ORION WEISS, piano
One of the most sought-after soloists and chamber music collaborators of his generation, Orion Weiss is widely regarded as a “brilliant pianist” (The New York Times) with “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post). He has performed with dozens of orchestras in North America including the Chicago Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Boston Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and New York Philharmonic and at major venues and festivals worldwide. Known for his affinity for chamber music, Weiss performs regularly with violinists Augustin Hadelichand James Ehnes; pianists Michael Brown and Shai Wosner; and the Ariel, Parker, and Pacifica Quartets. In recent seasons, he has also performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Weiss can be heard on the Naxos, Telos, Bridge, First Hand, Yarlung, and Artek labels. Weiss has been awarded the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. A native of Ohio, Weiss attended the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, where he studied with Emanuel Ax.
DEBORAH BUCK, violin
Praised by The Strad for her “surpassing degree of imagination and vibrant sound,” violinist Deborah Buck has built a rich and varied musical career as a chamber musician--including 17 years with the celebrated Lark Quartet, as well as a concertmaster, pedagogue, soloist, recording artist, and artistic director. Highlights of recent performances and exciting projects include recitals with pianists Orli Shaham and Orion Weiss. Buck’s summer concerts have taken her to Telluride’s Chamber Music Festival (CO), Washington Friends of Music Summer Festival (CO), Sands Point: Four Seasons of Music (NYC) and Music oT the Hook Arts Music Festival (CO). Other notable news includes the honor of having received two commissions written for her: John Harbison’s DeBut for solo violin, and Fantasia on Beethoven’s Spring Sonata for violin and piano by Bruce Adolphe. For seventeen years, Buck was a member of the critically acclaimed Lark Quartet (2002- 2019). The quartet was especially recognized for its extensive commissioning and boundary-pushing programming. As a recitalist, she has performed at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.; the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago for WFMT; the Brooklyn Museum of Art; and over the airways via “Sunday’s Live” on Los Angeles’s KKGO. Since 2014, Ms. Buck has held the positions of Head of Strings and Chamber Music and Assistant Professor of Violin at SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music.
ANI KALAYJIAN, cello and Co-Artistic Director
Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “representing the young, up-and-coming generation,” and a “superb cellist with a large, expressive, singing tone, passionate musicianship, and magnificent playing” by the Journal Tribune, Armenian-American cellist Ani Kalayjian enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician and educator that has taken her to Japan, Australia, Canada, the Middle East, and throughout Europe and the United States. Newly appointed Artistic Director at the Woman's Club of Englewood, Ani founded a brand new chamber music series, Carriage House Concerts, whose mission is to connect the community through the art. She has also been recently appointed as Co-Artistic Director of LYRICA Chamber Music Series in Chatham, NJ and performed all over Jordan with Oberlin College, return visits to American University of Beirut, and AGBU Sao Paolo. Ani’s recent engagements included tours with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra around the U.S. at Ordway Hall in St. Paul, Dartmouth University, the 92nd St. Y in NY, and in Rome, Bologna, Siena, Berlin and Vienna.
DAVID KAPLAN, piano
David Kaplan, pianist, has been called “excellent and adventurous” by The New York Times, and praised by the Boston Globe for “grace and fire” at the keyboard. He has appeared as soloist at the Barbican Centre with the Britten Sinfonia and Das Sinfonie Orchester Berlin in the Philharmonie, and this season makes debuts with the Symphony Orchestras of Hawaii and San Antonio. Kaplan has consistently drawn critical acclaim for creative programs that interweave classical and contemporary repertoire, often incorporating newly commissioned works. He has given recitals at the Ravinia Festival, Washington’s National Gallery, Strathmore, and New York’s Carnegie and Merkin Halls. Kaplan’s New Dances of the League of David, mixing Schumann with 16 new works, was cited in the “Best Classical Music of 2015” by The New York Times. In the current season, he performs “Quasi una Fantasia,” which explores the grey area between composition and improvisation through works written for him by Anthony Cheung, Christopher Cerrone, and Andrea Casarrubios, together with Couperin, Beethoven, Schumann, Saariaho, Ligeti, and his own improvisations. Kaplan has collaborated with the Attacca, Ariel, Enso, Hausman, and Tesla String Quartets, and is a core member of Decoda, the Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall. He has appeared at the Bard, Seattle Chamber Music, Mostly Mozart, and Chamber Music Northwest festivals, and is an alumnus of Tanglewood, Ravinia-Steans Institute, and the Perlman Music Program. Kaplan has recorded for Naxos and Marquis Records, as well as for Nonesuch as part of his longstanding duo with pianist/composer Timo Andres. Later this year, Bright Shiny Things will release Vent, Kaplan’s debut album with his wife, flutist Catherine Gregory. Passionate about teaching, Kaplan serves as Assistant Professor and Inaugural Shapiro Family Chair in Piano Performance at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where he has taught since 2016. David is proud to be a Yamaha Artist. Away from the keyboard, he loves cartooning and cooking, and is mildly obsessed with classic cars.
PAUL LARAIA, viola
Acclaimed by The Strad for his "eloquent” and "vibrant" playing, violist Paul Laraia is an active soloist, chamber musician, and new music proponent. In competition, he was awarded First Prize in the 13th Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, First Prize in the 14th National Sphinx Competition, and Gold Medal with High Distinction at the fifth Manhattan International Music Competition. As an internationally acclaimed soloist, Laraia has performed with major orchestras such as the Pittsburgh Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Filharmonica de Bogotá, New Jersey Symphony, Nashville Symphony, New Haven Symphony, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and has been a featured soloist at London's Wigmore Hall, the Shalin Liu Performance Center, the 40th International Viola Congress, and at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Since 2013, Laraia has been a member of the Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet, which has held residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon, and SF Performances in San Francisco. Laraia has worked directly with many of the leading voices in composition such as Jessie Montgomery, David Ludwig Serkin, Gabriella Lena Frank, Richard Danielpour, Jimmy Lopez, and Todd Machover. He also maintains a close artistic partnership with Taiwanese composer Shiuan Chang, with whom he is crafting new work calling for peace in our troubled times. Laraia completed his studies at New England Conservatory under Kim Kashkashian and the Glenn Gould School in Toronto under Steven Dann has been Professor of Viola at the Boston Conservatory of Music since 2023.
FORMOSA QUARTET
Winners of the First Prize and Amadeus Prize at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, the FORMOSA QUARTET has been hailed as “spellbinding” (The Strad) and “remarkably fine” (Gramophone), and has given critically acclaimed performances at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, the Da Camera Society of Los Angeles, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Wigmore Hall in London, die Glocke Bremen, and the Kammermusiksaal at the Berliner Philharmonie. For two decades and counting, the Formosa Quartet has forged uncharted musical terrain in performances that go “beyond the beautiful and into the territory of unexpectedly thrilling… like shots of pure espresso” (MUSO Magazine). The founding members’ interest in championing Taiwanese music and Indigenous cultures has since expanded to include the exploration of the rich folk traditions and heritages found in America today. Whether in its uncompromisingly exploratory approach to the standard quartet literature; its socio-culturally probing American Mirror program concept; or its unique Sets curated from its collection of folk, pop, jazz, and poetry arrangements, the Formosa Quartet is committed to an insatiable search for the fresh and new in string quartet expression. The Formosa Quartet undertakes a variety of residencies at organizations and institutions across North America and Asia. The ensemble serves as the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music, Faculty Quartet-in-Residence at the National Youth Orchestra of Canada (NYOC) and has enjoyed residencies at Art of Élan; Rice University, University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, San Diego; San Diego State University, and Heidelberg University. During the 2023-2024 season, they held the M. Thelma McAndless Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities by Eastern Michigan University where they launched their American Mirror Project, a collaborative initiative that holds up mirrors to America and highlights personal reflections of what America means through a thought-provoking exploration of American music. The Formosa Quartet has played a leading role in actively commissioning new works, contributing significantly to the modern string quartet repertory. The Quartet’s 2019 milestone album From Hungary to Taiwan includes premiere recordings of three Formosa commissions: Lei Liang’s Song Recollections, Dana Wilson’s Hungarian Folk Songs, and Wei-Chieh Lin’s Five Taiwanese Folk Songs. Other works composed for the quartet include pieces by Dana Wilson, Wei-Chieh Lin, Shih-Hui Chen, and Clancy Newman. The members of the Formosa Quartet – Jasmine Lin, David Bernat, Matthew Cohen, and Deborah Pae – have established themselves as leading solo, chamber, and orchestral musicians. With degrees from the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, New England Conservatory, Colburn Conservatory, and the Cleveland Institute of Music, they have performed in major venues throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe and have been top prizewinners in prestigious competitions such as the Paganini, Primrose, Fischoff, and Naumburg competitions. As chamber musicians, they have appeared regularly at the Marlboro, Kingston, Santa Fe, and Ravinia festivals, as well as at Lincoln Center, La Jolla Summerfest, Caramoor, and Chamber Music Northwest. The members of the Formosa Quartet currently serve on faculty at Eastern Michigan University, Roosevelt University, and Heifetz International Music Institute. They have previously taught at the Taos School of Music and the Juilliard School. Formed in 2002 when the four Taiwanese-descended founders came together for a concert tour of Taiwan, the Formosa Quartet’s cultural identity has since expanded to include broader American, pan-Asian, and Eastern European roots. Their name “Formosa” is taken in its most basic sense: Portuguese for “beautiful.” The Formosa Quartet forms an octet with violins Andrea Guarneri (1662) and G.B. Guadagnini (1753), a Peter Westerlund viola (2014), and a Vincenzo Postiglione cello (1885).
INNA FALIKS, piano
“Adventurous and passionate” (The New Yorker) Ukrainian-born American pianist Inna Faliks has made a name for herself through her commanding performances of standard piano repertoire, as well genre-bending interdisciplinary projects, and inquisitive work with contemporary composers. After her acclaimed teenage debuts at the Gilmore Festival and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, she has appeared on many of the world’s great stages in recital and with many major orchestras, performing with conductors Leonard Slatkin, Keith Lockhart and many others. Her recent seasons include performances at Ravinia Festival in Chicago, National Gallery in Washington DC, Chigiana Academy in Italy, as soloist with US orchestras nation-wide, and repeated tours of all the major venues in China. Ms. Faliks collaborates with and premieres music by some of today’s most significant composers, including Billy Childs, Richard Danielpour, Timo Andres and Clarice Assad. She founded the award-winning poetry-music series Music/Words in 2008, with dozens of performances in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, both on stage and on WFMT radio. She regularly tours her monologue-recital Polonaise-Fantasie, the Story of a Pianist, which tells the story of her immigration to the United States from Odessa with music by Bach, Chopin, Gershwin and Carter (recorded on Delos). Inna Faliks’ discography includes Reimagine: Beethoven & Ravel (Navona, 2021), for which she commissioned nine composers to respond to Beethoven’s Bagatelles op 126 and Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit. Also released in 2021 (MSR Classics) is The Schumann Project, Volume 1, which includes Clara Schumann’s G minor sonata and Robert Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes opus 13. Other releases include all-Beethoven and Rachmaninoff/Ravel/Pasternak discs for MSR Classics, and The Master and Margarita project, featuring three world premieres on Sono Luminus (2022). Ms. Faliks is professor and head of Piano Studies at UCLA, and in demand world-wide as a masterclass artist and adjudicator. She is also a published writer, with articles and essays appearing in Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, among other media outlets. A musical memoir, titled Weight in the Fingertips, will be published in 2023 by Globe Pequot. Inna Faliks is a Yamaha Artist.
ASHLEY MARIE ROBILLARD, soprano
Heralded by Parterre Box for her “fresh-brook lyric soprano”, Ashley Marie Robillard is making waves as a passionate interpreter and committed storyteller in the world of opera, concert, chamber music, and cabaret. She has performed in prestigious halls across the USA, including the War Memorial Opera House, Verizon Hall, the Academy of Music, Jordan Hall, the National Portrait Gallery, and with esteemed organizations including Opera Philadelphia, Washington Concert Opera, Opera Lafayette, Wolf Trap Opera, the Merola Opera Program, Opera Grand Rapids, the Amarillo Symphony, and the Dolce Suono Ensemble. She’s performed under the baton of Corrado Rovaris, Karina Canellakis, Daniela Candillari, George Manahan, Patric Furrer, Kelly Kuo, David Hayes, and in collaboration with directors R.B. Schlather, Stephanie Havey, Tara Faircloth, Emma Griffin, Gina Lapinski, kt shorb, and Alessandra Premoli. Her operatic repertoire captivates audiences with a diverse range that spans from the Seikilos Epitaph to Puccini to the compositions of George Benjamin. She has earned particular acclaim for her interpretations of French repertoire, English-language opera, and Mozart, heralded as a “tour de force” (Bachtrack) during her first appearance as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. An artist who holds recital and chamber music close to her heart, Ashley has collaborated with respected instrumentalists and chamber ensembles including the Dolce Suono Ensemble and Seraph Brass. She has performed in recital tours and recital series since 2013.
MATTHEW ZABIEGALA, tenor and Director of Music at the PCCT
atthew Zabiegala is an active performer, educator, and leader in NJ/NYC area. Matthew's recent solo engagements have included featured performances with West Village Chorale, Summit Chorale, Rutgers University, and an international tour to Italy with Wagner College. Matthew is also a performing artist with Atlanta-based, Kinnara Ensemble, and NJ-based, Terpsichore Ensemble. Matthew currently serves as the Director of Music/Organist at the Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township, an Adjunct Professor at Wagner College on Staten Island, NY, and the Artistic Director for the New Jersey Chamber Singers (Bay Head, NJ) and the Concord Singers (Summit, NJ). Matthew was recently featured as a guest panelist for New Jersey Choral Consortium's, "Exploring Classical Choral Music by Black Composers" by Vinroy D. Brown Jr. Matthew earned his B.M.E. at The Ohio State University and a M.M. in Choral Conducting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.