Program
Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770–1827)Sonata in F major for Horn and Piano, Op. 17
(1800)Gioachino Rossini
(1792–1868)Duetto in D major for Cello and Bass
(1824)Benjamin Britten
(1913–1976)Two Insect Pieces for Oboe and Piano
(1935)Maurice Duruflé
(1902–1986)Prélude, Récitatif et Variations for Flute, Viola, and Piano, Op. 3
(1928)Johann Hummel
(1778–1837)Septet in D minor for Flute, Oboe, Horn, Viola, Cello, Bass, and Piano, Op. 74
(1816)
Sooyun Kim
James Austin Smith
Radovan Vlatković
Paul Neubauer
Nicholas Canellakis
Nina Bernat
Juho Pohjonen
Since her concerto debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, flutist Sooyun Kim has enjoyed a flourishing career performing with orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Munich Chamber Orchestra, and Boston Pops. She has appeared in recital in Budapest’s Liszt Hall, Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center, and the Louvre Museum in Paris. She is a winner of the Georg Solti Foundation Career Grant and ARD International Flute Competition. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, she studied at the New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Paula Robison. She is recently appointed Assistant Professor of Flute at University Cincinnati College-Conservatory and teaches summer courses at Orford Musique. Kim plays on a rare 18-karat gold flute made especially for her by Verne Q. Powell Flutes and has recorded for labels including ArtistLed, Naxos, Toccata Classics, and BR-Klassik. Her album Confluence was released to great acclaim in 2025 on the Musica Solis label.
Performer, curator, and on-stage host James Austin Smith “proves that an oboist can have an adventurous solo career” (The New Yorker). Smith appears at leading national and international chamber music festivals, as Co-Principal Oboe of the conductor-less Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and as an artist of the International Contemporary Ensemble. As Artistic and Executive Director of Tertulia Chamber Music, Smith creates intimate evenings of music, food, and drink in New York, San Francisco, and beyond. He serves as Artistic Advisor to Coast Live Music in the San Francisco Bay Area and mentors graduate-level musicians as a professor of oboe and chamber music at Stony Brook University. Smith’s April 2027 Carnegie Hall debut recital, Elemental, connects the oboe to ancient, global traditions of double reed playing, asserting its role in the human soundscape. A Fulbright scholar and alum of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and CMS’s Bowers Program, he holds degrees in music and political science from Northwestern and Yale University.
Radovan Vlatković has popularized the horn around the globe as a recording artist and teacher. He is the winner of numerous competitions, including the 1979 Premio Ancona and the 1983 ARD Competition. He has premiered works by Elliott Carter, Sofia Gubaidulina, Heinz Holliger, Krzysztof Penderecki, and several Croatian composers. As a chamber musician, he has performed at Gidon Kremer’s Lockenhaus, Sviatoslav Richter’s December Evenings in Moscow, and András Schiff’s Mondsee, as well as major festivals. He has appeared as soloist with many orchestras, such as the Bavarian Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Mozarteum Orchestra, Santa Cecilia Orchestra Rome, Melbourne Orchestra, the NHK Orchestra in Tokyo, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Vlatković is on the faculty of the Mozarteum Salzburg and Hochschule Zürich, holds the Canón horn chair at the Queen Sofia School in Madrid, and is an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music.
Last summer, violist Paul Neubauer premiered a new viola concerto by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich with conductor JoAnn Falletta at the Brevard Music Center. This season, he will record and perform the work with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2025, he released two albums on First Hand Records featuring the final works of two great composers: an all-Bartók album including the revised version of the Viola Concerto, and a Shostakovich recording that includes the monumental Viola Sonata. Appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at the age of 21, Neubauer has appeared as soloist with the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki Philharmonics; the Chicago, National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco, and Bournemouth Symphonies; and the Santa Cecilia, English Chamber, and Beethovenhalle Orchestras. A two-time Grammy nominee, Neubauer is artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey and serves on the faculties of the Juilliard School and Mannes College.
Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, praised in the New Yorker as a “superb young soloist.” Recent highlights include solo debuts with the Virginia, Albany, Bangor, and Delaware symphony orchestras; concerto appearances with the Erie Philharmonic, the New Haven Symphony, and the American Symphony Orchestra; Europe and Asia tours with CMS; and recitals throughout the US with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he is a regular guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals. Canellakis is the Artistic Director of Chamber Music Sedona in Arizona and is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music (where he was recently appointed to the cello faculty) and New England Conservatory.
Double bassist Nina Bernat has established herself as one of the leading solo voices for her instrument. The Star Tribune praised her concerto debut with the Minnesota Orchestra as “exhilarating, lovely and lyrical.” In 2023, she became the first female bassist to receive the Avery Fisher Career Grant and won first prize in the Concert Artists Guild Elmaleh Competition. She has appeared as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra, Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, and Long Island Symphony, and her performances have been featured on NPR's Performance Today. Her debut album, Crossroads, will be released in fall 2026. She is a member of the CMS’s Bowers Program and has appeared at major music festivals such as Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Northwest, and Bridgehampton. She is Professor of Double Bass at Stony Brook University and performs regularly with ROCO and Sejong Soloists, and has appeared as guest principal with the Israel and Oslo Philharmonics.
Pianist Juho Pohjonen is in demand internationally as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber performer. An ardent exponent of Scandinavian music, he has a growing discography offering music by Finnish compatriots such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kaija Saariaho, and Jean Sibelius. Recent engagements include the Taiwan, BBC, and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras; the Cleveland and Minnesota orchestras; and the symphonies of San Francisco, Atlanta, New Jersey, and Colorado. Pohjonen is an alum of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program and enjoys an ongoing relationship with the organization. Pohjonen earned a master’s degree from Meri Louhos and Hui-Ying Liu-Tawaststjerna at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He was selected by Sir András Schiff as the winner of the 2009 Klavier Festival Ruhr Scholarship. In 2019, Pohjonen launched MyPianist, an AI-based app that provides interactive piano accompaniment.