Mostly Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Piano Sonata in E-flat Major K.282
Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano in E-flat Major K.498, “Kegelstatt”
Divertimento in E-flat Major, K.563

Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)

Moz-Art for Two Violins (1976)

Hyeyeon Park, piano

Selected as an Artist of the Year by the Seoul Arts Center, Hyeyeon Park has been described as a pianist “with power, precision and tremendous glee” (Gramophone). She is a prizewinner of numerous international competitions, including Oberlin, Ettlingen, Hugo Kauder, Maria Canals, Prix Amadèo and Corpus Christi, and her performances have been broadcast on KBS and EBS television (Korea) and RAI3 (Italy), WQXR (New York), WFMT (Chicago), WBJC (Baltimore) and WETA (Washington, D.C.) radio. She is artistic director of Apex Concerts (Nevada) and a professor of piano at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her first solo CD, Klavier 1853, has been released on the Blue Griffin label.

Yura Lee, violin/viola

Violinist/violist Yura Lee is one of the most versatile and compelling artists of today. She is one of the very few in the world that has mastery of both violin and viola, and she actively performs both instruments equally. Her career spans through various musical mediums: both as a soloist and as a chamber musician, captivating audiences with music from baroque to modern and enjoying a career that spans more than two decades that takes her all over the world.

Yura Lee was the only first prize winner awarded across four categories at the 2013 ARD Competition in Germany. She has won top prizes for both violin and viola in numerous other competitions, including first prize and audience prize at the 2006 Leopold Mozart Competition (Germany), first prize at the 2010 UNISA International Competition (South Africa), first prize at the 2013 Yuri Bashmet International Competition (Russia), and top prizes in Indianapolis (USA), Hannover (Germany), Kreisler (Austria), and Paganini (Italy) Competitions.

At age 12, Yura Lee became the youngest artist ever to receive the Debut Artist of the Year prize at the "Performance Today" awards given by National Public Radio. She is also the recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant given by Lincoln Center in New York City. Yura Lee’s CD with Reinhard Goebel and the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, titled ‘Mozart in Paris’ (Oehms Classics) received the prestigious Diapason d’Or Award in France.

Yura Lee was nominated and represented by Carnegie Hall for its ECHO (European Concert Hall Organization) series. For this series, she gave recitals at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall and at nine celebrated concert halls in Europe: Wigmore Hall in London, Symphony Hall in Birmingham, Musikverein in Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Stockholm Konserthus, Athens Concert Hall and Cologne Philharmonie.

As a soloist, Yura Lee has appeared with many major orchestras, including New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, to name a few. She has performed with conductors Christophe Eschenbach, Lorin Maazel, Leonard Slatkin, Myung-Whun Chung, Mikhail Pletnev, among many others.

As a chamber musician, Yura Lee regularly takes part in the Marlboro Festival, Salzburg Festival, Verbier Festival, La Jolla SummerFest, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, ChamberFest Cleveland, Caramoor Festival, Kronberg Festival, Aspen Music Festival, among many others. She has collaborated with many artists including Gidon Kremer, Andras Schiff, Leonidas Kavakos, Mitsuko Uchida, Miklós Perényi, Yuri Bashmet, Menahem Pressler, and Frans Helmerson. Yura Lee is currently a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (New York City), and Boston Chamber Music Society.

Yura Lee studied at the Juilliard School (New York City), New England Conservatory (Boston), Salzburg Mozarteum (Austria), and Kronberg Academy (Germany). Her main teachers were Namyun Kim, Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Miriam Fried, Paul Biss, Thomas Riebl, Ana Chumachenko, and Nobuko Imai. She teaches both violin and viola at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Yura Lee lives in Portland, Oregon.

Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio, violin

Described by Gramophone Magazine as a "violinist who most often takes your breath away" and praised as an "expressive and passionate chamber musician" by the San Antonio Express-News, Stephanie Sant'Ambrogio enjoys a varied performing and recording career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader. Professor of violin and viola at the University of Nevada, Reno and member of the Argenta Trio, she is also artistic director of Cactus Pear Music Festival, which she founded in 1997 while serving as concertmaster of the San Antonio Symphony. Previously first assistant principal second violin of The Cleveland Orchestra, under Christoph von Dohnányi, she toured and recorded internationally with this ensemble for eight seasons. Sant'Ambrogio has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the U.S. as well as in Mexico, Canada, Estonia, Sweden, Ghana, Italy, Peru and Chile.

In 2009, she was appointed concertmaster of the Lancaster Festival Orchestra and the following year was appointed concertmaster of the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra. Sant'Ambrogio has a discography of over 75 orchestral and chamber music CDs. Audiophile Review described her Johannes Brahms: The Violin Sonatas CD as one of "fine readings of great finesse, rich coloring and complete understanding." Her other releases include Late Dates with Mozart; Going Solo: Unaccompanied Works for Violin & Viola and Soaring Solo: Unaccompanied Works for Violin & Viola, II on the MSR Classics label, as well as Argenta Trio: The Piano Trios of Felix Mendelssohn on Bridge Records.

In addition to her performances as violinist, violist and artistic director of Cactus Pear Music Festival, Sant'Ambrogio frequently performs and teaches at various festivals including: Bach, Dancing & Dynamite Society (WI), Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival (WA), Nevada Chamber Music Festival (NV), Music in the Vineyards (CA), Round Top Festival Institute (TX) and Tuckamore Festival (Newfoundland, Canada). Sant'Ambrogio plays a violin crafted in 1757 by J.B. Guadagnini of Milan, Italy, the city from which the family name Sant'Ambrogio originates. She and her graphic designer husband Gary Albright, enjoy exploring Lake Tahoe with their daughters, 19-year-old Isabel and 17-year-old Gabrielle.

Dimitri Murrath, viola

Born in Brussels, Belgian American violist Dimitri Murrath has made his mark as a soloist on the international scene, performing regularly in venues including Jordan Hall (Boston), Kennedy Center (Washington), Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Royal Festival Hall (London), Kioi Hall (Tokyo), the National Auditorium (Madrid) and Théâtre de la Ville (Paris).

A recipient of a 2014 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Dimitri is a first prize winner at the Primrose International Viola Competition. Other awards include second prize at the First Tokyo International Viola Competition, the special prize for the contemporary work at the ARD Munich Competition and a fellowship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation. In 2012, he was named laureate of the Juventus Festival, an award recognizing young European soloists.

With repertoire extending from Bach to contemporary music by Ligeti, Kurtag, and Sciarrino, Murrath is particularly keen on performing new works. He has taken part in the Park Lane Group New Year Series in London to great critical acclaim, as well as commissioned, given the world premieres and recorded several solo works.

An avid chamber musician, Murrath is a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and of Mistral Music. He has collaborated with Miriam Fried, Pamela Frank, Richard Goode, Gidon Kremer, Menahem Pressler, Mitsuko Uchida, and members of the Mendelssohn, Takacs, Guarneri, Cleveland, Jerusalem and Juilliard String Quartets.

Festivals include IMS Prussia Cove, Ravinia's Steans Institute for Young Artists, Verbier Festival, Caramoor Rising Stars, Chamberfest Cleveland, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Juventus Festival and Marlboro Music Festival. He has performed concertos with orchestras including Orchestre National de Lille, Toho Gakuen Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, Brussels Philharmonic and London Mozart Players.

Dimitri Murrath began his musical education at the Yehudi Menuhin School studying with Natalia Boyarsky and went on to work in London with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He graduated with an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory as a student of Kim Kashkashian. He joined the viola faculty at New England Conservatory aged 26, and taught there for eight years. He is now on the viola faculties of San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Bowdoin International Music Festival.

Dimitri Murrath participates in the Music for Food project, which raises awareness of the hunger problem faced by a large percent of the population and gives the opportunity to experience the powerful role music can play as a catalyst for change.

Dmitri Atapine, cello

Dmitri Atapine has been described as a cellist with “brilliant technical chops” (Gramophone), whose playing is “highly impressive throughout” (The Strad). He has appeared on some of the world's foremost stages, including Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Zankel and Weill halls at Carnegie Hall and the National Auditorium of Spain. An avid chamber musician, he frequently performs with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is an alum of The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). His multiple festival appearances have included Music@Menlo, La Musica Sarasota, Pacific, Aldeburgh, Aix-en-Provence, Nevada and Cactus Pear, with performances broadcast in Spain, Italy, the U.S., Canada, Mexico and South Korea. His many awards include the first prize at the Carlos Prieto Cello Competition, as well as top honors at the Premio Vittorio Gui and Plowman chamber competitions. He has collaborated with such distinguished musicians as Cho-Liang Lin, Paul Neubauer, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Wu Han, Bruno Giuranna and David Shifrin. His recordings, among them a critically acclaimed world premiere of Lowell Liebermann’s complete works for cello and piano, can be found on the Naxos, Albany, MSR, Urtext Digital, Blue Griffin and Bridge record labels. Atapine holds a doctorate from the Yale School of Music, where he was a student of Aldo Parisot. The artistic director of Apex Concerts and Ribadesella Chamber Music Festival, he is the cello professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Boris Allakhverdyan, clarinet

Boris Allakhverdyan was appointed Principal Clarinet of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2016. He previously served as Principal Clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Associate Principal Clarinet of the Kansas City Symphony. Mr. Allakhverdyan is a founding member of the Prima Trio, the Grand Prize and the Gold Medal winner of the prestigious 2007 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

The New York Times called his performance "inspired," "gorgeous" and "superlative," and the Los Angeles Times praised his "energetic, vibrant solos."

Boris Allakhverdyan has appeared as a soloist with the Seattle, Tucson, Bakersfield and Springfield Symphony Orchestras as well as orchestras in Canada, South Korea, Dubai, Armenia and Kazakhstan. He has participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy (Switzerland), the Mecklenburg-Vorpommen Festival (Germany), the Emilia Romagna Music Festival (Italy) as well as Mainly Mozart San Diego, Twickenham, Colorado and Britt Music Festivals. Mr. Allakhverdyan is a winner of Rimsky-Korsakov International Woodwind Competition, Hellam Concerto Competition, the Tuesday Musical and the Oberlin Concerto competitions.

Boris Allakhverdyan serves on the faculty at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music as well as at California State University at Fullerton. He previously taught at Peabody Institute of Music, Pacific Music Festival in Japan, Philadelphia International Music Festival and Interlochen Clarinet Institute in Michigan. He has given master classes at most prestigious schools in North and South Americas, Europe and Asia.

An active chamber musician, Boris Allakhverdyan has performed in the MET Chamber Ensemble series at Carnegie Hall, at the Chicago Chamber Music Society, La Jolla Athenaeum, Dumbarton Oaks, the Dayton Art Institute, CityMusic Columbus, Da Camera Society, Fontana Chamber Arts, Cleveland Chamber Music Society and Shenzhen International Music Festival, to name a few. Boris Allakhverdyan performs exclusively on Buffet Crampon clarinets and Vandoren mouthpieces and reeds.