“One of the most admired pianists of his generation” (New York Times), Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan is celebrated for his poetic sensibility, musical intelligence, and consummate artistry. He inaugurated his tenure as Music Director of California’s La Jolla Music Society Summerfest in 2019. He is the recipient of both a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant and Lincoln Center’s 2015 Martin E. Segal Award, served as the inaugural artist-in-association of the New York Philharmonic, and is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. His recent concerto collaborations include those with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony, and the Cincinnati Symphony. Last season he played Mendelssohn, Gershwin, and Schubert for his solo recital debut at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. He reunited with his frequent recital partner, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, for tours on both sides of the Atlantic, including performances of Beethoven’s complete cello sonatas in San Francisco and other US cities. His latest album is Beethoven’s complete piano concertos, recorded with Alan Gilbert and London’s Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Other recent releases include a live recording of Messiaen’s 90-minute masterpiece Des canyons aux étoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars) at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Schubert’s late piano sonatas on the Avie label, winning praise from such publications as Gramophone and BBC Music.

Misha Amory has been active as a soloist and chamber musician for 30 years. He has performed with orchestras in the United States and Europe, and has been presented in recital at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Los Angeles’s Ambassador series, Philadelphia’s Mozart on the Square festival, Boston’s Gardner Museum, Houston’s Da Camera series, and Washington’s Phillips Collection. He has been invited to perform at the Marlboro Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Vancouver Festival, the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, and the Boston Chamber Music Society, and he has released recordings of music by Bach, Hindemith, George Benjamin, and Richard Wilson. He is a member of the Brentano String Quartet, which was the first ensemble to participate in The Bowers Program, and is currently ensemble-in-residence at Yale School of Music. The quartet won the first Cleveland Quartet Award and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and has recorded all of Beethoven's late quartets, several quartets of Mozart, the Op. 71 Quartets of Haydn, and works of Steven Mackey, Bruce Adolphe, Stephen Hartke, Chou Wen-Chung, and Charles Wuorinen. Amory holds degrees from Yale University and The Juilliard School; his principal teachers were Heidi Castleman, Caroline Levine, and Samuel Rhodes. A dedicated teacher, he serves on the faculties of The Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute.

Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, praised as a “superb young soloist” (New Yorker) and for being “impassioned . . . the audience seduced by Mr. Canellakis's rich, alluring tone” (New York Times). A multifaceted artist, Canellakis has forged a unique voice combining his talents as soloist, chamber musician, curator, filmmaker, and composer/arranger. His recent highlights include solo debuts with the Virginia, Albany, Bangor, Stamford, and Delaware symphony orchestras; concerto appearances with the Erie Philharmonic, the New Haven Symphony as artist-in-residence, and the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall; Europe and Asia tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and recitals throughout the United States with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Canellakis is a regular guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals, including Santa Fe, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Bard, Bridgehampton, La Jolla, Hong Kong, Moab, Music in the Vineyards, and Saratoga Springs. He is the Artistic Director of Chamber Music Sedona in Arizona and is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory. Filmmaking and acting are special interests of his; he has produced, directed, and starred in several short films and music videos. Canellakis plays on an outstanding Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume cello, circa 1840.