015 — and she performed the complete cycle of Beethoven String Quartets in Seoul, Korea with the Ehnes Quartet. They have recorded Barber, Sibelius, Shostakovich and Schubert quartets, in 2021, mid and late Beethoven quartets, and most recently in 2022, Dvořák’s “American” String Quintet with violist Paul Neubauer. Recognized as a deeply expressive artist, Moretti enjoys the opportunity to travel and perform concerts around the world. Her many festival appearances include Bridgehampton, ChamberFest Cleveland, Evian, La Jolla, Meadowmount, Seattle, Music@Menlo and Manchester Music Festival. She has served as guest concertmaster for the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Houston, Pittsburgh; the New York Pops and Hawaii Pops; and the festival orchestras of Brevard, Colorado and Grand Teton. The Cleveland Institute of Music has honored her with an Alumni Achievement Award, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music their Fanfare Award, and she was named to Musical America’s “Top 30 Professionals” in 2018.  Director of the McDuffie Center since 2007, Amy Schwartz Moretti holds the Caroline Paul King Violin Chair and has developed and curates the Fabian Concert Series. She led the Center’s Young Artists in an ensemble performance at Carnegie Hall, was featured with a McDuffie Center student at the Supreme Court Grand Hall in Washington DC, and celebrates the many awards Center students achieve, including one of her violin students who won the 2022 MTNA National Young Artist String Competition. Moretti lives in Georgia with her husband and two sons, enjoying swimming and being at the soccer field and tennis courts with her boys.

GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist DANIEL CHONG is one of the most exciting and versatile musicians of his generation. Since 2002, as the founding first violinist of the Parker Quartet, he has garnered wide recognition for his performances in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Musikverein, and Wigmore Hall. Additionally, recent solo engagements include appearances at National Sawdust in New York City, Seoul Arts Center, and Jordan Hall in Boston. Mr. Chong has received several awards and prizes such as the Cleveland Quartet Award and top prizes at the Concert Artists Guild Competition and the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition. In the recording realm, he can be heard on the Zig-Zag Territoires, Naxos, and Nimbus Records labels. Mr. Chong’s newest album was released on the ECM New Series featuring the Parker Quartet and Kim Kashkashian.
 
Mr. Chong has performed at major music festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival, Mostly Mozart, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and the Perigord Noir Music Festival. In addition to the core repertoire, Daniel is a strong advocate for new music. Some of the composers he has worked closely with are György Kurtág, Augusta Read Thomas, Helmut Lachenmann, and Chaya Czernowin. In 2011, he won a GRAMMY Award with the Parker Quartet for their recording of György Ligeti’s string quartets.
 
Actively engaged in pedagogy, Mr. Chong currently serves as Professor of the Practice at Harvard University.

Violinist DAVID BOWLIN is on the violin and chamber music faculty at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he also serves as Chair of Strings. First prize winner of the 2003 Washington International Competition, Bowlin has performed extensively as a soloist, with premieres of violin concertos written for him at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and at the Aspen Music Festival. As a chamber musician, Bowlin has made many tours with Musicians from Marlboro, and performs regularly with both the Oberlin Trio and the Bowlin-Cho Duo with pianist Tony Cho. Bowlin is a founding member of the highly acclaimed International Contemporary Ensemble and a former member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players. 

Bowlin has performed as guest concertmaster with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Marlboro Festival Orchestra, and the IRIS Orchestra.  In addition to Marlboro, he has appeared at the Banff, Bowdoin, Bridgehampton, Chesapeake, Olympic, and Ojai festivals, ChamberFest Cleveland, with the Boston Chamber Music Society, and at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, where he has been faculty artist since 2013.  His recordings can be found on the Bridge, Naxos, Arsis, New Focus, Mode, Tundra, and Oberlin Music labels.

MARK ALMOND joined the San Francisco Symphony as Associate Principal Horn during the 2020–21 season. He joined the San Francisco Opera Orchestra as Co-Principal Horn in 2016 and before that held the position of 3rd Horn with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London. Growing up in Bolton, England, Almond was taught to play horn primarily by Christopher Wormald, his local high school music teacher, and subsequently won principal horn positions with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the European Union Youth Orchestra. He made his professional debut playing with the London Symphony Orchestra, at age 19, and has since performed as guest principal with numerous ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition to playing the horn, Almond is an experienced hospital physician and has a PhD in immunology and virology from Imperial College, London. He is currently researching COVID-19 as a Post-Doctoral Research Scholar at UCSF.