Lila Brown, (viola) is a co-founder and the artistic director of Music from Salem, founded in 1986, and co-founder of the MfS Viola Seminar in 2011. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Brown was a member of the Boston Symphony from 1982-84. She moved to Austria in 1985 to study with Sandor Vegh and to play as principal violist of his Camerata Academica Salzburg. As a member of the Ensemble Modern, the renowned German ensemble for new music, Brown premiered works by Ligeti, Kurtag, Adams, Reich, Rhim, Zappa, and Lachenmann among others, and she has played chamber music tours of England with the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England. Brown is a frequent guest artist at the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, the Boston Artists Ensemble and Horten Kammermusikfest in Norway. She has been an assistant professor at the Vienna Hochschule, professor at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule in Duesseldorf, and returning to the US in 2009, joined the faculty of The Boston Conservatory where she received a “Distinguished Music Faculty of the Year” award in 2012.

Rhonda Rider (cello) is a founding member of the Naumburg Award winning Lydian Quartet, with whom she played for over twenty years, and is currently a member of the piano trio Triple Helix. She has performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Symphony Space, and the Library of Congress. Rider was featured artist of the Robert Helps Festival of Contemporary Music (Florida), Emmanuel Music’s Bach and Schumann Series (Boston), and as guest artist with Boston Chamber Music Society and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Chamber Music Series. Rider was named 2010-2011 Artist-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park. Eleven solo cello pieces were commissioned for her residency. During the summer, she is heard at ARIA and the Green Mountain Festivals, as cello coach for the Asian Youth Orchestra in Hong Kong, and most happily at Music from Salem. Rider is Chair of Chamber Music and on the cello faculty of The Boston Conservatory.

Saul Bitran (violin), first violinist of the award-winning Cuarteto Latinoamericano, is an Associate Professor at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. A devoted teacher and chamber music coach, his former students now populate many of the finest orchestras in the world. Bitran was on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1987 to 2008, and he was also involved with Venezuela’s Sistema for over twenty years. There, together with the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, he created the Latin American Academy for String Quartets, which operated in Caracas from 2008 until 2013. He has also taught at music festivals, including the Dartington International Summer School, Centre d’Arts Orford, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, Grenoble Festival, San Miguel de Allende Chamber Music Festival, and many others. Bitran’s noted solo appearances have included the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, and the National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa, as well as with prominent conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gerard Schwarz, Eduardo Mata, and Keith Lockhart, among others.
Bitran is a cum laude graduate of the Samuel Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he studied with Professor Yair Kless. “Bitran’s staggering virtuosity in the live violin part was jaw-dropping” – Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Elaine Hou (piano), is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale School of Music, and SUNY Stony Brook. She has performed extensively in North America, at venues such as the Chicago Symphony Space, the Gardner Museum, the La Jolla Music Society, the Glenn Gould Studio, the Banff Centre for the Performing Arts, and Roy Thompson Hall. As a soloist, Ms. Hou has worked with orchestras in Canada, China, and the US. Currently she makes her home in Toronto.

Scott Kluksdahl (cello), made his debut as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, and has been heard as chamber musician, recitalist and soloist in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Central and South America for the past three decades. His particular interest in modern music has led to significant affiliations with Robert Helps, Richard Wernick, Richard Brodhead, David Del Tredici and Augusta Read Thomas. Currently a member of the Veronika String Quartet, Scott was a founding member of the Lions Gate Trio, with whom he performed and recorded for twenty years. He has recorded for the CRI, Albany, Triton, Pierian, Nimbus, and Centaur labels. He serves as professor of cello and chamber music at the University of South Florida, where he is a designated Venette and Theodore Ashford-Askounes Distinguished Scholar. Scott oversees ‘If Music Be the Food…’ in Tampa, a collaboration between the Tampa Bay Harvest, Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church, and Florida west-coast classical musicians and friends, where chamber music is the agent for raising both attention and support for hunger in the community.

Myron Lutzke (cello) is well known to audiences as a cellist on both modern and period instruments. He attended Brandeis University and is a graduate of The Juilliard School where he was a student of Leonard Rose and Harvey Shapiro. Chamber music studies include work with Robert Koff, Eugene Lehner, and Felix Galimir. He is currently a member of St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Aulos Ensemble, Mozartean Players, Bach Ensemble, Loma Mar Quartet, The Theater of Early Music, and the Esterhazy Machine, and serves as principal cellist for Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Classical Orchestra, Clarion Orchestra and for 14 years, the Handel and Haydn Society with Christopher Hogwood in Boston. He has appeared as soloist at the Caramoor, Ravinia, and Mostly Mozart festivals, and is a regular participant at the Sweetwater Music festival, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, Santa Fe Promusica, and the Smithsonian Chamber Players. Myron’s numerous recordings include the complete Mozart and Schubert piano trios with the Mozartean Players and the album Working Classical with the Loma Mar quartet for Paul McCartney. He has recorded for the Sony, DG, Dorian, Atma, Arabesque, EMI, and Oiseau-Lyre labels.
He has taught at the Indiana University Early Music Institute and is currently on the faculty of Mannes School of Music and New York University where he teaches cello and is director of the NYU Baroque Ensemble.

Zachary Merkovsky (bass) maintains an active freelance and teaching career in and around the NYC metro area. He is a member of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra and the York Symphony Orchestra, and often plays with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, The Syracuse Orchestra, Pegasus: The Orchestra, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Classical Players, among others. Zachary is also devoted to contemporary and chamber music. He is one half of Doubles Duo, where he and Jillian Honn work to broaden the chamber repertoire for oboe and double bass. Zachary has spent three summers with the Lucerne Contemporary Festival Orchestra, and four at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival as a guest artist. He holds degrees from Yale School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, and Montclair State University.

Rane Moore (clarinet) is well-regarded for her thoughtful, provocative interpretations of standard and cutting-edge contemporary repertoire. Fiercely devoted to the new music communities of the East Coast and beyond, Moore is a founding member of the New York based Talea Ensemble which regularly gives premieres of new works at major venues and festivals around the world. Ms. Moore has recently joined the award winning wind quintet, The City of Tomorrow, and is also a member of Boston’s Callithumpian Consort and Sound Icon. Recent projects with legendary saxophonist Steve Coleman have yielded recordings and performances at The Village Vanguard, Newport Jazz Festival, Saalfelden Jazz Festival, and Jazz à la Villette in Paris. Moore is also a regularly invited collaborator with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars, New York New Music Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva, Emmanuel Music, A Far Cry, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Boston Ballet Orchestra and is the principal clarinetist for the Boston Philharmonic. Ms. Moore’s latest festival and series performances include high profile national and international events and festivals such as Tanglewood Music Festival, Lincoln Center Festival, and Wien Modern, Warsaw in Autumn. Ms. Moore is on the faculty of the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at New England Conservatory and has served in the ensemble-in-residence and guest teacher for advanced students in composition and clarinet at many universities and conservatories around the world. Ms. Moore is the co-artistic director of Winsor Music and has recordings on over a dozen labels. Critics have praised her “enthralling,” “tour-de-force,” and “phenomenal” performances.

Matthias Naegele has performed extensively as soloist and chamber musician in Europe, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Asia. He has participated in the Marlboro, Apple Hill, Dubrovnick, Jerusalem, Curagao, California State Summer Arts, Aspen, International Musicians Seminar in Prussia Cove, and Edinburgh music festivals. Many of Naegele’s performances are regularly broadcast over National Public Radio and Public Television. He has also appeared on Dutch, French, Austrian, BBC radio, and BBC television. He performs regularly with numerous chamber music ensembles, including the Kaleidos String Quartet, the Prometheus Piano Quartet, the Music Project, the Chamber Music Society of New York University, Anthony Newman’s Brandenburg Collegium, the Chamber Music Society of New Jersey, Sergio Luca’s Context, An Die Musik, and the microtonal group New Band. He has performed on the Lincoln Center Great Performers Series. Naegele has recorded with the New Jersey Chamber Music Society for Koch International. In 1995 he recorded with Dawn Upshaw for Nonesuch. With his father, violinist Philipp Naegele, he has recorded for Musical Heritage and Beyer Records. Mr. Naegele plays on a Mateo Gofriller cello made in Venice in 1735. This cello was previously owned by Hermann Busch of the Busch Quartet.

Following her London debut at Wigmore Hall, Israeli-born pianist Sally Pinkas (piano) has garnered universal acclaim for her performances as soloist and chamber musician. Among highlights are performances with the Boston Pops, the Aspen Philharmonia and New York’s Jupiter Symphony, and at the festivals of Marlboro, Aspen, Rockport (USA), Pontlevoy (France), Havana (Cuba) and HCMC Conservatory (Vietnam). From a first-ever performance of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto in Bandung, Indonesia, to premieres of George Rochberg’s monumental Circles of Fire for two pianos in Russia and Nigeria, and a revival of rarely-heard 19th-century Filipino Salon Music in its birth city Manila, Pinkas commands a wide repertoire and shares it enthusiastically with young pianists through masterclasses and workshops. Praised for her radiant tone and driving energy, Pinkas’ extensive discography includes music by Mozart, Schumann, Fauré, Debussy, Gaubert, Martinů, Shapiro, Pinkham and Wolff for the MSR, Centaur, Naxos, Toccata Classics and Mode labels. She tours and records regularly with the Hirsch-Pinkas Duo (a collaboration with her husband pianist Evan Hirsch), with Ensemble Schumann and with the Adaskin String Trio. Other recent collaborators include the Apple Hill String Quartet, Cuarteto Latinoamericano and the UK’s Villiers Quartet. This season she will be making her solo debut in Spain, returning to Brazil with the Hirsch-Pinkas Duo and to China on an extensive tour with Ensemble Schumann. Pinkas holds performance degrees from Indiana University and the New England Conservatory of Music, and a Ph.D. in Composition from Brandeis University. Her principal teachers were Russell Sherman, George Sebok, Luise Vosgerchian and Genia Bar-Niv (piano), Sergiu Natra (composition), and Robert Koff (chamber music). Pianist-in-residence at the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, she is Professor of Music at Dartmouth’s Music Department.Sally travels widely as part of the Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo (with her husband Evan Hirsch).

Boston-based pianist Marc Ryser is a founding member of Music-by-the-Sea, a festival and artists’ residency on the Pacific coast of Vancouver Island, also serving on the faculty of the festival’s mentoring program for young professionals. He has performed with distinguished artists, including cellists Paul Katz, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, and Anssi Karttunen, violists Steven Dann and Marcus Thompson, violinists, Ernst Kovacic, Marc Destrubé, and Peter Salaff, pianist Judith Gordon, and with the Lydian, New Zealand, and Borealis String Quartets.  He has appeared as a guest artist with Music from Salem (NY), Rockport Chamber Music Festival (MA), Boston Artists Ensemble, Rose Colored Glasses Chamber Ensemble, and with the Walden, MIT, Holy Cross, and Smith College Chamber Players. Among the highlights of his solo career are the first performance in Bulgaria of Bela Bartók’s 3rd Piano Concerto with the Vratsa Philharmonic, and concert tours in Switzerland comprising solo and chamber music recitals, and concerto performances with the Sinfonietta de Lausanne. From 2003 to 2005 he served as senior artist and resident collaborative pianist at the Banff Centre, in Alberta, Canada.  He currently serves on the piano and chamber music faculty at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School, Smith College, and the Rivers School Conservatory, having also taught at Pomona College, Brandeis University, Drake University, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Calvin Wiersma (violin), is Associate Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at Ithaca College. He has been on the faculties of the Purchase Conservatory of Music, the Lawrence Conservatory of Music, Florida State University, Brandeis University, and the Longy School of Music, as well as teaching at summer programs including Greenwood and Manchester Music. In addition to his teaching activities, Mr. Wiersma was a founding member of the Meliora Quartet, winner of the Naumburg, Fischoff, Coleman, and Cleveland Quartet competitions, and Quartet-in-Residence of the Spoleto Festivals of the U.S., Italy, and Australia. Additionally, he was a member of the Manhattan String Quartet for 20 years, a founding member of the Figaro Trio, and is a frequent performer with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. A noted interpreter of contemporary music, Mr. Wiersma is a member of Cygnus and the Lochrian Chamber Ensemble, and has appeared with Speculum Musicae, Ensemble 21, Parnassus, Ensemble Sospeso, and the New York New Music Ensemble. He has commissioned countless works with these ensembles as well as for solo violin, has toured extensively with Steve Reich and been featured in solo performances for the International League of Composers of Music.