Artists

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Jonathan Bagg is Professor and Music Department Chair at Duke University. He is violist with Duke’s Ciompi String Quartet, with whom he has performed hundreds of concerts in the U.S. and around the world. He is founding Artistic Director of Electric Earth Concerts in New Hampshire, and he directed the Monadnock Music festival from 2006-2011. As an artistic director he has organized many creative collaborations with composers, authors, poets, and choreographers, resulting in a unique multi-media works.

Jonathan has performed at the Portland Chamber Music Festival, the Sebago-Long Lake festival, the Great Lakes Festival, the Eastern Music Festival, the Highlands-Cashiers festival, the Mohawk Trail and Castle Hill festivals.

From 2015 he was principal violist and appeared as soloist with the CityMusic Cleveland chamber orchestra. As an orchestral player he performed with the Boston Symphony and held principal jobs at the Handel and Haydn Society, the New Haven Symphony, and the New Hampshire Symphony.

Jonathan’s most recent solo CD on the Albany label, titled “Elation,” brings together several works he commissioned, including works by Duke colleagues Stephen Jaffe and Scott Lindroth. Other solo discs contain music for viola and piano by Robert and Clara Schumann, and by the Viennese composer Robert Fuchs. Contemporary solo works by Robert Ward, Arthur Levering, Malcolm Peyton, and Donald Wheelock are on Bridge, Albany, Centaur and Gasparo Records. He has also made dozens of CDs with the Ciompi Quartet. He has performed at the SLLMF since 2019.

Eliot Bailen has an active career as an artistic director, cellist, composer and teacher. Strings Magazine writes, “At Merkin Hall ‘cellist Eliot Bailen displayed a warm focused tone, concentrated expressiveness and admirable technical command always at the service of the music.” Founder and Artistic Director of the Sherman Chamber Ensemble, now celebrating its 40th year, whose performances the New York Times has described as “the Platonic ideal of a chamber music concert,” Eliot is also Founder and Artistic Director of Chamber Music at Rodeph Sholom in New York and Artistic Director of the New York Chamber Ensemble.

Principal Cello of the New Jersey Festival Orchestra, New York Chamber Ensemble, Orchestra New England, Teatro Grattacielo and the New Choral Society (The Michael B. Packer Chair), Eliot has performed regularly with the Saratoga Chamber Players, Cape May Music Festival, Sebago-Long Lake Chamber Music Festival as well as with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, New York City Opera and Ballet, Oratorio Society, American Symphony, Stamford Symphony, New Jersey Symphony and is heard frequently in numerous Broadway shows.

Among Eliot’s commissions are an Octet, a Double Concerto for Flute and Cello, Perhaps a Butterfly, Saratoga Sextet, The Tiny Mustache (a musical) and recently a Dectet (“Inclusion”) commissioned by the New Choral Society. He is recipient of over forty commissions for his “Song to Symphony” for schools (subject of a NY Times feature article Sept. 2006 and winner of a Yale Alumni Grant). In 2002 he received the Norman Vincent Peale Award for Positive Thinking.

Eliot received his Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) from Yale University and an M.B.A. from NYU. He is on the cello and chamber music faculty at Columbia University and Teachers College. He has performed at the SLLMF since 1994.

Ramón Carrero-Martinez, a Venezuelan violist based in New York City, has been appointed member of Ensemble Connect at Carnegie Hall for the upcoming 2023-2025 season. A celebrated artist, he is a prize winner in renowned chamber music competitions across the globe, earning prizes such as the Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition 2022, Second Prize in the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition 2023, and Third Prize in the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition 2023. Additionally, he was recognized as a Senior Semifinalist in the Sphinx Competition 2023 and awarded the Christine and David Anderson Career Development Prize in the Banff International String Quartet Competition 2022.

Ramón’s recent musical journey includes engagements such as touring with the Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, premiering James Ra’s Concerto for Three Violas with the New York Classical Players and delivering a compelling performance of Peteris Vasks’ Viola Concerto with the Classical Music Institute Orchestra of San Antonio. A distinguished chamber musician, he has collaborated with distinguished artists and ensembles such as Menahem Pressler, Todd Phillips, Yeesun Kim, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, and the American String Quartet.

Currently a member of the Exponential Ensemble and a former violist of quartets including the Teresa Carreño String Quartet, Deka String Quartet, and Terra String Quartet, Ramón enriches the chamber music scene with his versatile artistry. His festival appearances span globally, encompassing prestigious events such as the Beethoven Fest, Salzburg Fest, Esterhazy String Quartet Festival, Music@Menlo, and the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival. Passionate about education, he serves as a faculty artist at the San Antonio Classical Music Institute and contributes to programs like UpBeat NYC and Orchestrating Dreams.

Ramón holds a B.A. and M.M. from the Manhattan School of Music, studying under the guidance of Daniel Avshalomov. Beyond his musical pursuits, he finds joy in cooking, playing chess, and salsa dancing. Explore more about his vibrant musical journey at ramoncarreromartinez.com. Ramón has performed at the the SLLMF since 2024.

Lauded by the New York Times as a “brilliant soloist” and by Strad Magazine for her “marvelous and lyrical playing,” violinist Emilie-Anne Gendron enjoys an active and versatile career based in New York City. A deeply committed chamber musician, she is a member of the Momenta Quartet (currently Artists-in-Residence at Binghamton University), whose eclectic vision encompasses contemporary music of all aesthetic backgrounds alongside great music from the past. Emilie has been on the roster of the Marlboro Music Festival and the touring Musicians from Marlboro since 2011, and appears with A Far Cry, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Talea Ensemble, Sejong Soloists, and the IRIS Orchestra (as one of its concertmasters). She is a founding member of Ensemble Échappé, a new-music sinfonietta, as well as the Gamut Bach Ensemble, in residence with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Her extensively varied international appearances have included recitals in Sweden and at the Louvre in Paris; festivals in Russia, Finland, and Jordan; and recently, major venues in China, South Korea, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia, in collaboration with such artists as Bruno Canino, Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, Edgar Meyer, and Gil Shaham, among many others.

A dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, Emilie was trained at the Juilliard School where her teachers were Won Bin Yim, Dorothy DeLay, David Chan, Hyo Kang, and Axel Strauss. She holds the distinction of being the first person in Juilliard’s history to be accepted simultaneously to its two most selective courses of study, the Doctor of Musical Arts and the Artist Diploma. She holds a B.A. in Classics from Columbia University (magna cum laude and with Phi Beta Kappa honors), and a Master of Music degree and the coveted Artist Diploma from Juilliard. For more information, please visit www.emilieannegendron.com. She has performed at the SLLMF since 2023.

Korean-American violinist and violist Brian Hong has forged a notable career as a chamber musician and educator. Known for his commanding stage presence, Brian joined the GRAMMY-nominated Aizuri Quartet in 2023. He has performed concertos with such orchestras as the Juilliard Orchestra, New York Classical Players, Fairfax Symphony, American Youth Philharmonic, Chesapeake Orchestra, US Army Orchestra, National Philharmonic, and the Springfield Symphony. A dedicated chamber musician, Brian serves on the faculty of Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School and Festival and has served on the faculty of the Manchester Music Festival and as guest artist at the Sebago-Long Lake Music Festival. Other festival credits include Marlboro, Yellow Barn, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, the Taos School of Music, and the Perlman Music Program.

Brian joined the esteemed faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music in Fall 2022. He has taught private lessons, public masterclasses, and chamber coachings on both violin and viola at George Mason University’s Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music, Missouri State University, and the Juilliard School. He has also taught live virtual masterclasses for the Joven Camerata de El Salvador as well as the Edward Said National Conservatory of Palestine. Brian’s mission as a teacher is to provide thoughtful and well-rounded instruction to students that maximizes their musical inspiration while illuminating the technical steps needed to achieve repeatable results. He believes in bringing the unique qualities of each student to life, and in the right of every student to have a high-quality musical education regardless of socio-economic status.

Brian is a graduate of Juilliard’s Artist Diploma program under the guidance of Laurie Smukler and Catherine Cho. As a Fellow of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, he performed and taught in a variety of venues in New York City and abroad, as well as maintaining a two-year teaching-artist partnership with Celia Cruz High School for Music in the Bronx. Brian also holds a Master’s degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Laurie Smukler and Li Lin and was awarded a prestigious Kovner Fellowship. He earned his Bachelor’s degree under Donald Weilerstein from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he was a member of three different honors ensembles and studied both classic and contemporary quartet repertoire with mentors including Laurence Lesser, Kim Kashkashian, Donald Weilerstein, and Lucy Chapman.

Brian is the Programming Director of Project: Music Heals Us, a nonprofit dedicated to providing musical education, access, and healing to marginalized populations with limited ability to access it themselves. He is also a Co-Artistic Director of NEXUS Chamber Music Chicago in Illinois, an artist-driven collective of musicians whose mission is to make classical music culturally relevant through live concerts and multimedia content. In his spare time, Brian can be found brewing espresso or single origin pour-overs at his home coffee bar. He has performed at the Festival since 2023.

Appointed First Associate Concertmaster of The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2005, Canadian violinist Juliette Kang enjoys an active and varied career. Previously Assistant Concertmaster of the Boston Symphony and a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Juliette’s solo engagements have included the San Francisco Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Boston Pops, the Omaha Symphony, the Syracuse Symphony, and every major orchestra in Canada. Internationally she has performed with the Czech Philharmonic, l’Orchestre National de France, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the KBS Symphony in Seoul. She has given recitals in Philadelphia, Paris, Tokyo, and Boston. In 1994 she won gold medal at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and was presented at New York’s Carnegie Hall in a recital that was recorded live and released on CD.

In 2012, Juliette was again a featured soloist at Carnegie Hall for the visit of her hometown orchestra, the Edmonton Symphony. She is a regular soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, having performed concertos under the batons of Gianandrea Noseda, Stephane Deneve, music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin, and others. She was the 2020 recipient of the C Hartman Kuhn Award, given annually to the member “who has shown ability and enterprise of such character as to enhance the standards and the reputation of the ensemble.”

Juliette has been involved with chamber music since studying at the Curtis Institute of Music. Festivals she has participated in include Bravo! Vail, Kingston (RI), Marlboro, Moab, Skaneateles, and Spoleto USA. In New York she has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; at the Mostly Mozart Festival with her husband, cellist Thomas Kraines; and at the Bard Music Festival.

Juliette had previously served on the Central Board of Trustees at Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School, one of the oldest and largest community schools of the arts in the country, founded in 1908 and having served more than 300,000 students since. She is also an educator and supporter of the Philadelphia Music Alliance for Youth (PMAY), an initiative that supports 5th-12th grade students from communities that are historically excluded on the symphony orchestra stage. Juliette has performed at the SLLMF since 2024.

Violinist Min-Young Kim is a founding member and first violinist of the internationally acclaimed Daedalus Quartet, winner of the Banff String Quartet Competition. With the quartet, she performs regularly throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia, and has been presented by many of the world’s leading musical venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and the Concertgebeouw in Amsterdam.

She has also toured extensively with Musicians from Marlboro, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and has also collaborated in festivals and performances with members of the Juilliard, Guarneri, Cleveland, Takács and Vermeer Quartets.

An advocate for music of our time, Min-Young enjoys working closely with composers and has premiered and performed many new works. In early music, she has performed and recorded on the baroque violin with Apollo’s Fire, the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra and New York Collegium.

A graduate of Harvard University and the Juilliard School, Ms. Kim teaches violin and chamber music at the University of Pennsylvania, and was formerly on the faculty of Columbia University and the School for Strings in New York. Her major teachers include Donald Weilerstein, Robert Mann and Shirley Givens. Min-Young has performed at the SLLMF since 2016.

Thomas Kraines, a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School, has gained renown as a versatile cellist, composer, and teacher. He performs around the world as the cellist of the Daedalus Quartet, and as a member of a duo with his wife, violinist Juliette Kang, as well as various other ensembles.

Thomas’ solo cello and chamber compositions have been heard around the country. He has performed his own works in collaboration with artists such as Awadagin Pratt, Mimi Stillman, Maria Jette, Ilana Davidson. In February of 2021, he performed his Suite for Two Different Cellos with Kinan Abou-afach as part of an online performance at the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia, and his Hansel and Gretel was recorded by Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra, with Henry Goodman narrating.

As a member of the Daedalus Quartet, Thomas has recorded the music of Joan Tower, Brian Buch, Anna Weesner, Vivian Fung, Fred Lerdahl, and George Perle, among others. He can also be heard on the recordings of music by Lori Laitman and Bernard Rands, both for Albany Records; John Musto, with Music from Copland House; and Shulamit Ran, with the Peabody Trio. His recent recording of Fred Lerdahl’s “There and Back Again” for solo cello was released by Bridge Records in February 2020, as part of its survey of Lerdahl’s music.

Thomas has served on the faculty of the Longy School of Music, Princeton University, Peabody Conservatory, Phillips Academy Andover, and Yellow Barn. He currently teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is director of chamber music, and the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia.

Thomas studied cello with Frederic Raimi, Orlando Cole, and Joel Krosnick, and composition with Tom Benjamin. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife Juliette, daughters Rosalie and Clarissa, and two cats. He has performed at the SLLMF since 2006.

Australian born violist Kathryn Lockwood leads an active and varied career as performer, teacher, and artistic director. Since moving to the United States in 1991 she has played with a virtual who’s-who in the chamber music world and captured sought-after awards in the country including the Naumburg Chamber Music Award.

Kathryn’s career launched straight out of graduate school at USC (CA) where she, along with three friends, formed the Pacifica Quartet. As a member of PQ she traveled the world concertizing and recording.

After moving to New York in 2001 Kathryn soon claimed the viola chair of the internationally renowned Lark Quartet. Always evolving and thinking out of the box, Kathryn formed the innovative group duoJalal with percussionist and husband Yousif Sheronick. The accolades speak volumes to Kathryn’s virtuosic ability. The Cleveland Plain Dealer proclaimed Kathryn as a “violist of exceptional talents…Lockwood played the vociferous viola cadenza with mahogany beauty and vivid character” and the Toronto Star wrote: “Lockwood is all slow, sensuous allure with her bowing arm one moment, a tempest of notes the next.”

For the last six years Kathryn has been keeping busy as artistic director of the Four Seasons in Music concert series at the Sands Point Preserve, Long Island, NY, and for the past four years for MusicFest as part of Telluride Chamber Music in CO.

Kathryn is currently tenured faculty at the John Cali School of Music at Montclair State University, previously serving on the faculty at University of Massachusetts/Amherst, Rutgers University in NJ, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, Music Institute of Chicago, and National Music Camp in Australia. Recently appointed Curator of the Immersive Residency Program at Montclair State University, she oversees weeklong residency visits of internationally renowned artists and groups. This is her first appearance at the Festival.

Varty Manouelian made her American Debut in 1993 with the North Carolina Symphony as First Prize winner of the Bryan International Competition. She has also been a prize winner at a number of other competitions in Europe, including the Kotzian International Competition and the Wieniawski International Violin Competition. She has recorded and appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras in the United States, Bulgaria, Russia, Armenia, Poland, Spain and Italy.
Her chamber music performances include Marlboro Music Festival, Apple Hill Festival, Sebago-Long Lake Music Festival, El Paso Festival, and Olympic Music Festival, among others. She has collaborated as a chamber musician with such artists as Yuja Wang, Kim Kashkashian, Rohan de Saram, Joshua Bell, Nobuko Imai, Thomas Adès, and members of the Juilliard, Guarneri, Tokyo, Brentano, Borromeo, and Mendelssohn string quartets.

Dedicated teacher and educator, Varty is Lecturer of Violin at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, teaches violin and chamber music at the Colburn Academy and CSPA, and spends summers coaching chamber music at the Apple Hill Festival in New Hampshire. She has been an active participant at LA Philharmonic’s Music Outreach programs, having taught at YOLA since its inception. Prior to joining the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2004, she was a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

In Los Angeles, Varty frequently performs at the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Chamber Music Society and Green Umbrella new-music series, as well as at Camerata Pacifica, Monday Evening Concerts, and the Dilijan Series. Her recording credits include archival radio recordings for the Bulgarian State Radio, and CDs on Albany and Bridge Records labels. Her recent CD of Complete Violin Works of Stefan Wolpe (jointly with violinist Movses Pogossian) made the 2015 Top Ten list in Sunday Times (UK). She has performed at the Festival since 2001.

Romanian-born cellist Mihai Marica is a First Prize winner of the “Dr. Luis Sigall” International Competition in Viña del Mar, Chile and the Irving M. Klein International Competition.

A recipient of Charlotte White’s Salon de Virtuosi Fellowship Grant, he has performed with orchestras such as the Symphony Orchestra of Chile, Xalapa Symphony in Mexico, the Hermitage State Orchestra of St. Petersburg in Russia, the Jardins Musicaux Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, the Louisville Orchestra, and the Santa Cruz Symphony in the United States.

He has also appeared in recital performances in Austria, Hungary, Germany, Spain, Holland, South Korea, Japan, Chile, the United States, and Canada. A dedicated chamber musician, Mihai has performed at the Chamber Music Northwest, Norfolk, and Aspen music festivals where he has collaborated with such artists as Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian, David Shifrin, André Watts, and Edgar Meyer.

He is a founding member of the award-winning Amphion String Quartet and a member of the acclaimed Apollo Trio. A recent collaboration with dancer Lil Buck brought forth new pieces for solo cello written by Yevgeniy Sharlat and Patrick Castillo.

Mihai studied with Gabriela Todor in his native Romania and with Aldo Parisot at the Yale School of Music where he was awarded master’s and artist diploma degrees. He is an alum of The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). Mihai has performed at the SLLMF since 2016.

Violinist Todd Phillips made his solo debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony at the age of thirteen and since then has appeared with many orchestras throughout the United States, Europe and Japan including the Brandenburg Ensemble, the Jacksonville and Honolulu symphonies, Camerata Salzburg and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1982 with the New York String Orchestra and conductor Alexander Schneider. Return engagements at Carnegie Hall soon followed as well as solo performances in Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Boston’s Symphony Hall and the Frankfurt Opera House.

Todd is a founding member of the highly acclaimed Orion String Quartet which has been the quartet-in-residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Mannes College of Music and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. The Quartet’s television appearances have included PBS’ “Live from Lincoln Center,” three performances on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and A&E’s “Breakfast with the Arts.” Their recordings of the complete Beethoven quartets have received unanimous acclaim from critics and audiences alike.

Todd’s experience as a frequent leader of the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has led to engagements as conductor/leader with the Camerata Nordica of Sweden, The New World Symphony, Risor Chamber Orchestra in Norway, The Brandenburg Ensemble, the Tapiola Sinfonietta of Finland, and the Mannes Sinfonietta in New York City.

Todd serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College, Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, Bard College Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife, violinist Catherine Cho and is the father of four children: Lia, Eliza, Jason, and Brandon and is grandfather of Theo. Todd has performed at the SLLMF since 2018.

Movses Pogossian made his American debut with the Boston Pops in 1990, about which Boston Globe wrote: “There is freedom in his playing, but also taste and discipline. It was a fiery, centered, and highly musical performance…” Prizewinner of several competitions, including the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Competition, he extensively performed as soloist and recitalist worldwide. As chamber musician, Movses has collaborated with such artists as Kim Kashkashian, Alexei Lubimov, Jeremy Denk, Rohan de Saram, and with members of the Tokyo, Kronos, and Brentano string quartets.

Movses is Artistic Director of the acclaimed Dilijan Chamber Music Series, currently in its 15th season (www.dilijan.larkmusicalsociety.org). Champion of new music, he has premiered over 80 works, and worked closely with composers such as Kurtág, Harbison, Saariaho, Mansurian, and Gabriela Lena Frank. His discography includes the Complete Sonatas and Partitas by J. S. Bach, solo violin CDs “Inspired by Bach,” “Blooming Sounds,” and “In Nomine,” and recently released “Con Anima” album of Tigran Mansurian’s music on ECM label. In his review of Kurtág’s “Kafka Fragments” (with soprano Tony Arnold) Paul Griffiths writes: “…remarkable is Pogossian’s contribution, which is always beautiful, across a great range of colors and gestures, and always seems on the edge of speaking—or beyond.”

Movses is Professor of Violin at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and also Founding Director of the UCLA Armenian Music Program (https://schoolofmusic.ucla.edu/resources/armenian-music-program/). As Head of the Los Angeles Chapter, he actively participates in the Music for Food project (https://musicforfood.net/) which raises awareness of the hunger problem and gives the opportunity to experience the powerful role music can play as a catalyst for change. Movses has performed at the Festival since 2001.

Violist Jessica Thompson is a passionate chamber musician who performs regularly throughout the United States and abroad as a member of the Daedalus Quartet. Praised by the New Yorker as “a fresh and vital young participant in what is a golden age of American string quartets,” Daedalus has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Abroad, the quartet has appeared in leading venues in Vienna, Cologne, Amsterdam, Paris, Tokyo, and Shanghai. The quartet has won numerous awards, including Grand Prize of the 2001 Banff International String Quartet Competition and the 2007 Guarneri String Quartet Award from Chamber Music America. The quartet has been recognized for its commitment to new music and has premiered works by composers such as Fred Lerdahl, Vivian Fung, Joan Tower, Richard Wernick, and Anna Weesner. The Daedalus Quartet has recorded both contemporary and older music for Bridge Records and Naxos.  Daedalus has been in residence at the University of Pennsylvania since 2006.

In addition to her appearances with the Daedalus Quartet, Jessica has performed at numerous festivals, including Aspen, Taos, Marlboro, the Portland, Charlottesville, Mimir, Skaneateles, and Halcyon chamber music festivals, and Bard Summerscapes. She has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and performs regularly as a member of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, of which she serves as co-executive director, and with the String Orchestra of NYC. Jessica has appeared as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra and in recital in cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Princeton, and Washington, DC. She currently teaches at Princeton and Columbia Universities as well as serving on the faculty of the Maine Chamber Music Seminar. She is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Karen Tuttle. Jessica performs on an instrument made in 1818 in Milan by Giacomo Rivolta. This is her first appearance at the Festival.

Bonnie Thron joined the North Carolina Symphony as Principal Cellist in 2000. She is an active chamber musician locally and plays frequently with the Mallarme Chamber Players. She is a member of Three For All, a clarinet trio with her husband, clarinetist Fred Jacobowitz and pianist Anatoly Larkin. She has also been a regular guest on the Washington Musica Viva series and has been teaching at the East Carolina University Summer Camp in the summers.

Previously Bonnie was a member of the Peabody Trio, in residence at the Peabody Institute, during which time the group won the Naumberg chamber music competition.  Early in her career Bonnie was Assistant Principal Cellist of the Denver Symphony and played and recorded with the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble. Bonnie has performed concertos with the North Carolina Symphony, the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, the Juilliard Orchestra, the Panama National Orchestra, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and various other orchestras in North Carolina and her native state of New Hampshire.

Bonnie received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School. Her teachers include Lynn Harrell, Norman Fischer and Elsa Hilger. She also received a BSN from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and worked as a nurse for several years as a nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital and as a case manager in home care nursing during which time she was also a cello teacher at the Baltimore School for the Arts. Bonnie has been performing at the SLLMF since 2002.

Winner of the 2019 GRAMMY Award for Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance, violinist Keiko Tokunaga spends most of her days touring and performing globally as a soloist and chamber musician. Keiko has been praised by the Strings Magazine for possessing a sound “with probing quality that is supple and airborne” and for her “pure, pellucid bow strokes”. She has soloed with various orchestras including the Spanish National Orchestra, Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya and Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Orchestra.

In 2021, Keiko founded an online concert series, Jukebox Concerts, in order to provide artistic outlets for musicians who lost their engagements due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The performances were made available not only to the subscribers, but also to residents of nursing homes, hospitals and assisted living facilities across the country. Later in the year, she created INTERWOVEN, a multi-cultural ensemble whose mission is to eliminate discrimination against the AAAPI (Asians, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) community by integrating the musical traditions of the East and West.

While Keiko played with the internationally acclaimed Attacca Quartet between 2005 and 2019, the ensemble won numerous prestigious awards including the GRAMMY Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance; First Prize of the 7th Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in 2011; the Third Prize and the Australian Broadcast Corporation Classic FM Listener’s Choice Award of the 6th Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition in 2011.

Keiko is currently on faculty at Fordham University. Between 2008 and 2019, she taught at The Juilliard School Pre-College Division. She plays on a J. B. Vuillaume violin from 1845, generously loaned by an anonymous donor. She also enjoys playing on a Baroque-style violin made by Antonio Mariani, circa 1669, formerly in the collection of Gabriel Schaff. Her bow was made by Nicolas Maire circa 1850. She has performed at the SLLMF since 2016.