American double bassist Nina Bernat, acclaimed for her interpretive maturity, expressive depth and technical clarity, emerges onto the world stage with awards and accolades, thrilling audiences everywhere. She was hailed by Star Tribune as a “standout” for her recent concerto debut with the Minnesota Orchestra, praising her performance as “exhilarating, lovely and lyrical…technically precise and impressively emotive.”

In 2023, Nina was honored as a recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the CAG Elmaleh Competition. Recent 1st prizes include the Barbash J.S. Bach String Competition, the Minnesota Orchestra Young Artist Competition, the Juilliard Double Bass Competition, and the 2019 International Society of Bassists Solo Competition.

Engaged in all aspects of double bass performance, she has been invited to perform as guest principal bassist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Oslo Philharmonic, serving under the batons of conductors such as András Schiff and Osmo Vänskä. Nina is in demand as a passionate chamber musician. She began her involvement with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as a member of the Bowers Program in 2025. She has spent summers at Marlboro Music Festival, Verbier Festival, Music@Menlo, and Chamber Music Northwest.

She is quickly becoming a sought-after pedagogue, having given masterclasses at the Colburn School, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and University of Texas at Austin, among others. She is on the faculty of Stony Brook University.

Nina performs on an instrument passed down from her father, Mark Bernat, attributed to Guadagnini.

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Alistair Coleman is a composer from Maryland and the 2023–25 Composer-in-Residence of Young Concert Artists. Recent commissions include concertos for violinist Soovin Kim and cellist Zuill Bailey, a trombone sonata for Joseph Alessi (premiered on tour in China and Japan), and Moonshot, premiered by the Abeo Quartet in collaboration with Glenstone Museum and the Smithsonian Institution.

The 2024–25 season features premieres at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall by percussionist Michael Yeung, a marimba concerto for Ji-Su Jung, and a commission from the New York Youth Symphony at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium. Other projects include a European tour of a new chamber work for Philharmonische Gesellschaft Bremen’s 200th anniversary and a bass quintet for the Viano Quartet and Nina Bernat, commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest.

Recent highlights include performances by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Curtis Symphony Orchestra, and National Philharmonic; collaborations with pianists Alessio Bax, Gloria Chien, Avery Gagliano, and Janice Carissa in collaboration with Steinway; and commissions from Chamber Music Lexington and the Lake Champlain Festival. He has received three ASCAP Morton Gould Awards as well as prizes from Juilliard, American Composers Forum, the Society for New Music, and NPR.

In 2020, he founded a composition mentorship program with the Opportunity Music Project, in partnership with Carnegie Hall’s PlayUSA. He also serves on the Curtis Institute’s Musical Studies Faculty and teaches at Hidden Valley’s Emerging Composers Intensive.

A graduate of Curtis and Juilliard, Alistair begins PhD studies at Princeton University as a Roger Sessions Fellow in fall 2025.

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Cellist Zlatomir Fung burst onto the scene as the first American in four decades (and youngest musician ever) to win First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition Cello Division. Subsequent accolades, critical acclaim, and standing ovations at performances around the world have established him as one of the preeminent cellists of our time. Astounding audiences with his boundless virtuosity and exquisite sensitivity, the 25-year-old has already proven himself a star among the next generation of world-class musicians.

In the 2024–2025 season, Fung gives recitals in New York City, Boston, and St. Louis, and performs the complete Bach Cello Suites at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts and in Arcata, California, following summer appearances at the Aspen and Ravinia Festivals. He joins orchestras in Rochester, San Antonio, and Billings, among others. Internationally, he performs in Europe and Asia with the London Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, and others, and offers a recital tour of Italy. In January 2025, Signum Records released Fung’s debut album, a collection of opera fantasies and transcriptions for cello and piano.

Fung served as Artist-in-Residence with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for the 2023–2024 season; recent debut appearances include the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, and BBC Philharmonic, as well as Baltimore, Dallas, Detroit, Seattle, and Kansas City Symphonies.

Fung made his recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2021 and was described by Bachtrack as “one of those rare musicians with a Midas touch: he quickly envelopes every score he plays in an almost palpable golden aura.” Fung was a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Winner in 2022.

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At the age of 18, pianist Chloe Jiyeong Mun was brought to the world’s attention in 2014 when she won first prize at the Geneva International Competition in Switzerland. In 2015, she also won the Busoni International Competition in Italy. Since then, she has gained a reputation as one of the most sought-after musicians of her generation.

She has collaborated with the world’s leading conductors, including Myung-whun Chung, Alexander Shelley, Yuri Bashmet, James Judd, Roberto Beltran Zavala, Victor Pablo Perez, Mario Venzago, and Eiji Oue, with renowned orchestras such as Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Moscow Soloists, Asia Philharmonic Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Trieste Verdi Orchestra, Nuova Orchestra Ferruccio Busoni, St.Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Palermo Festival Orchestra, MAV Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid (ORCAM), Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, KBS Symphony Orchestra, and Korean National Symphony Orchestra.

For recitals, she has appeared at the Gewandhaus, Wigmore Hall, Warsaw Philharmonic, Salle Cortot, Philharmonie Arthur Rubinstein in Bydgoszcz, and Seoul Arts Center, as well as performing at the prestigious festivals including Chopin and His Europe, Duszniki Chopin Festival, Arthur Rubinstein Piano Festival, Festival Omaggio di Michelangeli, and Pharos Music Festival. Chloe released her first album, Schumann Piano Sonata No.1 & Fantasie, with Deutsche Grammophon.

Also as a committed chamber musician, she is annually invited to perform at Seoul Spring Festival of Chamber music and Seoul International Music Festival. In 2021, she gave the world premiere of Jeajoon Ryu’s Sonata for Viola and Piano at the Seoul Arts Center with violist Sangjin Kim.

Born in Yeosu, South Korea in 1995, Chloe began studying piano at the age of five. She studied with Professor Daejin Kim at the Korea National University of Arts from 2010 to 2020, then with Sir András Schiff as an Artist Diploma student at the Barenboim Said Academy.

Sonoko Miriam Welde, violin
Edvard Erdal, violin
Albin Uusijärvi, viola
Daniel Thorell, cello

The Swedish-Norwegian string quartet, Opus13, is one of Europe’s most promising, up-and-coming young string quartets. Formed in 2014, the ensemble now comprises Sonoko Miriam Welde, Edvard Erdal, Albin Uusijärvi, and Daniel Thorell. They were 2nd prize winners of the prestigious Banff International String Quartet Competition 2022. In 2023, they received the Norwegian Equinor Classical Music Award, a coveted prize of one million Norwegian Crowns (approx. $96,000). Previous recipients of the award include Leif Ove Andsnes, Lise Davidsen, and Vilde Frang.

They have guested concert series and festivals such as the International Chamber Music Festival Utrecht in the Netherlands, Yeulmaru and Yonsei Chamber Music Festivals in South Korea, Rusk Festival in Finland, Swiss Chamber Concerts, and most of the major chamber music festivals in Norway, including Bergen International Festival, Stavanger, Rosendal, Trondheim, and Risør Chamber Music Festivals. Highlights in 2024 included debuts in Scotland and the United States.

Opus13 has collaborated with international top musicians such as Janine Jansen, Olli Mustonen, Julian Bliss, Alisa Weilerstein, Tabea Zimmermann, Jonathan Biss, and Konstantin Heidrich. They are mentored by Berit Cardas and Bjørg Lewis of the Vertavo Quartet, and have benefitted from masterclasses with many of the world’s leading chamber musicians, including members of the Belcea Quartet, Quatuor Ébène, Artemis Quartett, Oslo String Quartet, and Quatuor Mosaïques.

In their early years, Opus13 received invaluable support and performing experience from the Oslo Quartet Series’ Talent Program and the Crescendo Mentoring Program.

The Opus13s are Founders and Artistic Directors of Vinterspill på Lillehammer, a chamber music festival in the winter town of Lillehammer.

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Composer Kian Ravaei (b. 1999) takes tone painting to a new level, synthesizing diverse inspirations into evocative musical portraits. Whether he is composing a string quartet inspired by wonders of the natural world, electronic music that evokes the pulsating energy of late-night dance clubs, or a symphonic poem that draws from the Iranian music of his ancestral heritage, he takes listeners on a spellbinding tour of humanity’s most deeply felt emotions.

The 2025-26 season sees a variety of performances, including the New York premiere of Ravaei’s Gulistan at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as well as two new string quartets for the Abeo Quartet and Sheffield Chamber Players. He has been named a 2025-26 Classeek Ambassador Programme Artist, and will partake in a one-year career enhancement program alongside six of the world’s most promising classical musicians.

From Carnegie Hall to Pierre Boulez Saal, sought-after musicians such as Grammy Award winner Fleur Barron, Performance Today Classical Woman of the Year Lara Downes, and New York Philharmonic clarinetist Anthony McGill have brought Ravaei’s music to global stages. The Alexander String Quartet capped their 44-year career with a farewell tour that featured Ravaei’s seven-movement string quartet The Little Things. His works have been commissioned by prominent chamber music organizations—among them Seattle Chamber Music Society and Chamber Music Northwest—as well as the American Composers Orchestra, where he is currently a resident CoLABoratory Fellow.

Notable honors include a Copland House CULTIVATE Fellowship—during which he participated in an emerging composers institute at Aaron Copland’s National Historic Landmark home—as well as commissioning grants from Chamber Music America, New Music USA, and the Barlow Endowment. Ravaei’s rapidly expanding catalog has earned him first prize awards in the New York Youth Symphony First Music Chamber Music Competition, the Foundation for Modern Music Robert Avalon Competition, and the Zodiac International Music Competition.

Born to Iranian immigrants, Ravaei maintains close ties to the Iranian community in his hometown of Los Angeles. Many of his works combine the ornamented melodies of Iranian classical music with the colorful harmonies of Western classical music. Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron and pianist Kunal Lahiry commissioned Ravaei to compose a Persian-language setting of the feminist Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad for their U.S. tour, culminating in a sold-out Carnegie Hall recital. A passionate speaker, Ravaei was a featured lecturer at the UCLA Iranian Music Lecture Series, where he discussed his multicultural upbringing and its deep-seated influence on his music.

Just days into the COVID-19 lockdown, Ravaei began a daily ritual of playing a Bach chorale at the piano and composing an original chorale in response. What started as a way to ground himself during a period of emotional turbulence blossomed into an artistic reawakening. Over the course of one year and three hundred sixty-five chorales, Ravaei cultivated a “rich harmonic idiom” (Washington Classical Review) rooted in a centuries-long tradition.

As part of his residencies at chamber music festivals across the Western hemisphere, Ravaei engages with local audiences through educational presentations, musical performances, and community events. He was a resident composer at Chamber Music Northwest through their Protégé Project, and later became the inaugural composer-in-residence at Sunkiss’d Mozart. Through a trailblazing partnership between the Wyoming International Chamber Music Festival and the Tenby International Music Festival, Ravaei serves as composer-in-residence of both festivals, helping to foster musical dialogue between the United States and United Kingdom.

Millions of classical radio listeners have heard Ravaei’s music on the airwaves, from New York’s WQXR to Los Angeles’s KUSC. As part of Classical California’s 2024 Ultimate Playlist, the nation’s largest public radio listenership ranked Ravaei’s piece Latif in 26th place—sandwiched between Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto—making him the only living composer in the top 30. His music has been featured on award-winning radio programs such as APM’s Performance Today and WNYC’s New Sounds, as well as his personally curated streaming station for Classical Music Indy.

With numerous commercial recordings, Ravaei has earned critical acclaim from outlets including Gramophone, Bandcamp Daily, and I CARE IF YOU LISTEN. His compositions appear on albums such as Lara Downes’ This Land—a poignant reflection on American identity—and Tallā Rouge’s genre-bending debut Shapes in Collective Space. Fans of electronic dance music will hear Ravaei’s orchestration in the official orchestral arrangement of Wooli & Codeko’s “Crazy (feat. Casey Cook),” which has garnered over two hundred thousand views across streaming platforms.
Choreographers have tapped into Ravaei’s music as a source of inspiration, transforming his vivid sound worlds into dance. They include Marla Phelan—whose innovative fusion of dance and video projections set to Ravaei’s immersive electronic score premiered at the Juilliard Future Stages Festival—and Carly Topazio, who captivated audiences with her choreography to Ravaei’s Family Photos during a joint performance by Art of Elan and The Rosin Box Project. Most recently, Ravaei and choreographer Annie Kahane completed a three-year project to combine Persian and Jewish musical and dance traditions, which debuted at the San Francisco International Arts Festival.

Inspired by the generosity of his own teachers—celebrated composers such as Valerie Coleman, Richard Danielpour, and Derrick Skye—Ravaei pays forward his musical training by empowering others to embrace their creativity. He recently launched the Wales-Wyoming Workshops Composer Fellowship, a tuition-free program for early-career composers from the U.S. and U.K. to gain transatlantic exposure through performance and recording opportunities. In previous years, Ravaei taught composition to historically underserved students as a Composer Teaching Artist Fellow for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and also held a teaching position at the Indiana University Jacobs Composition Academy, where he mentored composers aged 17 to 70.
Ravaei’s own musical journey has led him eastward from the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music to the heart of New York City, where he is currently a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at The Juilliard School.

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Lucy Wang, violin
Hao Zhou, violin
Aiden Kane, viola
Tate Zawadiuk, cello

Praised for their “virtuosity, visceral expression, and rare unity of intention” (Boston Globe), the Viano Quartet has quickly soared to international acclaim as one of the most dynamic and in-demand string quartets of their generation. The ensemble has captivated audiences worldwide ever since they were awarded First Prize at the 13th Banff International String Quartet Competition, with appearances at renowned venues such as Lincoln Center in New York, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Hong Kong’s City Hall, and London’s Wigmore Hall. The Viano Quartet are Bowers Program Artists at The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from 2024–2027.

Viano Quartet’s 2025–26 season includes debut performances at London’s Southbank Centre, the Frick Collection in New York, Dublin’s National Concert Hall, Vivo Performing Arts, Coast Live Music, Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City, Apex Concerts, the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, the Fortas Series at the Kennedy Center, Premiere Performances HK, and a mainstage full recital debut at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. This season also features collaborations with Avi Avital, Sir Stephen Hough, Gilbert Kalish, Anthony McGill, Miloš Karadaglić, and Vienna Teng. The quartet will premiere a newly written piece by composer Reena Esmail in the summer of 2026.

In 2025, the quartet received the Avery Fisher Career Grant as well as released their first full-length album, Voyager, with Apple Music/Platoon Records.

The Viano Quartet was formed in Los Angeles at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in 2015. The quartet is grateful for the unwavering support from their mentors at the Curtis Institute and Colburn Conservatory.

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Zitong Wang’s authenticity, bravura, and sensitivity have enchanted audiences over the years, particularly so at the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, where she claimed the Bronze Medal and the Krystian Zimerman Award for the Best Performance of a Sonata.

In her most recent season, she has taken the stage at prestigious venues, including the Berlin Philharmonie, the Prinzregententheater in Munich, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the National Centre for the Performing Arts, the Polish Baltic Philharmonic in Gdańsk, and the Shanghai Symphony Hall, among others, where her performances won ardent reception.

In 2026, her engagements include appearances at at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Kyoto Concert Hall, and Seoul Arts Center for the Chopin Competition Laureates Tour. Her China recital tour, starting in April, brings her back to Beijing, where she made her solo debut at age thirteen.

Born into a family of piano educators, Wang is pursuing her graduate studies with Dang Thai Son at the New England Conservatory. At an early age, she studied with Hua Chang and Yuan Sheng at the Central Conservatory of Music. Entering the Curtis Institute of Music on a full scholarship, she was mentored by Meng-Chieh Liu and the late Eleanor Sokoloff. Almost becoming a harpsichordist, she studied historical performance practice as a secondary major with Leon Schelhase and took a philosophy course at the University of Pennsylvania. This affinity led to an invitation from Trevor Pinnock to perform on original harpsichords from the antique Karen Flint Collection.

She has shared the stage with major orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Galicia Symphony Orchestra, Sichuan Symphony Orchestra, Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the New Jersey Symphony, NEC Philharmonia Orchestra (Boston), the Polish Baltic Philharmonic, and the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio. She has collaborated with conductors including Jahja Ling, Xian Zhang, Antoni Wit, Andrzej Boreyko, Anthony Hermus, Lina González-Granados, Hugh Wolff, Daniel Smith, Darrell Ang, and Yang Yang.

Not just a soloist par excellence, she is also an active chamber musician, performing with artists including David Shifrin, Roberto Díaz, Soovin Kim, and Gloria Chien, as well as ensembles such as the Isidore Quartet and Curtis Ensemble 20/21. She was selected as a Protégé Project Artist at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon, where her performances received wide recognition. She also interprets contemporary music, working closely with composers such as Unsuk Chin, Bright Sheng, David Ludwig, and Alvin Singleton.

Prior to the Chopin Competition, she won Sixth Prize and the Special Prize for the Performance of Contemporary Works at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition. She also received First Prize in the 33rd Ferrol International Piano Competition and the “Nelson Freire Prize” for the Best Performance of a Work by Chopin (2022).

She has been featured on Deutsche Grammophon Stage+, Medici TV, Amadeus TV, WRTI, WHYY-TV, and All Classical Radio. Her performances from the Chopin Competition are featured on an album released by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute as part of its Blue Series of competition recordings in 2026.

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Born in 2001, Claire Wells is an American violinist who is fast emerging as an original, distinctive musical voice on the international scene. As an artist, Claire’s work is shaped by an instinctive curiosity that guides her across periods and styles, drawing her toward music she finds genuinely compelling, from early repertoire to contemporary works.

Highlights in the upcoming 2026 season include Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 1 with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Maryland Symphony Orchestra, and past highlights include performing Kaija Saariaho’s Graal théâtre with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Dima Slobodeniouk in May 2025, as well as working on and performing Jörg Widmann’s Etude No. 3 alongside the composer as part of CMNW’s 2024 Summer Festival.

As a soloist, Claire has performed with orchestras including the Dallas Symphony, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgart Philharmoniker, Czech Orchestra Prague, Auckland Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Webern Kammerphilharmonie, and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, working with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin, Dima Slobodeniouk, Pietari Inkinen, Robert Kružík, and Andrew Litton, among others.

Having won major prizes at many internationally renowned competitions including the Michael Hill, Sibelius, Mirecourt, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and Indianapolis violin competitions, Claire was the 2023 scholarship winner of the Mozart Gesellschaft Dortmund, and was most recently the winner of the 2025 Susan Wadsworth Young Concert Artists International Auditions.

Having always held a love and passion for chamber music, Claire appears at leading festivals such as Chamber Music Northwest, Chamber Music Connects the World in collaboration with Christian Tetzlaff and Steven Isserlis, the IMS Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music Festival in Cornwall, the Verbier Festival Academy, Tippet Rise Chamber Festival in Montana, and the Kryzyowa Festival in Kreisau, Poland. As well as performing regularly with top young artists of today, Claire has collaborated with many distinguished musicians, including Noah Bendix-Balgley, Christian Tetzlaff, Steven Isserlis, Gary Hoffman, Enrico Pace, and Nobuko Imai, among others.

Claire is represented worldwide by Young Concert Artists. She currently resides in Berlin, and is studying at the Kronberg Academy under the tutelage of Mihaela Martin, made possible by the Opel/Dr. Schaefer patronage. Claire Wells plays on a Nicolo Amati and a Grand Adam bow, on loan from a generous donor.