New@Night: Sonic Soundscapes

Artists

Isabelle Ai Durrenberger Violin

American violinist Isabelle Ai Durrenberger is praised for her imaginative performances and her ability to communicate with sincere artistry. Based in New York City, she is first violinist of the Aeolus Quartet and a recent graduate of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect program.

An avid chamber musician, Durrenberger is recognized for her unique collaborative instincts. Recent engagements include concerts with Boston Chamber Music Society, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Music Northwest, Jupiter Chamber Players, The Knights, A Far Cry, and Marlboro Music Festival.

Durrenberger grew up in a musical home in Columbus, Ohio, and began playing piano at age four, beginning violin lessons three years later. At age 13, she began her studies with Jaime Laredo at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She attended Meadowmount School of Music for four years, graduated from high school a year early, and at age 16 began her undergraduate program in Cleveland where she continued receiving mentorship from Laredo. Other influences include Jennifer Koh, Sharon Robinson, Joan Kwuon, Jinjoo Cho, Jan Mark Sloman, and Jun Kim.

In 2022, she completed her graduate studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston with Soovin Kim and Don Weilerstein. Durrenberger has a private violin studio in New York City and serves on the violin faculty at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School in Boston, where she teaches violin and coaches chamber music.

Durrenberger performs on a 2020 Zygmuntowicz violin on private loan from a patron in New York City.

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Upcoming Concerts & Events

• Loeffler’s Lost Octet, Debussy & Schumann

Edvard Erdal Violin

The Norwegian violinist Edvard Erdal (b. 1996) is a sought-after chamber musician and orchestra leader. He currently holds the position of First Concertmaster of the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra in Norway. Edvard is a founding member of the string quartet Opus13, which was awarded 2nd prize in the prestigious Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022. Edvard plays a Lorenzo Storioni violin dated 1780, generously on loan from Snefonn AS.

Alexi Kenney Violin

Violinist Alexi Kenney is forging a career that defies categorization, following his interests, intuition, and heart. He is equally at home creating experimental programs and commissioning new works, soloing with major orchestras, and collaborating with some of the most celebrated artists and musicians of our time. Alexi is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

Alexi has performed as soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, the San Francisco, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and San Diego symphonies, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Gulbenkian Orchestra, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. This season, he plays the complete violin sonatas of Robert Schumann with Amy Yang on period instruments at the Frick Collection, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the Phillips Collection.

He continues to tour his project Shifting Ground in collaboration with the new media artist Xuan, which intersperses works for solo violin by J.S. Bach with pieces by Matthew Burtner, Mario Davidovsky, Salina Fisher, Nicola Matteis, Angélica Negrón, and Paul Wiancko.

Alexi is a founding member of the two-cello quartet Owls, hailed as a “dream group” by The New York Times. He regularly performs at chamber music festivals including Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Chamber Music Northwest, La Jolla, Ojai, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Seattle, and Spoleto. He is an alum of the Bowers Program at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

He plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and a bow made in Port Townsend, WA by Charles Espey in 2024.

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Clancy Newman Composer & Cello

Cellist Clancy Newman has enjoyed an extraordinarily wide-ranging career, not only as a cellist, but also as a composer, producer, writer, and educator.

He received his first significant public recognition at the age of twelve, when he won a Gold Medal at the Dandenong Youth Festival in Australia, competing against contestants twice his age. He went on to win first prize at the Naumburg International Competition, and he has performed as soloist throughout the United States, as well as in Europe, Asia, Canada, and Australia. A recipient of an Avery Fisher career grant, he can often be heard on NPR’s Performance Today and has been featured on A&E and PBS.

As a composer, he has expanded cello technique in ways heretofore thought unimaginable, particularly in his “Pop-Unpopped” project, and he has been featured on series by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Chicago Chamber Musicians. His piano quintet was premiered at the opening ceremony of the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC, and in 2021 he was commissioned by the Kingston Chamber Music Festival to produce four educational videos to assist school teachers as they navigated the Covid-19 pandemic.

Currently on the faculty of Princeton University, Mr. Newman is a graduate of the five-year exchange program between Juilliard and Columbia University, receiving a M.M. from Juilliard and a B.A. in English from Columbia.

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Tara Helen O’Connor Flute

Tara Helen O’Connor, who Art Mag has said “so embodies perfection on the flute that you’ll forget she is human,” is an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, a two-time Grammy Award nominee, and a recipient of the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award. A Wm.S. Haynes artist, she is a season artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She is professor of flute at the Yale School of Music and is the Artistic Director of the “Music from Angel Fire” Festival and in 2026, the Essex Winter Series.

Tara has also appeared on numerous film and television soundtracks including Barbie, Respect, The Joker, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Only Murders in the Building, and Schmigadoon! Festival appearances include the Bravo! Vail festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music, the Great Mountains Music Festival, and Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival.

A charismatic performer noted for her artistic depth, brilliant technique and colorful tone spanning every musical era, O’Connor has collaborated with such distinguished artists as vocalists Jennifer Johnson Cano, Susanna Phillips and Dawn Upshaw, violinist Jaime Laredo, clarinetist David Shifrin, guitarist Eliot Fisk, and pianists Jeremy Denk, Peter Serkin, and Stephen Prutsman, and with such revered ensembles as the Emerson, Orion, and St. Lawrence string quartets.

Tara has appeared on A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts, PBS’ Live from Lincoln Center and has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings and Bridge Records.

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Daniel Thorell Cello

Daniel Thorell is a cellist from Stockholm, Sweden. Though only 26-years-old, he has already had great success as a soloist and chamber musician, both nationally and internationally. Praised for his mature and expressive music making, he is currently regarded as one of Scandinavia’s most promising young cellists.

He is a first-prize winner in no less than nine international competitions, most notably Rovere D’oro (2017), where he was also awarded a gold medal. In May of 2019, he was a major prize winner in the 54th Markneukirchen International Cello Competition. He was also a laureate at the sixth season of La Classe d’Excellence de Violoncell with Professor Gautier Capucon.

Born into a family of musicians, Daniel began playing the cello at the age of five. He made his debut as a soloist at the age of eleven, performing Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto in A Minor with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Since then, he has performed regularly as a soloist with orchestras around Sweden, including the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

Daniel is also an experienced chamber musician and since 2019 is a member of the Norwegian-based string quartet, Opus13. In 2022, they were awarded second prize in the Banff international string quartet competition and have performed at festivals such as Kamermuziek festival Utrecht, Risør kammermusikkfest, Valdres sommersymfoni, Midtåsen kulturfestival, and many more. In 2021, they made their debut at the Oslo Quartet Series.

Daniel recently finished his soloist diploma studies at the Norwegian Academy of Music with Professor Torleif Thedéen has studied with a number of renowned professors, including Jens-Peter Maintz, Danjulo Ishizaka, Maria Kliegel, Claudio Bohorquez, and Antonio Meneses. He is a recipient of numerous scholarships from foundations such as SWEA International Scholarship for the Arts and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

Albin Uusijärvi Viola

Albin Uusijärvi, born in 1995 in Nyköping, Sweden, started his musical education in Stockholm and switched from violin to viola at the age of twelve. He studied under Göran Fröst at Lilla Akademien in Stockholm, with Walter Küssner and Tabea Zimmermann at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin, and later with Ulrich Knörzer at the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic. Mentors such as Eberhard Feltz, Oliver Wille, and Mats Zetterqvist have also had a great influence on his passion for chamber music.

In 2014, he was awarded first prize in the Polstjärnepriset competition in Gothenburg, Sweden, which led to him representing Sweden at the Eurovision Young Musician Competition, performing live with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne.

After working as solo violist of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, he won the audition for principal violist of his hometown orchestra, the Swedish Radio Orchestra, where he currently collaborates under the leadership of chief conductor, Daniel Harding. He divides his time between his role in the orchestra and as violist of the string quartet, Opus13.

Sonoko Miriam Welde Violin

Norwegian violinist Sonoko Miriam Welde (b. 1996) is winner of the “Virtuos” competition, the Norwegian Soloist Prize 2014, and the Equinor Classical Music Scholarship 2016.

As a soloist she has performed with orchestras such the Oslo Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Bournemouth Symphony, and Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and conductors including Andrew Litton, James Gaffigan, Han-Na Chang, Marta Gardolinska, Joshua Weilerstein, and Edward Gardner.

An enthusiastic chamber musician, Sonoko has been championed by Leif Ove Andsnes, with whom she performs regularly, and has also worked with Tabea Zimmermann, Clemens Hagen, Sergio Tiempo, Gidon Kremer, Alisa Weilerstein, Jonathan Biss, and Janine Jansen.

She is a founding member of the string quartet, Opus13, who took second prize in the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition.

In 2021, she released her debut album of Bruch and Barber violin concertos and The Lark Ascending with the Oslo Philharmonic on LAWO Classics. It was nominated for the Norwegian “Spellemannprisen” in the classical music category and received rave reviews from publications such as Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, and The Strad.

Sonoko studied with Janine Jansen in Sion, where she also had lessons with Denis Kozhukhin. She has also studied with Stephan Barratt-Due in Oslo and Kolja Blacher in Berlin. In 2018-2020 she was part of the Crescendo Mentoring Program.

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Opus13 String Quartet, Protégé

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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