Hassan Anderson, USA 🇺🇸

A multitalented artist, American oboist Hassan Anderson is a soloist, chamber musician, conductor, and teacher. Noted for his clarity of tone, range of colors, and energetic stage presence, Mr. Anderson was the oboist of the acclaimed innovative New York-based chamber music ensemble SHUFFLE Concert (Ensemble Mélange), a position he held from 2011 to 2018.  With the ensemble he has toured Israel three times and performed throughout the U.S. and Canada, including at the Duplex, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Rose Studio at Lincoln Center,  Pennsylvania’s Lancaster Performing Arts Center, and Pepperdine University Center for the Arts in California; in New York’s Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society Series and Los Angeles’s L’Ermitage Concert Series; and at such distinguished summer festivals as Cooperstown Music Festival, Buck Hill Skytop Music Festival, and Canada’s Chamberfest Ottawa.

Mr. Anderson has recorded an album of works by various artists including Schumann, Gershwin, Avner Dorman (world premiere), and Jonathan Keren (world premiere) with SHUFFLE Concert (in-house label, October 2013). He is also featured on Unremembered, a song cycle by Sarah Kirkland Snider (New Amsterdam Records, September 2015).

A popular collaborator, among his numerous guest appearances with distinguished ensembles are performances with the American Ballet Theater, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, East Coast Contemporary Ensemble (ECCE), Harlem Chamber Players, and the Juilliard Orchestra.

Equally adept in the classical and jazz genres, and dedicated to the next generation of musicians, Mr. Anderson regularly schedules teaching opportunities around his performances. He has served as a teaching artist for Carnegie Hall and the Little Orchestra Society in New York City, and Jazz House Kids, the only community arts organization in New Jersey exclusively dedicated to educating children through jazz.

As a conductor, Mr. Anderson has led a wide range of ensembles including the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, the University Orchestra of the City University of New Jersey, and numerous choral and smaller orchestral groups on both the East and West Coast. Since 2014, Mr. Anderson has served as the conductor of the Juilliard School Music Advancement Chorus.

Currently, Mr. Anderson serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School (MAP), Manhattan School of Music (Precollege), and Harlem School of the Arts and is Director of Music at Wetherby-Pembridge School.

Manhattan School of Music Precollege Faculty since 2018.

Christina Bouey, Canada 🇨🇦

Canadian-American violinist, Christina Bouey, is hailed by the New York Times for playing “beautifully,” by the New York Post, “When violinist Christina Bouey spun out that shimmering tune, I thought I died and went to heaven,” and by Opera News, for playing “with exquisite, quivering beauty.” Her recent prizes include 1st Prize at the Schoenfeld International String Competition in the chamber division, Grand Prize at the Fischoff Competition, 1st place in the American Prize, and 2nd prize at the Osaka International Chamber Competition. Among her other top awards include the Hugo Kortchak Award for outstanding achievement in chamber music, Heida Hermann International, Canadian National Music Festival, Queens Concerto Competition, and the Balsam Duo Competition. Christina has performed as soloist with the Greenwich Symphony, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Salina Symphony, River Cities Symphony, Symphony of the Mountains, Tonkünstler Ensemble, Metro Chamber Orchestra, Bergen Symphony, Prince Edward Island Symphony, Banff Orchestra, Shattered Glass and the Hemenway Strings.

Her solo and chamber credits include Carnegie Hall, Esterházy Palace, Taiwan National Recital Hall, Harbin Grand Theatre, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Schneider Series, Rockefeller Tri-I Noon Series, Dame Myra Hess series, La Jolla Summer Fest, Premiere Performances Hong Kong, Vietnam Connection Music Festival, Kneisel Hall Festival, Emilia Romagna Festival, Harvard Club of New York, Montreal Chamber Festival, Debut Atlantic, Kansas International Music Festival, L'Archet Concert Group and the Indian River Festival. She has also been featured on WQXR New York.

Christina has collaborated with artists such as David Chan, Jeremy Denk, Paul Coletti, Lynn Chang, Robert DeMaine, Steven Doane, Rosemary Elliott, David Geber, Clive Greensmith, Toby Hoffman, Chee-Yun Kim, Yura Lee, Cho-Liang Lin, and Bright Sheng.

Christina graduated from Manhattan School of Music (2013) with a Professional Studies Certificate in Orchestral Performance, studying with Glenn Dicterow and Lisa Kim as a full scholarship student, (2012) with a Professional Studies Certificate, studying with Laurie Smukler, and in 2011 she received a Master of Music, while studying with Nicholas Mann. Her Bachelor of Music (Magnum cum laude) is from The Boston Conservatory; where she studied with Irina Muresanu as a full-scholarship student.

In June 2014, as part of the 150 year celebrations on PEI, professional dancers from Ballet Jazz de Montreal performed a modern dance to her first compositional commission for solo violin, with Christina playing it on the violin. Christina is currently serving as concertmaster of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, is a member/founder of the Ulysses String Quartet, and plays in a duo with pianist Tatiana Tessman. She plays an 1820 Pressenda on generous loan from the Canada Council Instrument Bank. To keep up to date with Christina, you can follow her website www.christinabouey.com

Stephanie Chase, USA 🇺🇸

Stephanie Chase is internationally recognized as “one of the violin greats of our era” (Newhouse Newspapers) through solo appearances with over 170 orchestras that include the New York and Hong Kong Philharmonics and the Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta and London Symphony Orchestras. Her interpretations are acclaimed for their "elegance, dexterity, rhythmic vitality and great imagination" (Boston Globe), "stunning power" (Louisville Courier-Journal), "matchless technique" (BBC Music Magazine), and “virtuosity galore” (Gramophone).

“Renowned for her impeccable intonation” (Temperament, Stuart Isacoff), her playing is also characterized by “great intensity and a huge tone, the epitome of the modern violinist” (The Baroque Cello Revival, Paul Laird).

A top medalist of the prestigious VII International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Ms. Chase has performed concerts in twenty-five countries throughout the world and is a recipient of the esteemed Avery Fisher Career Grant. In recent seasons her performances have been selected as a “Classical Act of the Decade” (Courier-Journal, Louisville), one of "20 Concerts to Hear this Fall" (WQXR) and “Critics' Choice” (Musical America).

 Equally at home in the virtuoso's repertoire, historically informed performance practice and contemporary music, Ms. Chase offers a diverse repertoire of over 60 concertos and large works for violin and orchestra. Her recordings include Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, which is “one of the twenty most outstanding performances in the work's recorded history” (Beethoven: Violin Concerto; Cambridge University Press) and honored with the highest possible ratings by BBC Music Magazine and Classic CD, including “Record of the Month.”

 Born in Illinois, Stephanie Chase’s early violin teachers were her mother and Sally Thomas, and she was renowned as a child prodigy through concert performances starting at age two. She made her debut with the Chicago Symphony at eight and began extensive national concert touring while in her early teens. Following her Carnegie Hall debut at eighteen, she studied violin privately with Arthur Grumiaux and chamber music at the Marlboro Festival.

Ms. Chase often performs in the dual roles of violin soloist and conductor, and she is a favorite guest of chamber music festivals such as Bravo! Vail, Bargemusic, and Caramoor. Her violin was made in 1742 by Petrus Guarnerius of Venice, which she pairs with a bow made by Dominique Peccatte. 

Steven Doane, USA 🇺🇸

Internationally known soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, recording artist, and pedagogue Steven Doane appears at festivals and on concert series throughout the United States and overseas. Doane received his BM from Oberlin Conservatory and his MM from SUNY Stony Brook. He received a Watson Foundation Grant for overseas study in 1975, and had further studies with Richard Kapuscinski, Bernard Greenhouse, Jane Cowan, and Janos Starker. Steven Doane and Eastman pianist Barry Snyder have made a series of recordings for the Bridge label. The duo’s recording of the complete music of Gabriel Fauré for cello and piano was awarded the Diapason D’or in France, and has been broadcast throughout the United States and Canada, over the BBC in England, and throughout Europe. The second recording in the series, of works by Britten and Frank Bridge, was also released to critical acclaim. Steven Doane received Eastman’s Eisenhart Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1993, and the Piatigorsky Prize in teaching at the New England Conservatory in 1986. As a member of the New Arts Trio, Doane was awarded the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1980. He made his Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center debuts in Don Quixote with David Zinman and the Rochester Philharmonic in 1983. His Tully Hall recital debut occurred in 1990, and has been followed by numerous recital appearances, including programs in London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Saunders Theater, and many other venues. Steven Doane currently holds the title of “visiting professor” at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he has done several residencies.

Rosemary Elliott-Doane, Great Britain 🇬🇧

Rosemary Elliott-Doane, Assistant Professor of Cello at the Eastman School of Music, has an active performing schedule as chamber musician and recitalist. As principle cellist of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra in Ithaca, New York she was nominated to the artistic advisory board of that organization, and is a core member of the orchestra’s chamber music ensemble. Prior to her appointment at Eastman, Ms. Elliott was a member of the cello staff at the Royal College of Music, in London, (1994-1998) and performed regularly with some of most notable chamber orchestras there, including the London Mozart Players, the City of London Sinfonia, and the Orchestra of St. John’s Smith Square. Ms. Elliott has been for 10 years a member of the performing and teaching staff at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Brunswick, Maine. As a guest chamber musician she has also participated in the Skaneatles and Icicle Creek Chamber Music festivals, the Heifetz Academy in Wolfboro, New Hampshire, the International Musician’s Seminar in Cornwall, England, and the Kerry Chamber Music Festival in Ireland. In 2006 she appeared as guest clinician and gave master classes at the European String Teacher’s Association summer workshop in Edinburgh, Scotland. Ms. Elliott has performed with the Rochester Chamber Society, and is a founding member of the Rochester-based cello quartet, the Cello Divas.

Clive Greensmith, Great Britain 🇬🇧

From 1999 until its final season in 2013, Clive Greensmith was a member of the world-renowned Tokyo String Quartet, giving over one hundred performances each year in the most prestigious international venues, including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, London’s South Bank, Paris Chatelet, Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Musikverein, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. He has collaborated with international artists such as Andras Schiff, Pinchas Zukerman, Leon Fleisher, Lynn Harrell, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Alicia de Larrocha, and Emanuel Ax.

Mr. Greensmith has given guest performances at prominent festivals worldwide. In North America he has performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Marlboro Music Festival, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Cleveland Chamber Fest, and the Ravinia Festival. He is a regular guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and will undertake a national tour with Paul Huang, Wu Han, and Matthew Lipman in 2020. Internationally he has appeared at the Salzburg Festival in Austria, Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, Pacific Music Festival in Japan and the Hong Kong Arts Festival. As a soloist, Clive Greensmith has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, and the RAI Orchestra of Rome among others. 

During a career spanning over twenty-five years, Mr. Greensmith has built up a catalog of landmark recordings, most notably The Complete Beethoven String Quartets for Harmonia Mundi with the Tokyo String Quartet, Mozart’s ‘Prussian’ Quartets with the Tokyo String Quartet, Brahms Cello Sonatas with Boris Berman for Biddulph Recordings, and Clarinet Trios of Beethoven and Brahms with Jon Nakamatsu and Jon Manasse for Harmonia Mundi. Toccata Classics will release a live recording of his world premiere performance of the Pál Hermann Cello Concerto with Theodore Kuchar and the Lviv International Symphony Orchestra in the spring of 2019.

Mr. Greensmith studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in England with American cellist, Donald McCall, where he was the recipient of the prestigious Julius Isserlis Scholarship. He continued his studies at the Cologne Musikhochschule in Germany with Russian cellist Boris Pergamenschikow.

In 1987, he made his concerto debut with the London Symphony Orchestra and went on to be first prize winner in the Sergio Lorenzi chamber music competition in Trieste, Italy, and first prize winner in the Caltanissetta Duo competition. Most notably, he was a major prizewinner in the first ever “Premio Stradivari” held in Cremona, Italy in 1991. 

Deeply committed to the mentoring and development of young musicians, Clive has enjoyed a long and distinguished teaching career. In addition to his fifteen-year residency with the Tokyo String Quartet at Yale University, Mr. Greensmith has served as a faculty member at the Yehudi Menuhin School and Royal Northern College of Music in England, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. In 2013, following the final concerts of the Tokyo String Quartet, Mr. Greensmith joined the faculty at the Colburn School where he teaches cello and coaches chamber music for the Conservatory of Music and the Music Academy. Students of Mr. Greensmith have gone on to secure major positions in orchestras throughout the world and have won a number of prestigious awards. In July 2019, he will succeed Günther Pichler as director of string chamber music at the Accademia Chigiana International Festival and Summer Academy in Siena. 

Formerly the principal cellist of London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Mr. Greensmith is a founding member of the Montrose Trio with pianist Jon Kimura Parker, and violinist Martin Beaver.

Grace Ho, Taiwan 🇹🇼

Taiwanese-American cellist Grace Ho is an active cello soloist and chamber musician in the United States and Asia. Ms. Ho has appeared as a soloist with orchestras including the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra, Evergreen Symphony Orchestra, Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra, Ho Chi Minh City Symphony Orchestra, Sun Taipei Philharmonic, Vienna Ensemble, Lewisville Lake Symphony Orchestra, Manhattan School of Music Philharmonic Orchestra, Kansas Wesleyan Orchestra, and University of North Texas Chamber Orchestra. 

Ms. Ho has achieved numerous awards including First Prize in the Manhattan School of Music Eisenberg-Fried Concerto Competition, winner in the University of North Texas Concerto Competition, and Silver Medal in the Crescendo Music Awards. Ms. Ho has performed in prestigious concert halls such as Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Weill Recital Hall, and Zankel Hall, Meyerson Symphony Center, Taiwan National Concert and Recital Halls, and the Opera Houses in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City as the soloist in the 2018 Toyota Tour in Vietnam. Ms. Ho is a founding member of the Ulysses Quartet, who is the Graduate String Quartet Resident at the Juilliard School for 2019-2021.  They are the First Prize winner in the 2018 Schoenfeld International String Competition, Grand Prize and Gold Medal winners of the Fischoff Competition in 2016, semi-finalist at the 2016 Banff International String Quartet Competition, Silver Medalist of the 9th Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in 2017, and First Prize winners of the American Prize in 2017.  Ulysses was also the Quartet-in-Residence of the 2017 La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, and appeared as guest performers in Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Inside Chamber Music in 2017. Ms. Ho is also the Principal Cellist of the Miami Symphony Orchestra and a board member of the International Chamber Players. 

Ms. Ho has participated in numerous festivals include Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, ENCORE School for Strings, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Manchester Music Festival, Texas Music Festival, International Festival Institute at Round Top, and Teaching Assistant at Manhattan in the Mountains in 2013.

Ms. Ho received her Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music, and her Bachelor of Music from the University of North Texas with full scholarships,  and graduating with the Pablo Casals Award from her Master’s Degree. Former teachers include David Geber, Clive Greensmith, Eugene Osadchy, Chao-Fu Lin, Shih-San Lin, Tze-Ming Chen, and Shih-Hui Ho.

Felix Olschofka, Germany 🇩🇪

German-born and raised violinist, Dr. Felix Olschofka, has toured as a soloist, concertmaster, and chamber musician throughout Europe, Asia, North America, and South America.  His playing has been described as "violinistic pyrotechnics" (TheaterJones Dallas), "charged with beauty" (Gramophone), "a true dream of romantic melodiousness" (General-Anzeiger-Bonn), and "remarkable for dramatic power" (Star-Telegram Fort Worth). 

Olschofka is currently Professor of Violin and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton, Texas. Olschofka founded the UNT Summer String Institute in 2014, and serves as both director and faculty for this two-week long workshop for highly talented pre-college and college students.  His previous teaching engagements include serving as Associate Professor at San Diego State University and teaching at summer festivals such as Round Top Music Festival, Bay View Music Festival, Summit Music Festival, and the CICA International Music Festival.  Olschofka is a winner of numerous awards and competitions. He was awarded two first prizes in the prestigious German Youth Music Competition (solo and chamber music category), second prize in the International chamber music competition Charles Hennen in the Netherlands and a grant from the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation. His former students are members of world-renowned orchestras such as Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, and Houston Symphony, and prizewinners at national and international competitions such as the Boyer Music Competition, Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition.

Recently, Olschofka has given master classes at renowned institutions such as Yale University, Eastman School of Music, Temple University, New York University, Arizona State University, China Conservatory, Renmin University, Seoul National University, Ewha Womans University, National Taiwan Normal University, Academy of Music and Theater Rostock, Universidad de Sao Paulo, Universidad de Santiago, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

In 1993, Olschofka gave his international solo debut at the Seoul Arts Center with the Seoul Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Roman Kofman, with whom he made his several recordings for Korean television and radio. His performances have been recorded and released by several radio and TV broadcasting stations such as NPR (USA), KBS (South-Korea), Megavision and ATB (South America), NRPR (Rumania), Deutsche Welle, ZDF, and WDR (Germany). As a proponent of contemporary music, Olschofka is a co-founder of SWARMIUS and TrioPolis with Kimberly Cole Luevano (clarinet) and Anatolia Ioannides (piano), commissioning new works and forging innovating, interdisciplinary collaborations across the performing arts. His orchestral background includes serving as concertmaster of the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra, associate concertmaster with the Brandenburg Philharmonic Potsdam (Germany), and guest concertmaster with the Dallas Chamber Symphony and Shreveport Symphony. From 2011-14, he also led the Ensemble du Monde in New York City as their concertmaster.

Aside from his active performing and teaching career, Olschofka serves as an adjudicator on various juries of national and international competitions such as the national violin competition Hermilo Novelo in Mexico, the International Queen Sophie Charlotte Violin Competition, and the International Max Bruch Violin Competition Cologne in Germany.

Olschofka holds a bachelor and master degree from the Music Conservatory Hanns Eisler in Berlin, a performance certificate from Indiana University and a doctorate from the University of California San Diego. His teachers and mentors include Hannelore Olschofka, Michael Gaiser, Werner Scholz, and Mauricio Fuks.

Paul Neubauer, USA 🇺🇸

Violist Paul Neubauer’s exceptional musicality and effortless playing led the New York Times to call him “a master musician.” This season he will appeain recital and with orchestras in the U.S. and Asia including his Chicago Symphony subscription debut with Riccardo Muti performing Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with violinist Robert Chen. His recording of the Aaron Kernis Viola Concerto with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, a work he premiered with the St. Paul Chamber, Los Angeles Chamber, and Idyllwild Arts orchestras and the Chautauqua Symphony, will be released on Signum Records.

Appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at age 21, he has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras including the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki philharmonics; National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco, and Bournemouth symphonies; and Santa Cecilia, English Chamber, and Beethovenhalle orchestras. He has premiered viola concertos by Bartók (revised version of Viola Concerto), Friedman, Glière, Jacob, Kernis, Lazarof, Müller-Siemens, Ott, Penderecki, Picker, Suter, and Tower and has been featured on CBS’ Sunday Morning, A Prairie Home Companion, and in Strad, Strings, and People magazines.

A two-time Grammy nominee, he has recorded on numerous labels including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Red Seal, and Sony Classical, and in 2016 he released a solo album of music recorded at Music@Menlo. Mr. Neubauer was recently appointed artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey and is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Mannes College.

Ulysses Quartet, USA 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇹🇼

The Ulysses String Quartet has been praised for their “textural versatility,” “grave beauty,” and “gentle blanket of color,” (Strad) as well as “avid enthusiasm ... [with] chops to back up their passion” and a “vibrant sonority” (San Diego Story). Winners of the Grand Prize and the Gold Medal in the Senior String Division of the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the group was founded in the summer of 2015. Ulysses also won First Place in the American Prize, and 2nd Prize of the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in 2017. The quartet competed in the Semifinals round of the 2016 Banff International String Quartet Competition where they garnered a Career Development Grant.

Hailing from Canada, the United States and Taiwan, members have performed in prestigious halls such as Esterházy Palace, Carnegie Hall, and the Taiwan National Concert Hall. Recent season highlights include appearances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, Emilia Romagna Festival, Kneisel Hall and the Schneider Concerts. Upcoming appearances include the NOVA Chamber Series, a return to the Louis Moreau Institute in New Orleans, and a residency at L’Archet Concert Series. Members perform on instruments and bows graciously on loan from the Canada Council of the Arts Instrument Bank and the Maestro Foundation.

Along with active chamber music careers, Ulysses members hold principal positions with groups such as the Cape Symphony, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, International Chamber Players, and Miami Symphony and Shattered Glass. They received degrees from the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory and Yale University. Members are pursuing their Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree at the City University of New York, Manhattan School of Music, and Stony Brook University.