Pianist Judith Gordon explores diverse repertoire in collaboration with an exceptionally wide range of solo artists and ensembles. She was a member of the percussion-based Essential Music, focusing on the American Experimental tradition, and has been soloist in works from Bach and Ravel to Cage and Boulez with groups including the Boston Pops Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Gordon has been a consulting director of Music from Salem, in Washington County, NY, and the Harvard, MA, Chamber Music Workshop, as well as a featured performer at the Apple Hill, Bard, Bennington, Charlottesville, Music Mountain, Rockport, Santa Fe Chamber Music, and Tanglewood festivals. An associate professor of music at Smith College from 2006-20, she is a graduate of the New England Conservatory, where she recently received an Outstanding Alumni Award. Now based in New Mexico, she plays regularly with the musicians of ChatterABQ.

Praised for his “persuasively emphatic and engaging” performances (Boston Musical Intelligencer), violist John Batchelder has captivated audiences as a passionate chamber musician, educator and administrator deeply committed to the values of chamber music. He has performed as soloist with numerous ensembles such as the Los Colinas Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Arlington, Garland Symphony Orchestra and Worcester Bach Consort as well as participated in various summer festivals such as The McGill International String Quartet Academy, the Banff Centre Masterclasses, St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar and Music from Salem, in Salem NY. As a member of the award winning Julius Quartet, John has performed coast to coast in the country’s most esteemed venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Moss Arts Center, Shalin Liu Performance Center, and Bing Concert Hall. Beginning his musical education in Boston, John is a graduate of The Boston Conservatory where he studied with Lila Brown, and of the John J. Cali School of Music Graduate String Quartet in Residence program where he studied with Honggang Li of the celebrated Shanghai Quartet. In addition to his work as a performer and educator, John now serves as Executive Director of the Dallas Chamber Music Society, now celebrating its 80th season. John performs on a viola crafted by Michele Deconet (Venice, 1780) that was previously played by Boris Kroyt of the Budapest String Quartet, loaned to him in memory of Boris and Sonya Kroyt.

Amanda Brin (violin), a native of Rochester, New York, is a founding member and first violinist of the Hyperion String Quartet. Her playing has been praised for its “lusciousness and great pathos” by Classical Voice of North Carolina and as a member of the quartet, she won first prizes at the Coleman, Music Teachers National Association and Green Lake chamber music competitions, and was the bronze medal prizewinner at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Hailed by The Strad magazine for their “uncommonly high level of homogeneity and confidence”, the Quartet has held residencies at San Diego State University in collaboration with the La Jolla Music Society, the Western Piedmont Symphony in North Carolina, the Empire State Youth Orchestra in Albany, New York and the Sembrich Opera Museum in Bolton Landing, New York. She has performed as soloist with the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra in New York and has also appeared at festivals including the Strings in the Mountains Festival, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival and SummerFest La Jolla. Amanda has collaborated with renowned artists including Anthea Kreston, Eugenia Zukerman, Anne-Marie McDermott, Stephen Taylor, Stewart Rose, Jennifer Frautschi, Benny Kim, Toby Appel, Sophie Shao, Melvin Chen, Raman Ramakrishnan and the Miró and Rossetti string quartets. She currently spends her summers performing as Assistant Concertmaster of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta in New York. Dedicated to teaching, Amanda has served on the faculty at the Hartt School Community Division, Montana Chamber Music Workshop, Connecticut College, SUNY Adirondack and Skidmore College, and currently teaches at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York. Amanda holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Kent State University. Her principal violin teachers include Ilya Kaler, Timothy Ying, Sandy Yamamoto, Ivan Chan and Cathy Meng Robinson and she studied viola with Chauncey Patterson. Other mentors include Virginia Wensel, Betty Haag and David Updegraff. She also studied chamber music with members of the Ying, Miró, Miami, Juilliard and Emerson quartets. She currently performs on a J.B. Ceruti violin on generous loan. She is married to cellist, Jonathan Brin, and they have three children, Annabelle, Elliott and Oliver.

Violinist Hyun Jeong Helen, praised for her “superior [and] excellent” artistry (The Flint Journal), has mesmerized audiences throughout North America and Asia. As a soloist, she has performed with the Garland Symphony, Los Colinas Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Arlington, Chichibu Festival Orchestra, Royal Oak Symphony Orchestra, and The Boston Conservatory String Ensemble as winner of the String Ensemble Concerto Competition. As a first violinist of the award-winning Julius Quartet, Helen performs regularly across the country in addition to continuing the group’s commitment to engaging diverse communities through educational residencies and performance workshops. She is a graduate of The Boston Conservatory where she studied with Markus Placci and received an Artist Diploma from the John J. Cali School of Music Graduate Quartet Program at Montclair State University where she studied with Weigang Li of the celebrated Shanghai Quartet. Most recently, under the Peak Fellowship, Helen served as a Teaching Assistant and Assistant Chamber Music Coach at the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU. She is a regular performer at Music from Salem, in upstate NY.

Sharan Leventhal (violin), has toured four continents as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. Since winning the Kranischsteiner Musikpreis at the 1984 International Contemporary Music Festival in Darmstadt, Germany, she has built an international reputation as a champion of contemporary music. She has premiered over 130 works, including compositions by Gunther Schuller, Ben Johnston, Pauline Oliveros, Tania León, Simon Bainbridge, Scott Wheeler, and Fred Hersch. Equally active in traditional venues, Leventhal has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, and the Toledo, Milwaukee, Gulf Coast, Topeka, Dayton and Albany symphonies, among others. She is a founding member of the Kepler Quartet, Marimolin and the Gramercy Trio. Leventhal has received awards from Chamber Music America, the Fromm Foundation, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music Recording, the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation, American Academy of Arts & Letters, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Recordings include the string quartets of Ben Johnston with the Kepler Quartet (New World), the violin and piano works of Virgil Thomson (Northeastern Recordings), Gramercy Trio (Parma Recordings, Naxos, Newport Classic, Ltd.), and discs by Marimolin (GM Recordings, Catalyst/BMG).
Leventhal is a professor at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and at Berklee College of Music.

Cailin Marcel Manson, baritone and conductor, a Philadelphia native, has toured as a soloist and master teacher at major concert venues throughout the United States, Europe and Asia with many organizations, including the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, SWR Sinfonieorchester, Taipei Philharmonic, Bayerische Staatsoper – Münchner Opernfestspiele, Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Teatro La Fenice, Teatro San Carlo, Konservatorium Oslo, and the Conservatoire de Luxembourg.
He has also been a guest cantor and soloist at some of the world’s most famous churches and cathedrals, including Notre Dame, Sacré-Coeur, and La Madeleine in Paris, San Marco in Venice, Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, San Salvatore in Montalcino, Santa Maria Maggiore and San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome, Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, and Wieskirche in Steingaden.
Cailin has built a sterling reputation over an extensive 20-year career, encompassing both baritone and some tenor repertoire, for his exceptional musicianship, keen dramatic instincts, and vocal flexibility. Critics have praised his performances as “arresting” and “revelatory,” making consistent note of his “ringing projection,” “commanding tone,” (MassLive.com), “lively, original acting skills” (Hudson-Housatonic Arts), and his “ability to bring the internal drama of the music to life” (Scranton Times-Tribune). Recently, Cailin created and premiered the roles of The Hunter in John Aylward’s Oblivion and The Man in Matthew Malsky’s A Dill Pickle, released on New Focus Recordings and Neuma Records within the last year. A founding artist for the Wagner In Vermont Festival, he has performed the role of Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde, and the complete cycle of Wotan/Wanderer roles in Der Ring des Nibelungen (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried).
He recently made an acclaimed Carnegie Hall conducting debut with MidAmerica Productions in March 2023, leading Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, becoming the second Black person in the performance history of Carnegie Hall to conduct the work at that historic venue. Shortly thereafter, MidAmerica Productions appointed Cailin as their Artistic Consultant, and he has since returned to Carnegie Hall numerous times to conduct masterworks in performance. He will return to La Madeleine with MidAm International — as a conductor — to lead a centennial performance of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem in June 2024, at the very site where the work was premiered in 1888 and performed in 1924 for the composer’s state funeral.
An advocate for rarely-heard repertoire and the work of underrepresented composers, Cailin led the New England Premiere of Robert Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses, and conducted performances of Luigi Cherubini’s Medea, Robert Aldridge’s Parables, Jules Massenet’s Marie-Magdeleine, William Grant Still’s And They Lynched Him On A Tree, Louise Farrenc’s Symphony No. 3, among many others. He also commissioned and premiered two works by emerging composers of color: the song cycle Unsaid Prayers by Nico Gutierrez, and a full symphonic work by Felix Jarrar, his Symphony No. 1, “Banishing Grief.”
Cailin has held positions as Music Director of the Vorarlberger Musikfest, Music Director and Conductor Laureate of the Chamber Symphony of Atlantic City, Artistic Director and Conductor of the Montgomery County Youth Orchestra, Chair of Vocal Studies at the Hazleton Conservatory for the Performing Arts, Director of Music at The Putney School, Music Director of the Bennington County Choral Society, and as Music Director of The Keene Chorale. He has also served as a member of the faculty of the Vermont Governor’s Institute on the Arts and the Performing Arts Institute of Wyoming Seminary. He also founded and directed the Germantown Institute for the Vocal Arts and the Germantown Concert Chorus.
Cailin is a frequent guest conductor, clinician, presenter, panelist, and adjudicator for conventions, conferences, competitions, and music festivals. Cailin studied voice performance at Temple University, and opera performance and orchestral conducting at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg.

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.

Eric Thomas (clarinet), has appeared as a guest artist with groups including the internationally acclaimed Apple Hill Chamber Players, Sylvan Winds, the Boston Pops Traveling Ensemble, and at festivals such as the Bravo! Festival at Vail, Wellesley Composers Conference and Cabrillo Contemporary Music Festival. He has been featured soloist with the Baltimore Symphony, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Keene Chamber Orchestra and at Brown University, Colby College, New England Conservatory, and Phillips Academy (Andover). Also a composer, grants from the Quinney Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts allowed Eric to be artist-in-residence for the Moab Music Festival where he completed a variety of activities in the community. Mr. Thomas has been commissioned to write a Big Band chart for Colby College, a trio for the Maine Teachers Association and Music Teachers National Association, and incidental music for plays at UNC Charlotte and Colby College, as well as a String Octet and Wind Dectet for the Sonad Project. A member of the Phillips Academy Music Department for over 15 years, he was co-author of their groundbreaking music curriculum. Presently, Mr. Thomas is Director of Bands at Colby College and adjunct faculty at the University of Maine [at Orono and Augusta].
“Talent multiplied, a superb musician.” – NY Times

Violinist Cornelia Schwartz has established a vibrant and diverse career as chamber musician, orchestral player and teacher both in the United Sates and throughout Europe. As chamber musician, she has performed with New School Concerts, New York Philomusica, Monadnock Music, Dowling College Concert Series, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth Guest Artist Series, Trondheim Contemporary Music Festival in Norway and Bosehaus-Bach-Museum Leipzig among others. Schwartz has also performed as guest artist with Alexander Schneider and Isaac Stern at the State Department in Washington D.C. and with the Stadler Quartett in Germany, Austria and Norway. A former member of Camerata Salzburg, she has performed at the Oregon Bach Festival and with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the San Francisco Symphony. Summers have brought her to the Bach Aria, New Hampshire, Norfolk, Caramoor and Grand Teton Music festivals. A recipient of an Artist Opportunity Grant from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, she is a frequent faculty member at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and the Bennington Chamber Music Conference in Vermont. A native New Yorker, Schwartz holds B.M. and M.M degrees from the Juilliard School where she studied with Szymon Goldberg and Margaret Pardee. Her chamber music coaches have included Felix Galimir and members of the Budapest and Juilliard Quartets. Studies abroad included master classes with Henryk Szeryng, Nathan Milstein, Gyorgy Sebok and Sandor Vegh.