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Hailed by The New Yorker as a “superb young soloist,” NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, captivating audiences throughout the UnitedStates and abroad. In The New York Times his playing was praised as “impassioned … the audience seduced by Mr. Canellakis’s rich, alluring tone.”

Recent concert highlights include concerto appearances with the Virginia, Albany, Delaware, Stamford, Richardson, Lansing, and Bangor Symphonies, the Erie Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, and the New Haven Symphony as Artist-in-Residence; Europe and Asia tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, including appearances in London’s Wigmore Hall, the Louvre in Paris, the Seoul Arts Center, and the Shanghai and Taipei National Concert Halls; and recitals across North America with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Brown. He made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut with the American Symphony Orchestra in 2015.

Mr. Canellakis is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with which he performs regularly in Alice Tully Hall and on tour internationally. He is also a regular guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals, including Santa Fe, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Bard, Wolf Trap, Bridgehampton, La Jolla, Hong Kong, Moab, Music in the Vineyards, and Saratoga Performing Arts Center. He has recently been renewed as the artistic director of Chamber Music Sedona, in Arizona, where he has made a major impact through his dynamic programming and educational and community outreach.

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory, his teachers included Orlando Cole, Peter Wiley and Paul Katz, and he was a student of Madeleine Golz at Manhattan School of Music Pre-College. He began his Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center career as a member of the Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), and he has also been in residence at Carnegie Hall as a member of Ensemble Connect.

Filmmaking and acting are special interests of Mr. Canellakis. He has produced, directed, and starred in several short films and music videos, including his popular comedy web series “Conversations with Nick Canellakis.” His latest film, “Thin Walls,” was nominated for awards at many prominent film festivals. His films and videos can be found on his website: nicholascanellakis.com.

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.