RICHARD YONGJAE O'NEILL, viola

Praised by the London Times as “ravishing” the Los Angeles Times as “technically immaculate” the Seattle Times as “fantastic” the Boston Globe as “sensational” the San Francisco Chronicle for his “fierce virtuosity” the Dallas Morning News for his “most spectacular viola playing” and the New York Times as “high class” with an “elegant, velvety tone” violist RICHARD O’NEILL  is one of the very few violists ever to receive an Avery Fisher Career Grant as well as a Grammy Award Nomination (Best Soloist with Orchestra). Concerto appearances include the London Philharmonic with Vladimir Jurowski, the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Miguel Harth Bedoya, the Seoul Philharmonic with François Xavier Roth, the KBS and Korean Symphony Orchestras, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Alte Musik Köln and Sejong. Highlights of this season include performances with the London Philharmonic with conductors Vassily Sinaisky and Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Royal Festival Hall at London’s South Bank Centre, as well as on tour to Seoul Arts Center and the National Concert Hall of Madrid, a sold-out Kennedy Center debut with pianist Warren Jones, his third season as Artistic Director of DITTO, his South Korean chamber music initiative featuring four sold out concerts at Seoul Arts Center and a 10 concert nationwide tour, as well as his 5th solo recording for Deutsche Grammophon. He has made solo debuts at Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel Halls, Avery Fisher Hall, The Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Salle Cortot, and Seoul Arts Center.

A UNIVERSAL Classics Recording Artist, he has made four solo albums that have sold well over 100,000 copies. His two most recent albums, Winter Journey for Deutsche Grammophon and Mysterioso for ARCHIV Produktion, have both earned him Platinum Disc Awards. His 2nd album, Lachrymae for UNIVERSAL Korea was the best selling Classical as well as International Pop Recording of 2006. His fifth album, a two-disc set featuring the viola works of Brahms for Deutsche Grammophon will be released this year.

Much in demand, hewas recently appointed to the roster of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as an Artist of the Society, becoming the third violist in the Society’s history after Walter Trampler and Paul Neubauer. He also serves as the resident violist of Camerata Pacifica. He was the sole violist of Chamber Music Society Two from 2004-06, and for six years served as principal violist and soloist of Sejong, a conductorless string orchestra. He has collaborated with many of the world’s finest musicians including Leon Fleisher, Garrick Ohlsson, Menahem Pressler, Barry Douglas, Gil Shaham, Joshua Bell, James Ehnes, Nicola Benedetti, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Kyung-Wha and Myung-Wha Chung, Kyoko Takezawa, Cho-Liang Lin, Elmar Oliviera, Jamie Laredo, Gary Hoffmann, Steven Isserlis, Carter Brey, Frans Helmerson, Peter Wiley, David Soyer, Edgar Meyer, Ransom Wilson, Eugenia Zukerman, David Shifrin, Richard Stolzman, the Emerson and Juilliard String Quartets, Ensemble Wien-Berlin, among others. Festival appearances include Marlboro, Aspen, Bridgehampton, Brooklyn, Casals, Chamber Music Northwest, Great Mountains, La Jolla, Mostly Mozart, Music Academy of the West, Prussia Cove, Seattle, St. Barthelemy, and TongYeong.

A popular figure in South Korea, he was the subject of a two-part, five-hour documentary for the Korean Broadcasting System that was broadcast to over
15 million people, and has been featured on all of Korea’s major television networks, radio, newspapers and magazines. His chamber music project, DITTO, was the most popular classical music presentation of 2008, introducing over 15,000 people to chamber music. A commercial model, Special Representative to UNICEF, marathon runner and author, he has also written a best selling classical appreciation guide. In the United States, he has appeared on PBS Live from Lincoln Center and CNN, served as Young Artist-in-Residence for National Public Radio in Washington D.C., and has been featured on national radio broadcasts of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

An advocate for the music of our time, he has collaborated with many composers including Elliot Carter, Paul Chihara, Mario Davidovsky, Oliver Knussen, Jo Kondo, Peter Lieberson, Huang Ruo, David del Tredici, Melinda Wagner, Charles Wuorinen and John Zorn, many for whom he has made world premieres and recordings. A Viola Concerto commission from Huang Ruo will be premiered in 2011 as part of Camerata Pacifica’s Messenger Project. . In addition to his recording contract with UNIVERSAL/DG, Mr. O'Neill is dedicated to recording lesser known music for labels such as Naxos, Bridge, Centaur and Tzadik: his recordings of Schoenberg and Webern for Naxos were the subject of an extensive New York Times article which described his performances as revelatory. Recordings of Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola as well as Schoenberg's String Trio, Ode to Napoleon and Third String Quartet are due to be released on Naxos in the coming year.

The first violist to receive the Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School, he holds a Bachelors of Music, magna cum laude from The University of Southern California and a Master of Music from The Juilliard School. He has studied with Paul Neubauer and Donald McInnes. Residing in New York City and Los Angeles, he was recently honored with a Proclamation from the New York City Council for his achievement and contribution to the Arts. A dedicated teacher as well as performer, Mr. O’Neill serves on the faculty of the Herb Alpert School of Music at the University of California, Los Angeles as its youngest member.

He plays on a fine and rare viola made by Giovanni Tononi, of Bologna, circa 1699.

ITAMAR ZORMAN, violin

Recently awarded the 2014 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, violinist Itamar Zorman is also the winner of the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, where he subsequently performed in the winners' concerts with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra. Other competition successes include the first prize and special prize for a performance of a Mozart Concerto at the 2010 International Violin Competition of Freiburg and the Juilliard Berg Concerto Competition in April 2011, which led to his Avery Fisher Hall debut with the Juilliard Orchestra led by the late James DePreist. Itamar Zorman has performed as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, Het Gelders Orkest in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Tokyo Symphony in Suntory Hall, Utah Symphony, Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra, Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, and Orquesta Filharmonica de Cali, amongst others.

Highlights last season included summer engagements at the Marlboro Music Festival, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, his debut at the Verbier Festival (broadcast live on Switzerland’s main classical music radio station) and an East Coast tour with the ‘Musicians from Marlboro’. Itamar Zorman undertook a nine-concert, two-city tour of Israel with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and David Robertson; performed with the Tokyo Symphony in Japan’s Suntory Hall; and gave concerts with the Philharmonie Baden Baden, Russian State Symphony Orchestra “Novaya Rossiya”, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of South Bay, Haifa Symphony, Waterbury Symphony and the Fundación Sinfonia in Santo Domingo.  

In October 2013, Zorman gave recitals in the Laeiszhalle Hamburg and the HR-Sendesaal Frankfurt and took part in the Kronberg Academy Festival, which included a concert with the Moscow Soloists and Yuri Bashmet. In 2014 he will undertake another tour with ‘Musicians from Marlboro’ and make his debut on the Louvre recital series in Paris.In November 2014 he will appear at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo playing the Beethoven concerto with Daniel Oren. In the spring of 2014 his first CD recording will be issued by Profil-Editions Günther Hänssler featuring works by Messiaen, Schubert, Chausson, Hindemith and Brahms.

As a chamber musician, Itamar Zorman has appeared at the Lincoln Center, the Zankel and Weill Recital Halls in Carnegie Hall, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. A founding member of the Israeli Chamber Project, Zorman has toured Israel and North America for the past five seasons. He is also a member of the Lysander Piano Trio, with which he won the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Grand Prize in the 2011 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, 1st prize in the 2011 Arriaga Competition, and a bronze medal in the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.  In July 2010, Mr. Zorman played in a series of recitals broadcast on Radio France for the Radio France Festival in Montpellier. He was one of three protagonists featured in the documentary film “Violinissimo”, which followed the lives of three promising young violinists, and was released by Detail Films throughout Germany in 2012. 

A recipient of scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, Itamar Zorman has participated in numerous master classes around the world, working with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zuckerman, Shlomo Mintz, Ida Handel and Ivry Gitlis, to name a few. He has also participated in festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival and School, the NAC Young Artist Program in Ottawa (Canada), Keshet Eilon (Israel), Voice of Music (Israel), Masters de Belesbat (France), The Heifetz International Music Institute (New Hampshire), and ISA Prague-Vienna-Budapest (Austria).

Born in Tel-Aviv in 1985 to a family of musicians, Itamar Zorman began his violin studies at the age of six with Saly Bockel at the Israeli Conservatory of Music in Tel-Aviv.  He graduated in 2003 and continued his studies with Professor David Chen and Nava Milo. He received his Bachelor of Music from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance as a student of Hagai Shaham.  He received his Master's of Music from The Juilliard School in 2009, where he studied with Robert Mann and Sylvia Rosenberg, and received an Artist Diploma from Manhattan School of Music in 2010, and an Artist Diploma from Julliard in 2012, studying with Ms. Rosenberg. Itamar Zorman is currently a student of Christian Tetzlaff at The Kronberg Academy.

Itamar Zorman plays on a Pietro Guarneri violin from 1745 from the private collection of Yehuda Zisapel. 

YEOL EUM SON, piano

Known for her historical achievement as a Korean pianist at the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in 2011, Pianist Yeol Eum Son’s graceful interpretations, crystalline touch, and versatile, thrilling performances have caught the attention of audiences worldwide.

A native of South Korea’s Gangwon Province, Ms. Son first drew international attention when she appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Lorin Maazel on its 2004 tour of Asia. She was re-engaged to perform with the Philharmonic and Maestro Maazel in 2008. Ms. Son solidified her reputation in 2009, when she claimed both the silver medal and the Steven De Groote Memorial Award for the Best Performance of Chamber Music in the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. This was followed two years later by a second-prize win at the XIV Tchaikovsky International Music Competition in Moscow, where she also received awards for the Best Chamber Concerto Performance and Best Performance of the Commissioned Work composed by Rodion Shchedrin.

A favorite among international orchestras, Ms. Son has appeared with the Czech Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, NDR Radiophilharmonie and Academy of St. Martin in the Fields as well as the NHK Symphony, St. Petersburg Academic Symphony, Svetlanov Symphony (former USSR State Symphony), Seattle Symphony, Jerusalem Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony and the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra among others. In her home country of South Korea, she has performed with every major orchestra including the Seoul Philharmonic and the KBS Symphony. Ms. Son is also invited frequently to participate in international music festivals, including Beethoven Easter Festival, Rheingau Festival, Baltic Sea Festival, Ljubljana Festival, Portland Piano International and Bad-Kissingen Summer Music Festival where she became the winner of "Klavierolympiade 2008" to be chosen by Germany's best music critics.

Her prize-winning Cliburn Competition live performance recording released in 2009 by Harmonia Mundi joins her debut CD of the complete Chopin Etudes released in 2004 and of Chopin Nocturnes for Piano and Strings in 2008, both on the Universal Music label. In July 2012, she has released a multi-channel SACD on an independent Korean label “O’ New World Music.”

Highlights of her 2014–15 season include appearances with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra led by Valery Gergiev at the Rotterdam Gergiev Festival, and with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern under the baton of Karel Mark Chichon at the Besancon Festival followed by Asia tour. She will also appear with the Tonkünstler-Orchesters Niederösterreich under Dmitri Kitajenko as well as the NDR Sinfonieorchester under Thomas Hengelbrock and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra under Junichi Hirokami. In addition, she performs in Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, Tel Aviv, Bad-Kissingen and throughout Korea.

Yeol Eum Son currently studies with Arie Vardi at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover in Germany, where she now makes her home. She holds a degree from the Korean National University of Arts, under the guidance of Dae Jin Kim. She has also previously studied with Cheng-Zong Yin, one of China’s most prominent pianists. She also is an honorary ambassador both of the Seoul Arts Center and of her home city of Wonju, Korea. In addition to her busy performance schedule, she writes a monthly column for the Joong-Ang Ilbo, one of Korea’s most widely read newspaper.

CAROL WINCENC, flute

Grammy-nominated flutist Carol Wincenc is the recipient of the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Flute Association, and will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Arts and Letters in the spring of 2014.  She recently celebrated her 25th anniversary as a faculty member at The Juilliard School in a gala recital of colleagues, students and friends, including the Escher String Quartet and members of the Les Amies Trio. Wincenc celebrated her 2009-2010 Ruby Anniversary with rave reviews from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and Performance Today. A muse of many of today's most prominent composers, she has premiered concertos written for her by Christopher Rouse, Lukas Foss, Henryk Górecki (with a most recent release on Naxos with Warsaw Philharmonic, May 2012), Joan Tower, Paul Schoenfield, Jake Heggie, Peter Schickele, Roberto Sierra and Tobias Picker. 

A prolific recording artist, her performance of Pulitzer Prize winner Christopher Rouse's Flute Concerto won the coveted Diapson d'Or Award with the Houston Symphony on Telarc as well as Gramophone's "Pick of the Month" recording with her hometown orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic ( Naxos) with Maestro JoAnn Falletta. After winning the sole Naumburg Solo Flute Competition, her performance with Andras Schiff in an all French CD for Music Masters was awarded the Recording of Special Merit.  She has appeared as concerto soloist with such ensembles as the Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, BBC, Warsaw Philharmonic and London Symphonies; as well as the Saint Paul, Mostly Mozart, Pro Musica and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestras. She has preformed at music festivals in Aldeburgh, Budapest, Frankfurt, Santa Fe, Spoleto, Banff, Sarasota, Winter Harbor Music Festival, Yale/Norfolk, Music@Menlo, and Marlboro. 

Her recording of the Mozart Flute Quartets on Deutsche Grammophone with the Emerson Quartet is regarded as one of the definitive interpretations of these works. As a result of her fascination with the flute family, Wincenc created and directed a series of International Flute Festivals at the Ordway Theater in Saint Paul featuring such diverse artists as the legendary Jean-Pierre Rampal, Herbie Mann, and Native American flutist R. Carlos Nakai. Lauren Keiser Publishers and Carl Fischer publish the Carol Wincenc Signature Editions, featuring her favorite flute repertoire as well as the staples of flute methods and etudes. A renowned pedagogue, masterclass performer and juror at the most prestigious international flute competitions, Ms. Wincenc continues her teaching legacy at both Stony Brook University and her alma mater, The Juilliard School, graduating masterful students now holding prominent orchestral and teaching positions worldwide.

website: www.carolwincenc.com

The WEILERSTEIN DUO

Donald Weilerstein, violin /  Vivian Weilerstein, piano

The Weilerstein Duo has been widely acclaimed nationally and internationally for its performances and teaching. In 2006 the Weilersteins marked the occasion of their three-decade performing and recording career with recitals and the reissue of their Arabesque CDs. These recordings include two volumes of the complete works by Ernest Bloch for violin and piano, lauded by Fanfare as a “must” on the journal’s annual “Want List,” and the sonatas of Janácek, Enescu, and Dohnanyi. The Duo’s discography also includes the complete Schumann sonatas for Azica Records. American Record Guide, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Baltimore Sun have lauded the Duo’s recordings.

Noted for dynamic performances, the Duo has given recitals at Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and Merkin Hall in New York City, at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, and in major cities in the United States, Europe, Asia, South America, and Israel.  They will be premiering Joe Hallman’s concerto for violin and piano this spring with the New York Classical Players chamber orchestra in New York. The Duo returns regularly to the Yellow Barn Music Festival and the Perlman Music Program and has participated in many other festivals, including Banff, Marlboro, Aspen, Norfolk, La Jolla, Music Academy of the West, and Kneisel Hall. They have been guest artists at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, the Young Musician’s Festival and Keshet Eilon in Israel, the Daniel Days in Holland, and the Mendelssohn Summer school in Hamburg, Germany. They have also taught and performed throughout China, and in Venezuela as part of El Sistema. They will be teaching and performing at the Hannover Hochschule this spring, 2015.

Dedicated teachers as well as performers, the Weilersteins are currently on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School. The Duo is in great demand for residencies and master classes. Donald Weilerstein’s students have been prizewinners in major national and international competitions. They can be heard as soloists and as members of many of today’s leading orchestras and chamber ensembles. Vivian Hornik Weilerstein is the director of the Professional Piano Trio Training Program at the New England Conservatory in addition to serving on NEC’s piano and chamber music faculties. Donald and Vivian have been featured individually in Strad Magazine and More Magazine.

In his twenty years as first violinist of the renowned Cleveland Quartet, of which he was a founding member, Donald Weilerstein toured the world and made numerous recordings on the RCA, Telarc, CBS, Phillips, and Pro Arte labels. These recordings won seven Grammy nominations and Best of the Year awards from Time and Stereo Review. Early in his career he won both the Munich and Young Concert Artists Competitions. He is the recipient of the American String Teacher’s Artist Teacher Award for 2011.

Vivian Hornik Weilerstein performs frequently as a collaborator with many of today’s most eminent artists and ensembles.  Performances include concerts in Japan and Europe. She has been a soloist with the Kansas City Symphony and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale di Torino. She has also recorded for the EMI debut series.

Donald and Vivian perform  with Alisa Weilerstein as the highly acclaimed Weilerstein Trio, which is in residence at the New England Conservatory. The Trio’s 2006 CD for Koch Records featuring trios of Dvorak received rave reviews in both Strings and Fanfare magazines and was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Their 2009 recording for Koch includes trios by Janacek and Schumann. For information about both the Duo and the Trio, please visit www.theweilersteintrio.com or facebook.