Performers

In a versatile career, Robert Ziegler conducts music from Albinoni to Zappa and collaborates with artists across the musical spectrum. He trained as a pianist with Jakob Gimpel and John Ringgold and studied conducting with Franco Ferrara. A former prize winner in the G. Fitelberg Conducting Competition, Ziegler has directed orchestras including London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Dublin’s RTE Concert and Symphony Orchestras, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Dana Zenobi has earned national recognition as an interpreter of Art Song by women. She has also garnered operatic success in roles ranging from Mozart and Verdi to Mark Adamo and Philip Glass, appearing with Austin Opera, Lyric Opera Cleveland, The Living Opera, Opera in the Heights, line upon line percussion ensemble, and the Austin Civic Orchestra. Both her performing and her studio teaching have received accolades from The American Prize.

DANIEL ZEHRINGER is Associate Professor at Wright State University, where he serves as head of the Trumpet Studio and Brass Division, coordinator of the Faculty Brass Quintet, and conducts the Wright State University Trumpet Ensemble.

Jazz Orchestra of the Academy of Music in Zagreb was founded in 2016, following in the footsteps of the renowned Big Band of the Academy of Music of the early 1980s, founded and led by the distinguished professor Stanko Selak. The repertoire of the Orchestra encompasses standard pieces written for big band orchestra that in time became the canonical literature of big bands around the world, as well as works of contemporary composers of art music inspired by jazz.

Native to Indonesia, Yudha is an accomplished pianist who has performed in the US, Austria, Cambodia, Canada, France, and Germany. She has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra in addition to being a frequent soloist with the Duke University Symphony Orchestra. She is a notable music educator haven given master classes and presentations all over the United States and Southeast Asia. She recently presented lecture recitals at TEDx Talks, the Ohio Music Teachers Association Conference, the College Music Society (CMS) National Conference, and CMS Regional Conference.

Hagai Yodan (b. 1985) is an Israeli pianist, vocalist, harpsichordist, and composer. His repertoire spans from early music to contemporary pieces, and he has collaborated with nearly 300 different composers.

Honolulu-born violinist Patrick T.S. Yim has performed throughout the world at venues including Carnegie Hall and David Geffen Hall (New York), Seoul Arts Center, Harpa Concert Hall (Reykjavík), Hong Kong City Hall, Severance Hall (Cleveland), Orchestra Hall (Chicago), Teatro alla Scala (Milan), and the Musikverein (Vienna). Yim made his solo debut with the Honolulu Symphony and in recent years has performed concerti of Bach, Brahms, Bruch, Lalo, Mozart, and Vivaldi.

Clara Yang has performed in notable venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Forbidden City Concert Hall (Beijing), and the Auditorio Nacional de Música (Madrid). She is currently Associate Professor of Piano and Head of Keyboard Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. As a soloist, she has collaborated with renowned conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Long Yu, Carl St. Clair, and Grant Llewellyn. She performed alongside Philip Glass in the Glass at 80 Festival, and she performed the world premiere of distinguished composer Chen Yi’s piano concerto with the China Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing.

Violinist Audrey Wright is a multifaceted artist across solo and chamber music, as well as orchestral realms. She is Associate Concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Concertmaster of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, has performed across the globe in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall, Saint Petersburg Philharmonia, and the Vatican, and has soloed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, and Cape Symphony Orchestra. With a passion for innovative programming and juxtaposing a wide range of musical styles, her repertoire spans the early 17th century to modern day and her performing experience includes the full spectrum of these musical styles, from period performance practice to the premiering of new and personally-commissioned works.

Baritone Oliver Worthington has received international and regional acclaim for performances as an opera singer, oratorio soloist, and recitalist with organizations like Indianapolis Opera, Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, San Antonio Opera, San Antonio Symphony, Hill Country Lyric, Austin Opera, and Lone Star Lyric in roles ranging from Eisenstein to The Duke of Plaza Toro. A champion of living composers, he frequently premieres new works. Worthington is the Vocal Area Coordinator and the Producing Director of Butler Opera Theater at Butler University in Indianapolis.

Lauded for being “positively mesmerizing at the piano” by The Times-Tribune, Korean-American pianist Minju Choi Witte has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician. Witte presented recitals in cities in the U.S. and abroad, including Paris, New York City, Philadelphia, and Myra Hess Memorial Series in Chicago. She has performed solo concerts in prestigious venues such as David Geffen Hall, Chicago Cultural Center, Schola Cantorum in Paris, and Steinway Hall.

John Winzenburg is a professor of music at Hong Kong Baptist University, where he conducts the Cantoría Hong Kong. He and the Cantoría have actively promoted Chinese choral music in dialogue with international repertoire since they first earned a Gold Medal at the Czech 2010 Festival of Songs Olomouc and they presented a Weekend Concert at the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing in 2012. Winzenburg performed as Choral Director of the premiere of Hong Kong Odyssey at the 2017 Hong Kong Arts Festival and served as Chorus Master of The Suppliant Women in collaboration with the Actors Touring Company (UK) and the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh at the 2018 Hong Kong Arts Festival.

Arcadian Winds was founded at Boston University in 1987. Originally a woodwind trio consisting of flute, clarinet, and bassoon, the ensemble expanded to a wind quintet in 1989. Since its formation, Arcadian Winds has premiered almost 50 new works and championed many others. With a strong commitment to education, the group has brought chamber and contemporary music into the public, private and community schools in the Boston Area.

Flutist Linda Wiley studied at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville TX, earning a B.M. Education degree in 1975 and an M.A. in performance in 1977. While at SHSU, she studied flute with Jan Cole, who had studied privately with Jean-Pierre Rampal for five years. Unrelated to flute performance, Wiley earned a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary education from Texas A&M University in 1986.

Chris Wild (b.1983) was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. He is now based in the United States where he is active as a cellist, conductor, and music educator.

Iris Graffman Wenglin is from a distinguished musical family. Joseph Graffman, Wenglin’s father, played the string bass in The New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch, and her cousin is pianist Gary Graffman. Wenglin made her first professional appearance as a pianist at age 13 on the Jinx Falkenberg TV program, and at age 16 she started working as a rehearsal pianist for NBC Opera Theatre. As a teenager she performed several times on WNYC’s “Young Artist” series. She graduated from Music and Art High School and holds a B.A. and an M.A. from New York University and a M.Ed. from the Manhattan School of Music.

David Watkin has made a wide range of acclaimed recordings including Sonatas by Vivaldi (Hyperion), Beethoven (Chandos), and Francis Pott (Guild), Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante with OAE (Virgin), and Schubert Quintet with the Tokyo Quartet (Harmonia Mundi). He has been a soloist at Wigmore Hall, Barbican, Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York, and performed the Schumann Concerto with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique at Lincoln Center, New York. As a guest artist he has collaborated with Robert Levin and Fredericka von Stade. As a founder member of the Eroica Quartet he has performed all over Europe and the United States and their recordings of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Debussy, and Ravel have astonished critics.

Shuko Watanabe, Instructor of Music, holds a D.M.A. from the University of Maryland at College Park, MM and BM from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, studying under Lillian Freundlich, Stewart Gordon and Roy Hamlin Johnson.

Laura Ward is pianist and Co-Artistic Director of Lyric Fest. As a distinguished collaborative pianist she is known for both her technical ability and vast knowledge of repertoire and styles. Concert engagements have taken her to Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Spoleto Festival (Italy) and the Colmar International Music Festival and Saint Denis Festival in France.

Described by Pierre Boulez as “un musicien formidable” and “unflaggingly robust” by Opera Magazine, tenor Brian Smith Walters began his musical career as a French horn player before turning to singing. In his career, Walters has performed over 75 roles, including such roles as Tristan in Tristan und Isolde, Siegfried, Parsifal, Siegmund in Die Walküre, Paul in Die tote Stadt, Samson in Samson et Dalila, Captain Vere in Billy Budd and Peter Grimes. He has worked with conductors Valery Gergiev, Sir Mark Elder, and Christoph Eschenbach in festivals such as Lucerne, Schleswig-Holstein, Longborough, Buxton, Grange Park, and Aldeburgh with additional work at the Barbican and Royal Opera, Covent Garden.