Aliisa Neige Barrière is a French-Finnish conductor with a broad repertoire ranging from early to contemporary music, who puts special emphasis on carefully curated programs around engaging dramaturgies and bringing previously silenced voices to the forefront. Her passion for making new voices heard has also led her to actively commission new works. In her still young career, Barrière has already collaborated with numerous orchestras and ensembles including Sinfonia Lahti, Avanti!, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Oulu Sinfonia, Tampere Philharmonic, BIT20 and the Swedish Radio Orchestra, to name a few.
In 2023, Barrière graduated from the Sibelius Academy orchestral conducting class, where she studied under the tutelage of Sakari Oramo. Previously, she was a student of Jorma Panula at the Panula Academy. She has since regularly worked as an assistant to conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Susanna Mälkki, Sakari Oramo and Pekka Kuusisto.
In 2021-2023 she served as the assistant conductor to Dalia Stasevska with Sinfonia Lahti and held the position of Young Conductor in Residence with the Århus Sinfonietta. In 2023, she was awarded the Young Artist Award at the Mikkeli Festival.
Originally a violinist, Barrière honed her leadership skills as a guest concertmaster or section leader in ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Secession Orchestra, Barokksolistene and the Oslo Sinfonietta. Her violin studies took her from Paris, as a student of Suzanne Gessner and Richard Schmoucler, to New York, where she studied with Renee Jolles, Laurie Smukler and Lewis Kaplan. She then moved to Oslo where she finished her studies as a student of Peter Herresthal and Isabelle van Keulen.
She also studied baroque violin under Nancy Wilson in New York and Bjarte Eike and Catherine Martin in Oslo.
In the 2023–2024 season, Barrière will make her debut at the Ojai Festival, leading the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and make her return to the Mikkeli Festival with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. She will also be the Artist-in-Residence of the Turku Music Festival, curating a series of concerts ranging from chamber music to orchestral music around the concept of uchrony or alternate history.
One of the most revered artists of our time, Mitsuko Uchida is known as a peerless interpreter of the works of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Beethoven, as well for being a devotee of the piano music of Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and György Kurtág. She is Musical America’s 2022 Artist of the Year, and a Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist across the 2022/3, 2023/4 and 2024/5 seasons. Her latest recording, of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, was released to critical acclaim earlier this year, has been nominated for a Grammy® Award, and won the 2022 Gramophone Piano Award.
She has enjoyed close relationships over many years with the world’s most renowned orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and – in the US – the Chicago Symphony and The Cleveland Orchestra, with whom she recently celebrated her 100th performance at Severance Hall. Conductors with whom she has worked closely have included Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Jurowski, Andris Nelsons, Gustavo Dudamel, and Mariss Jansons.
Since 2016, Mitsuko Uchida has been an Artistic Partner of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom she is currently engaged on a multi-season touring project in Europe, Japan and North America. She also appears regularly in recital in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, London, New York and Tokyo, and is a frequent guest at the Salzburg Mozartwoche and Salzburg Festival.
Mitsuko Uchida records exclusively for Decca, and her multi-award-winning discography includes the complete Mozart and Schubert piano sonatas. She is the recipient of two Grammy® Awards – for Mozart Concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra, and for an album of lieder with Dorothea Röschmann – and her recording of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto with Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra won the Gramophone Award for Best Concerto.
A founding member of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust and Director of Marlboro Music Festival, Mitsuko Uchida is a recipient of the Golden Mozart Medal from the Salzburg Mozarteum, and the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association. She has also been awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Wigmore Hall Medal, and holds Honorary Degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In 2009 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Vicente Alberola is the Artistic Director of Music Masters Course Valencia (MMCV), principal clarinetist of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and solo clarinetist of Les Dissonances and the Utopia Orchestra.
Alberola studied with Walter Boeykens at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, Belgium. At the same time, he took lessons with George Pieterson (of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra) and Larry Combs (of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra). For more than 20 years, Alberola was principal clarinetist of the opera orchestras in Madrid and Galicia. During the last decade, he has been a guest principal clarinetist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, and the MMCK Tokyo Orchestra. He has played under the baton of Claudio Abbado, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Daniele Gatti, Daniel Harding, Andris Nelsons, Gustavo Dudamel, Alan Gilbert, Nicola Luisotti, among others.
In 2003, he was appointed conductor of the Madrid Opera Youth Orchestra, and in 2007, conductor of the Soria Youth Orchestra. He was the chief conductor of the Orquesta 430 of Vigo. He has conducted the Oviedo Filarmonía, the Orquesta de Castilla y León, the Madrid Symphony, the Real Filarmonía Santiago, the Orquesta del Valles, the Valencia Symphony, the National Youth Orchestra of Spain, the Youth Orchestra of the Canary Islands, and the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Galicia. Alberola has also conducted the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Beijing Festival and the Musikfest Hamburg. Recently, he has been invited by the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia and the MMCJ Tokyo.
In the field of chamber music, he is a regular guest at the Beethoven Festival Bonn, the Alélla Festival, and the Rachmaninoff Conservatory in Paris.
José Maria Blumenschein, a native of Freiburg (Germany) born of Brazilian parents, currently serves as 1st Concertmaster of the WDR Radio Symphony Orchestra in Cologne after serving as Associate Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra for three seasons. During his tenure with WDR he also took two Seasons off to perform as first Concertmaster of the Vienna State Opera and Philharmonic.
As a passionate leader he regularly performs with many Orchestras and Ensembles such as the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, London Symphony Orchestra, Bayerische Staatsoper, Dresden Staatskapelle, NDR Radio Orchestra and many more.
Blumenschein is also a founding member of ‘Kammermusik Köln’, a chamber music series in Cologne founded by members of WDR Radio, Gürzenich Orchestra, and Cologne Conservatory members to be the first all year chamber music series.
Born in 1985, Blumenschein received his first violin lesson at the age of four in Freiburg, Germany, at the “Pflüger Institute for Highly Gifted Children”. In 1990 he began studies with Vera Kramarowa in Mannheim. In 2001 Blumenschein was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied with conductor and violinist Joseph Silverstein and served as Concertmaster of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra.
Blumenschein has been performing with the Mahler Orchestra for almost two decades. Since 2023, he has shared the MCO’s concertmaster position with Matthew Truscott.
Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. “Passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding,” raves the London Independent; the New York Times extols its “luxuriously warm sound [and] yearning lyricism”; the Philadelphia Inquirer praises its “seemingly infallible instincts for finding the center of gravity in every phrase and musical gesture”; and the Times (London) opines, “the Brentanos are a magnificent string quartet…This was wonderful, selfless music-making.” The Quartet has performed across five continents in the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York; the Library of Congress in Washington; the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; the Konzerthaus in Vienna; Tokyo’s Suntory hall; and the Sydney Opera House. Festival appearances include Aspen, the Ojai Music Festival, the Edinburgh Festival, the Kuhmo Festival in Finland, and the Seoul Spring Festival of Chamber Music.
The Quartet has launched numerous projects that reimagine the standard concert program. In 2002, they celebrated their tenth anniversary by commissioning ten composers to write companion pieces for selections from Bach’s Art of Fugue, the result of which was an electrifying and wide-ranging single concert program. Fourteen years later, they revisited Bach’s masterpiece, performing the entire work in an ambitious multimedia project at the 92nd Street Y in New York with dancers, narrated excerpts, and an installation by artist Gabriel Calatrava. Recently, the Quartet presented a second multimedia project at the Y, which juxtaposed the poetry of Wallace Stevens with late Beethoven and music by composer Martin Bresnick. Other projects have included a three-program examination of Late Style, presented at Carnegie Hall; a program surveying the music of lamentation over the last 300 years crowned by Bartók’s Second Quartet; and numerous adaptations of music from Renaissance and early Baroque, including works by Josquin, Gesualdo, Purcell and Monteverdi.
The Quartet has been privileged to collaborate with such artists as soprano Jessye Norman, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, as well as pianists Jonathan Biss, Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida. The Quartet also maintains a strong commitment to new music, and has expanded the quartet canon by commissioning works from some of the most important composers of our time, among them Bruce Adolphe, Matthew Aucoin, Gabriela Frank, Stephen Hartke, Vijay Iyer, Steven Mackey, and Charles Wuorinen. Upcoming commissions and collaborations include a new quartet from Chinese composer Lei Liang; a viola quintet from James MacMillan; and a large-scale dramatic work, “Dido Reimagined,” based on the story of Dido and Aeneas, from composer Melinda Wagner and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann, to be performed with soprano Dawn Upshaw.
Dedicated and highly sought after as educators, the Quartet are currently Artists-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music, where they perform in concert each semester, work closely with students in chamber music contexts, and spearhead the instruction at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in the summers. The Quartet has given numerous master classes and workshops across the country, and returns annually to the Taos School of Music as visiting faculty. In 2013 and 2017, the Quartet assisted at the Cliburn International Piano Competition, performing quintets with competitors in the final rounds. Before coming to Yale, the Quartet served for fifteen years as Ensemble-in-Residence at Princeton University.
The Quartet has recorded extensively, releasing discs of quartets by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, as well as a recording of the Schubert Cello Quintet with Michael Kannen. The Quartet has also recorded music by several contemporary composers, among them Bruce Adolphe, Chou Wen-chung, Steven Mackey and Charles Wuorinen. The Quartet’s recording of Beethoven’s Quartet, Op. 131 was featured in the film “A Late Quartet,” starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Christopher Walken, released in 2012. In 2017, they recorded a live album with Joyce DiDonato, “Into the Fire—Live from Wigmore Hall,” which included works by Strauss, Debussy, Guillaume Lekeu and Jake Heggie for Warner Classics. Their most recent release features the K. 428 and K. 465 (“Dissonance”) Quartets of Mozart for the Azica label.
Awards and honors include the first Cleveland Quartet Award (1995); the Naumburg Chamber Music Award (1995); inaugural members of Chamber Music Society Two at the CMS of Lincoln Center (1996); and the Royal Philharmonic Award for Most Outstanding Debut (at Wigmore Hall in 1997.)
The Quartet is named for Antonie Brentano, whom many scholars consider to be Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved”, the intended recipient of his famous love confession.
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 — Campbell 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 violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, where he gave the premiere of Luca Francesconi’s cello concerto Das Ding Singt. 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 2023/2024 will premiere a new 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, premiering two concertos by Wadada Leo Smith and inti figgis-vizueta.
Campbell’s primary artistic interest is the collaboration with living creative musicians and has worked in this capacity with Catherine Lamb, John Luther Adams, Marcos Balter, Tyshawn Sorey, and many others. His close association with John Zorn 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, and multidisciplinary collective AMOC.
Noted for her “dazzling, virtuoso singing” (Boston Globe), Lucy Fitz Gibbon is a dynamic musician whose repertoire spans the Renaissance to the present. She believes that creating new works and recreating those lost in centuries past makes room for the multiplicity and diversity of voices integral to classical music’s future. As such, Ms. Fitz Gibbon has given modern premieres of rediscovered works by Baroque composers Francesco Sacrati, Barbara Strozzi, and Agostino Agazzari, as well by 20th century composers including Tadeusz Kassern, Florence Price, and Jean Barraqué. She has also worked closely with numerous others, workshopping and premiering works by Kate Soper, Sheila Silver, Reena Esmail, Roberto Sierra, and Pauline Oliveros, to name just a few. In helping to realize the complexities of music beyond written notes, the experience of working with these composers translates to all music: the commitment to faithfully communicate not only the score, but also the underlying intentions of its creator.
In concert, Fitz Gibbon has appeared as a soloist with orchestras including the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra; the Albany, Eureka, Lexington, Richmond, and Tulsa Symphonies; and the American Symphony Orchestra in her Carnegie Hall debut. In 2022-2023, she appears in concerts presented by Kneisel Hall, the Copland House, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Eureka Chamber Music Society, the Sacramento Chamber Music Society, Musicians from Marlboro, and Cornell, Bucknell, and Duke Universities. She will also cover the role of Laila in the premiere of Sheila Silver’s A Thousand Splendid Suns with Seattle Opera, and appear in Earl Kim’s Where Grief Slumbers at Boston’s Jordan Hall.
As a recitalist Ms. Fitz Gibbon has appeared with her husband and collaborative partner, pianist Ryan McCullough, in such venues as London’s Wigmore Hall; New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Park Avenue Armory, and Merkin Hall; Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center; and Toronto’s Koerner Hall. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, they recorded performances at home and in concert halls to be broadcast around the world; their recent appearance on PBS’ Great Performances was praised by the Wall Street Journal as “breathtaking.” Their discography includes Descent/Return, featuring works by James Primosch and John Harbison (Albany Records, May 2020) and Beauty Intolerable: Songs of Sheila Silver alongside artists including Dawn Upshaw and Stephanie Blythe (Albany Records, February 2021). A forthcoming album, The Labor of Forgetting, includes the world premiere recording of Katherine Balch’s estrangement.
A graduate of Yale University, Ms. Fitz Gibbon also holds an artist diploma from The Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory and a master’s degree from Bard College-Conservatory’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program; her principal teachers include Monica Whicher, Edith Bers, and Dawn Upshaw. She has spent summers at the Tanglewood Music Center (2014-2015) and Marlboro Music Festival (2016-2019, 2021-2022). She previously was Interim Director of Vocal Programs at Cornell University and now serves on the faculty of Bard College Conservatory’s Vocal Arts Programs. She also appeared as voice faculty and guest artist for the Kneisel Hall (2020-21) and SongFest (2022) summer festivals.
Sae Hashimoto (sa-eh ha-shee-moh-toh) is a Japanese-born percussionist. Her wide range of expertise and ever-growing musical curiosity have contributed to her multifaceted career that continues to evolve. Her virtuosity and unwavering commitment make her a sought-after performer in classical, baroque, contemporary and experimental music.
Hashimoto is passionate about performing music by living composers. As a member of piano/percussion quartet Yarn/Wire, as well as Talea Ensemble, she has worked closely with today’s leading voices in contemporary and experimental music including Tyshawn Sorey, Michael Gordon, Øyvind Torvund, Agata Zubel, and Annea Lockwood. A long time collaboration with John Zorn has resulted in premiering over a dozen of his works for the vibraphone, which are recorded on two albums on the Tzadik label.
As an orchestral musician Hashimoto has performed with the New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, New Jersey Symphony, and the American Composers Orchestra. She also performs baroque music on her 19th century period timpani with ensembles like TENET Vocal Artists and Clarion Music Society.
Her original music can be heard on a self-titled album by Archipelago X, an improv-based trio consisting of Brian Marsella on keyboards and 2022 MacArthur Fellow Ikue Mori on electronics. Hashimoto and Brian are currently working on a new project for the vibraphone and piano, with a new album set to be released in 2025.
Her love for percussion originated by chance in her 5th grade music class in Osaka, Japan, when she won her first drum set part in an epic game of rock-paper-scissors. She moved to New York City in 2012 to attend the Juilliard School, where she studied with Daniel Druckman and Markus Rhoten, with comprehensive scholarship support from the Kovner Fellowship.
Upon completing her Masters in 2018, she was selected as the percussion fellow for Ensemble Connect, a prestigious program of Carnegie Hall that combines musical excellence with education, advocacy and entrepreneurship.
Violinist Alexi Kenney is forging a career that defies categorization, following his interests, intuition, and heart. He is equally at home creating experimental programs and commissioning new works, soloing with major orchestras in the USA and abroad, and collaborating with some of the most celebrated musicians of our time. Kenney is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.
Following the 2021/22 season, which included solo appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, and l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Kenney devotes the first part of 2023 to the debut of his new project Shifting Ground, bringing it to the Celebrity Series of Boston, Cal Performances, Princeton University Concerts, and the Phillips Collection. Shifting Ground intersperses seminal works for solo violin by J.S. Bach with pieces of our time by Samuel Adams, Matthew Burtner, Steve Reich, Paul Wiancko, and Du Yun, as well as commissions by composers Salina Fisher and Angélica Negrón.
In recent years, Kenney has performed as soloist with the Detroit Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Virginia Symphony, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, California Symphony, and Sarasota Orchestra, as well as in a play-conduct role as guest leader of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He has played recitals at Wigmore Hall, on Carnegie Hall’s ‘Distinctive Debuts’ series, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, 92nd Street Y, Mecklenberg-Vorpommern Festival, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild Competition and laureate of the 2012 Menuhin Competition, Kenney has been profiled by Musical America, Strings Magazine, and The New York Times, and has written for The Strad.
Chamber music continues to be a major part of Kenney’s life, regularly performing at festivals including Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Chamber Music Northwest, Kronberg, La Jolla, Ojai, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Seattle, and Spoleto, as well as on tour with Musicians from Marlboro and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is a founding member of Owls, a new quartet collective with violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Gabe Cabezas, and cellist-composer Paul Wiancko.
Born in Palo Alto, California in 1994, Kenney is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he received an Artist Diploma as a student of Miriam Fried and Donald Weilerstein. Previous teachers in the Bay Area include Wei He, Jenny Rudin, and Natasha Fong. He plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and a bow by François-Nicolas Voirin.
Outside of music, Kenney enjoys hojicha, modernist design and architecture, baking for friends, and walking for miles on end in whichever city he finds himself, listening to podcasts and Bach on repeat.
Originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ljubinka Kulisic received her Bachelor’s and Master of Arts in Music Performance from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland in Lugano. After graduating in Switzerland, she moved to Canada for the Doctor of Musical Arts program at the University of Toronto, where she also worked as a teaching assistant for the Contemporary Music Ensemble. In 2017 she participated in Google Talks in San Francisco where she presented music for accordion to Google engineers. Kulisic participated in numerous concerts across Europe and North America. She has performed as a soloist with the New World Symphony in Miami and at the New England Conservatory in Boston as a member of the organization “Music for Food,” collaborated with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and violist Kim Kashkashian.
In addition to music, she is known in her country of birth for her political engagement. As a reward for her activism, in 2017 she was awarded the “Super Woman” award in her hometown, from which she had to escape with her parents as a one-year-old girl due to civil war.
She speaks four languages: Serbian, English, German, and Italian.
The Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO), founded in 1997, has established a distinct sound and independent artistic identity. The Orchestra’s philosophy, inspired by founding mentor Claudio Abbado, emphasizes the power of listening and communication both structurally and musically; they call it The Sound of Listening. It allows the Orchestra, its musicians and managing office, to operate as a democratic collective. Engaging with Artistic Partners, including Mitsuko Uchida, Yuja Wang, Pekka Kuusisto, Conductor Laureate Daniel Harding, Artistic Advisor Daniele Gatti, and Artistic Partner for Immersive Experiences Henrik Oppermann/Schallgeber; the MCO undertakes multiyear projects that explore diverse artistic themes.
With musicians representing 27 nationalities, residing in different parts of the world, the MCO reaches live audiences across 40 countries on five continents. The Orchestra maintains residencies at renowned venues including Carnegie Hall, Southbank Centre, Lucerne Festival, Mozartwoche Salzburg, and Festival de Saint-Denis. They are frequent guests at Philharmonie Berlin, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Musikverein Vienna, and Beethovenfest Bonn, and regularly tour Iberian and Asian regions. Their worldwide presence enables them to authentically engage with a global audience, fostering connections that resonate across borders and cultures.
In the realm of Outreach and Education, the MCO conducts three flagship projects. The MCO Academy allows orchestra members to share their expertise with the next generation of musicians in collaboration with Orchesterzentrum|NRW and undertake residencies at Konzerthaus Dortmund, Kölner Philharmonie and the Philharmonie Essen. Feel the Music introduces music to deaf and hard-of-hearing children, encouraging a multi-sensory experience. And Welcome Home: a concert about finding the place where you belong, in which school groups are invited on a multicultural journey, fostering introspection and contemplation on the theme of “Belonging”. These endeavors highlight the MCO’s commitment to enriching lives through music and promoting inclusivity.
In collaboration with Artistic Partner for Immersive Experiences Henrik Oppermann/Schallgeber, the MCO explores new digital technologies in and beyond the concert hall. Their virtual reality series immerses listeners deeper into performances and brings them closer to the music.
Through its vibrant performances, global reach, educational initiatives, and distinct entrepreneurship, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra continues to make a profound impact on the world of classical music.
Julie Smith Phillips, principal harpist of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, is one of the most prominent American harpists today, performing as both an orchestral musician and concert artist. She is a two-time medalist in the USA International Harp Competition having received the silver medal in 2004 and bronze in 2001. She made her National Symphony Orchestra debut in 2003 and has been honored in numerous other competitions throughout the country.
A recitalist and soloist with orchestra, Phillips’s appearances include multiple solo performances with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony, the South Dakota Symphony, the West Los Angeles Symphony, the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra, the National Repertory Orchestra, and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, among others. She has been a featured soloist for American Harp Society National Conferences, the USA International Harp Competition, Lyon & Healy’s 150th Birthday Celebration & Harptacular Concert series, the International Harp Festival, Harp Oklahoma Workshop, and has served as a guest artist at the Young Artist Harp Seminar.
Equally experienced as a chamber and orchestral musician, Phillips collaborates with renowned musicians across the country. A founding member of The Myriad Trio, she regularly appears in chamber concerts across the country and has performed abroad as well. Her chamber and orchestral festival credits include the Piedmont & Kingston Chamber Music Festivals, Breckenridge Music Festival, La Jolla SummerFest, Mainly Mozart, Mozaic Festival, Sun Valley Summer Symphony, Tanglewood Music Festival, and numerous others.
Prior to her post in San Diego, she served as acting principal harpist of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (2006–07) and principal harpist for the New World Symphony (2004–06). Phillips is an avid promoter and performer of new music. Numerous pieces have been written for and premiered by Phillips including Tree Suite for Harp by Hannah Lash; Cactus, a double concerto for harp and violin by Michael Torke; The Eye of Night by David Bruce; Variations on a Simple Theme by Avner Dorman; Petal by Petal Lei Liang; andSonata by Jeremy Cavaterra. She is also a recipient of the Mario Falcao Prize for Best Performance of Mischa Zupko’s Despedida (contemporary music selection at the 2004 USA International Harp Competition). Formerly head of the Harp Department at Arizona State University (2013–17), Phillips is the founder and director of the Nebraska Harp Workshop and maintains a private studio out of her home working with harpists on skills and career guidance. She is a certified instructor in the Suzuki harp method and is president of the San Diego Harp Society. She has recorded two albums: The Rhapsodic Harp and The Eye of Night. Phillips received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in harp performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Yolanda Kondonassis. Julie Smith Phillips is a native of Hastings, NE, and now resides in San Diego with her husband and three children.
Rick Stotijn studied double bass at the Conservatory in Amsterdam with his father Peter Stotijn and graduated with the highest distinction. He continued his studies with Bozo Paradzik at the Hochschule in Freiburg. He won several first prizes at competitions and was awarded the highest accolade for a musician in the Netherlands, the Dutch Music Prize. According to the jury, “Rick is a versatile musician with moving musicality and overwhelming virtuosity.”
Among the many solo appearances that followed worldwide was a Carte Blanche series in the Recital Hall of the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Stotijn performs regularly as a soloist with orchestras such as the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra, the Residentie Orkest Den Haag, South Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, Toulon Opera Symphony Orchestra, Musica Vitae Sweden, and Joensuu Symphony Orchestra. He was principal double bassist in the Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester Berlin (RSO) and Amsterdam Sinfonietta and is currently principal in the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
As guest principal, he plays regularly in the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Orchestra Mozart. He is also a member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. In chamber music, he has worked with Janine Jansen, Christianne Stotijn, Liza Ferschtman, Julius Drake, Cecilia Bernardini, Vilde Frang, Julian Rachlin, Lawrence Power, Tabea Zimmermann, Lars Vogt, Christian Tetzlaff, and many others.
Stotijn is a regular guest at festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, Delft Chambe Music Festival, and the International Chamber Music Festival in Utrecht. Stotijn is a Professor for Double Bass at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf. He performs on a Raffaele & Antonio Gagliano double bass, generously loaned by the National Musical Instrument Foundation.
Xuan, new media artist, is also a filmmaker and pianist working at the intersection of music, visual art, and technology.
A trained classical pianist, she actively develops innovative, cross-disciplinary projects that broaden the immersive scope of new music and performance through the lens of “visual music.” Her work encompasses experimental animation, abstract scenography, music videos, interactive installations and large-scale projection mapping. Her music-driven films explore themes of femininity, power, inner conflict, and multicultural identity.
She has collaborated with artists such as Glenn Kotche, Pierre Jodlowski, Ben Wendel, Nina Shekhar, Annika Socolofsky, Eighth Blackbird, Third Coast Percussion, Anzû Quartet, Akropolis Quintet, Nois Quartet, Parhelion Trio, Rubiks Collective, and Ensemble Garage — which have led to live performances at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MCA Chicago, the Smithsonian Museum, University of South Carolina, UNC Chapel Hill, CU Boulder, Carnegie Mellon University, SF Jazz, Le Poisson Rouge, Ad Astra Music Festival, Mizzou International Composers Festival, and CAP UCLA’S Tune In Festival. Xuan was selected to create projections for Art on the MART (2021), “the largest permanent digital art projection in the world” on the on the 2.5-acre façade of the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, in collaboration with Grammy-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird and Michael Gordon.
Her interactive installations have been exhibited at the ErsterErster Gallery in Berlin; the ibug Urban Art Festival in Reinchenbach; and Design Biennale 2019 in Zürich; the RESCUE Residency in Santo Stefano di Magra, Italy; Sound Forms 2021 in Hong Kong; and at the Rail Yards in Albuquerque, as part of Onebeat’s 10th anniversary celebration in 2022. She was invited to be an artist-in-residence at the Digital Graffiti Festival at Alys Beach in 2023 and the ATLAS B2 Residency in 2024.
