Brandenburg All-Stars

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.

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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.

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Fleur Barron Mezzo-soprano

Hailed as “a knockout performer” by The Times, Singaporean-British mezzo Fleur Barron is a passionate interpreter of opera, symphonic works, and chamber music ranging from the Baroque to the contemporary. She is currently Artistic Partner of the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Oviedo, for which she will curate and perform multiple projects across several seasons. The artist is mentored by Barbara Hannigan.

The 2024-25 season sees Fleur Barron emerge as an exciting, leading voice in Mahlerian repertoire across a series of important symphonic debuts: Das Lied von der Erde with Daniel Harding and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra on tour across Germany, with Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm, on tour to Spain with Kent Nagano and the Hamburg Staatsorchester at the Elbphilharmonie, and at the Oregon Bach Festival; Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Nathalie Stutzmann and the Atlanta Symphony; Mahler’s second symphony with the Orquesta de Valencia; Rückert Lieder with PhilZuid; and the Kindertotenlieder at Het Concertgebouw’s Mahler Festival with Julius Drake.

Other orchestral engagements include Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs with the Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra, Saariaho’s Adriana Songs with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, and orchestrated Schubert songs with the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias.

She takes on three new opera roles: Concepción in Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra under Ludovic Morlot (including a studio recording); Comrade Chin/Shu Fang in Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly at the Barbican Centre directed by James Robinson; and Galatea in Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo with La Nuova Musica at Wigmore Hall.

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Upcoming Concerts & Events

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

Sunmi Chang Violin

As the laureate of both the 2007 International Markneukirchen and Sion-Valais International Violin Competitions, Korean-born violinist Sunmi Chang has performed widely to much acclaim throughout North America and Europe as a soloist and chamber musician.

At the age of 17, she toured with the Yehudi Menuhin School Orchestra playing Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, conducted by Lord Menuhin in UNESCO Headquarters and Guildford Cathedral in England. In 2008, Sunmi was the soloist on Yale Philharmonia’s tour to Seoul, Beijing, and Shanghai, performing the Beethoven Violin Concerto. To celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birthday, she returned to Yale, performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with cellist Paul Watkins and pianist Melvin Chen, conducted by Peter Oundjian.

An active chamber musician, she has performed in various chamber music festival, including the Rising Stars Series at Caramoor, Vivace Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Music in the Vineyards, and Chamber Music Northwest. Sunmi is also the Founder & Artistic Director of Summit Chamber Music Series—committed to bringing world-class chamber music to West Virginia.

In December 2023, Sunmi recently released Mother Tales under the PARMA recording label with pianist Clara Yang—an album that pays tribute to four remarkable women composers Florence Price, Gabriela Lena Frank, Liliya Ugay, and Amy Beach.

Sunmi received her Bachelor’s degree at the Hanns Eisler Musikhochschule in Berlin, a Master’s degree and an Artist Diploma at the Yale School of Music, and a Doctoral degree from the University of Michigan. Her principal teachers have included Eberhard Feltz, Peter Oundjian, Soovin Kim, Ani Kavafian. She recently joined as the violin faculty at the School of Music at the University of Oregon.

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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.

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Upcoming Concerts & Events

• Brentano Quartet & Gloria Chien: Schubert, Andres & Beach
• Trio Afiori: Anthony McGill, Fleur Barron & Gloria Chien

Marilyn de Oliveira Cello

Brazilian cellist Marilyn de Oliveira enjoys an active career as a symphonic and chamber musician. Since joining the Oregon Symphony as the Assistant Principal cellist in 2009, Marilyn has been a founding member of Mousai Remix and Pyxis String Quartets, cellist of Third Angle and 45th Parallel Music, and a guest with prestigious festivals such as Grand Teton Music Festival, Oregon Bach Festival and Chamber Music Northwest.

In addition to her many performance engagements, Mrs. de Oliveira is also an educator, orchestral coach and music activist. She is part of the music faculty at Reed College, maintains a private studio with graduates now in renowned music schools worldwide, and founded the Oregon Symphony Musician’s Caroling Project— a collaborative effort which has brought music to those in need during the holidays for over a decade.

Prior to joining the OSO, Marilyn served as Acting Assistant Principal cellist and section member of the San Antonio Symphony and was a fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami, FL. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from Indiana University, her Master of Music degree at Rice University and was the Bronze Award Winner in the senior division of The Sphinx Competition in 2006.

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.

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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.

Jessica Lee Violin

Violinist Jessica Lee has built a multifaceted career as soloist, chamber musician, and now as Assistant Concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra since 2016. She was the Grand Prize Winner of the 2005 Concert Artists Guild International Competition and has been hailed as “a soloist which one should make a special effort to hear, wherever she plays.” Her international appearances include solo performances with the Plzen Philharmonic, Gangnam Symphony, Malaysia Festival Orchestra, and at the Rudolfinum in Prague. At home, she has appeared with orchestras such as the Houston, Grand Rapids, and Spokane symphonies. 

Jessica has performed in recital at venues including Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Ravinia “Rising Stars,” the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, and the Kennedy Center.

A long-time member of the Johannes Quartet as well as of the The Bowers Program (formerly the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two), Jessica has also toured frequently with Musicians from Marlboro, including appearances at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston’s Gardner Museum, and with the Guarneri Quartet in their farewell season. Her chamber music festival appearances include Bridgehampton, Santa Fe, Seoul Spring, Caramoor, Olympic, and Music@Menlo. She also put together a six-video chamber music series during the pandemic which was a collaboration between the Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Clinic to bring chamber music from iconic spaces in Cleveland to the greater Cleveland community.

Jessica has always had a passion for teaching and has served on the faculties of Vassar College and Oberlin College, and now is on violin faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music at age fourteen following studies with Weigang Li, and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree under Robert Mann and Ida Kavafian. She completed her studies for a Master’s Degree at the Juilliard School.

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Paul Neubauer Viola

Violist Paul Neubauer’s exceptional musicality and effortless playing led The New York Times to call him “a master musician.” In 2025 he will release two albums for First Hand Records that feature the final works of two great composers: an all-Bartók album including the revised version of the viola concerto, and a Shostakovich recording including the monumental viola sonata.

At age 21, Mr. Neubauer was appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic, and he held that position for six years. He has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras including the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki philharmonics; Chicago, National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco, and Bournemouth symphonies; and Mariinsky, Santa Cecilia, English Chamber, and Beethovenhalle orchestras.

He has also premiered viola concertos by Béla Bartók (revised version of the Viola Concerto), Reinhold Glière, Gordon Jacob, Henri Lazarof, Robert Suter, Joel Phillip Friedman, Aaron Jay Kernis, Detlev Müller-Siemens, David Ott, Krzysztof Penderecki, Tobias Picker, and Joan Tower. He performs with SPA, a trio with soprano Susanna Phillips and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, with a wide range of repertoire including salon style songs.

He has been featured on CBS’s Sunday Morning, A Prairie Home Companion, and in Strad, Strings, and People magazines. A two-time Grammy nominee, he has recorded on numerous labels including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Red Seal, and Sony Classical.

Mr. Neubauer appears with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is the artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey. He is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Mannes College

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Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt Viola

Praised by The Strad magazine as having “lyricism that stood out…a silky tone and beautiful, supple lines,” Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt has established herself as one of the most sought-after violists of her generation. In addition to appearances as soloist with the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Jacksonville Symphony, the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra, and Symphony in C, she has performed in recitals and chamber-music concerts throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia, including an acclaimed 2011 debut recital at London’s Wigmore Hall, which was described in The Strad as being “fleet and energetic…powerful and focused.” 

Ms. Pajaro-van de Stadt was the founding violist of the twice-Grammy-nominated Dover Quartet, and played in the group from 2008-2022. During her time in the group, the Dover Quartet was the First Prize-winner and recipient of every special award at the Banff International String Quartet Competition 2013, and winner of the Gold Medal and Grand Prize in the 2010 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Also during her tenure, the Dover Quartet received the Cleveland Quartet Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant.  Her numerous awards also include First Prize at the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and top prizes at the Sphinx Competition and the Tokyo International Viola Competition.

While in the Dover Quartet, Ms. Pajaro-van de Stadt was on the faculty at The Curtis Institute of Music and Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, and a part of the Quartet in Residence of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.  She is now a member of the newly formed piano quartet, Espressivo!, along with acclaimed artists Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, and Anna Polonsky.

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Shunske Sato Violin

Shunske Sato is a violinist, conductor, chamber musician, soloist, and teacher. The diversity of his activities reflects his versatile and resourceful nature. Historically-informed performance practice is central to his identity, allowing him to inhabit the music and communicate with audiences in dramatic, revelatory ways.

Shunske directs and appears as soloist with period ensembles as well as symphonic orchestras around the world, and has led several staged productions. Resident in the Netherlands, Shunske has been a faculty member of the Amsterdam Conservatory since 2013.

From 2013 to 2023 Shunske was artistic leader and concertmaster of the Netherlands Bach Society. Since 2011, he has worked closely with Concerto Köln, where he has been making noteworthy strides into the realm of the performance practice of the 19th century.

Highlights of the 2024-2025 season included Shunske’s conducting debut with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the tour celebrating the release of Bee1h0ven | The Complete Violin Sonatas—Shunske’s recording of Beethoven’s complete violin sonatas with pianist, Shuann Chai.

Born in Tokyo, Shunske immigrated to the US at the age of four. Shunske studied at the Juilliard School in New York, Conservatoire National de Région in Paris, and Die Hochschule für Musik und Theather in Munich.

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