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Anonymous 4 are an American female a cappella quartet, based in New York City. Their main performance genre is medieval music, although they have also premiered works by recent composers such as John Tavener and Steve Reich. They have performed in cities throughout North America, and have been regulars at major international festivals.
Learn more about Anonymous 4.
American Brass Quintet American Brass Quintet
The American Brass Quintet is internationally recognized as one of the premier chamber music ensembles of our time, celebrated for peerless leadership in the brass world. As 2013 recipient of Chamber Music America’s highest honor, the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award for significant and lasting contributions to the field, ABQ's rich history includes performances in Asia, Australia, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East and all fifty of the United States; a discography of nearly sixty recordings; and the premieres of over one hundred fifty contemporary brass works.
The New York Times recently wrote that “among North American brass ensembles none is more venerable than the American Brass Quintet,” while Newsweek has hailed the ensemble as “the high priests of brass” and American Record Guide has called the ABQ “of all the brass quintets, the most distinguished.” Through its acclaimed performances, diverse programming, commissioning, extensive discography and educational mission, the American Brass Quintet has created a legacy unparalleled in the brass field.
Aspen String Trio Aspen String Trio
Consistently praised for their “masterful sensitivity” and “ultra-refined musicianship,” their “tight ensemble work” and “musical intelligence,” Aspen String Trio formed as summer artist teaching colleagues at Aspen Music Festival and School more than twenty years ago.  Formerly a member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, violinist David Perry now leads the Pro Arte Quartet, in residence at University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he holds an endowed professorship; he is also concertmaster of the Chicago Philharmonic.  Violist Victoria Chiang is a member of the artist faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of Music; formerly on the faculty of The Juilliard School and the Hartt School of Music, she previously served on the board of the American Viola Society.  Cellist Michael Mermagen is Associate Professor of Cello at UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance. Formerly Associate Professor of Cello and Chamber Music at The Catholic University of America, he has served as Chamber Symphony Principal Cellist of the Aspen Music Festival and School for more than 25 years.
Benjamin Beilman has won praise both for his passionate performances and deep rich tone which the Washington Post called “mightily impressive,” and The New York Times described as “muscular with a glint of violence.”
In 2018-19 Beilman will appear with Symphony Orchestras in Oregon, Cincinnati, North Carolina and Indianapolis, and Orchestra St. Luke’s. He also play-directs both the Vancouver Symphony and the New Century Chamber Orchestra. Abroad, Mr. Beilman performs with the Cologne Philharmonie, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Bruckner Orchestra Linz, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Iceland Symphony and Nagoya Philharmonic in Japan.
“Demons,” a new work written for Beilman and pianist Orion Weiss by Frederic Rzewski and commissioned by Music Accord, was premiered in 2018 at Baltimore’s Shriver Hall Concert Series, the Boston Celebrity Series and later presented in recital with the Gilmore Festival and Grand Teton Festival. Beilman and Weiss will continue to perform the work in recital during the 2018-19 season at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center and Spivey Hall. Other upcoming recital appearances include Wigmore Hall, Kennedy Center, Philadelphia’s Perelman Theater, and Carnegie Hall.
Mr. Beilman garnered worldwide attention following his First Prize wins in both the 2010 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the 2010 Montréal International Musical Competition. He went on to receive a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a London Music Masters Award and an exclusive recording contract with Warner Classics. In 2016 he released his first disc for the label, titled Spectrum, featuring works by Stravinsky, Janáček and Schubert.
Beilman studied with Almita and Roland Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago, Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank at the Curtis Institute of Music, and Christian Tetzlaff at the Kronberg Academy. He plays the "Engleman" Stradivarius from 1709 generously on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.
Music Contemporary Chamber Ensemble
Eighth Blackbird, hailed as “one of the smartest, most dynamic contemporary classical ensembles on the planet” (Chicago Tribune), began in 1996 as a group of six entrepreneurial Oberlin Conservatory students and quickly became “a brand-name defined by adventure, vibrancy and quality” (Detroit Free Press). Over the course of more than two decades, Eighth Blackbird has continually pushed at the edges of what it means to be a contemporary chamber ensemble, presenting distinct programs in Chicago, nationally, and internationally, reaching audiences totaling tens of thousands. The sextet has commissioned and premiered hundreds of works by composers both established and emerging, and have perpetuated the creation of music with profound impact, such as Steve Reich’s Double Sextet, which went on to win the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. The ensemble’s extensive recording history, primarily with Chicago’s Cedille Records, has produced more than a dozen acclaimed albums and four Grammy Awards for Best Small Ensemble/Chamber Music Performance, most recently in 2016 for Filament. Longstanding collaborative relationships have led to performances with some of the most well-regarded classical artists of today from heralded performers like Dawn Upshaw and Jeremy Denk, to seminal composers like Philip Glass and Nico Muhly. In recent projects, Eighth Blackbird has joined forces with composers and performers who defy the persistent distinction between classical and non­classical music, including works by The National’s Bryce Dessner and Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Perry, and performances with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, My Brightest Diamond frontwoman Shara Nova, Will Oldham aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Iarla Ó Lionáird of The Gloaming, among others.
Eighth Blackbird first gained wide recognition in 1998 as winners of the Concert Artists Guild Competition. Since 2000, the ensemble has called Chicago home, and has been committed to serving as both importer and exporter of world class artistic experiences to and from Chicago. A recent year-long pioneering residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art-Chicago, during which the ensemble served as a living installation with open rehearsals, performances, guest artists, and public talks, exemplified their stature as community influencers. Receiving the prestigious MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, Chamber Music America’s inaugural Visionary Award, and being named Musical America’s 2017 Ensemble of the Year have supported Eighth Blackbird’s position as a catalyst for innovation in the new music ecosystem of Chicago and beyond.
Phillip Boykin, a native of Greenville, South Carolina, began his vocal and theater training at the P. W. Dwight E. Woods Repertory Theater for Youth, directed and created by his adopted father the late Dwight E. Woods; The Greenville Fine Arts Center; and The South Carolina Governor’s School of the Arts. His exceptional gifts led him to explore the musical worlds of Opera and Musical Theater. Boykin earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the Hartt School of music at the University of Hartford and pursued a Master’s degree in Opera and Jazz Vocals at Howard University.
In the course of his prestigious career, Boykin has toured both nationally and internationally, portraying the roles of Crown, Jake, and Jim in “Porgy and Bess” throughout Germany, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Europe, and the United States.  Mr Boykin is the recipient of a TONY Award, a Drama Desk Award, and an Outer Critic’s Circle Award Nomination. He received the 2012 Theater World Award for his Outstanding Broadway Debut and the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award from his Alma Mater, The Hartt School.
Violist Hillary Herndon has earned a national reputation for her brilliant playing, creative programming, and insightful teaching. She has been heard on NPR and PBS and has collaborated with some of the world’s foremost artists, including Carol Wincenc, James VanDermark, and Itzhak Perlman. Herndon is dedicated to expanding the repertoire for viola through commissions of new compositions as well as research, performance, and advocacy of little-known works. Her recitals often feature brand-new or unknown repertoire alongside the standard canon.
A dedicated teacher, Herndon has a thriving studio at the University of Tennessee and has taught at the Sewanee, Monticello, and round top Summer Music Festivals. She is the director and founder of the Annual UT Viola Celebration, as well as co-founder of the Viola Winter Intensive.
Herndon serves as President-Elect of the American Viola Society. She received her Master’s Degree from the Julliard School where she studied with Heidi Castleman, Hsin-Yun Huang and Misha Amory. She also holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Eastman, where she studied with George Taylor and graduated with High Honors.
Violist, Conductor and Educator
Music Violist, Conductor and Educator
Violist Miles Hoffman is founder and artistic director of The American Chamber Players.  He made his New York recital debut in 1979 at the 92nd Street Y and has since appeared frequently around the country in recital, as a chamber musician, and as a soloist with many orchestras.  In 1982, he founded the Library of Congress Summer Chamber Festival, which he directed for nine years, and which led to the formation of the American Chamber Players. His musical commentary, “Coming to Terms,” was heard weekly throughout the United States for thirteen years – from 1989 to 2002 – on NPR’s Performance Today, and now, as Music Commentator for National Public Radio’s flagship news program, Morning Edition, he is regularly heard by a national audience of nearly 14 million people.  Mr. Hoffman is the author of The NPR Classical Music Companion: Terms and Concepts from A to Z, now in its tenth printing from the Houghton Mifflin Company.
Hoffman is a graduate of Yale University and the Juilliard School, and in 2003 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Centenary College of Louisiana in recognition of his achievements as a performer and educator.
(photo credit: Mary Noble Ours)
Violinist David Kim was named concertmaster of The Philadelphia Orchestra in 1999. Born in Carbondale, IL, in 1963, he started playing the violin at the age of three, began studies with the famed pedagogue Dorothy DeLay at the age of eight, and later received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School.
Highlights of Mr. Kim’s 2019–20 season include appearing as soloist with The Philadelphia Orchestra; teaching/performance residencies and master classes at the University of Texas at Austin, the Manhattan School of Music, Bob Jones University, the Taipei (Taiwan) Academy and Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival; continued appearances as concertmaster of the All-Star Orchestra on PBS stations across the United States and online at the Kahn Academy; as well as recitals, speaking engagements, and appearances with orchestras across the United States.
Mr. Kim has been awarded honorary doctorates from Eastern University in suburban Philadelphia, the University of Rhode Island, and Dickinson College. His instruments are a J.B. Guadagnini from Milan, ca. 1757, on loan from The Philadelphia Orchestra, and a Michael Angelo Bergonzi from Cremona, ca. 1754.
Morten Johannes Lauridsen (born February 27, 1943) is an American composer. A National Medal of Arts recipient (2007), he was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale (1994–2001) and has been a professor of composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music for more than 40 years.
A native of the Pacific Northwest, Lauridsen worked as a Forest Service firefighter and lookout (on an isolated tower near Mt. St. Helens) and attended Whitman College before traveling south to study composition at the University of Southern California with Ingolf Dahl, Halsey Stevens, Robert Linn, and Harold Owen. He began teaching at USC in 1967 and has been on their faculty ever since.
In 2006, Lauridsen was named an 'American Choral Master' by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2007 he received the National Medal of Arts from the President in a White House ceremony, "for his composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide."
His works have been recorded on more than 200 CDs, five of which have received Grammy Award nominations.
Learn more at Morten Lauridsen.
Mark Ostoich has been a faculty member with the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music (CCM) since 1996. In connection with CCM, Ostoich has served as artist-faculty of the CCM Spoleto Festival in Spoleto Italy, as well as the Lucca Festival and Opera Theatre of Lucca (Italy) and CCM’s Grandin Festival. He performs extensively in solo and chamber music settings and is in demand as a recitalist and clinician for master classes. Along with clarinetist Steve Cohen of Northwestern University, and bassoonist William Ludwig of Indiana University, Ostoich performs and tours regularly as the Trio Cayenne and Lyric Winds.
Ostoich has an extensive orchestral background and is frequently called upon to perform with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Cincinnati Ballet, Columbus Symphony, Columbus ProMusica and Dayton Philharmonic. He has performed as second oboe of the New York Philharmonic, associate principal of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, second oboe in the Cleveland Orchestra and principal oboe of the Louisiana (New Orleans) Philharmonic. He has held the principal oboe position of the Santa Fe Opera, was principal oboist of the Jacksonville Symphony for 12 seasons and was the principal oboist of the Baton Rouge Symphony for 13 seasons.
One of only two wind players to receive the Avery Fisher Prize since the award’s inception in 1974, David Shiffrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber music collaborator.
Shifrin has appeared with the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras and the Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, Detroit and Denver symphonies, and internationally with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. In addition, he has served as principal clarinetist with the Cleveland Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra (under Stokowski), the Honolulu and Dallas symphonies and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and New York Chamber Symphony.
Shifrin joined the faculty at the Yale School of Music in 1987 and was appointed Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Yale and Yale's annual concert series at Carnegie Hall in September 2008.  He has also served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, University of Southern California, University of Michigan, Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Hawaii. In 2007 he was awarded an honorary professorship at China's Central Conservatory in Beijing.
Music World Renowned Pianist
Gold medalist of the Fifteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, 28-year-old pianist Yekwon Sunwoo has been hailed for “his total command over the instrument and its expressiveness” (San Francisco Examiner). A powerful and virtuosic performer, he also, in his own words, “strives to reach for the truth and pure beauty in music,” and hopes to convey those fundamental emotions to audiences.
Born in Anyang, South Korea, Mr. Sunwoo began learning piano at age 8. He gave both his recital and orchestra debuts in 2004 in Seoul before moving to the United States in 2005 to study with Seymour Lipkin at the Curtis Institute of Music. He earned his bachelor’s degree there, his master’s at The Juilliard School with Robert McDonald, and his artist diploma at the Mannes School of Music with Richard Goode. He currently studies under Bernd Goetzke in Hannover. Mr. Sunwoo credits each for their guidance in his artistic development and approach, and honored the late Mr. Lipkin by performing his cadenza during his Semifinal Round performance of the Mozart Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467.
Learn more about Yekwon Sunwoo.
Louise Toppin has received critical acclaim for her operatic, orchestral, and oratorio performances in the United States, Europe, Czech Republic, Sweden, Uruguay, Scotland, China, England, New Zealand, the Caribbean, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Bermuda, Japan, and Spain.
Toppin’s opera roles include: the title role in the world premiere of the opera Luyala by William Banfield, Treemonisha in Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, Mary in William Grant Still’s Highway One, Maria in the world premiere of Joel Feigin’s opera Twelfth Night, the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Magic Flute, Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Clara in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. She most recently was contracted to sing Clara in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess for Baltimore Opera, Opera Carolina, and Piedmont Opera companies.
Jeremy Wilson is Associate Professor of Trombone at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music. Prior to his appointment at Blair, he was a member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and its sister organization, the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. He joined those orchestras at the age of 25 after winning what was his first-ever orchestral audition, and in 2010 became one of just a handful of Americans to have ever been made a full member of the Vienna Philharmonic Society.
Wilson is an active soloist and clinician. He has been a featured guest artist at the International Trombone Festival, the American Trombone Workshop and the Trombones de Costa Rica Festival, and has given many solo recitals, concerto performances, master classes and lectures around the United States. Wilson has won numerous solo competitions, including the International Trombone Association’s Frank Smith Competition and the Eastern Trombone Workshop National Solo Competition, which he won four consecutive times.
Joseph Young is Music Director of the Berkeley Symphony, Artistic Director of Ensembles for the Peabody Conservatory, and Resident Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra–USA at Carnegie Hall.   In recent years, he has made appearances with the Saint Louis Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Colorado Symphony,and Detroit Symphony, among others in the U.S. and Europe.
In his most recent role, Young served as the Assistant Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony where he conducted more than 50 concerts per season. Mr. Young also served as the Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, where he was the driving force behind the ensemble’s artistic growth.  Previous appointments have included Resident Conductor of the Phoenix Symphony, and the League of American Orchestras Conducting Fellow with Buffalo Philharmonic and Baltimore Symphony.
Young is a recipient of the 2015 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award for young conductors, an award he also won in 2008, and 2014.  In 2013, Young was a Semi-finalist in the Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition (Bamberg, Germany). In 2011, he was one out of six conductors featured in the League of American Orchestras' prestigious Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview.
Young completed graduate studies with Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar at the Peabody Conservatory in 2009, earning an artist's diploma in conducting.  He has been mentored by many world-renowned conductors including Jorma Panula, Robert Spano and Marin Alsop, with whom he continues to maintain a close relationship.