Todd Palmer

Todd Palmer has been involved in an array of creative artistic presentations throughout his career, appearing as soloist, recitalist, chamber music collaborator, educator, arranger, and presenter in a variety of musical endeavors worldwide. He has appeared with many symphony and chamber orchestras, including those of Houston, Atlanta, St. Paul, Cincinnati, Montréal, and Scotland, and has collaborated with many of the worlds finest string ensembles, such as the St. Lawrence, Brentano, Borromeo, Pacifica, and Ying quartets. Mr. Palmer has also shared the stage with sopranos Kathleen Battle, Renée Fleming, and Dawn Upshaw, and appeared in the world premiere of composer Ricky Gordon's theatre work, Orpheus and Euridice, with coloratura Elizabeth Futral on Great Performers at Lincoln Center in 2005.

Since winning the Young Concert Artist International Auditions, Mr. Palmer has appeared as recitalist and lecturer at major performing arts centers and universities in 48 states. His appearances abroad have included concerto, recital, and chamber music performances in Germany, France, Scotland, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Brazil, the Caribbean, and Japan. In addition, Mr. Palmer has been closely associated with composer Osvaldo Golijov, and is regarded as the champion of his great klezmer clarinet quintet The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind. His recording of this work with the St. Lawrence Quartet, entitled Yiddishbbuk, became one of the top-selling recordings of 2002, and received two Grammy Award nominations in addition to the Classical Prelude Award from the Netherlands. As editor-in-chief of the piece for its publication, Mr. Palmer worked extensively with Golijov on the score as well as the newly orchestrated version, which he premiered stateside in 2006. In addition, he has held principle clarinet positions with the Minnesota Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and at the Grand Teton Festival. He is currently appearing in Lincoln Center's revival of South Pacific.

Chiara String Quartet

Playing "Chamber Music in Any Chamber," the *Chiara String Quartet *(Rebecca Fischer, Julie Yoon violin; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello) reaches from the concert hall into clubs, bars and galleries, expanding the places to hear live classical music while returning chamber music to its roots in intimate spaces. Described by the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" as "vastly talented, vastly resourceful, and vastly committed to the music of their time," the Chiara is also continually finding new meaning within pieces from the well-established quartet canon. Their style is best described as a nonstop journey to the edge of expressive possibility: "luminous," "searing," ("New York Times") "soulful," "biting," and possessing a "potent collective force" ("Strings Magazine").

The Chiara Quartet was recently named the Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University, a post they begin in the fall of 2008, in addition to their ongoing artist residency at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Recently awarded with the Guarneri Quartet Residency Award for artistic excellence by Chamber Music America, the Quartet's other honors include a top prize at the Paolo Borciani International Competition, winning the Astral Artistic Services National Audition, and winning First Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.

In addition to performing in concert halls such as Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, and Harris Hall in Aspen, Colorado, the Chiara devotes much of its performance season to reaching new audiences through concerts in non-classical venues. The Quartet has performed at Caffe Vivaldi in New York's West Village, Kansas City's The Brick, Houston's Mucky Duck, and Chicago's The Hideout, among many others.

Internationally, the Chiara Quartet has performed at the American Academy in Rome, and recently completed a critically-acclaimed eight-city tour of Sweden with clarinetist Håkan Rosengren. In May 2009 they will make their debut in Munich, performing "Different Trains" by Steve Reich at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität as part of "Crosscurrents: American and European Music in Interaction, 1900-2000." Other highlights of the current season include four concerts in Boston and Cambridge as part of their Harvard residency, including a performance of music banned in the former U.S.S.R. with soprano Lucy Shelton; several concerts at Columbia University's Miller Theater in New York, performing Mozart's Six "Haydn" String Quartets; and concerts in Chicago, Houston, and St. Paul.

Recent collaborators of the Chiara Quartet include Joel Krosnick, Roger Tapping, Todd Palmer, Simone Dinnerstein, Norman Fischer, and Paul Katz, as well as members of the Orion, Ying, Cavani, and Pacifica Quartets. The ensemble has premiered works by Gabriela Lena Frank, Jefferson Friedman, Michael Wittgraf, Randall Snyder, and Nico Muhly, among others.

The Chiara Quartet has been artists-in-residence at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln since 2005. In the summer, they are in residence at Greenwood Music Camp, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Chamber Music Institute, and the Red River Chamber Music Festival, a summer study and performance festival founded by the Chiara Quartet in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

The Chiara trained and taught at The Juilliard School, mentoring for two years with the Juilliard Quartet, as recipients of the Lisa Arnhold Quartet Residency from 2003-2005.

"Chiara" (key-ARE-uh) is an Italian word, meaning "clear, pure, or light." More information about the Chiara Quartet can be found online at chiaraquartet.net and on MySpace at myspace.com/chiarastringquartet.

Trio Solisti

Hailed as "the most exciting piano trio in America" by The New Yorker Magazine, Trio Solisti is comprised of three brilliant instrumentalists - violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach and pianist Jon Klibonoff. Trio Solisti has earned a reputation for its passionate, committed, and adventurous performances marked by exquisite individuality of expression and seamless ensemble playing. These qualities have drawn high praise from such journals as The New York Times ("...consistently brilliant....and compelling.") and The Washington Post ("...zealous abandon in a transcendent performance.") The Trio's cutting edge verve and mastery across a wide spectrum of styles has garnered superlatives not often encountered in the piano trio genre. This versatility also extends to new music, most notably to the works of 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Moravec.

The members of Trio Solisti collaborate with many of today's leading composers. Commissioned works for Trio Solisti include a work by one of America's most gifted young composers, Kevin Puts, who writes a work for the trio to premiere in 2012. Mr. Puts is one of four composers commissioned by Chamber Music Monterrey Bay to write works for CMMB's "Arc of Life" commissioning initiative. Violinist Maria Bachmann and pianist Jon Klibonoff performed the world premiere of Philip Glass's Sonata for violin and piano (2008) in February 2009, cellist Alexis Gerlach performs the world premiere of a concerto by Kevin Puts for cello and string quintet in New York in May 2009, and Maria Bachmann performs the world premiere of Paul Moravec's Violin Concerto at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, PA in May 2010. The Trio performed with soprano Amy Burton in the World and New York premieres of Vita Brevis by Paul Moravec in 2009.

Highlights of 2009 - 2010 include performances at The Kennedy Center, where they make their debut on the prestigious Fortas Chamber Series, in Houston for the renowned Houston Friends of Music Series, tours of the west coast and southern US, among others. Trio Solisti performs at many festivals including The Caramoor Festival, The Moab Festival in Utah, Maverick Concerts and Cooperstown Festivals in New York, Chappaquidick Festival in MA, Mt. Gretna Music in PA, and the Grand Canyon Festival in Arizona.

The trio has made critically acclaimed debuts in New York City on Lincoln Center's Great Performers Series and at Town Hall's Peoples' Symphony Concerts, at The Kennedy Center (for WPAS) in Washington, D.C., the Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia, and at the internationally renowned Tuscan Sun Festival in Cortona, Italy. They have performed as guests of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, at Seattle's Meany Hall, La Jolla's Revelle series, Milwaukee Symphony's Pabst Series, Troy Chromatic Concerts, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, and have toured in Canada.

Trio Solisti has appeared on the nationally broadcast radio show "St. Paul Sunday" and has been featured on NPR's "Performance Today" in numerous live performances from around the U.S. They have been presented in multi-concert series at the famed Morgan Library in New York and by the St. Louis Museum of Art. Trio Solisti has been ensemble-in-residence for six years at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York where they presented a three concert series each year, master-classes, and lectures - www.triosolisti.com.

The Jupiter String Quartet

The Jupiter String Quartet, formed in 2001, is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Megan Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (older sister of Meg), and cellist Daniel McDonough (husband of Meg, brother-in-law of Liz). Daniel, Nelson, and Meg met at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and when they were searching for a violist Meg suggested they might consider her sister Liz, who was at nearby Oberlin College. The quartet finished up their schooling together at the New England Conservatory of Music, where they were in the Professional String Quartet Training Program. They currently reside in Boston, Massachusetts.

The Jupiters have been fortunate to receive several recent chamber music honors, including first prize in the Banff International String Quartet Competition, grand prize in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competion, membership in Lincoln Center's Chamber Music Society Two, and Chamber Music America's Cleveland Quartet Award, which "honors and promotes a rising young string quartet whose artistry demonstrates that it is in the process of establishing a major career." The quartet also won the 2005 Young Concert Artists International auditions and now holds YCA's Helen F. Whitaker Chamber Music Chair. Most recently, they were honored to receive an Avery Fisher Career Grant.

The quartet concertizes across the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, and South America. They have enjoyed playing in such venues as New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Boston's Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, and Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, Corcoran Gallery, and Library of Congress. Other recent concerts include debuts in Albuquerque, Austin, Birmingham, Boulder, Buffalo, Calgary, Chicago, Cincinnati, Davis, Dayton, Detroit, Edmonton, Jacksonville, Joplin, Palo Alto, Raleigh-Durham, San Antonio, San Diego, Tallahassee, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg, among others. They have also been enthusiastically received at several major music festivals, including the Aspen Music Festival, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, the Caramoor International Music Festival, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Honest Brook Festival, the Skaneateles Festival, and the Yellow Barn Music Festival.