Amadi Azikiwe, violist, violinist and conductor, has been heard in recital in major cities throughout the United States, such as New York, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Houston, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., including an appearance at the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Azikiwe has also been a guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at the Alice Tully Hall in New York, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. He has appeared in recital at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, on the Discoveryrecital series in La Jolla, at the International Viola Congress, and at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Since then, he has performed throughout Israel, Canada, South America, Central America, India, Japan, Hong Kong, and throughout the Caribbean.

As a soloist, Mr. Azikiwe has appeared with the Prince George's Philharmonic, Delaware Symphony, Virginia Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Fort Collins Symphony, Virginia Beach Symphony, Roanoke Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony, Western Piedmont Symphony, Salisbury Symphony, the Gateways Music Festival Orchestra, the City Island Baroque Ensemble of New York, the National Symphony of Ecuador, and at the Costa Rica International Music Festival. He has also toured with Music from Marlboro, and performed at the Sarasota, Tanglewood, Aspen, Norfolk, and San Juan Islands Festivals, El Paso International Chamber Music Festival, Salt Bay Chamber Festival, Maui Classical Music Festival, Missouri Chamber Music Festival, Yachats Music Festival, Carolina Chamber Music Festival, and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival. Mr. Azikiwe's performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Performance Today, on St. Paul Sunday, and on WNYC in New York, WGBH in Boston, WFMT in Chicago, and the BBC, along with television appearances in South America.

Mr. Azikiwe was previously the conductor of the Old Dominion University Chamber Orchestra and the Atlanta University Center Orchestra. He was also a visiting faculty member of Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, IN. Most recently, he was on the faculty of James Madison University and University of Maryland Baltimore County. Currently, he is a Teaching Artist for ClassNotes, and Music Director of the Harlem Symphony Orchestra. He has guest conducted for the Intercollegiate Music Association, Tennessee Music Educators Association All-Collegiate Orchestra, Third Street Philharmonia, Gateways Music Festival, and Trilogy Opera Company.

Mr. Azikiwe has appeared as artist faculty at the Brevard Music Center, Hot Springs Music Festival, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, Killington Music Festival, Manchester Music Festival, Tennessee Governor's School for the Arts, Mammoth Lakes Chamber Music Festival, University of North Carolina School of the Arts Summer Session, and the Aria International Academy in London, Ontario. As an orchestral musician, he has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, as principal violist of the SHIRA Jerusalem International Symphony Orchestra and guest principal violist of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra. He has performed under the batons of conductors Lorin Maazel, James DePreist, Christoph Eschenbach, Gerard Schwarz, Marek Janowski, Leonard Slatkin, Seiji Ozawa, Michael Morgan, Pinchas Zukerman, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Sixten Ehrling, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Charles Dutoit, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kurt Masur, and Leonard Bernstein.

A native of New York City, Amadi Azikiwe was born in 1969. After early studies with his mother, he began his formal training at the North Carolina School of the Arts as a student of Sally Peck. He continued his studies at the New England Conservatory with Marcus Thompson and conductor Pascal Verrot, receiving his Bachelor's degree. Mr. Azikiwe was also awarded the Performer's Certificate from Indiana University, where he served as an Associate Instructor, and received his Master's Degree in 1994 as a student of Atar Arad.

Violinist Aaron Berofsky has toured extensively throughout the United States and abroad, gaining wide recognition as a soloist and chamber musician. As soloist, he has performed with orchestras in the United States, Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada. He has performed the complete cycle of Mozart violin sonatas at the International Festival Deia in Spain and all of the Beethoven sonatas at New York’s Merkin Concert Hall.  His 2011 recording of the complete Beethoven sonatas with Phillip Bush has been met with great acclaim.

France’s Le Figaro calls his playing “Beautiful, the kind of music-making that gives one true pleasure”.  He has appeared in such renowned venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Corcoran Gallery, Het Doelen, L'Octogone, Seoul National University, the Teatro San Jose and the Museo de Bellas Artes. Mr. Berofsky has been featured on NPR's Performance Today and on the Canadian Broadcasting Company. His acclaimed recordings can be found on the Sony, Naxos, New Albion, ECM, Audio Ideas, Blue Griffin and Chesky labels.  Recent recital tours have taken him to Germany, Italy and Korea, and he was featured soloist on the 2009 NAXOS recording of music by Paul Fetler, performed by the Ann Arbor Symphony, including the debut recording of his Concerto No. 2.  His recording of the complete chamber music of Franz Xavier Mozart was released in 2013 on Equilibrium.

Mr. Berofsky was the first violinist of the Chester String Quartet for fifteen years. The quartet has been acclaimed as "one of the country's best young string quartets" by the Boston Globe. Tours have taken them throughout the Americas and Europe and the quartet members have collaborated with such artists as Robert Mann, Arnold Steinhardt, Franco Gulli, members of the Alban Berg quartet, Andres Diaz, Eugene Istomin and Ruth Laredo. Some notable projects over the years have included the complete cycles of the quartets by Beethoven and Dvorak, and numerous recordings by such composers as Mozart, Haydn, Barber, Porter, Piston, Kernis and Tenenbom. The Chester Quartet has served as resident quartet at the University of Michigan and at Indiana University South Bend.

An alumnus of the Juilliard School, Mr. Berofsky was a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay. Other important teachers have included Robert Mann, Felix Galimir, Glenn Dicterow, Lorand Fenyves and Elaine Richey. Mr. Berofsky is known for his commitment to teaching and is Professor of Violin at the University of Michigan and served as visiting Professor at the Hochschule fur Musik in Detmold, Germany. He taught at the Meadowmount School of Music for many summers and is currently on the violin faculty of the Chautauqua Institution.  He has also given masterclasses throughout the world, including a 2013 tour of Korea which included classes at Seoul National University, Ewha Women’s University, Seoul Arts High School and many others.  He has also given class at the Cleveland Institute, Oberlin, Eastman, the Peter de Grote festival in the Netherlands, Domaine Forget in Quebec, Interlochen, the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival and the Conservatorio Palma Mallorca.

Mr. Berofsky's interest in early music led him to perform with the acclaimed chamber orchestra Tafelmusik on period instruments, also makingseveral recordings with them for the Sony label.  He co-runs University of Michigan’s Baroque Chamber Orchestra with harpsichordist Joseph Gascho.  With a strong dedication to new music as well, he has worked extensively with many leading composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, performing, commissioning and recording music by John Cage, William Bolcom, Zhou Long, Michael Daugherty, Aaron Jay Kernis, Susan Botti, Morton Subotnick, Paul Fetler and Bright Sheng.

Aaron Berofsky has been concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony since 2003.   He has also served as guest concertmaster for many orchestras throughout the US and Europe.

Active as a concerto soloist, chamber musician, recitalist, conductor and educator, James Buswell is one of the most versatile musicians performing today. He has appeared with virtually all of the major orchestras in the United States and Canada, as well as with orchestras in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America, and has collaborated with such distinguished conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Erich Leinsdorf, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, George Szell and Michael Tilson Thomas. In recital, he is noted for adventuresome programming, regularly combining standard masterpieces with works that are less well-known.

James Buswell is as closely associated with new music as he has been with the standard repertoire. World premiere performances include works by Donald Erb, Charles Wuorinen, Gian Carlo Menotti, Ned Rorem, Leon Kirchner, John Harbison, Gunther Schuller, William Bolcom, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and Yehudi Wyner. Most recently, Mr. Buswell's recordings of the Piston and Barber violin concerti were released on the Naxos label, for which the latter received a 2003 Grammy nomination. For many years an artist-member of both the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Bach Aria Group, Mr. Buswell continues to appear as guest artist with many chamber music organizations.

While at the same time pursuing an active concert career, James Buswell received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University with a major in early Renaissance painting and sculpture. A faculty member at the New England Conservatory of Music from 1987 through 2014, he resides in Boston with his wife, cellist Carol Ou. The unanimous praise for his “sensitive, evocative, compelling playing” continues unabated today.

Amadi Azikiwe, violist, violinist and conductor, has been heard in recital in major cities throughout the United States, such as New York, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Houston, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., including an appearance at the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Azikiwe has also been a guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at the Alice Tully Hall in New York, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. He has appeared in recital at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, on the Discoveryrecital series in La Jolla, at the International Viola Congress, and at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Since then, he has performed throughout Israel, Canada, South America, Central America, India, Japan, Hong Kong, and throughout the Caribbean.

As a soloist, Mr. Azikiwe has appeared with the Prince George's Philharmonic, Delaware Symphony, Virginia Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Fort Collins Symphony, Virginia Beach Symphony, Roanoke Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony, Western Piedmont Symphony, Salisbury Symphony, the Gateways Music Festival Orchestra, the City Island Baroque Ensemble of New York, the National Symphony of Ecuador, and at the Costa Rica International Music Festival. He has also toured with Music from Marlboro, and performed at the Sarasota, Tanglewood, Aspen, Norfolk, and San Juan Islands Festivals, El Paso International Chamber Music Festival, Salt Bay Chamber Festival, Maui Classical Music Festival, Missouri Chamber Music Festival, Yachats Music Festival, Carolina Chamber Music Festival, and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival. Mr. Azikiwe's performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Performance Today, on St. Paul Sunday, and on WNYC in New York, WGBH in Boston, WFMT in Chicago, and the BBC, along with television appearances in South America.

Mr. Azikiwe was previously the conductor of the Old Dominion University Chamber Orchestra and the Atlanta University Center Orchestra. He was also a visiting faculty member of Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, IN. Most recently, he was on the faculty of James Madison University and University of Maryland Baltimore County. Currently, he is a Teaching Artist for ClassNotes, and Music Director of the Harlem Symphony Orchestra. He has guest conducted for the Intercollegiate Music Association, Tennessee Music Educators Association All-Collegiate Orchestra, Third Street Philharmonia, Gateways Music Festival, and Trilogy Opera Company.

Mr. Azikiwe has appeared as artist faculty at the Brevard Music Center, Hot Springs Music Festival, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, Killington Music Festival, Manchester Music Festival, Tennessee Governor's School for the Arts, Mammoth Lakes Chamber Music Festival, University of North Carolina School of the Arts Summer Session, and the Aria International Academy in London, Ontario. As an orchestral musician, he has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, as principal violist of the SHIRA Jerusalem International Symphony Orchestra and guest principal violist of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra. He has performed under the batons of conductors Lorin Maazel, James DePreist, Christoph Eschenbach, Gerard Schwarz, Marek Janowski, Leonard Slatkin, Seiji Ozawa, Michael Morgan, Pinchas Zukerman, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Sixten Ehrling, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Charles Dutoit, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kurt Masur, and Leonard Bernstein.

A native of New York City, Amadi Azikiwe was born in 1969. After early studies with his mother, he began his formal training at the North Carolina School of the Arts as a student of Sally Peck. He continued his studies at the New England Conservatory with Marcus Thompson and conductor Pascal Verrot, receiving his Bachelor's degree. Mr. Azikiwe was also awarded the Performer's Certificate from Indiana University, where he served as an Associate Instructor, and received his Master's Degree in 1994 as a student of Atar Arad.

Tobias was the cellist in residence and co-artistic director at Garth Newel Music Center from 1999 until 2012.  He is the music director at The Chamber Music Conference of the East, artistic director of VERGE ensemble, ensemble-in-residence at the Washington Conservatory of Music, teaches at Georgetown University, and is an Arts for the Aging (AFTA) teaching artist. He has performed at the Cape and Islands Chamber Music Festival, Villa Musica Mainz, the San Diego Chamber Music Workshop, the Vail Valley Bravo! Colorado Music Festival, the Maui Classical Music Festival, in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Strathmore Hall, the Phillips Collection, the Library of Congress, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and at Bargemusic. Tobias has appeared as soloist with orchestras in the US, France, Germany, and Romania, and recent performances have included the concertos of Dvorák, Elgar, Haydn, and Boccherini. He has recorded on the ECM, Darbringhaus & Grimm, Bayer Records, and Orfeo labels. Recent CD releases include Piano Quartets by Mozart, Brahms, Dvorák, and Martinu with the Garth Newel Piano Quartet, the Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by J.S. Bach, and the Sonatas for Piano and Cello by Beethoven with Victor Asuncion. Tobias studied at the Musikhochschule Freiburg in Germany, and at Boston University. His teachers have included Andrés Díaz, Christoph Henkel, and Xavier Gagnepain. He plays on an 1844 J.F. Pressenda cello.

Cellist and Artist-in-Residence at the College of the Holy Cross Jan Müller-Szeraws has been active as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. Solo performances have included engagements with the New England Philharmonic, Concord Orchestra, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Concepción, Orquesta de la Universidad de Santiago de Chile and Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile with repertoire ranging from concertos from the traditional repertoire such as Haydn, Dvorak, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich to contemporary composers Chou Wen Chung, Gunther Schuller, Bernard Hoffer and John Harbison. Recent projects have been the release of "Anusvara", a disc with music by Shirish Korde for cello, tabla and carnatic soprano, the premiere of "Mutations" for solo cello and computer by Chris Arrell, the premiere and recording of "Suite for Solo Cello" by Thomas Oboe Lee as well as a disc with sonatas by Brahms and Chopin with pianist Adam Golka for Hammond Performing Arts. He has been guest professor at the Universidad Católica de Chile, a guest with the Israeli Chamber Project as well as guest principal cellist for the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in Germany. He is member of Trio Tremonti, contemporary music ensemble Boston Musica Viva and Boston/Andover based ensemble Mistral. Also on the faculty at Phillips Academy Andover, he is a frequent guest artist at many festivals and is founder and Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Institute at Holy Cross, an intensive summer program for talented high-school and college students. Müller-Szeraws studied at the Musikhochschule Freiburg and holds degrees from Boston University. He plays a cello by David Tecchler, on loan from the Saul and Naomi Cohen Foundation.
www.jan-mueller-szeraws.com

A member of the Chester String Quartet for 15 years, violinist Kathryn Votapek now maintains an active career as a soloist and guest artist at chamber music festivals throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. She has participated in numerous commissioning projects and premieres and can be heard with the Chester Quartet on the Koch International Classics and New Albion labels. Along with pianist Ralph Votapek and clarinetist Paul Votapek, she performs as violinist and violist with the Votapek Trio. She has also given numerous duo performances with her husband, violinist Aaron Berofsky.

Votapek has been on the faculty of the Meadowmount School of Music, the Interlochen Arts Camp, the Madeline Island Music Camp, the Las Vegas Music Festival, the Quartet Program, the Banff International Festival, the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival (Italy), and the Peter de Grote Summer Academy (Holland), as well as performing at the Klosterkammerfest (Germany), Speedside Festival (Canada), the International Deia Festival (Spain), the Garth Newel Festival, the Fontana Festival, and with the Chicago Chamber Musicians. 

Votapek is currently on the faculty at University of Michigan and is the associate concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. In prior years she was associate professor of violin and artist-in-residence at Indiana University South Bend.

Votapek received her bachelor of music degree at Indiana University and master's degree from the Juilliard School. Her teachers were Robert Mann, Franco Gulli, and Angel Reyes.

Kathy Judd has led a multi-faceted musical life as an arts administrator, teacher, and chamber music, commercial, and orchestral musician. A Kansas native, she received a Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance from New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and a Master of Musical Arts degree from Yale University, with studies at Wichita State University.

After graduate studies, Judd became a member of the St. Paul (MN) Chamber Orchestra, the only full-time US chamber orchestra at the time. With that ensemble she performed in the United States, Germany, Amsterdam, Yugoslavia, Rumania, and throughout the former Soviet Union.

She was a soloist and Concertmaster of the Boulder (CO) Bach Festival, the Las Vegas Symphony, and the Nevada Chamber Orchestra. Judd has a strong background in commercial music as a string contractor and lead musician in show orchestras in Las Vegas, accompanying headliners such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole and many others.

As a teacher, she was a faculty member and department chair at the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts, an international residential high school in California, and a member of the Idyllwild Trio, which performed throughout the Southwest US and Taiwan. She was Assistant Professor and member of the resident piano trio at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and adjunct faculty member at Elizabethtown College (PA). She teaches currently at the Washington Conservatory of Music.

As an arts administrator, she has been Artistic and Executive Director of the Washington Conservatory of Music, a nationally accredited community school, since 1998, where she created the Washington Conservatory Piano Plus! Concert Series. She was previously Artistic and Executive Director of Pennsylvania's Music at Gretna, a year-round chamber music and jazz concert series in Mt. Gretna, and in residence at Elizabethtown College. She has served on national, state, county and private foundation grants panels.

Philippe Chao enjoys a wide-ranging career as an orchestral, solo and collaborative performer as well as a respected teacher and coach. 

Appointed as Acting Assistant Principal Violist of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, he also performs as Principal Violist with The Post-Classical Ensemble and as an extra musician with the National, Detroit, and Baltimore Symphonies. He spends his summers as a longstanding member of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming. 

As a chamber musician and recitalist, he has performed throughout the Washington DC region with numerous organizations including Musica Aperta, the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, the Ibis Chamber Music Society, the Chamber Music Series at the United States Holocaust Museum, the Alden Theater Recital Series, the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, and the Czech and Ukrainian Embassies’ series. Other appearances have included performances at the Supreme Court, the Garth Newell Music Center, Music Mountain, and Oxford University, UK with the Coull String Quartet. He performed on Broadway last season in Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s Tony-nominated musical, Bright Star. 

As a concerto soloist, Philippe has appeared with the Newark Symphony Orchestra, the National Repertory Orchestra, the Virginia Symphony, and the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra and has appeared as the featured soloist with the Fairfax Choral Society at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. 

Philippe is an adjunct professor at The George Mason University School of Music, Washington Adventist University, and The Catholic University of America’s Benjamin T. Rome School of Music. He coaches orchestral sectionals at Georgetown University and has been a coach for the DC Youth Orchestra Program and a faculty member of the American Festival for the Arts, the Eastern Music Festival, Montgomery College, and the Ovations Summer String Academy. He was a guest artist-teacher for the State Department’s Artist Exchange Program at the Kennedy Center in 2007 and has served as an adjudicator for the Catholic University Young Musicians’ Competition, the Asian American Music Society’s annual String Competition, and the Dorothy Farnham Feuer Memorial Scholarship Competition. 

Earning degrees from the University of Minnesota and the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, Mr. Chao also studied at the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies in Aldeborough, England and at the Cleveland Institute of Music. His mentors include renowned pedagogues Roland and Almita Vamos, the Boston Symphony’s Michael Zaretsky, international recording artist and soloist Gérard Caussé, William Primrose protegé Donald McInnes, and the Cleveland Orchestra’s former Principal Violist, Robert Vernon. 

Philippe is sponsored by D’addario.

Polish-American pianist Adam Golka was recently selected by Sir András Schiff to perform recitals at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr in Germany, Tonhalle Zürich, as well as in Berlin and New York (organized by the 92nd Street Y). Adam has been regularly on the concert stage since the age of sixteen, when he won first prize at the 2nd China Shanghai International Piano Competition. He has also received the Gilmore Young Artist Award and the Max I. Allen Classical Fellowship Award from the American Pianists Association.

With his extensive concerto repertoire, Golka has appeared as a soloist with dozens of orchestras, among those the BBC Scottish, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Indianapolis, New Jersey, Milwaukee, Phoenix, San Diego, Fort Worth, Vancouver, Seattle, and Jacksonville symphonies, Grand Teton Festival Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Shanghai Philharmonic, the Warsaw Philharmonic, and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. Adam made his Carnegie Hall Isaac Stern Auditorium Debut in 2010, performing Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto with the New York Youth Symphony, and also performed a cycle of all five Beethoven concerti in 2011 with the Lubbock Symphony, under the baton of his brother, Tomasz Golka.

As a recitalist, he has performed scores of solo concerts, among those at excellent venues such as Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York (presented by the Musicians Emergency Fund), Concertgebouw’s Kleine Zaal, and Musashino Civic Cultural Hall in Tokyo, and at festivals such as Mostly Mozart, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, the Ravinia Festival, the New York City International Keyboard Festival at Mannes, the Newport Music Festival, and the Duszniki Chopin festival. As a chamber musician, his appearances have included prestigious festivals such as Marlboro, Caramoor, Ravinia, and Music@Menlo. Adam Golka has premiered solo works written for him by Richard Danielpour, Michael Brown, and Jarosław Gołembiowski. His début disc, featuring the first sonata of Brahms and the Hammerklavier Sonata of Beethoven, was released in 2014 by First Hand Records.

Adam Golka’s 2017/18 season begins at the Minnesota Beethoven Festival with the Manhattan Chamber Players, and followed by concerts at the extraordinary Tippet Rise Arts Center in Fishtail, Montana in a recital of Schubert, Liszt, and Brahms and in the Schumann Quintet with the Ariel String Quartet.  He returns to the Krzyzowa Festival in Poland in August and caps off the summer with a return to the Fort Worth Symphony for Mozart Cto. No. 27, K. 595, with Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya.  The season continues with recitals and chamber music in Milwaukee, Washington, D.C., at the Cliburn in Fort Worth, Boston, Sedona, and at the College of the Holy Cross, where Adam is Artist-in-Residence.  With orchestra, Adam plays Mozart Cto. No. 25 with the Harrisburg Symphony, Ravel G Major in Lubbock, and Rachmaninoff Cto. No. 2 with the Tallahassee Symphony.

As a child, Adam studied with his mother, Anna Golka, as well as with Dariusz Pawlas. For most of his teenage years and as a young adult, Adam studied with the late José Feghali, whom he considers his most significant influence. Adam also spent four years at the Peabody Conservatory studying with Leon Fleisher. Since finishing his official studies, Adam has continued his work with great musicians such as András Schiff, Alfred Brendel, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, Ferenc Rados, and Rita Wagner.

Adam Golka acts as Artist-in-Residence at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Pianist Read Gainsford was recently described in the press as the possessor of “finger-numbing virtuosity and delicately chiseled precision” yet he is driven to pursue connections beyond the merely pianistic.  Known for his insightful introductions from the stage, reaching beyond the footlights to be what a magazine profile described as “Pianist of the People” he pursues connections wherever he can find them. From collaborating with noted oceanographers in presenting “Voice of the Whale” by George Crumb, to consulting with art historians and living artists to create a series of images to accompany his performances of Messiaen’s Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus; from historical reenactments of the famous piano duel between Franz Liszt and Sigismond Thalberg of 1837, to playing Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring for live performance by a noted dance troupe, he is committed to reaching audiences in ways beyond the traditional. 

Gainsford has also followed the standard route for a concert pianist.  Born in New Zealand, he studied at the University of Auckland before moving to London where he worked at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama as a pupil of the renowned pedagogue Joan Havill. He moved to the USA to enter the doctoral program at Indiana University.  He has performed widely in the USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, as solo recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician, making successful solo debuts in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall, as well as playing in the Kennedy Center, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and others.  Gainsford returns regularly to his home country, New Zealand to see family, perform, and teach.
  
Keen to work with other musicians, his latest collaborative project involves forming Trio Solis, a group dedicated to connecting with people beyond those who traditionally form audiences for classical music, and who made their Carnegie Hall debut in May 2009. As well as traditional concerts and residencies, they enjoy "Building Bridges" - collaborating with talented student musicians to share their experience of making music with younger players.  He has been associated for many years with the unique chamber music center Garth Newel, and has played with many leading musicians including the Audubon and Serafin Quartets, Richard Stoltzman, Jacques Zoon, Luis Rossi, Yuri Mazurkevich, Michelle LaCourse, Denis Brott, Carmen Balthrop and Jerrold Pope.  In 2004 Gainsford was involved in founding the highly successful  Light in Winter festival, whose purpose is to celebrate the intersection between art, nature and science.

Dedicated to the works of living composers, Gainsford was a member of Ensemble X, a contemporary music group in Ithaca, NY.  He recently gave the world premiere of the 3rd Piano Concerto by Ladislav Kubik, which he also recorded with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Brno under the baton of Alex Jimenez, and recorded Ellen Taafe Zwilich's Images for two pianos and orchestra for Naxos.  He will give the world premiere performance and recording of Marc Satterwhite's Five Rivers of Hades in February 2011.  He has worked with many other composers including Steven Stucky, Chen Yi, John Psathas, Christopher Theofanidis, James Matheson, Steven Burke, Robert Paterson, Mark Wingate, Karim Al-Zand, Diego Vega.

Highly in demand as a masterclass clinician and teacher, Dr. Gainsford was appointed Associate Professor of Piano at Florida State University in August 2005.  Before that he taught at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY, where he was awarded the Excellence in Teaching award in 2004.  His students have achieved success in many regional and national competitions.  Long fascinated by the use of the body in making music, he has studied the Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method and yoga, as well as anatomy and physiology. His presentations have included As We Are Designed: use of the body in playing the piano and Music and Faith, as well as many lecture recitals on music ranging across the scope of piano repertoire.

Honored by The Washington Post as an “appealing, natural player”, Mr. Luce has performed in Austria, England, China, Hungary, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Canada, Taiwan, and the United States. He has additionally premiered dozens of pieces in varied ensembles around the world, with concert venues including the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, Severance Hall and the Meyerhoff Concert Hall in Baltimore.

As an educator he is also in demand, having been invited to coach, teach privately, and perform at numerous schools and festivals such as the Juilliard School, Stanford University, the Interlochen Summer Arts Academy and the Austin Chamber Music Center’s Summer Workshop. In 2013 he was appointed to the position of Professorial Lecturer at George Washington University.

Mr. Luce has enjoyed an ongoing working relationship with the Conspirare Symphonic Choir of Austin, TX since 2011.  Following a performance alongside them in January of 2011, the concert was hailed by National Public Radio as being “dreamlike…uncanny.”  The same concert was also reviewed by Brett Campbell of the Wall Street Journal, who called the performance “a powerful new achievement in American music that vividly traces a journey from despair to transcendence.”

Mr. Luce previously graduated from the Peabody Conservatory initially (B.M.), where he studied with Stephen Wyrczynski formerly of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Victoria Chiang, Afterwards he graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music (M.M.), where he studied with Mark Jackobs of the Cleveland Orchestra. As a member of the Aeolus Quartet, Mr. Luce was invited to attend the first graduate string quartet-in-residence program at the University of Texas at Austin, where he received his first Artist Diploma with high honors while studying with John Largess of the Miró Quartet. Finally he garnered terminal degrees in the form of a doctorate from the University of Maryland at College Park and an Artist Diploma from the venerable Juilliard School in New York.

His ensemble playing has received special attention from the New York Times as being “Admirably tight and genuinely intense.” Since 2008 he has been violist of the Aeolus Quartet, top prizewinners at numerous national and international competitions.  Following their performance in Trondheim’s International Chamber Music Competition of 2009, the Aeolus Quartet was praised by Strad magazine for their “high-octane performance,” with Mr. Luce receiving particular note as being “especially enjoyable.”

Mr. Luce plays on a viola made by Samuel Zygmuntowicz for celebrated violist Walter Trampler in 1991, the instrument on which he performed during the final six years of his life. This instrument is generously on loan from Ruth Sumners Trampler, and bears on the ribs a Latin inscription which translates, “it is not the age of a man that makes him, it is his virtues.”