American pianist Evren Ozel has established himself as a musician of “refined restraint” (3CR), combining fluent virtuosity with thoughtful interpretations. Having performed extensively in the US and abroad, he is the recipient of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2022 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant. He is represented by Concert Artists Guild as a winner of their 2021 competition. A dedicated chamber musician, he has played at the Marlboro Festival and ChamberFest Cleveland with artists including Jonathan Biss, Hsin-Yun Huang, Joseph Lin, Christoph Richter, and Peter Wiley. He performs on Musicians from Marlboro tours at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center and New York’s Carnegie Hall. His 2022–23 season includes recitals with violinist Geneva Lewis for Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Washington Performing Arts. In the 2023–24 season, he will perform Beethoven trios with violinist Stephanie Zyzak and cellist Alexander Hersh for Capital Region Classical, and make his debuts at the Gardner Museum and Frick Collection with violinist Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux. Ozel received his bachelors and masters degrees from the New England Conservatory, and is currently a candidate in their prestigious Artist Diploma program, all under the tutelage of Wha Kyung Byun. Other mentors include Jonathan Biss, Imogen Cooper, Richard Goode, and Mitsuko Uchida.

Praised by The Strad as an “utterly dazzling” artist, violinist Danbi Um captivates audiences with her virtuosity, individual sound, and interpretive sensitivity. She is a Menuhin International Violin Competition Silver Medalist, a winner of the prestigious 2018 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and a recent top prizewinner of the Naumburg International Violin Competition. Recent and upcoming engagements include appearances with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and her Washington, DC, recital debut at the Phillips Collection. This season will also see her return to the Rockport, Moab, Saratoga Performing Arts (SPAC), Santa Fe, and North Shore Music Festivals, as well as her debuts at the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music San Francisco, and the Mostly Music, Newburyport, La Musica (Sarasota), and Chelsea Music Festivals. In addition, she embarks on a duo recital tour with guitarist Jiji to Delaware, Houston, New York, and Nova Scotia. Her debut album, Much Ado: Romantic Violin Masterworks, will be released in fall 2023. Past concerto engagements include appearances with the Israel Symphony, Auckland Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony, and Dartmouth Symphony. Born in Seoul, South Korea, Ms. Um moved to the United States to study at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she earned a bachelor’s degree. She also holds an Artist Diploma from Indiana University. Her teachers have included Shmuel Ashkenasi, Joseph Silverstein, Jaime Laredo, and Hagai Shaham. She is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program and plays a 1683 “ex-Petschek” Nicolo Amati violin, on loan from a private collection.

American violist Matthew Lipman has been praised by the New York Times for his “rich tone and elegant phrasing” and by the Chicago Tribune for a “splendid technique and musical sensitivity.” Recent seasons have included appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, American Symphony Orchestra, Munich Symphony Orchestra, and Minnesota Orchestra. He has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall, Aspen Music Festival, and the Zürich Tonhalle; was invited by Michael Tilson Thomas to be a soloist at the New World Symphony Viola Visions Festival; and has appeared in chamber music with Anne-Sophie Mutter at the Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Musikverein, and on Deutsche Grammophon Stage+. An alum of the Bowers Program, he performs regularly on tour and at Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where he occupies the Wallach Chair. In 2022, he made his Sony Classical debut on The Dvořák Album, and his 2019 solo debut recording, Ascent, was released by Cedille Records, marking world premieres of the Shostakovich Impromptu and Clarice Assad Metamorfose. Additionally, he recorded the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with violinist Rachel Barton Pine and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by the late Sir Neville Marriner. An Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and major prize winner at the Primrose and Tertis International Viola Competitions, he studied with Heidi Castleman at Juilliard and Tabea Zimmermann at the Kronberg Academy. Lipman is on faculty at Stony Brook University and performs on a 2021 Samuel Zygmuntowicz viola, made for him in New York.

Rising star of the cello Jonathan Swensen is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was featured as “One to Watch” in Gramophone Magazine upon the release of his debut recording Fantasia, an album of works for solo cello which received rave reviews on its release. Jonathan fell in love with the cello upon hearing the Elgar Concerto at the age of six, and ultimately made his concerto debut performing that very piece with Portugal’s Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música. He has performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Mobile Symphony, Greenville Symphony, and the Aarhus, Odense, and Iceland symphonies. He made his critically acclaimed recital debuts at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater and New York’s Merkin Concert Hall, with additional performances in Boston’s Jordan Hall, the Morgan Library and Museum, and the Krannert Center. He is a frequent performer of chamber music in the US and Europe, appearing at the Tivoli Festival, Copenhagen Summer Festival, Chamberfest Cleveland, Krzyżowa-Music, Vancouver Recital Society, and San Francisco Performance, among others. He has captured first prizes at the Windsor International String Competition, Khachaturian International Cello Competition, and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. In 2024, he begins his tenure as a member of CMS’s Bowers Program. A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Swensen continued his studies with Torleif Thedéen at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and Laurence Lesser at New England Conservatory, where he receives his Artist Diploma in May 2023.

At the forefront of a new generation of wind soloists, Adam Walker was appointed principal flute of the London Symphony Orchestra in 2009 at the age of 21 and received the Outstanding Young Artist Award at MIDEM Classique in Cannes. In 2010 he won a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Award and was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society Outstanding Young Artist Award. An ambassador for the flute with a ferocious appetite for repertoire, he regularly performs with the major UK orchestras including the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony, Hallé, Bournemouth Symphony, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Elsewhere he has performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Grant Park Festival, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico, Seoul Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, Malaysian Philharmonic, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Solistes Européens, Luxembourg, and the RTE National Symphony Orchestra. A committed chamber musician with a curious and creative approach to repertoire, 2018 saw Adam take up his place on the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s prestigious Bowers Program. Recital highlights over recent seasons have included Wigmore Hall, LSO St. Luke’s, De Singel, Musée du Louvre, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper, and the Utrecht, West Cork, Delft, and Moritzburg Chamber Music Festivals. Born in 1987, Adam Walker studied at Chetham’s School of Music with Gitte Sorensen and later at the Royal Academy of Music with Michael Cox. He was appointed professor at the Royal College of Music in 2017.