Michael Stephen Brown has been described as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers” (New York Times). Winner of a 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, he is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. He makes regular appearances with orchestras such as the National Philharmonic and the Seattle, Phoenix, North Carolina, and Albany symphonies, and recently has made European recital debuts at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn and the Chopin Museum in Mallorca. He has received commissions from many organizations and some of today’s leading artists, and recently toured his own Piano Concerto around the US and Poland with several orchestras. He performs regularly with his longtime duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and has appeared at festivals worldwide. A prolific recording artist, he has three albums in the works, including Mendelssohn+, featuring world premieres of music by one of Mendelssohn’s muses, Delphine von Schauroth. He was the composer- and artist-in-residence at the New Haven Symphony, and winner of the Concert Artists Guild and Copland House Awards. He holds degrees in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, and Samuel Adler. Additional mentors include András Schiff and Richard Goode. An Artist Ambassador for Creatives Care, Brown lives in New York City with his two 19th-century Steinway D pianos, Octavia and Daria.

American violinist Chad Hoopes is a consistent and versatile performer with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, l’Orchestre de Paris, l’Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and the Minnesota and National Arts Centre orchestras, as well the San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Houston, and National symphonies. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he performs regularly on tour and at Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has been a guest of the Moritzburg Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, and Aspen Music Festival, and has been featured on recordings including the recent Moritzburg Festival Dvořák album with cellist Jan Vogler, released by Sony Classical, and with the MDR Leipzig and conductor Kristjan Järvi performing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto on the Naïve label. He has performed in recital at the Ravinia Festival, the Tonhalle Zürich, and the Louvre, as well as on Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series. He is a 2017 recipient of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant and appeared as the cover feature on the November 2021 edition of The Strad. Hoopes attended the Cleveland Institute of Music before studying with Ana Chumachenco at the Kronberg Academy. He plays the 1991 Samuel Zygmuntowicz, ex Isaac Stern violin.

Praised by the Seattle Times as “Simply marvelous” and Taiwan’s Liberty Times for “astonishingly capturing the spirit of the music,” violinist Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu enjoys a versatile career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Ms. Wu has collaborated in concerts with renowned artists such as Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell, Leila Josefowicz, Cho-Liang Lin, Midori, Thomas Quasthoff, Yuja Wang, and members of the Alban Berg, Emerson, Guarneri, Miró, and Tokyo string quartets at prominent venues such as the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and festivals such as Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Marlboro Music Festival, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. She has also collaborated as a guest violist with the Dover, Orion, and Shanghai quartets. Ms. Wu is a recipient of many awards including the Milka Violin Artist Prize from the Curtis Institute of Music, and third prize at the International Violin Competition of David Oistrakh. She has taught at the Thornton School of Music of the University of Southern California, and is currently the Artistic Partner of the Da Camera Society in Los Angeles. Cindy plays on a 2015 Stanley Kiernoziak viola.

Cellist Keith Robinson is a founding member of the Miami String Quartet and has been active as a chamber musician, recitalist, and soloist since his graduation from the Curtis Institute of Music. He has had numerous solo appearances with orchestras including the New World Symphony, the American Sinfonietta, and the Miami Chamber Symphony, and in 1989 won the P.A.C.E. “Classical Artist of the Year” Award. His most recent recording released on Blue Griffin Records features the complete works of Mendelssohn for cello and piano with his colleague Donna Lee. In 1992 the Miami String Quartet became the first string quartet in a decade to win First Prize of the Concert Artists Guild New York Competition. The quartet has also received the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award, has won the Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, and was a member of CMS’s Bowers Program. He regularly attends festivals across the United States, including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Kent Blossom Music, Bravo! Vail, Savannah Music Festival, and the Virginia Arts Festival. Highlights of recent seasons include international appearances in Bern, Cologne, Istanbul, Lausanne, Montreal, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Paris. He also teaches chamber music at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Robinson hails from a musical family and his siblings include Sharon Robinson of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, and Hal Robinson, principal bass of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He plays a cello made by Carlo Tononi in Venice in 1725.