American violinist Stella Chen garnered worldwide attention with her first-prize win at the 2019 Queen Elizabeth International Violin Competition, followed by the 2020 Avery Fisher Career Grant and 2020 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award. She recently made debuts with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Baltimore Symphony, Belgian National Orchestra, and many others, and appeared at the Vienna Musikverein and Berlin Philharmonie. In recital, recent appearances include Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Phillips Collection, Rockport Music Festival, and Nume Festival in Italy. Her debut album was released in March of 2023 on the Apple Music platform Platoon, featuring an all-Schubert repertoire. She has appeared as a chamber musician in festivals including the Kronenberg Academy, Ravinia, Seattle Chamber Music, Perlman Music Program, Music@Menlo, Bridgehampton, Rockport, and Sarasota. Chamber music partners include Itzhak Perlman, James Ehnes, Matthew Lipman, and others. She is the inaugural recipient of the Robert Levin Award from Harvard University, where she was inspired by Robert Levin himself. Teachers and mentors have included Donald Weilerstein, Itzhak Perlman, Miriam Fried, and Catherine Cho. She received her doctorate from the Juilliard School, where she serves as teaching assistant to her longtime mentor, Li Lin. A member of CMS’s Bowers Program, Chen plays the 1700 ex-Petri Stradivarius, on generous loan from Dr. Ryuji Ueno and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative and the 1708 Huggins Stradivarius courtesy of the Nippon Foundation. 

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.

Flutist and conductor Ransom Wilson has performed in concert with major orchestras the world over. As a flutist, he recently launched an ongoing series of solo recordings on the Nimbus label in the UK. As a conductor, he is starting his fourth season as music director of the Redlands Symphony in Southern California, and he is the Director of Orchestral Programs at Idyllwild Arts. He has led opera performances at the New York City Opera, and was for ten years an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. He has been a guest conductor of the London, Houston, KBS, Kraków, Denver, New Jersey, Hartford, and Berkeley symphonies; the Orchestra of St. Luke's; the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra; the Hallé Orchestra; and the chamber orchestras of St. Paul and Los Angeles. He has also appeared with the Glimmerglass Opera, Minnesota Opera, and the Opera of La Quincena Musical in Spain. As an educator, he regularly leads master classes at the Paris Conservatory, The Juilliard School, Moscow Conservatory, and Cambridge University. A graduate of The Juilliard School, he was an Atlantique Foundation scholar in Paris, where he studied privately with Jean-Pierre Rampal. His recording career, which includes three Grammy Award nominations, began in 1973 with Jean-Pierre Rampal and I Solisti Veneti. Since then he has recorded over 35 albums as flutist and/or conductor. Wilson is a professor at the Yale University School of Music, and has performed with the Chamber Music Society since 1991. He plays exclusively on a hand-made Haynes flute.

Called the “Yo-Yo Ma of the harp,” by Vogue’s Senior Editor Corey Seymour, Bridget Kibbey is in demand for innovative, virtuosic programming that celebrates the expressive range of the instrument. She is the 2022–23 Artist in Residence at the Schubert Club, an alum of The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, and a winner of the Premiere Prix at the Journées de les Harpes Competition in Arles, France, among others. Kibbey tours projects and programs of her own conception, including her own adaptations of J. S. Bach’s keyboard concertos alongside the Dover Quartet, as well as duo collaborations with mandolinist Avi Avital and violinist Alexi Kenney. This season she launches an all-French program with the Calidore String Quartet and tours her newest project, Persia to Iberia, showcasing the sounds of the Islamic Golden Era through 19th-century Spain alongside Persian vocalist Mahsa Vahdat and percussionist John Hadfield. She also creates projects with Latin Grammy–winning musicians that explore cultural narratives driving songs and dances from South America, and has toured and recorded with luminaries Placido Domingo, Dawn Upshaw, and Gustavo Santaolalla for Sony Records and Deutsche Grammophon. Kibbey made her NPR Tiny Desk Solo Debut in 2021. Her debut album, Love is Come Again, was named a Top Ten Release by Time Out New York. She appears frequently as soloist and chamber musician at festivals and series—and with orchestras as concerto soloist—across the globe.