Bulgarian pianist, Anna Petrova, praised for her “artistic, clear and enlightened” performances [BBC Magazine,] performs extensively as a soloist and chamber musician. She has won top prizes and recognitions at numerous international competitions, including the Jose Roca International Competition, Spain and the Queen Elizabeth Piano Competition, Belgium. Recent highlights include her New York City debut with conductor Philippe Entremont, a recording of Stravinsky’s Les Noces with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and conductor JoAnn Falletta (Naxos,) and solo and chamber music residencies at festivals across North America, Europe and Asia. In 2022 her debut solo CD “Slavic Heart” was released to critical acclaim on Germany’s Solo Musica label. Currently, she is working on a two-CD set of the complete piano sonatas of Russian composer, pianist and pedagogue, Samuil Feinberg for Naxos. An avid chamber musician, Petrova is a member of two award-winning ensembles: the viola-piano Carr-Petrova Duo, and the clarinet-viola-piano Iris Trio. In 2018 Petrova was honored at the United Nations for her work with refugees around the globe through the Carr-Petrova Duo’s Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music, is Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Louisville, KY, and visiting faculty at Musical Arts Madrid, Spain.

Blessed with “poetic and sensitive pianism” (Washington Post) and a “wondrous sense of color” (SanFrancisco Classical Voice), Grammy-nominated pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences with her virtuosity, lyricism, and interpretive sensitivity.

 

She first came to international attention in 2005 when she won the silver medal at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The youngest contestant at 19 years old, she took home two additional awards: Best Performance of Chamber Music (with the Takàcs Quartet), and Best Performance of a New Work. In 2006 Yang made her celebrated New York Philharmonic debut alongside Lorin Maazel at Avery Fisher Hall along with the orchestra’s tour of Asia, making a triumphant return to her hometown of Seoul, South Korea. Yang’s subsequent appearances with the New York Philharmonic have included opening night of the 2008 Leonard Bernstein Festival – an appearance made at the request of Maazel in his final season as music director. The New York Times pronounced her performance in Bernstein’s The Age of Anxiety a “knockout.”

 

In the last decade, Yang has blossomed into an “astonishing artist” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), showcasing her colorful musical personality in solo recitals and collaborations with the world’s top orchestras and chamber musicians through more than 1,000 debuts and re-engagements. She received the 2010 Avery Fisher Career Grant and earned her first Grammy nomination (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance) for her recording of Franck, Kurtág, Previn & Schumann with violinist Augustin Hadelich (“One can only sit in misty-eyed amazement at their insightful flair and spontaneity.” – The Strad).

 

Other notable orchestral engagements have included the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Hong Kong Philharmonic, the BBC Philharmonic, as well as the Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney, Melbourne, and New Zealand symphony orchestras. She was also featured in a five-year Rachmaninoff concerto cycle with Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony, to which she brought “an enormous palette of colors, and tremendous emotional depth” (Milwaukee Sentinel Journal).

 

In solo recitals, Yang’s innovative program has been praised as “extraordinary” and “kaleidoscopic” (Los Angeles Times). She has performed at New York City’s Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Museum, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Chicago’s Symphony Hall, Zurich’s Tonhalle, and all throughout Australia on a recital tour presented by Musica Viva.

 

As an avid chamber musician, Yang has collaborated with the Takács Quartet for Dvořák – part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series – and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet with members of the Emerson String Quartet at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. Yang has fostered an enduring partnership with the Alexander String Quartet and together released three celebrated recordings under Foghorn Classics.

 

In 2020, Yang released her tenth album performing Jonathan Leshnoff’s Piano Concerto with the Kansas City Symphony (Reference Recordings) that was written for her. Textura magazine wrote “Joyce Yang delivers a riveting performance others would be hard pressed to better. … The opening movement dazzles from the start, with Yang expertly voicing chiming figures over insistent strings and the syncopated rhythms restlessly churning”. As a champion of new music, Yang has also premiered and recorded a World Premier discography of Michael Torke’s Piano Concerto with Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller (Albany Records). Yang’s wide-ranging discography also includes two celebrated solo discs (Collage and Wild Dreams, Avie Records), where she “demonstrated impressive gifts” (New York Times). Yang also released a live-performance recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Denmark’s Odense Symphony Orchestra (Bridge Records), which International Record Review called “hugely enjoyable, beautifully shaped … a performance that marks her out as an enormous talent.”

 

In recent years, Yang has focused on promoting creative ways to introduce classical music to new audiences. She served as the Guest Artistic Director for the Laguna Beach Music Festival in California, curating concerts that explore the “art-inspires-art” concept – highlighting the relationship between music and dance while simultaneously curating outreach activities to young students. Yang’s collaboration with the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet of Half/Cut/Split – a “witty, brilliant exploration of Robert Schumann’s Carnaval” (The Santa Fe New Mexican) choreographed by Jorma Elo – was a marriage between music and dance to illuminate the ingenuity of Schumann’s musical language. The group toured nationwide, including five performances at the Joyce Theater in New York.

 

In the 2021/2022 season, Yang will share her versatile repertoire in over 40 cities in the US and Europe. After returning to the stage in summer performances at Wolf Trap (with the National Symphony  Orchestra), Grant Park Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Sun Valley Music Festival, Yang will appear with the New World Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Utah Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Tucson Symphony, and Rhode Island Philharmonic, among many others. Furthermore, Yang will give a World Premier performance of Reinaldo Moya’s Piano Concerto with Bangor Symphony, which draws inspiration from Venezuelen artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. In recital, Yang will present daring programs of Bach, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky and Kernis as well as collaborate with the Takacs Quartet.

 

Born in 1986 in Seoul, South Korea, Yang received her first piano lesson from her aunt at the age of four. She quickly took to the instrument, which she received as a birthday present. Over the next few years won several national piano competitions in her native country. By the age of ten, she had entered the School of Music at the Korea National University of Arts, and went on to make a number of concerto and recital appearances in Seoul and Daejeon. In 1997, Yang moved to the United States to begin studies at the pre-college division of the Juilliard School with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky. During her first year at Juilliard, Yang won the pre-college division Concerto Competition, resulting in a performance of Haydn’s Keyboard Concerto in D with the Juilliard Pre-College Chamber Orchestra. After winning the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Greenfield Student Competition, she performed Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with that orchestra at just twelve years old. She graduated from Juilliard with special honor as the recipient of the school’s 2010 Arthur Rubinstein Prize, and in 2011 she won its 30th Annual William A. Petschek Piano Recital Award.

 

Yang appears in the film In the Heart of Music, a documentary about the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. She is a Steinway artist.

An unusually versatile musician, Teddy Abrams is the widely-acclaimed Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra and Music Director and Conductor of the Britt Festival Orchestra. A tireless advocate for the power of music, Abrams has fostered interdisciplinary collaborations with organizations including the Louisville Ballet, the Center for Interfaith Relations, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Speed Art Museum, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. His rap-opera, The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, premiered in 2017, celebrating Louisville’s hometown hero with an all-star cast that included Rhiannon Giddens and Jubilant Sykes. Abrams’ work with the Louisville Orchestra has been profiled on CBS News Sunday Morning, NPR, and in The Wall Street Journal. Abrams recently collaborated with Jim James, vocalist and guitarist for My Morning Jacket, on the song cycle The Order of Nature, which they premiered with the Louisville Orchestra in 2018 and recorded on Decca Gold. Additional highlights of the 2019-20 season included his debut as guest conductor with Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, and the lead role in the Kennedy Center Honors celebration of his mentor Michael Tilson Thomas. Recent guest conducting highlights include engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the San Francisco, National, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Vancouver, Colorado, Utah, and Phoenix Symphonies; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; and the Florida Orchestra. He served as Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony from 2012-2014. From 2008 to 2011, Abrams was the Conducting Fellow and Assistant Conductor of the New World Symphony (NWS). He has conducted the NWS in Miami Beach, Washington, D.C. and at Carnegie Hall, and recently returned to conduct the NWS on subscription with Joshua Bell as soloist. An accomplished pianist and clarinetist, Abrams has appeared as a soloist with a number of orchestras—including play-conducting the Ravel Piano Concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony in 2017 and the Jacksonville Symphony in 2013—and has performed chamber music with the St. Petersburg String Quartet, Menahem Pressler, Gilbert Kalish, Time for Three, and John Adams, in addition to annual appearances at the Olympic Music Festival. Dedicated to exploring new and engaging ways to communicate with a diverse range of audiences, Abrams co-founded the Sixth Floor Trio in 2008. Together, they founded and direct GardenMusic, the music festival of the world-renowned Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami; they continue to tour regularly throughout the U.S. Abrams was a protégé of Michael Tilson Thomas from the age of eleven, and studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller and Ford Lallerstedt at the Curtis Institute of Music, and with David Zinman at the Aspen Music Festival; he was the youngest conducting student ever accepted at both institutions. Abrams is also an award-winning composer and a passionate educator. His 2009 Education Concerts with the New World Symphony (featuring the world premiere of one of Abrams’ own orchestral works) were webcast to hundreds of schools throughout South Florida. Abrams performed as a keyboardist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, won the 2007 Aspen Composition Contest, and was the Assistant Conductor of the YouTube Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 2009. He has held residencies at the La Mortella music festival in Ischia, Italy and at the American Academy in Berlin. Teddy was a proud member of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra for seven seasons, and graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music, having studied piano with Paul Hersh.

Noted for his “expressive warmth” [Chicago Classical Review] NYC based and Los Angeles born violinist Brendan Speltz has toured the globe as an in demand chamber musician. Recently appointed as second violinist of the prestigious Escher String QuartetHighlights this year include appearances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Aspen Music Festival, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Wigmore Hall, among others. He’s also toured with groundbreaking ensembles such as A Far Cry, Ethel, the Harlem Quartet, Shuffle Concert, and the Manhattan Chamber Players, and with members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Orion, and Dover Quartets. An avid believer in the power of classical music to reach young adults, Speltz has produced innovative concert events across the U.S. and Canada which have been described by The New Yorker as “Thrilling, poignant, unexpected, and utterly DIY.” Recent productions include curating the closing concert experience of the prestigious Chamber Fest Ottawa in 2018 and before that co-creating a cross-disciplinary presentation of Steve Reich’s Different Trains with aerial dance troupe ABCirque which was sponsored by Meyer Sound Labs in Brooklyn. In NYC he has performed as guest with the New York New Music Ensemble, Mark Morris Dance Group, American Ballet Theatre, The American Symphony, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s and as a founding member of the conductorless string orchestra Shattered Glass. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California with Los Angeles Concertmaster Margaret Batjer and his Master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music with Laurie Smukler. He plays a 1925 Carl Becker violin.

Gabriel Lefkowitz is an acclaimed violinist, conductor, & composer enjoying a dynamic and multi-faceted career as a performer, creator, and educator. Gabriel is the Concertmaster of the Louisville Orchestra (and its Cover Conductor for the 2021-2022 season), Artistic Director & Conductor of the Louisville Civic Orchestra, an active soloist and chamber musician, a frequent masterclass clinician, and a guest conductor with various orchestras and ensembles. Gabriel has also composed the music for several video games, various YouTube and Twitch channels, a circus show, and a themed resort, and was the featured violin soloist on the soundtrack for the film Harriet (Focus Features).

Violinist Julia Cash has recently returned to Louisville after some 25 years pursuing an exciting musical career in New England and Europe. Brought back to Louisville by her family and her husband’s career, she has been named Interim Principal 2^nd violin of the Louisville Orchestra.  Ms. Cash went to Boston to work with legendary violinist James Buswell at age 15 to pursue an already promising musical future. Winner of the National Music Club Prize as a Tanglewood fellow, and a two-time Outstanding Performer award winner at the Academia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, Ms. Cash has performed all over the United States and Europe as a chamber musician and recitalist. In Boston, she performs with the Boston Ballet, Boston Pops, and has served as concertmaster for many prominent Boston musical groups such as Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra and Coro Allegro.  A huge new music advocate, Ms. Cash served as concertmaster of Alea III under Gunther Schuller to high accolades. Early in her career, she served as principal second of Opera Boston and has been on many Grammy nominated albums through her extensive recording career. Ms. Cash holds degrees from New England Conservatory of Music, the Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik in Germany and the Royal Conservatory of the Netherlands. In addition to James Buswell, other notable musical mentors include Pamela Frank, Vera Beths and Federico Agostini. Ms. Cash is also an avid teacher and music educator.  Along with her private studio, she has taught chamber music, orchestral coaching and lessons at Harvard, Boston College and Boston Latin School.  She is currently on faculty at New England Conservatory Preparatory School and School of Continuing Education and maintains a competitive studio of award winning students.  Currently she spends summers teaching for Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras and serves as Music Director at Point Counter Point Chamber Music Camp in Vermont. She currently lives in Crescent Hill with her 3 daughters and violist/physician husband Tom, and is splitting her performing obligations between Louisville and Boston.

Violinist Julia Noone is the Associate Concertmaster of the Louisville Orchestra. She has appeared as soloist with the LO on multiple occasions, including a performance of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante during her first full season, and will perform the Korngold Violin Concerto during the 2021-2022 season. Julia has performed as a guest Concertmaster of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Jacksonville Symphony, and Orchestra Kentucky, and as a guest Principal Second of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. She has additionally performed with the Boston, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis Symphony Orchestras as an auxiliary musician. During the summer, Julia is a member of the Sun Valley Music Festival in Sun Valley, Idaho. Prior to Louisville, Julia was a fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami, where she regularly performed as Concertmaster and was the featured soloist in Szymanowski's Second Violin Concerto after winning the NWS Concerto Competition. Also while at New World, Julia traveled to Medellín, Colombia to perform Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto as part of the NWS's exchange with Iberacademy. Julia spent multiple summers performing with the Moritzburg Academy, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, and the Tanglewood Music Center, where she was awarded the Jules C. Reiner Violin Prize and spent three summers performing as Concertmaster. Other summer festival engagements include a performance as Concertmaster for Bach's St. Matthew Passion with the Spoleto Festival USA and two seasons as Assistant Concertmaster of Charlottesville Opera. Julia received her bachelor's degree from the New England Conservatory, where she was a student of Masuko Ushioda.

SIWOO KIM is an “incisive” and “compelling” (Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times) violinist who plays with “stylistic sensitivity and generous tonal nuance” (John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune). Siwoo performs as soloist and chamber musician, and he is the co-founding artistic director of VIVO Music Festival in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Siwoo gave the world premiere performance of Samuel Adler’s violin concerto which was written for him. He recorded the work on Linn Records to commemorate the composer’s 90th birthday, and the BBC Music Magazine praised his “notable fire & impassioned playing.” Siwoo made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut in Stern Auditorium with the Juilliard Orchestra. He has since performed with orchestras around the world including the Staatsorchester Brandenburgisches Frankfurt, Columbus Symphony, Gangneung Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Johannesburg Philharmonic, Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic, Orchestre Royal de Chambre, Seongnam Philharmonic, Springfield Symphony, and Tulsa Symphony in venues such as Walt Disney Concert Hall and Lotte Concert Hall. Siwoo received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied under Robert Mann and Donald Weilerstein with full scholarship. He went on to complete a two-year fellowship with Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and spent his summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, collaborating with musicians such as Jeremy Denk, Denes Varjon and Mitsuko Uchida. Prior to college, Siwoo studied under Roland and Almita Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago. Siwoo performs on a 1753 “ex-Birkigt” Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin on generous loan through Rare Violins In Consortium. 

Evan Vicic has been the Assistant Principal Violist of the Louisville Orchestra since January 2014. He frequently appears as a substitute with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. In the summers of 2017 and 2019, Evan had the honor of playing in the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, California. In October 2021, Evan was featured as the violist in Erwin Schulhoff's Concerto for String Quartet & Wind Orchestra with the Louisville Orchestra. Originally hailing from Minnesota, Evan grew up studying the violin. He switched to viola prior to attending Northwestern University to study with Dr. Roland Vamos. After attaining his Bachelor’s in Music, he continued studies at Indiana University with Stephen Wyrczynski. Evan is interested in many different genres of music and performed on the NPR nationally broadcast radio show "Live From Here" with Bruce Hornsby and Chris Thile. Evan is a proud member of the NouLou Chamber Players in Louisville, KY. Evan is available to teach both violin, and viola. He also is a recording/mixing engineer and producer. See Vicic Audio & Media for details.

Praised for her warm and beautiful sound, Laura brings enthusiasm and energy to her performances. She has enjoyed performing with acclaimed ensembles such as Chattanooga Symphony, Lexington Philharmonic, Quad City Symphony, Mankato Symphony, and is a tenured member of the Duluth-Superior Symphony. Currently, Laura holds a position with the Paducah Symphony and regularly performs with Orchestra Kentucky in Bowling Green. Laura has performed with Roberto Diaz, Leon Fleischer, Sharon Isbin, Jennifer Koh, Itzhak Perlman, Christopher O’Reilly, and The Joffrey Ballet. As a soloist, she has performed Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante at the University of Minnesota with conductor, Dr. Jeffrey Specht.

As a chamber musician who has performed across the United States and Canada, she has been a participant in chamber music festivals such as The Castleman Quartet Program, Lyricafest, North American Viola Institute, Niagara International Chamber Music Festival, Bravo!, Madeline Island Music Camp, Chamber Music Midwest, and Northern Lights Chamber Music Festival.  In 2014, Laura was the Assistant Dean for The Castleman Quartet Program and has served as junior faculty and counselor at Stringwood Chamber Music Festival and Green Lake Chamber Music Festival. Laura has participated in readings with Natasha Brofsky, Charles Castleman, Norm Fisher and Roger Tapping. She has played in masterclasses for members of Arianna, Artaria, Concord, Emerson, Julliard, Pacifica, Parker and Takács String Quartets, as well as the Minnesota Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Since moving to Louisville in March 2015, Laura has kept up a busy schedule including performances with Stevie Wonder at the Yum! Center while on his Tour in the Key of Life, Louisville Ballet, and Louisville Master Chorale. As an educator, she maintains a private studio at Suzuki Stars Music Academy in addition to teaching strings at Montessori School of Louisville.

Laura holds viola performance degrees from Texas Tech University (BM) and the University of Minnesota (MM). She is nearly complete with a Doctorate of Musical Arts also from the U of M. Her most influential teachers and mentors include violists, Alice Preves, Renee Skerik, Korey Konkol; violinist Laura Bossert; and cellist Terry King.

Praised by The Philadelphia Inquirer for his “glowing refinement,” violist Luke Fleming's performances have been described by The Strad as “confident and expressive...playing with uncanny precision," and lauded by Gramophone for their "superlative technical and artistic execution.”   Festival appearances include the Marlboro Music School and Festival, the Steans Institute at Ravinia, Perlman Music Program, the Norfolk and Great Lakes Chamber Music Festivals, the Melbourne Festival, Bravo!Vail, and Festival Mozaic.  Formerly the violist of the internationally acclaimed Attacca Quartet, he has served as Artist-in-Residence for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and received the National Federation of Music Clubs Centennial Chamber Music Award.  He was awarded First Prize at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition and top prizes at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition.   In 2015, Mr. Fleming became the Founding Artistic Director of both the Manhattan Chamber Players, a New York-based chamber music collective, and the Crescent City Chamber Music Festival.  He currently serves as Adjunct Professor of Viola at the University of New Orleans School of the Arts.  He has performed as a guest artist with the Escher, Modigliani, Pacifica, Serafin, and Solera String Quartets, the Eroica, Lysander, and Gryphon Piano Trios, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Decoda, and Ensemble Connect.   Mr. Fleming holds the degrees of Doctor of Musical Arts, Artist Diploma, and Master of Music from the Juilliard School, a Postgraduate Diploma with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music in London, and a Bachelor of Music summa cum laude from Louisiana State University.   lukefleming.com

Praised for his “fluid virtuosity” and “soulful melodies,” Los Angeles native Brook Speltz is the cellist of the internationally renowned Escher String Quartet – Quartet-in-Residence at Southern Methodist University – and an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. An extremely versatile cellist, Mr. Speltz has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist throughout the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. First Prize winner of the prestigious Ima Hogg Competition, he has performed as a soloist with the Houston Symphony, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, and International Contemporary Ensemble, and is a regular performer at England’s IMS Prussia Cove and on tour with Musicians from Marlboro. Mr. Speltz has been personally invited by Itzhak Perlman and Richard Goode to collaborate in chamber music recitals throughout the country, and as a result of these collaborations, has been nominated for the inaugural Warner Music Prize presented by Warner Music and Carnegie Hall. A lover of all facets of the music world, Mr. Speltz has enjoyed performing on tour with the cello rock band Break of Reality, whose recent U.S. tour raised funds and awareness for music programs in public schools all around the country. Mr. Speltz studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Peter Wiley and at The Juilliard School with Joel Krosnick, after his formative years of study with Eleanor Schoenfeld in Los Angeles. He performs on a 1756 J.C. Gigli on loan from his father, a cellist and his first inspiration in a family of professional musicians.

Described as “an assured soloist” with “fearless technique,” Dr. Cecilia Huerta-Lauf brings passion and heart to her performances as an accomplished cellist. A native of Dickson, Tennessee, she made her solo debut with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra at age 16. Cecilia has enjoyed tenures with groups such as the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Discovery Ensemble, Florida Grand Opera, and the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra & founding String Quartet, and founding administrative director/principal cellist of the Boston Latin-American Orchestra. In 2012, Cecilia was a semi-finalist in the Carlos Prieto International Cello Competition. Currently, Cecilia is the founder, co-director, & cellist of NouLou Chamber Players; and substitutes with the Louisville Orchestra. She also served as President of the Chamber Music Society of Louisville Board. Cecilia has participated in music festivals across the United States, Canada, France, and Italy. Degrees include pre-college at Vanderbilt University, B.M. at DePaul University in Chicago, M.M. at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, and her D.M.A. at University of Miami in FL.

Since performing as a concerto soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at age 18, cellist Nicholas Finch has established himself as an artist of great depth and diversity, both within and beyond the classical genre. This season, Finch will lead the inaugural year of the Derby City Chamber Music Festival as its Artistic Director, featuring some of the best chamber musicians from Louisville and around the country, including members of the Escher String Quartet, pianist Joyce Yang, and many more. In recent seasons, Finch conducted members of the Louisville Orchestra and others in works by Aaron Copland and Jack McFadden-Talbot. He also premiered three new cello concerti written for him by composers Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin, Alyssa Weinberg, and Dorian Wallace, and will record them during the 2022/2023 season for his debut recording. Just months prior to the onset of COVID-19, he appeared as cello soloist in Richard Strauss's "Don Quixote" with the Louisville Orchestra. Finch was appointed Principal Cellist of the Louisville Orchestra during the 2013-2014 season by music director Teddy Abrams. He has appeared with the Boston-based chamber orchestra ‘A Far Cry’ on numerous concerts and recordings, one recording having been nominated for a Grammy Award. He has additionally appeared numerous times with the Jupiter Chamber Players in New York City. Finch has collaborated with some of the most prominent artists of today, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble, pianist Joyce Yang, members of the Dover and Escher String Quartets, and many more. A native of Boston, Finch began his cello studies at the age of 12. He attended Harvard, Juilliard, the University of Michigan, and the Mannes College of Music. He has studied conducting with Markand Thakar, Kenneth Kiesler, and with Michael Jinbo and Ludovic Morlot at the Pierre Monteux School. Finch currently splits his residence between Louisville and New York City.

Sidney A. King’s multi-faceted career as a double bassist, composer and arranger spans over three decades. Since 1992, he has performed at the orchestra of the Grand Teton Music Festival, often serving in titled positions. He has served as principal bassist with the Houston Grand Opera, the Texas Opera Theater, the Sunflower Music Festival, and the Des Moines Metro Opera, and has performed with the symphonies of the Detroit, Cincinnati, Houston, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and Nashville, as well as the Louisiana Philharmonic and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. He held the position of assistant principal bassist of the Louisville Orchestra from 1984-2006. As a composer, Mr. King has received commissions from many diverse organizations and his compositions have been performed throughout the country. He holds the position of Professor of Double Bass and Music Education at the University of Louisville School of Music. He has served as Member-at-Large on the Board of Directors of the American String Teachers Association.

Jim Rittenhouse has been a frequent soloist with regional choral and chamber/orchestral ensembles since 1989, including the Louisville Orchestra. He holds the Performer’s Certificate and Master of Church Music degrees from Southern Seminary where he studied with Dr. Lloyd Mims and Dr. John Dickson. His performances have included the world premiere performance and recording of Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero with Ars Femina; the Durufle Requiem, Rutti Requiem, Britten Cantata misericordium, and Britten’s War Requiem with the Louisville Choral Arts Society; and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with The Blanche Moyse Chorale. He is Director of Worship & Music Ministries at Second Presbyterian Church.