New@Night: Global Voices

Artists

Kit Armstrong Piano/Harpsichord

Ever since Kit Armstrong entered the international music stage twenty years ago, his activities have exerted an enduring fascination upon music lovers. He performs recitals in major series, appears with the world’s finest orchestras, and has developed close artistic partnerships with leading instrumentalists and vocalists. He has held artist-in-residence appointments incorporating a wide spectrum of musical formats, combining his roles as composer, pianist, conductor, and organist. His project, Expedition Mozart, traverses Mozart’s music in various genres with an international group of distinguished chamber musicians and soloists—and has become a main feature at prestigious festivals and venues.

Armstrong came to classical music through composition at the age of five. He has since created a broad oeuvre of vocal, instrumental, chamber, and symphonic works, many of which have been commissioned by notable European cultural institutions. His compositions are published by Edition Peters.

Born in 1992 in California, USA, Armstrong pursued undergraduate studies in physics at California State University, chemistry, and mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania and mathematics at Imperial College London. Alfred Brendel has guided Armstrong as a musical mentor since 2005. In 2008, he earned a bachelor’s degree in music at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and in 2012 a master’s degree in pure mathematics at the University of Paris VI.

In 2012, Kit Armstrong purchased the Church of Sainte-Thérèse in Hirson, France, and transformed it into a hall for concerts, exhibitions, and outreach. This cultural centre has become home to interdisciplinary projects, reaching a regional as well as cosmopolitan public.

Artist's Website

Edward Arron 2025 YAI Faculty, cello

A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, cellist Edward Arron made his New York recital debut in 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since that time, he has appeared in recital, as a soloist with major orchestras, and as a chamber musician throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

The 2024-25 season marks Mr. Arron’s 12th season as the co-artistic director with his wife, Jeewon Park, of the Performing Artists in Residence series at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Mr. Arron tours and records as a member of the renowned Ehnes String Quartet and he is a regular performer at the Boston and Seattle Chamber Music Societies, the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, Caramoor, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival, Seoul Spring Festival in Korea, Music in the Vineyards Festival, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Manchester Music Festival, and the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland. Other festival appearances include Salzburg, Ravinia, Tanglewood, Mostly Mozart, PyeongChang, Bridgehampton, Spoleto USA, Santa Fe, Evian, La Jolla Summerfest, Chamber Music Northwest, Chesapeake Chamber Music, and the Bard Music Festival. Mr. Arron’s performances are frequently broadcast on American Public Media’s Performance Today.

In 2021, Mr. Arron’s recording, Beethoven Complete Works for Cello and Piano with pianist Jeewon Park, was released on the Aeolian Classics Record Label. The recording received the Samuel Sanders Collaborative Artists Award from the Classical Recording Foundation. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Mr. Arron currently serves on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Artist's Website

Fleur Barron Mezzo-soprano

Hailed as “a knockout performer” by The Times, Singaporean-British mezzo Fleur Barron is a 2025 Grammy Award winner for Best Opera Recording, in which she sang the title role in Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater with the San Francisco Symphony under Esa-Pekka Salonen. A passionate interpreter of opera, symphonic works, and chamber music ranging from the Baroque to the contemporary, Fleur is mentored by Barbara Hannigan.​

Fleur opens her 2025-26 season with a debut at the Salzburg Festival, teaming up once again with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Peter Sellars for One Morning Turns into an Eternity, a staged creation in which Fleur performs Mahler’s “Abschied” from Das Lied von der Erde. Fleur continues her collaboration with Peter Sellars in a return to the title role in Kaija Saariho’s Adriana Mater for her debut at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. She also makes a house and role debut as Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare at Maggio Musicale in Florence; performs a staged version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde directed by Lemi Ponifasio at The Barbican; George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill, conducted by the composer, at the Tongyeong Festival in Korea; Piacere in Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno with La Nuova Musica under David Bates at Wigmore Hall; and workshops for Bryce Dessner’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a monodrama being conceived for Fleur, directed by Kaneza Schaal.​

Fleur’s 2025-2026 symphonic calendar reflects her artistic versatility across a broad range of repertoire. She debuts with the New York Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel in the world premiere of David Lang’s oratorio The Wealth of Nations; debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic under Kirill Petrenko in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, which also tours to the Salzburg Easter Festival; returns to both the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony at the invitation of Nathalie Stutzmann for Mozart’s Requiem and Bach’s B Minor Mass. Fleur also solidifies her reputation as a Mahler interpreter, singing the Kindertotenlieder with both the Czech Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkov and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Torino; Das Lied von der Erde with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra under Ludovic Morlot and with the Britten Sinfonia; and Symphony No. 3 at both the Palau de la Musica Valencia and the Colorado Music Festival. Other symphonic performances include Alma Mahler’s Fünf Lieder with RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Respighi’s Il Tramonto with CBSO under Carlo Rizzi and Mason Bates’s Passage with Nashville Symphony under Giancarlo Guerrero.

Highlights of the 2025-26 recital platform include a French song program with Kirill Gerstein at Festival Ravel; a U.S. tour with Trio Afiori, a voice-clarinet-piano trio she has newly formed with Anthony McGill and Gloria Chien. The trio has a residency and concert at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center before heading to Reno, Portland, and Eugene. With long-time duo partner Julius Drake, she gives concerts in Genoa, South Korea, Paris, London, Leeds, and Germany. Fleur joins the Australian String Quartet at the Helsinki Festival and the Parker Quartet at National Sawdust in Brooklyn. Fleur also undertakes a residency with LIFE Victoria Barcelona, for which she performs two recitals with Kunal Lahiry and coaches the young artists.

Fleur is committed to exploring the many ways music can facilitate cross-cultural dialogue and healing. She is passionate about curating inclusive chamber music programming that amplifies the voices of diverse communities. An active mentor and educator, Fleur has led vocal masterclasses and seminars at Manhattan School of Music, Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, Royal Academy of Music, Royal Northern College of Music, the Malaysian Philharmonic, Temple University, and King’s College London, and has also mentored young musicians privately. Born to a British father and Singaporean mother in Northern Ireland, Fleur grew up in the Far East and has also spent considerable time in New York and the U.K. She is currently based in London.​

Fleur holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature with highest honours from Columbia University and a Masters in Vocal Performance from Manhattan School of Music.

Artist's Website

Upcoming Concerts & Events

• Trio Afiori: Anthony McGill, Fleur Barron & Gloria Chien

Gloria Chien Piano & Artistic Director

Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Chien has one of the most diverse musical lives as a noted performer, concert presenter, and educator. She made her orchestral debut at the age of sixteen with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard, and she performed again with the BSO with Keith Lockhart. She was subsequently selected by The Boston Globe as one of its Superior Pianists of the year, “who appears to excel in everything.” In recent seasons, she has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician at Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Dresden Chamber Music Festival, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. She performs frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 2009, she launched String Theory, a chamber music series in Chattanooga, Tennessee that has become one of the region’s premier classical music presenters. The following year she was appointed director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo, a position she held for the next decade.

In 2017, she joined her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, as artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. The duo became artistic directors at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon in 2020. They were named recipients of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Award for Extraordinary Service in 2021 for their efforts during the pandemic.

Most recently, Gloria was named Advisor of the newly launched Institute for Concert Artists at the New England Conservatory of Music. Gloria released two albums—her Gloria Chien LIVE from the Music@Menlo LIVE label and Here With You with acclaimed clarinetist Anthony McGill on Cedille Records.

Gloria received her bachelor, master’s, and doctoral degrees at the New England Conservatory of Music with Wha Kyung Byun and Russell Sherman. She is Artist-in-Residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, and she is a Steinway Artist.

Artist's Website

Upcoming Concerts & Events

• Trio Afiori: Anthony McGill, Fleur Barron & Gloria Chien

Emi Ferguson Flute

A 2023 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Emi Ferguson can be heard live in concerts and festivals with groups including the Handel and Haydn Society, AMOC*, Ruckus, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Manhattan Chamber Players, and as the music director of Camerata Pacifica Baroque.

Her recordings By George!, Amour Cruel, and Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes, celebrate her fascination with reinvigorating music and instruments of the past for the present and have been called “blindingly impressive ... a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” by The New York Times.

Emi has spoken and performed at TEDx events and has been featured on the Discovery Channel, Amazon Prime, WQXR, and Vox talking about how music relates to our world today. As part of WQXR’s Artist Propulsion Lab, she created the series “This Composer is SICK!” with Max Fine, exploring the impact of Syphilis on composers Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, and Scott Joplin. She is also a host of WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase and Once Upon A Composer. Her book, Iconic Composers, co-written with Nicholas Csicsko with artwork by David Lee Csicsko, was released in 2023.

Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York.

Artist's Website

Wenting Kang 2025 YAI Faculty, Viola

Chinese violist Wenting Kang appeared as an “excellent violist” who “possesses a dark glowing sound” in The New York Times after her performance at Carnegie Hall. Kang’s playing also has been lauded as “elegant”, “precise,”  as well as “pure” and “tone-passionate without ever losing a sense of control” in the Boston Musical Intelligencer.

Her debut CD recording with pianist Sergei Kvitko, Mosaic, received many positive reviews, among which Gramophone Magazine noted “Part of the allure is her golden and glowing tone, but the subtlety of her shading is just as transfixing.” It has won the gold medal as a recommended CD on the Melómano Magazine in Spain.

Ms. Kang has appeared as a soloist, collaborating with major orchestras such as Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, and Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra—working with renowned conductors including Ivor Bolton, Michiyoshi Inoue, and José María Moreno.

Ms. Kang was appointed as Viola Faculty at the New England Conservatory in Boston in September 2024. Since 2016, Kang has been active as assistant professor alongside the renowned Nobuko Imai at the Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia in Madrid. In recent years, Kang has taught masterclasses for viola and chamber music in prestigious institutions such as University Mozarteum, University of Graz, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and Franz Liszt Academy of Music.

Soovin Kim 2025 YAI Faculty, Violin & Artistic Director

Soovin Kim enjoys a broad musical career regularly performing Bach sonatas and Paganini caprices for solo violin, sonatas for violin and piano ranging from Beethoven to Ives, Mozart, and Haydn concertos and symphonies as a conductor, and new world-premiere works almost every season. When he was 20 years old, Kim received first prize at the Paganini International Violin Competition. He immersed himself in the string quartet literature for 20 years as the 1st violinist of the Johannes Quartet. Among his many commercial recordings are his “thrillingly triumphant” (Classic FM Magazine) disc of Paganini’s demanding 24 Caprices and a two-disc set of Bach’s complete solo violin works that were released in 2022.

Kim is the founder and artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival (LCCMF) in Burlington, Vermont. In addition to its explorative programming and extensive work with living composers, LCCMF created the ONE Strings program through which all 3rd through 5th grade students of the Integrated Arts Academy in Burlington study violin. The University of Vermont recognized Soovin Kim’s work by bestowing an Honorary Doctorate upon him in 2015. In 2020, he and his wife, pianist Gloria Chien, became artistic directors of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon. He, with Chien, were awarded Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2021 CMS Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music. Kim devotes much of his time to his passion for teaching at the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Yale School of Music in New Haven.

Titus Underwood Oboe

Titus Underwood is the Principal Oboist of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Gateways Music Festival, and co-principal of the Chineke! Orchestra. Underwood is also the Associate Professor of Oboe at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. In addition, Titus is a faculty artist at the Aspen Music Festival and National Youth Orchestras at Carnegie Hall. A fierce advocate for amplifying voices of the historically underrepresented, he co-founded the Black Orchestral Network (BON) and Sphinx Orchestral Partners Auditions (SOPA).

His personal endeavors in digital media have led to multiple releases, notably the short film, A Tale of Two Tails. Underwood also holds the honors of a Sphinx Medal of Excellence award for his ongoing commitment to leadership and community, and an Emmy Award for his work executive-producing We Are Nashville with the Nashville Symphony.

Underwood is a graduate of The Juilliard School, The Colburn School, and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Artist's Website