Wu Man belongs to a rare group of musicians who have redefined the role of their instruments, in her case, the pipa — a pear-shaped, four-stringed Chinese lute with a rich history spanning centuries. She is celebrated as one of the most prominent instrumentalists of traditional Chinese music, as well as a composer and educator. She has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa and has performed in recital and with major orchestras around the world. She is a frequent collaborator with ensembles such as the Kronos and Shanghai Quartets and The Knights and is a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble. She has appeared on more than 40 recordings, including the Silkroad Ensemble’s Grammy-winning recording Sing Me Home, featuring her composition “Green (Vincent’s Tune).” She is also a featured artist in the 2015 Emmy Award–winning documentary The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. In the 2023–24 season, Wu Man premieres a new Pipa Concerto by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Du Yun with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and later with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She returns to Carnegie Hall for performances with the Kronos Quartet and The Knights.
Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master’s degree in pipa. At age 13, she was recognized as a child prodigy and a national role model for young pipa players. Wu is a recipient of the 2023 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), one of the United States’ most prestigious honors in folk and traditional arts. In 2023 she was additionally honored with the Asia Society’s Asia Arts Game Changers Award, an annual award presented in New York City honoring artists and arts professionals for their significant contributions to contemporary art. She is a visiting professor at her alma mater, the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing; and a distinguished professor at the Zhejiang and the Xi’an Conservatories. In 2021 she received an honorary doctorate of music from the New England Conservatory of Music. She has also served as artistic director of the Xi’an Silk Road Music Festival at the Xi’an Conservatory.
Three-time Grammy nominee Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso on the kamancheh, who through his many musical collaborations has been instrumental in popularizing Persian music in the West and is a creative force in today’s music scene. His performances of traditional Persian music and multiple collaborations have attracted audiences around the globe. He has studied the music of Iran’s many regions, in particular those of Khorason and Kordestan, and has toured the world as a soloist with various ensembles and orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is co-founder of the renowned ensembles Dastan, Ghazal: Persian & Indian Improvisations and Masters of Persian Music. Kayhan Kalhor has composed works for Iran’s most renowned vocalists Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri and has also performed and recorded with Iran’s greatest instrumentalists. He has composed music for television and film and was most recently featured on the soundtrack of Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth in a score that he collaborated on with Osvaldo Golijov. In 2004, he was invited by American composer John Adams to give a solo recital at Carnegie Hall as part of his Perspectives Series and in the same year he appeared on a double bill at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, sharing the program with the Festival Orchestra performing the Mozart Requiem. Kalhor was a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma and his compositions appear on several of the ensemble’s albums.
Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi has been described as a “musical alchemist” and a “musical polyglot” by the press. He left his native Italy to study jazz piano and early music at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where he obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Mary McGowan is a freelance producer, director, actor, and arts administrator based in Brooklyn, NY. Mary is currently the Ticketing Manager for the Tony Awards, Company Manager for the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), and Line Producer for the Broadway Podcast Network (BPN). Between February-August 2021, Mary worked as Artistic Coordinator for NY PopsUp, an expansive festival consisting of 300+ pop-up performances intended to revitalize live performance across New York state. Previously, Mary served as Special Assistant to the Artistic Director (Diane Paulus) and Executive Team at the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) from 2018-2021, during which time she served as Assistant Director for ExtraOrdinary, as well as the developmental readings + workshops of 1776. Other Directing/Associate work: Chautauqua Theatre Company, Little Island, New York City Center, MasterVoices. B.F.A. from Syracuse University.
Cath Brittan is originally from Manchester, England. She lived in Vienna for many years and was a producer for the Vienna Festival. She has worked as production manager and producer in theaters and opera houses around the world including English National Opera, London; The Bolshoi, Moscow; Teatro Real, Madrid; The National Theater of Finland, Opera de Comique, Paris; The Staatsoper, Vienna; Grand Théâtre de Genève, Geneva, and many more. Recent and up-coming productions include Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (dir. Christopher Alden) and Glass Handel (2018 & 2019), Comet Poppea (dir. Yuval Sharon), Bandwagon (New York Philharmonic) all with Anthony Roth Costanzo; Das Paradies und die Peri, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Peter Sellars; 2018/19 and 19/20 Soundbox Season, San Francisco Symphony; Orphic Moments (dir. Zack Winokur) with The Master Voices; Abraham In Flames (composer Aleksandra Vrebalov); Perle Noir (Tyshawn Sorey & Julia Bullock at The Met Museum); Arkhipov (composer Peter Knell); Birds in the Moon (composer Mark Grey); Ihpigenia (Wayne Shorter & Esperanza Spalding); and In a Grove (Composer Christopher Cerrone). Cath is also Producer for AMOC (American Modern Opera Company).
Doug Balliett is a composer, instrumentalist and poet based in New York City. The New York Times has described his poetry as “brilliant and witty,” his bass playing as “elegant,” and his compositions as “vivid, emotive, with contemporary twists.” He is a tireless performer of new music, and is professor of historic basses at the Juilliard School. With a constant stream of commissions, a weekly show on New York Public Radio, and nearly 200 performances per year, Balliett has been identified as an emerging voice for his generation.
English-American performer and composer Emi Ferguson stretches the boundaries of what is expected of modern-day musicians. Trained at Juilliard as a flutist, Emi can be heard live in concerts and festivals around the world as well as at home in New York City where she is a member of the New York New Music Ensemble, NYBI, Argento Ensemble, and New Vintage Baroque. She has spoken and performed at several TEDX events and has been featured on media outlets including the Discovery Channel and TouchPress apps talking about how music relates to our world today. Her debut album, Amour Cruel, an indie-pop song cycle inspired by the music of the 17th century French court was released by Arezzo Music in September 2017, spending 4 weeks on the Classical, Classical Crossover, and World Music Billboard Charts. Her 2019 album Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes, a collaboration with continuo band Ruckus debuted at #1 on the iTunes classical charts and #2 on the Billboard classical charts, mining the depths of possibility in continuo and flute performance.
Heralded as “a singer of immense power and fervor” by The Los Angeles Times, Davóne Tines came to international attention during the 2015-16 in breakout performances at the Dutch National Opera premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Only the Sound Remains directed by Peter Sellars and at the Ojai Music Festival presenting works by Caroline Shaw and Kaija Saariaho with the Calder Quartet and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Recent highlights include the European premiere of David Lang’s prisoner of the state with Ilan Volkov conducting the BBC Symphony, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri with Louis Langrée and the Cincinnati Symphony, John Adams’s El Niño with David Robertson and the Houston Symphony, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Stéphane Denève and the Saint Louis Symphony.
Armed with a diverse spectrum of repertoire and eclectic musical interests, cellist Jay Campbell has been recognized for approaching both old and new works with the same probing curiosity and emotional commitment. His performances have been called “electrifying” by The New York Times, “gentle, poignant, and deeply moving” by the Washington Post, and on WQXR by Krzysztof Penderecki for “the greatest performance yet of Capriccio per Sigfried Palm”. A 2016 recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Jay made his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2013 and worked with Alan Gilbert in 2016 as the artistic director for Ligeti Forward for the New York Philharmonic Biennale. 
Hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker for his “flawless technique and keen musicality,” cellist Coleman Itzkoff enjoys a diverse career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator. A prize winner at the 2019 Houston Symphony’s Ima Hogg Competition, Itzkoff made his professional debut at the age of 15 with Ohio’s Dayton Philharmonic and has since appeared as soloist with orchestras and in chamber music series countrywide.
With his work described as “pure poetry” (Boston Globe), stage director, choreographer, and dancer Zack Winokur is recognized as one of the most innovative and exciting talents working in opera today.
Bobbi Jene Smith is an alumnus of The Juilliard School, North Carolina School of the Arts, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School. Her choreography has been presented by The Batsheva Dance Company, CORPUS of The Royal Danish Ballet, LADP, VAIL Dance Festival, LaMama Experimental Theater, and The Martha Graham Dance Company. In 2019 she was awarded The Harkness Promise Award and was The Martha Duffy Resident Artist at Baryshnikov Art Center.
Or Schraiber studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. In 2010, Schraiber joined the Batsheva Dance Company, in which he danced for seven years. In parallel to his time in the company, he served at the IDF for three years. In 2017, Schraiber moved to New York City to study acting at the Stella Adler Studio. In 2019, he starred in and co-choreographed Boaz Yakin’s feature film “Aviva.” Later that year, he starred as Thaddeus and choreographed scenes in Terrence Malick’s The Way of the Wind and appeared in the national Broadway tour of The Band’s Visit.
A pianist that “defies human description” for some (Concerto Net) and recalls “a young Peter Serkin” for others (New York Times), Conor Hanick is one of his generation’s most inquisitive interpreters of music old and new.
Keir GoGwilt is a violinist, writer, and musicologist, whose work spans a range of critical and creative disciplines. As a violinist he has been described as a “formidable performer” (New York Times) noted for his “evocative sound” (London Jazz News) and “finger-busting virtuosity” (San Diego Union Tribune). He is a core member of AMOC, and he co-composes, improvises, and performs music with bassist Kyle Motl as part of their duo, Treesearch.
Julia Eichten grew up dancing in Minnesota. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where she received the Hector Zaraspe Award in recognition of her choreography. Her work has appeared at venues ranging from Le Poisson Rouge to the Dumbo Dance Festival and Dance Theater of Harlem, and was choreographer-in-residence at The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard in 2011. In 2015, Eichten had the world premiere of her piece, O’de, in collaboration with Los Angeles Dance Project and Lil Buck at the Palace of Versailles. With ‘Kids Dance,’ at the Joyce Theater, she showed her work, Monsieur, which The New York Times dubbed “an elegantly clumsy solo.” She has danced with Camille A. Brown & Dancers and Aszure Barton & Artists and was a founding member of Los Angeles Dance Project, internationally performing works by Merce Cunningham, Justin Peck, Martha Graham, Danielle Agami, Emanuel Gat, Sidi Larbi, Ohad Naharin, and William Forsythe. Eichten continues to work with Gerard & Kelly as a performer and collaborator in works including Solange’s collaboration with Uniqlo, Metratronia, as well as a month of performances at Pioneer Works (NY) in Clockwork.
Violinist and violist Miranda Cuckson is a favorite of audiences for her performances of a great range of repertoire and styles, from music of older eras to the most current creations. From a strong grounding in the classical repertoire, she has become one of the most active and acclaimed performers of contemporary music. Downbeat magazine recently stated that she “reaffirms her standing as one of the most sensitive and electric interpreters of new music.”
Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at the age of 11 and has since appeared in opera, concert, recital, film, and on Broadway. His debut album, ARC, on Decca Gold, was nominated for a 2019 GRAMMY Award, and he is Musical America’s 2019 Vocalist of the Year.
Jennifer Chen completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard University (History of Art and Architecture cum laude) and is a 2017 MBA graduate of the Yale University School of Management. Her career has brought her from producing operas in dining halls at Harvard to working with institutions including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York City Ballet, Peabody Essex Museum, Celebrity Series of Boston, and Villa I Tatti in Florence, Italy.
American classical singer Julia Bullock is “a musician who delights in making her own rules” (New Yorker). Combining versatile artistry with a probing intellect and commanding stage presence, she has headlined productions and concerts at some of the preeminent arts institutions worldwide. An innovative programmer whose artistic curation is in high demand, her curatorial positions include collaborative partner of Esa-Pekka Salonen in 2020-21, his inaugural season as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony; 2019-20 Artist-in-Residence of the same orchestra; Artist-in-Residence of London’s Guildhall School for the 2020-22 seasons; opera-programming host of new broadcast channel All Arts; and 2018-19 Artist-in-Residence of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Chosen as a 2021 “Artist of the Year” by Musical America, which hailed her as an “agent of change,” Bullock is also a prominent voice of social consciousness.
Matthew Aucoin is an American composer, conductor, writer, and pianist. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018, and is both Artist-in-Residence at Los Angeles Opera and co-founder of the American Modern Opera Company. Aucoin’s newest opera, Eurydice, a collaboration with the playwright Sarah Ruhl, had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Opera in February 2019, and will travel to the Metropolitan Opera in the 2021-22 season.
Admired for his interpretive depth, vocal strength, and range of expressivity, tenor Paul Appleby is one of the most sought-after voices of his generation. Appleby continues to grace the stages of the world’s most distinguished concert halls and opera houses while collaborating with leading orchestras, instrumentalists, and conductors. Opera News claims, “[Paul’s] tenor is limpid and focused, but with a range of color unusual in an instrument so essentially lyric… His singing is scrupulous and musical; the voice moves fluidly and accurately.” Recent appearances include performances of John Adams’ Girls of the Golden West with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and productions of Candide at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and Die Zauberflöte at the Glyndebourne Festival.