Show Biographies

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Offbeat host Merry Peckham is a founding member of the Cavani Quartet, whose numerous awards and prizes include the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, Cleveland Quartet Competition, ASCAP Award for Adventuresome Programming, and the Governor's Prize from the Governor of Ohio. As a soloist, Ms. Peckham has made many guest artist appearances with orchestras and chamber ensembles. She was a prize winner in numerous competitions including the National Federation of Music Clubs, in which she received the top prize in cello and in overall string categories. Ms. Peckham received her Bachelor of Music degree with distinction from Indiana University, her master's in Music Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music, and did additional studies at The Ohio State University and Yale University. Her major teachers and mentors include Janos Starker, Gary Hoffman, Aldo Parisot, Paul Katz and Peter Salaff. She has performed throughout the United States and abroad, including appearances at the Corcoran Gallery and Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Ambassador Series in Los Angeles, Festival L'Epau in France, the Ijsbreker Series in Amsterdam, and several engagements at Carnegie Recital Hall and Lincoln Center in New York. Ms. Peckham has adjudicated and served as panelist for national arts-advocate organizations, such as Chamber Music America, the American Cello Congress and the American String Teachers Association. She is currently on the cello and chamber music faculties at the Cleveland Institute of Music and performs and teaches during the summer at the Perlman Music Program and ENCORE School for Strings.

January 3
Joel Smirnoff, a native of New York City, joined CIM as president in 2008 and holds the Mary Elizabeth Callahan President's Chair. He is an outgoing member of the JSQ where he has been first violin since 1997. The Quartet recently announced that Nicholas Eanet, a concertmaster with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, will take over for Mr. Smirnoff in July 2009. Founded in 1947, the JSQ has become a living American legend and won four GRAMMY Awards. Mr. Smirnoff attended the University of Chicago and The Juilliard School and was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for six years. Second Prize-winner in the International American Music Competition in 1983, he made his New York recital debut in 1985 at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall as part of the Emerging Artists series and at Town Hall as part of the Midtown Masters series. In 1997, he was featured violin soloist at Tanglewood in a concert dedicated to the memory of violinist Louis Krasner, performing the Berg Violin Concerto under the direction of Bernard Haitink. Mr. Smirnoff has participated in the world premiere of numerous contemporary works, many of which were composed for him. Mr. Smirnoff is a Sony recording artist and has solo recordings on GM, CRI and Northeastern Records. He served as Head of String Studies at the Tanglewood Music Center during the late 1990s and has been on the faculty of Tanglewood since 1983. Additionally, he has served on the juries of the Naumburg and Indianapolis Violin Competitions. He also pursues an active conducting career, both in the U.S. and abroad. In the summer of 2000, Mr. Smirnoff made his official American conducting debut with the San Francisco Symphony, conducting an all-Tchaikovsky program. He has also been a frequent guest with the New World Symphony and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. In May 2004, he received rave reviews for his debut with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, replacing Peter Oundjian, who had fallen ill. In Europe, Mr. Smirnoff has conducted the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and a European tour with the Basel Sinfonietta and Charles Rosen as soloist in the Elliott Carter Piano Concerto. Mr. Smirnoff has led both the Juilliard Symphony and the Juilliard Orchestra in concert and has also appeared in concert with the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Phoenix Symphony, the Chicago Philharmonic, the Western New York Chamber Orchestra and the Texas Music Festival Orchestra. Mr. Smirnoff also plays jazz, performing frequently as improvising soloist with Tony Bennett. His solos were featured on the GRAMMY Award-winning CD Tony Bennett Sings Ellington Hot and Cool. He has been guest soloist with Gunther Schuller and the American Jazz Orchestra, as well as the Billy Taylor Trio.

January 10
Dr. Marshall Griffith, professor of Theory, Jazz Improvisation, received Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in composition from CIM, as well as a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University. He studied composition with Eugene O'Brien, Donald Erb and John Eaton, and was the recipient of The Music Teachers National Association Award in composition in 1976. His works have been published by Theodore Presser and Belle Press, and recorded on Crystal Records. He served as chairman of the Cleveland Composers Guild from 1991 until 1995. His music has been performed by the Baton Rouge Symphony, the Amici, Bel Arte and Coleridge String Quartets, the 20th Century Consort and the Black Earth Percussion Group. Active as a jazz and classical pianist, Dr. Griffith has also been soloist with the Canton Symphony, Ohio Chamber Orchestra, Cleveland Pops, Suburban Symphony, CIM Orchestra, CIM Woodwind Ensemble, Cleveland Youth Wind Symphony and the Case Jazz Band. He performed in a professional two-piano team, the Fine Arts Duo, from 1980 until 1990. He has participated as a chamber music coach for the CIM Chamber Music Festival, and served as dean of student affairs at CIM from 1994 until 1997. He served as development manager, responsible for alumni relations and individual giving, from 1997 until 2000 and served as president of the CIM Alumni Association from 2005 until 2007. Dr. Griffith served on the faculty of Camp Klavier from 1992 until 2000, and has served on the faculty of the ENCORE School for Strings since 1998. He was on the Allegheny Music Festival faculty in the summer of 2005. Dr. Griffith was appointed to the CIM faculty in 1982.

January 17
Joela Jones is principal keyboardist of The Cleveland Orchestra. An artist of exceptional versatility, she plays piano, harpsichord, organ, celesta, synthesizer and accordion. A frequent soloist with the Orchestra, she has performed more than 50 different concerti in a wide repertoire ranging from Bach to Bernstein. Ms. Jones earned both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from CIM, where she studied with Victor Babin and Arthur Loesser. Ms. Jones has appeared as soloist with the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia and San Francisco, and has performed extensively in solo and chamber music recitals. She teaches classes in advanced orchestral keyboard technique at CIM and chairs the collaborative piano department at Kent/Blossom Music. In May 2007, Ms. Jones was presented with the CIM Distinguished Alumni Award. Recently, she released a CD of Claude Bolling's Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio with Cleveland Orchestra colleagues Richard Weiss, Maximilian Dimoff and Donald Miller.

January 24
Kimberly Meier-Sims, Director of Sato Center for Suzuki Studies, received a Bachelor of Music degree in education and violin performance from Southern Illinois University at Edwards-ville and a Master of Arts degree in violin performance from Western Illinois University. Her teachers have included John Kendall, Allen Ohmes, and Almita Vamos. She has taken long term Suzuki training with John Kendall, Almita Vamos, and Doris Preucil. The summer of 1986 she studied violin and pedagogy with Dr. Shinichi Suzuki. Ms. Meier-Sims was a full-time violin instructor at the Preucil School of Music (1984-1996). At The University of Memphis Scheidt School of Music (1996-2004) she was a member of the music faculty conducting the graduate Suzuki pedagogy program, coordinating the Suzuki String Prep Program, and directing the Suzuki String Summer Institute. She held positions in the Cedar Rapids Symphony (1984-1996) and was a frequent substitute in the Memphis Symphony. She has published articles in the American Suzuki Journal and the Tennessee Musician. In 2001 she won Tennessee's "Outstanding Teacher Award" and the "Tennessee Governor's School Award." She has taught at Suzuki institutes and workshops throughout the U.S. and Ireland. In 2002 she was the violin coordinator for the American Suzuki Conference in Minneapolis. She was appointed to the CIM faculty in 2004.

January 31
American cellist Alisa Weilerstein has attracted widespread attention for playing that combines a natural virtuosic command and technical precision with impassioned musicianship. At only 26 years old, she is already a veteran on the classical music scene having performed with the nation's top orchestras, given recitals in music capitals throughout the U.S. and Europe, and having regularly appeared at prestigious festivals. She is also a dedicated performer of chamber music, having grown up immersed in the classical music culture with a family of musicians with whom she collaborated from an early age.

The intensity and passion of her playing has regularly been lauded and even compared to that of a rock star. This past season the Toronto Star wrote "Weilerstein plays classical music, but with the depth of soul and raw emotional energy of a diehard rocker" and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote "The hallmarks of her phrasing were precision and intelligence…but her playing was far from academic, even tapping into some energetic, rock-inspired bowing in the finale [of the Haydn D Major Cello Concerto].

Ms. Weilerstein has been continually engaged by orchestras across the U.S. and has performed as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, the Seattle Symphony the Orchestra of St. Luke's, among others. In Europe she has performed with the Barcelona Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, Leipziger Bachkollegium, NDR Hamburg, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National de Lyon, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. She makes regular appearances at festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, Bad Kissingen, Blossom Music Festival, Caramoor, Green Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Schleswig-Holstein, Spoleto USA, Vail, Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, and the Verbier Festival.

In 2008 Alisa Weilerstein was awarded Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal prize for exceptional achievement. She was named the winner of the 2006 Leonard Bernstein Award, which she received at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany, was the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2000 and was selected for two prestigious young artists programs in 2000-01, the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organization) "Rising Stars" recital series and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Chamber Music Society Two. As part of the ECHO series in 2000-01, Ms. Weilerstein gave recitals at seven celebrated concert halls in Europe (Symphony Hall in Birmingham, Wigmore Hall in London, Athens Concert Hall, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam) as well as at Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall), which nominated her to be part of the series. Ms. Weilerstein also released an acclaimed recording on EMI Classics' "Debut" series in 2000 including works by Paganini, Dvorák, Ginastera, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Janá?ek, Saint-Saëns, Fauré and De Falla.

Having begun playing the cello at age 4, Ms. Weilerstein performed her first public concert six months later. She often plays with her parents, Donald and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, as the Weilerstein Trio, which is the Trio-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Her Cleveland Orchestra debut was in October 1995, at age 13, playing the Tchaikovsky "Rococo" Variations. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Youth Symphony in March 1997. Ms. Weilerstein is a graduate of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Richard Weiss. In May 2004, she graduated from Columbia University in New York with a degree in Russian History. For more information on Ms. Weilerstein, please visit www.alisaweilerstein.com.

February 7
Dr, Kamal Chémali, MD, is Staff Neurologist at Cleveland Clinic and is board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and American Board of Electrodiagnostic Medicine. Treatment interests include autonomic nervous system disorders, complex regional pain syndrome (reflex sympathetic dystrophy), painful peripheral neuropathies and music therapy.

February 14
Eric Charnofsky, is head of the CIM music literature department and teaches 20th-century Music History at CWRU. He is the director of music at University Circle's Epworth-Euclid United Methodist Church. He has also taught theory and collaborative piano at CIM. Originally from Los Angeles, Mr. Charnofsky is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he majored in piano accompanying. He also holds degrees in solo piano performance and composition from California State University, Northridge, where he received the Outstanding Bachelor's Degree Graduate award. He has performed as a collaborative pianist throughout the U.S. and has concertized with members of the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics; the Philadelphia, Cleveland and Metropolitan Opera Orchestras; and the Akron Symphony. Formerly on the faculty in the pre-college division at The Juilliard School, he served as staff accompanist and ear-training fellow in the Juilliard College Division. Mr. Charnofsky has presented several lecture-recitals on "The Duos with Piano" by the composers Paul Hindemith, Francis Poulenc and Aaron Copland. He worked at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara as an associate faculty member for eight summers, performed several times as a substitute keyboardist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestra, worked as a rehearsal pianist for Lyric Opera Cleveland, served as convention accompanist for the National Flute Association, and appears on recordings with trombonist JoDee Davis on the Albany label and music by the Cleveland Composers Guild on the Capstone label.

February 21
For more than 35 years, cellist Joel Krosnick has performed as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician all over the world. As a member of the Juilliard String Quartet since 1974, he has performed the great quartet literature throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. He has recorded the complete quartets of Beethoven, Bartók, Schoenberg, Janacek, Hindemith, and Brahms, as well as the last 10 Quartets of Mozart, four quartets of Elliott Carter, and works of Haydn, Debussy, Ravel, Dutilleux, Berg, Smetana, Franck, Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Verdi, Sibelius, Bach, Roger Sessions, Donald Martino, and Stefan Wolpe. In 2008, also as a member of the Juilliard String Quartet, Mr. Krosnick was awarded the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award by Chamber Music America.

With his sonata partner of over 30 years, pianist Gilbert Kalish, Mr. Krosnick has performed recitals throughout the United States and Europe. Since 1976, they have given annual series of recitals in New York City at such venues as Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Columbia University's Miller Theatre, and the Juilliard School's Peter Jay Sharp Theater and Paul Recital Hall. In 1987, the Krosnick/Kalish Duo presented a six-concert retrospective of 20th century music for cello and piano at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater and at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In the 2005-06 concert season the duo performed the complete Sonatas and Variations for cello and piano by Beethoven; and in 2007-08, Mr. Krosnick and Mr. Kalish presented American Milestones of the last 100 Years, including works of Ernst Bacon, Henry Cowell, Elliott Carter, Ralph Shapey, Richard Wernick, Donald Martino, and Robert Stern. Both presentations were in pairs of recitals at the Juilliard School's Paul Recital Hall.

Mr. Krosnick has recorded with Mr. Kalish the complete Sonatas and Variations of Beethoven and the Sonatas of Brahms, as well as works of Poulenc, Prokofiev, Carter, Hindemith, Debussy, Janacek, and Cowell for the Arabesque label. Especially noteworthy is their collaboration on a disc devoted to the cello and piano music of Ralph Shapey. Yet to be released is a CD of Forgotten Americans, featuring music of Ernst Bacon, Hall Overton, Ben Weber, and Otto Luening.

Joel Krosnick was born in Connecticut to a family of enthusiastic amateur musicians; his mother was a pianist and his father was a violinist/doctor. His brother, Aaron Krosnick, is a professional violinist - a long time faculty member at Jacksonville University in Florida. Joel Krosnick's principal teachers were William D'Amato, Luigi Silva, Jens Nygaard, and Claus Adam, whom he succeeded in the Juilliard String Quartet. Mr. Krosnick completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia College, where he began his lifelong commitment to contemporary music. While studying at the College, he became involved with living composers and new music, and eventually became a founding member of the Group for Contemporary Music.

He has performed and premiered a large number of new works including Donald Martino's Cello Concerto in Cincinnati and in New York (with the Juilliard Orchestra); Ralph Shapey's Double Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra (with violinist Robert Mann and the composer conducting the Juilliard Orchestra); and Shapey's Concerto for Cello, Piano, and Double String Orchestra (with pianist Gilbert Kalish, and with the composer conducting the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra). In October 1999, Mr. Krosnick premiered Richard Wernick's Cello Concerto No. 2, with Robert Mann conducting the Juilliard Orchestra. In January 2001, he played the Concerto by Sir Donald Francis Tovey in three New York performances with the Jupiter Symphony under the baton of Jens Nygaard. Joel Krosnick's recording of the Sonata for Solo Cello by Artur Schnabel appears on the CP2 label; and his CD of Roger Sessions' Six Pieces for Solo Cello is presented by Koch Classics.

Mr. Krosnick has taught the cello and chamber music since his earliest professional life. He has held professorships at the Universities of Iowa and Massachusetts, and was artist-in-residence at the California Institute of the Arts. Since 1974, he has been on the faculty of the Juilliard School, where, since 1994, he has served as chairman of the cello department. Mr. Krosnick has been associated with the Aspen, Marlboro, Tanglewood, and Yellow Barn Festivals; and he is currently on the faculty of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School and Festival. In 2005 he appeared for the third time as a member of the artist faculty of the Piatigorsky Seminar at the University of Southern California.

Mr. Krosnick is a recipient of the Chevalier du Violoncelle Award from the Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center at the Indiana University School of Music. He holds honorary doctoral degrees from Michigan State University, Jacksonville University, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As a member of the Juilliard String Quartet, he has received numerous Grammy nominations, twice winning the Grammy Award (for the complete Schoenberg Quartets and the Late Quartets of Beethoven). His discs, In the Shadow of World War I and In the Shadow of World War II , with his sonata partner Gilbert Kalish won Indie Awards. The duo's recording of the Brahms Sonatas won the Classical Recording Foundation Award. Joel Krosnick has recorded for the Sony Classical, Nonesuch, Orion, CRI, New World, Koch International, CP2, and Arabesque Labels.

February 28
Keith Fitch is the newly appointed head of the CIM composition department and holds the Vincent K. and Edith H. Smith Chair in Composition. Dr. Fitch received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Indiana University, where he studied composition with Frederick Fox, Eugene O'Brien and Claude Baker; double bass with Bruce Bransby and Murray Grodner and chamber music with Rostislav Dubinsky. There, he received the annual Dean's Prize for Composition six times, as well as the Kate and Cole Porter Memorial Fellowship. He has also received three ASCAP Young Composer Awards, three National Society of Arts and Letters awards, an Individual Artist Grant from the Indiana Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts and a Fromm Foundation Commission. He has been a resident fellow at The MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Charles Ives Center for American Music and the Atlantic Center for the Art, and has also served as Resident Composer and faculty at the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East. Dr. Fitch's works have been performed throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan by many of today's leading ensembles and soloists, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, American Composers Orchestra, New York Youth Symphony, Christopher String Quartet and new music ensembles around the country. Additionally, his music has been heard at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, June in Buffalo Festival, Midwest Composers' Symposium, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Milwaukee PremiereFest, New York's Carnegie and Merkin Halls and in university settings nationwide. Highlights of recent seasons include performances of Dancing the Shadows by the Da Capo Chamber Players and To sleep, to dream by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Recent premieres include Manhattan Rolls (solo marimba), Burnt Counterpoint (saxophone and percussion), This Rough Magicke by the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble and Summer and Shade: Three Dream-dances for Orchestra by The Mannes Orchestra at New York's Symphony Space. Upcoming projects include a new string quartet for the acclaimed Colorado Quartet and a new work for The Syrinx Trio.

March 7
Joshua Smith is head of the flute department at CIM and has been principal flute of The Cleveland Orchestra since 1990. He received an Artist Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music. A student of Julius Baker, Jeffrey Khaner and Frank Bowen, he has been a frequent soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra, including collaborations with Christoph von Dohnányi, Esa Pekka Salonen, Mitsuko Uchida, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Riccardo Chailly, Myung-Whun Chung and Leonard Slatkin. He is also chairman of the wind faculty at Kent/Blossom Music. As a coach and teacher, he has been asked to lead national and international master classes. He has served on the faculties of the Domaine Forget Summer Festival in Québec, the National Orchestral Institute in Maryland, and as a guest artist/coach for the New World Symphony in Florida. He regularly appears as a chamber musician and recitalist around the country and abroad, often with pianist Kathryn Brown as a duo partner. His other recent chamber collaborations include performances with soprano Lucy Shelton and pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard.

March 14
Pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi was born and raised in Foggia, Italy. Mr. Pompa-Baldi first came to the U.S. in 1999 to participate in the Cleveland International Piano Competition. He won the first prize, and, while fulfilling all the engagements that came with it, he and his wife, Italian pianist Emanuela Friscioni, decided to make Cleveland their home. A top prize winner at the 1998 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition, Mr. Pompa-Baldi also won a silver medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, as well as the Award for the Best Performance of a New Work. Mr. Pompa-Baldi has toured extensively in four continents, bringing his assured touch on the keyboard to some of the world's major concert venues. Mr. Pompa-Baldi's recordings include an all-Brahms disc (Azica), a live and unedited recital from his award-winning Cliburn Competition performances (Harmonia Mundi) and the Josef Rheinberger piano sonatas for Centaur Records. He is in the process of recording Edward Grieg's entire output for piano, also for Centaur Records. The first seven volumes of this series have already been released. Mr. Pompa-Baldi has been seen and heard many times on French National Television, Radio-France, Cleveland's WCLV, Boston's WGBH and National Public Radio's Performance Today, and appeared in the PBS documentary on the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition Playing on the Edge, which premiered in October 2001 in the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Pompa-Baldi appeared again on PBS in the documentary Concerto, featuring his performance of Prokofiev's Concerto #3 with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and James Conlon. This performance was also seen on French National Television in May 2003, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Prokofiev's death, as well as throughout Europe. Mr. Pompa-Baldi is a Steinway Artist. He gives master classes around the world, both in conjunction with his performing engagements and at summer festivals including Piano Fest in the Hamptons, TCU-Cliburn Institute, Southeastern Piano Festival (University of South Carolina School of Music) and Paisiello Academy (Lucera, Italy). July 2007 saw him engaged in a workshop in Napoli, Italy. Mr. Pompa-Baldi is often invited to judge international piano competitions such as the International Russian Music Piano Competition of San Jose, CA and the Francesco Durante International Piano Competition of Frattamaggiore (Naples, Italy). He lives in Shaker Heights with his wife, Emanuela, and their daughter, Eleanor. He was appointed to the CIM faculty in 2003.

March 21
Richard Goode has been hailed for music making of tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness, and has been acknowledged worldwide as one of today's leading interpreters of Classical and Romantic music. In regular performances with the major orchestras, recitals in the world's music capitals, and acclaimed Nonesuch recordings, he has won a large and devoted following. In an extensive profile in The New Yorker, David Blum wrote: "What one remembers most from Goode's playing is not its beauty-exceptional as it is-but his way of coming to grips with the composer's central thought, so that a work tends to make sense beyond one's previous perception of it... The spontaneous formulating process of the creator [becomes] tangible in the concert hall." According to the New York Times, "It is virtually impossible to walk away from one of Mr. Goode's recitals without the sense of having gained some new insight, subtly or otherwise, into the works he played or about pianism itself."

This season, Mr. Goode will also be heard in recital at Carnegie Hall in New York, in Chicago, Cleveland, at the Krannert Center of the University of Illinois, in Denver, Portland, OR, at Cal Performances in Berkeley, in Kansas City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, for the Orange County Philharmonic Society and the Washington Performing Arts Society. Orchestral engagements include the Boston Symphony with Herbert Blomstedt, St. Louis Symphony with David Robertson, the London Symphony under Sir Colin Davis, the Bayerische Staatsorchester Munich with Kent Nagano and the Tonhalle Orchester - Zurich.

In 2007-2008 Mr. Goode performed and curated a multi-event residency at the South Bank Centre in London as the year's Artist-in-Residence. Mr. Goode also had recitals in such cities as: Berlin, Paris, Milan, Toronto, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Berkeley. His orchestral appearances included: the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of James Levine at Tanglewood, the London Philharmonic with Kurt Masur, the Concertgebouw Orchestra with Ivan Fisher, the New York Philharmonic with Sir Colin Davis, the San Francisco Symphony with Alan Gilbert, and the Radio Philharmonique in Paris with Peter Oundjian.

In addition to his 'engrossing' (NY Times) eight-event Carnegie Hall Perspectives in 2005-2006, Richard Goode was invited to hold master classes at the City's three leading conservatories - Juilliard, Manhattan and Mannes - and to give two illustrated talks on his Perspectives repertoire at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the 2006-2007 season, he was honored for his contributions to music with the first ever Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance, which culminates in a residency at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL this year and last. Goode's recent recording of the Beethoven Concerti with Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra will be released in 2008, by Nonesuch, which also released his historic recordings of the complete Beethoven sonatas.

During the 2006-2007 season, Richard Goode played recitals in the major music capitols in Europe and the United States, including London, Paris, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Edinburgh, New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. His orchestral appearances last season included the Budapest Festival Orchestra under the baton of Ivan Fisher and the DSO Berlin with Herbert Blomstedt.

A native of New York, Richard Goode studied with Elvira Szigeti and Claude Frank, with Nadia Reisenberg at the Mannes College of Music, and with Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute. He has won many prizes, including the Young Concert Artists Award, First Prize in the Clara Haskil Competition, the Avery Fisher Prize, and a Grammy Award. His remarkable interpretations of Beethoven came to national attention when he played all five concerti with the Baltimore Symphony under David Zinman, and when he performed the complete cycle of sonatas at New York's 92nd Street Y and Kansas City's Folly Theater.

In addition to his most recent release of Mozart solo works, Richard Goode has made more than two-dozen recordings, including Mozart Concerti with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas, the complete Partitas by J.S. Bach, and solo and chamber works of Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Busoni and George Perle. Goode is the first American-born pianist to have recorded the complete Beethoven Sonatas, which were nominated for a Grammy Award and universally acclaimed. With soprano Dawn Upshaw, he has recorded Goethe Lieder of Schubert, Schumann, and Hugo Wolf for Nonesuch. The four recordings of Mozart Concerti with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra were received with wide critical acclaim, including many "Best of the Year" nominations and awards and his recording of the Brahms sonatas with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman won a Grammy Award. Mr. Goode's first, long-awaited Chopin recording was also chosen Best of the Month by Stereo Review and described as "absolutely magical . . . glorious playing."

Over the last seasons, Richard Goode has appeared with many of the world's greatest orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Levine, Haitink, and Ozawa, the Chicago Symphony under Eschenbach, the Cleveland Orchestra under Zinman, the San Francisco Symphony under Blomstedt, the New York Philharmonic with Sir Colin Davis, and the Toronto Symphony with Peter Oundjian. He has also appeared with the Orchestre de Paris under David Robertson, and toured on a number of occasions with Ivan Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra, as well as making his Musikverein debut with the Vienna Symphony. He has been heard throughout Germany in sold-out concerts with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields under Sir Neville Marriner.

As a recitalist, Mr. Goode has become a favorite throughout Europe as well as the United States, including regular appearances in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Chicago, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Vienna and the leading cities of Germany and Italy.

Mr. Goode serves with Mitsuko Uchida as co-Artistic Director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Marlboro, Vermont. He is married to the violinist Marcia Weinfeld, and, when the Goodes are not on tour, they and their collection of some 5,000 volumes live in New York City.

March 28
The Cavani String Quartet, winner of the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award, has been described by the Washington Post as "completely engrossing, powerful and elegant." In addition to receiving the Naumburg Award, the Cavani Quartet has been a top prizewinner in numerous competitions including the Coleman, Fischoff, the Banff International and the Cleveland Quartet Competition. Featured as Young Artists of the Year 1989 by Musical America Magazine, the Quartet's superlative performances and innovative teaching have garnered them no less than eight Chamber Music America Residency Partnership Grants. In 2005, the Quartet was the first recipient of the Guarneri String Quartet Residency Award from Chamber Music America . The quartet concertizes regularly on major series and festivals throughout North America and Europe. The Cavani Quartet has been featured on National Public Radio's Performance Today and seen on NBC, CBS, ABC and PBS television. Collaborations with distinguished artists include Itzhak Perlman, Michela Petri, Anton Nel, Benita Valente, Alisa Weilerstein, Charles Neidich and members of the Juilliard, Cleveland, Ying, St. Lawrence and Emerson String Quartets.

A recipient of the Ohio Governor's Award, the Cavani Quartet makes its home in Cleveland, Ohio, where they have been Quartet-in-Residence at the world-renowned Cleveland Institute of Music since 1988. At the Institute, the quartet has developed the Apprentice Quartet Program, Intensive Quartet Seminar and New Quartet Project for students devoted to the serious study of chamber music. Students from these programs have gone on to successful careers as members of the Maia, Biava, Miró, Miami, Cassatt, Cypress and Fry Street Quartets and have been top prizewinners of the Coleman, Fischoff, Banff, and Naumburg Competitions. Dedicated and dynamic teachers, the Cavani Quartet have been visiting artists at the Chamber Music Connection Columbus, New World Symphony, Interlochen Arts Camp, Madeline Island Music Festival, Kneisel Hall, Yale Summer School of Music and Art at Norfolk, Britt Arts Training Program, Perlman Music Program and the Encore School for Strings.

Active proponents of new music, the Cavani Quartet has commissioned, performed, and recorded the music of a worldwide array of living composers, including Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Dan Welcher, Joan Tower, Donald Erb, James Primosch and Margaret Brouwer. The quartet annually programs world premieres and is a recipient of an ASCAP-Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music.

Nationally recognized as pioneers in arts-in-education, the Cavani Quartet is sought after by universities and communities for their ability to cultivate community partnerships. The quartet has developed creative outreach programs for a wide variety of settings and for audiences of all ages including a series of children's concerts for The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The Cavani Quartet has also collaborated with artists across disciplines to create programs that unite poetry, painting, theatre and dance with the string quartet medium, including the award-winning M.A.P. (Music, Art and Poetry) program. In partnership with Southern Illinois University ,the Chamber Music Society of Southern Illinois and the Thomas School String Project, the Quartet has helped to ignite a String Program initiative throughout the state of Illinois. As a result of their extensive experience in chamber music education, the Cavani Quartet was invited to participate as a leadership ensemble in the first national Chamber Music Educator/Ensemble Seminar sponsored by Chamber Music America. The Quartet has been on the Advisory Board of Amateur Chamber Music Players and currently serves on the Honorary Board of the Suzuki Association of the Americas. Formed in 1984, the Cavani Quartet is named after the 19th century violin makers Giovanni and Vincenzo Cavani. Recordings of are available on the Azica, Gasparo, New World, Albany, and Pantheon labels.