Siwoo Kim is an “incisive” and “compelling” (Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times) violinist who performs as soloist and chamber musician. Mr. Kim is also the founding co-artistic director of VIVO Music Festival in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

Siwoo made his New York concerto debut at Carnegie Hall – Stern Auditorium with James DePreist and the Juilliard Orchestra. He made his Walt Disney Concert Hall concerto debut shortly after. In addition, he has given concerto performances with the Columbus, Houston, Seongnam, Springfield (MO), and Tulsa symphony orchestras, among others. Siwoo gave the world premiere performance of Samuel Adler’s first violin concerto and will be recording the work in Berlin in the 2017 – 2018 season. The same season, Siwoo will be going on tour in South Africa, making his debut with the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra, the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra.

An enthusiastic collaborator, Mr. Kim founded Quartet Senza Misura. Praised for their “whip-smart performances” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), the string quartet has performed at an array of venues such as Alice Tully Hall of Lincoln Center, Terrace Theater of The Kennedy Center, Seoul Arts Center, La Fundacion Juan March, and the Simon Bolivar Conservatory of Music. In the past several seasons, Siwoo has been a violinist of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect (formerly known as Ensemble ACJW) and Marlboro Music Festival. He is a returning guest artist of Ensemble DITTO in South Korea and has also been featured in the Tivoli Festival in Denmark and the Bergen International Festival in Norway. He has performed chamber music with Itzhak Perlman, Joyce DiDonato, Jeremy Denk, Kim Kashkashian, Stefan Jackiw, Richard O’Neill, Bridget Kibbey, Anna Polonsky, and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard and Takacs String Quartets.

Siwoo was named the recipient of the 2012 King Award for Young Artists. He took second place at the 2010 Corpus Christi International Competition for Piano and Strings, where he was also awarded special prizes for the best performance of solo Bach and violin performance. He has also been named top prizewinner in the California, Chengdu, Crescendo, Hellam, Ima Hogg, Juilliard, Schadt, Sejong, and WAMSO competitions.

Siwoo studied with Roland and Almita Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago. He went on to receive both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Juilliard School. As the recipient of the Elsie and Walter W. Naumburg Scholarship, he led the Juilliard Orchestra as concertmaster and studied with Robert Mann, Donald Weilerstein, and Ronald Copes.

Conductor Michael Repper’s work spans five continents. In 2023, he became the youngest North American conductor to win a Grammy® Award in Best Orchestral Performance. He has an international reputation for engaging and exciting audiences of all spectrums, and for promoting new and diverse musical talents.

Repper is currently the Music Director of the Ashland Symphony Orchestra, Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, and the Northern Neck Orchestra of Virginia.  He recently concluded tenures as Music Director of the New York Youth Symphony, and as Principal Conductor of Sinfonía por el Perú, the elite youth orchestras and choruses of one of South America's most versatile social impact music programs. Repper was the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Conducting Fellow for two seasons, and he served as the BSO's New Music Consultant. Recognizing his success at these ensembles, and his growing profile as a guest conductor all over the world, Repper was awarded a Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

His album with the New York Youth Symphony, which features debut recordings of works by Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery, and Valerie Coleman, achieved widespread critical acclaim, reached #1 on the Billboard Chart, and won a Grammy® Award, marking the first time a youth orchestra achieved this milestone.

Repper has collaborated on large-scale productions of symphonic and theatrical works with the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ravinia Festival, Peabody Institute of Music, and the New School of Music, among others. An avid pianist, he regularly performs as a soloist alongside his orchestras and choruses, and as an orchestral player as well. Recently, he played in the Chicago Symphony for their performances of Bernstein’s Mass, which was broadcast on PBS Great Performances. ​

​Alongside the standard repertoire, Repper is especially invested in programming new music and showcasing fresh talent. His ensembles have performed dozens of world premieres and pursued innovative commissions, as well as a variety of Carnegie Hall premieres from established and emerging composers.  A trusted ear, Repper is asked to assist and cover at orchestras nationwide, including the St. Louis Symphony, the Van Cliburn Competition, and for Naxos recordings with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra.

His experience with choruses has been recognized with significant positions, including his tenure as the Music Director at the Baltimore Basilica, the first Catholic Cathedral in the United States. Internationally, Repper has performed with highly regarded ensembles and in the world’s greatest venues, including the São Paulo Symphony, and at the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, Carnegie Hall, and others.

His discography includes the aforementioned album of music with the New York Youth Symphony, alongside an album with the Grammy®-Nominated Metropolis Ensemble and Grammy®-Winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus ("Musical America"), and several with the Peabody Institute as an Assistant Conductor. With the New York Youth Symphony during the Coronavirus pandemic, he was one of the first to pioneer the practice of distanced orchestral performance videos, and he made two performance appearances on CNN, the final one with Platinum-Artist Billy Ray Cyrus.

Repper complements his work with professional orchestras with a firm commitment to education, and travels worldwide to work with ensembles of young musicians. As Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Maryland, he ushered in a slate of innovative educational programming, such as the Reinecke Youth Chamber Music Scholarship and Fellowship Program. He has conducted several masterclasses for orchestras from all over the United States on behalf of the New York Philharmonic, and conducts side-by-side and educational concerts with major orchestras, including the Baltimore Symphony and the Colorado Symphony.
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Repper's most influential conducting mentors are Marin Alsop and the late Gustav Meier. He believes that a conductor's main role is to connect people and to use performance as a vehicle for positive change. He aims to promote a diverse and inclusive future for the arts, and to pay forward the passion for community that his mentors demonstrated to him.

Ekaterina was born in Moscow in a family of scientists and athletes. She started playing music at the age of 4. As a child she performed on the historical stage of Bolshoi Theater as a part of children's choir. In 2003 Ekaterina enrolled in Central Music School of P. I. Tchaikovsky, the class of famous flute professor Dolzhikov. Since age 11, Ekaterina has regularly participated in international music festivals in France, Norway, Germany, Israel, Russia, Greece, Austria and Italy, visited master classes of the famous professors in Europe, such as Felix Renggli, Francois Laurent, Vicens Prat, Vincent Luca, Shigenori Kudo, David Formizano, Kersten McCall, Andrea Lieberkneht, Philippe Bernold and Sophie Cherie.

Ekaterina Kornishina shares the stage with no less than Denis Matsuev, Vladimir Spivakov, Alexander Sladkovsky, Christian Schultz, Arkady Shilkloper and many others. At the age of 13 she won the "New Names" competition and got a scholarship of the New Names Foundation. Since then Denis Matsuev has been constantly inviting the young flutist to perform at the festivals "Crecendo" and "Stars on Baikal".
"Ekaterina Kornishina is one of the brightest flutists of the younger generation. Ekaterina is a student of the New Names Foundation and a former student of the great Dolzhikov, a fantastic master of flute artistry. She is a modern, talented, motivated musician destroying the stereotype that a wind instrument player can only make a career in the orchestra by successfully performing solo," — said the renowned pianist.

In 2010 Ekaterina made a debut at the Brahms hall in Vienna with Mozart's concerto and Wiener Concert-Verein orchestra. At the age of 18 after graduating from the Central Music School Ekaterina was invited by Vladimir Spivakov to become a soloist of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia. Spivakov also gave her a a great instrument as a gift. In 2016 Ekaterina received Hyundai scholarship for her academic success at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky conservatory. In 2018 Ekaterina finished the Conservatory, class of Professor Alexander Golyshev and enrolls in Reina Sofia Academy in Madrid, class of Jacques Zoon.

Bram van Sambeek is an international bassoonist and professor of bassoon at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. He is known for his highly versatile approach to bassoon playing and for his innovative programming. He is the only bassoonist to receive the highest Dutch Cultural Award: The Dutch Music Prize in 2009. As a soloist, he performs with orchestras such as the Gothenburg, Galicia and Netherlands Symphony Orchestras, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn and Camerata RCO. Many composers, such as Vanessa Lann, Sebastian Fagerlund and Kalevi Aho, have written concertos for him.

He played for ten years as principal bassoonist in the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and as a guest principal with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Since 2009 he has been teaching the bassoon at the Conservatories in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and The Hague. In 2017 he started a professorship at the Hochschule für Music und Tanz in Cologne, before deciding to return to the Royal Conservatoire The Hague in 2021. Bram has taught masterclasses at schools like Bloomington Indiana, the Royal College of London and the Hochschule für Musik in Basel.

As a chamber musician he has worked regularly with Alexei Ogrintchouk, Reto Bieri, Hervé Joulain, Radovan Vlatkovich, Liza Ferschtman, Christoph Pregardien, Pekka Kuusisto, Nicolas Altstaedt and his most frequent chambermusic partner Rick Stotijn. In 2010 Bram was offered a Carte Blanche series in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and in 2015 he received a “Wild Card” consisting of many adventurous concerts at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, also in Amsterdam. He is a regular guest at festivals like the Delft Chamber Music Festival, Storioni Festival, Orlando Festival, West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, and he has experimented with concert formats such as playing people to sleep.

In 2016 he was the spokesman of the “Save the bassoon” campaign set up by the Holland Festival. This led to a lot of international attention and publicity for the instrument. Bram is very much interested in playing any style he likes, which leads him to work with rock musicians like Sven Figee at Konzerthaus Berlin, Jazz musicians like Joris Roelofs at the famous North Sea Jazz Festival, and Arab musicians like Kinan Azmeh at the Morgenland Festival.

On the occasion of being awarded the Dutch Music Prize, Bram played the bassoon concerto by Gubaidulina with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and chief conductor Seguin. De Telegraaf newspaper wrote about this performance: “He uses his instrument freely as a mouthpiece, conjures the finest timbres, and is technically capable of doing anything.” In 2011 he won a Borletti Buitoni Trust Award, and has been admitted to the Chamber Music Society of New York’s Lincoln Center.

About working together with Bram, Yannick Nézet-Séguin remarked in a television interview available at www.bramvansambeek.com: “I think he is able to fall in love with many aspects of the music, and doesn’t set himself too many boundaries.” In another interview about Bram, Valery Gergiev remarked: “…all in all a combination of being artistically involved, motivated and being gifted, being a very nice person, and also being a little bit unusual!”

On his debut cd with Brilliant Classics, called ‘Bassoon Concertos’, he presented a very accessible programme of bassoon concertos by Vivaldi, Du Puy, Villa Lobos, and Olthuis. On his second album“Bassoon-Kaleidoscope,” he presented extremely different chamber music pieces, including Tango, Jazz and Rock music. In 2015-2016 Bram has performed the two new bassoon concertos by Sebastian Fagerlund and Kalevi Aho and recorded them for the BIS label with whom he has an on-going cooperation. This album received the BBC Music Magazine Award in 2018.He recorded an extraordinary album with his favourite rock songs with his own band called ORBI (The Oscillating Revenge of the Background Instruments) that reached nr 1 in the iTunes Classic charts. In 2020 he recorded the well known bassoon concertos by Mozart and Weber, and expanded this standard repertoire by introducing an unknown Romantic bassoon concerto by Édouard Du Puy. In 2022 he released his solo Bach album for the same label, using an innovative multitrack technique to record a keyboard partita, besides other partita’s and suites.

A distinctive trait of internationally recognized jazz pianist Kevin Harris is his desire to constantly grow, evolve, improve, and advance. His interest to interweave traditional and contemporary music styles, visual arts, electronic media, science, and language, is what distinguishes his music and what renders his performances unique experiences, meant to activate the audience’s senses and personal curiosity.

"Participation,” Harris says, "is what keeps our souls alive.” As a leader, Harris has released six albums. Both live and recorded performances reflect Harris’s determination to capture his audience through explorative interactions that Terri Lyne Carrington describes as "an exciting commitment to quality."

Harris’ music education has its foundation in the degrees he has received, but equally importantly in Black Gospel and Afro-Caribbean styles of music. He possesses the unique ability to compose complex, uplifting, tempestuous, and deeply stimulating notes.

One of the captivating elements of his ensembles, from duet to orchestra setting, is the level of comfort and understanding they have with one another. Harris is known for his diving into soulfully expressive conversations and playful exchanges of ideas with his musicians, while always providing the space to improvise in the moment. Fred Hersch talks of Harris as one who “plays and writes with flair and real soul" and DownBeat Magazine writes that “Harris' compositions deal with themes of strength, love, courage, and self- awareness. It's a heavy task he's set up for himself, and he meets the challenge gracefully.”

Harris' most innovative project as a composer are: “Roots, Water and Sunlight: A Contemporary Octet Expedition through the Expressions of James Baldwin", and “Pulse”, a compelling through-composed chamber work combining improvised and fully notated music. As a leader, he has released six albums and, in December 2024 he has released his latest, “EMBERS.” One review of EMBERS quotes: “Comparing

Harris' writing to that of Charles Mingus in the early ’60s and Herbie Hancock in the late ’60s is not faint praise. He stands on the shoulders of these masters, adds a singular personal voice, and has recruited strongly individualistic players to give his music definitive interpretation.”

Harris is part of the exclusive YAMAHA’s roster of Jazz piano artists. Among his most notable collaborations are Terri Lyne Carrington, Dayna Stephens, Ralph Peterson, Ameen Saleem, Greg Hutchinson Greg Osby, Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone, Curtis Lundy, Caroline Davis, Bill Pierce, Francisco Mela, Avishai Cohen, Delfeayo Marsalis, Duane Eubanks, Richie Barshay, Ben Street, Jason Palmer, Rudy Royston, Frank Lacey, Eric McPherson.

South African violinist Ian Watson obtained an MMus at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2008, enabled by an RSM International Scholarship. Prior to this, he obtained a BMus (Hons) under Dr. Suzanne Martens at the University of Stellenbosch, RSA, and was subsequently appointed Co-Principal 2nd violin with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, at the age of 21.

After graduating in Scotland, Ian formed a duo with celebrated guitarist-composer, Marek Pasieczny. This collaboration lead to invitations to Italy, Japan, South Africa and Poland, where they subsequently became Laureate of the Nowa Tradycja Competition in Warsaw, 2008.

Ian joined the Royal Northern Sinfonia in 2010, under the direction of Thomas Zehetmair. Two years later he was appointed Principal 1st Violin of the Hallé Orchestra, under Sir Mark Elder. Highlights from this period include Parsifal at the BBC Proms (2013) and a number of tours within Europe, China, South Korea and South America.

Since leaving the Hallé in 2015, Ian has enjoyed a varied career as a Guest Leader and Co-Leader with some of Britain's major orchestras and chamber ensembles, including the BBC Philharmonic, BBC SSO, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Ulster Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Ensemble, Manchester Collective, London Mozart Players, and the Hague Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also Guest Principal 2nd Violin of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and guest directs the Northern Chamber Orchestra. Ian is regularly away on tour, and has played at venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Concertgebouw and Musikverein, sharing a stage with musicians such as Argerich, Vengerov, Tetzlaff and the late Lars Vogt.

Ian plays in the first violin section of the Aurora Orchestra, which has earned international recognition for performing ambitious and large-scale symphonic works entirely from memory. In recent years, he performed both Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring' and Berlioz' 'Symphonie Fantastique' from memory, televised at the BBC Proms. In 2019 he joined the renowned Dante String Quartet. He lives in Chester with his wife and two children.