NPR : Performance Today -- PT Young Artists-in-Residence -- International Sejong Soloists -- Member Bios

Amy Iwazumi, Violin

Amy Iwazumi was born in Galveston, Texas, and began playing the violin at age three. In Canada she won numerous awards at the Kiwanis Music Festival and the Canadian Music Competition. At age eight she entered the Juilliard Pre-College Division as a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay and received her Bachelor's degree at the Juilliard School. In the summer of 1995 she was a winner of the Second International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. The following year she was a winner of the Fine Arts Orchestral Society-Enrico Fermi Concerto Competition. In 1999, she was one of three winners in the JAA Music Scholarship Awards Competition and as a result performed at the Weill Recital Hall.

She has held numerous recitals at Paul Recital Hall and Morse Hall at Lincoln Center and in the Young Artists Recital Series at the Aspen Music Festival. She has also performed with the Young Artist Orchestra at the Aspen Music Festival, the Yonkers Philharmonic, the Little Orchestra Society at Avery Fisher Hall, and the National Symphony of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Recently, she has performed with the International Sejong Soloists on a tour of Taiwan as part of the Taipei International Arts Festival, playing the Vivaldi A minor Double Concerto with Cho-Liang Lin. She has attended and performed at several music festivals including the Aspen Music Festival, Holland Music Sessions in the Netherlands, the Salzburg Sommerakademie, and the Festival Ljubljana in Slovenia.

Miss Iwazumi also performs extensively in duo recitals with her brother Ray. In November 2000, they have given a recital at the Beverly Hills Library Auditorium in Los Angeles and was invited back for more performances. Together, they have performed at the Ruinekerk in Holland as part of the Holland Music Sessions, and in November of 2001, they gave a duo recital at the Sejong Studio in New York City as part of an evening recital series. Ray and Amy have performed the "Caprices for Two Violins" by Behzad Ranjbaran in the composer's recital at Morse Hall in Lincoln Center to critical acclaim. They have also made an appearance at the Clark Studio Theater in Lincoln Center, performing a work by Ray Iwazumi, as part of the annual Beyond the Machine festival, exploring new music in collaboration with music technology. In March 2003, they gave a duo recital at the Hoam Arts Center in Seoul, South Korea. Currently she is a graduate student studying with Hyo Kang at the Juilliard School.

Ani Aznavoorian, Cello

At just twenty-six years of age, Ani Aznavoorian has already been soloist with many of the world's leading orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony, the Indianapolis Philharmonic, the San Jose Symphony, the Juilliard Orchestra, Concertante di Chicago, and the Edmonton Symphony. She has performed throughout the United States, Italy, France, Finland, Yugoslavia, Japan, Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and Canada.

Ms. Aznavoorian started cello lessons at the age of three with Gilda Barston, and she later worked with Nell Novak at the Music Institute of Chicago. Her many awards have led her to perform with orchestras in the most prestigious halls. Some of these awards include first prizes in the Illinois Young Performers Competition (televised live on PBS), the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation Music Scholarship Competition, the 1993 Chicago Cello Society National Competition, the 1994 Julius Stulberg Competition, and the 1994 American String Teachers Association Competition. She was a top prizewinner in the 1996 International Paulo Competition, held in Helsinki, Finland. In addition, Ms. Aznavoorian received a Level I award in the National Foundation for the Arts Recognition and Talent Search. As a result, she became a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and performed as soloist at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and met President Clinton. Upon entering her freshman year at the Juilliard School, Ms. Aznavoorian won first prize in the school's Concerto Competition, being the youngest in the history of the school's cello competition. She consequently soloed with the Juilliard Orchestra in Avery Fisher Hall under conductor Gerard Schwarz. She received both her Bachelor of Music and her Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School, where she was a student of Aldo Parisot. In January of 2001, Ms. Aznavoorian substituted for Natalia Gutman with only 12 hours notice in three performances of the Shostakovich Cello Concerto no. 1 with the San Jose Symphony, being hailed by audiences and the critics alike.

Recently, Ms. Aznavoorian was awarded the prestigious Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award for her outstanding level of cello playing and artistry. She was the only American to receive the award, and she consequently performed throughout Japan including a performance with the Tokyo Philharmonic in Orchard Hall. In addition to her numerous appearances with orchestras, she is a frequent recitalist and has performed in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Ravinia's Bennett Hall, Hawrelak Park, Aspen's Harris Hall, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, WFMT Live from Studio 1, and the Music in the Loft Concert Series.

Other than her numerous solo engagements, Ms. Aznavoorian has used her musical skills in other capacities, including acting. She traveled to Tokyo where she was featured in NTV's popular mini-series "Harmonia" where she portrayed the life of a fictional young cellist. She is also an avid chamber musician and has performed in chamber ensembles with Gil Shaham, Cho-Liang Lin, Sarah Chang, and Edgar Meyer. She is a founding member of the newly formed Corinthian Trio with pianist Adam Neiman and violinist Stefan Milenkovich.

Upcoming concerts for Ms. Aznavoorian include the world premier performance of Lera Auerbach's 24 Preludes for Cello and Piano on stage with the Hamburg State Ballet and numerous chamber music and orchestral engagements throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. She performs on a cello made by her father Peter Aznavoorian in Chicago.

Beth Guterman, Viola

Beth Guterman was the sole recipient of the 1999 Eugene Lehner Award for Excellence from the New England Conservatory, and honor usually reserved for chamber groups. As a soloist, Ms. Guterman recently performed Mozaret's Sinfonia Concertante and the American Premiere of John Nyman's Drowning for Numbers, a double concerto for violin and viola with the spoleto USA Orchestra. In 2002, she won Aspen's first ever Nakamichi Lower Strings Competition and performed under Michael Stern. As a chamber musician, Mrs. Guterman has performed with Lynn Harrell, Masao Kawasaki, Alexander Kerr, Nurit Bar-Josef, and Jonathan Cohler among others. Ms. Guterman has served as principal viola in the Juilliard Symphony and Orchestra, the IRIS chamber Orchestra, and the Spoleto USA Orchestra, as well as playing assistant principal in Aspen's Festival and Chamber Orchestras. She is featured on a Naxos CD of Chamber Music by Stephen Hartke. Ms. Guterman received her Bachelor of Music from the Juilliard School studying under Masao Kawasaki, and is now working towards her Masters Degree. Other teachers include Misha Amory, Heidi Castleman, and Michael Zaretsky.

Frank Huang, Violin

First Prize winner of the 2003 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation's Violin Competition and the 2000 Hannover International Violin Competition, Frank Huang is well on his way towards a major career as a violin virtuoso. At the age of eleven, he performed with the Houston Symphony Orchestra in a nationally broadcast concert and has since performed with orchestras throughout the world, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, NDR-Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Hannover, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra and the Genoa Orchestra. He has performed on NPR's Performance Today, Good Morning America and CNN's American Morning with Paula Zahn.

Mr. Huang's first commercial recording, comprised of Fantasies by Schubert, Ernst, Schoenberg and Waxman, will be released on Naxos in the Fall of 2003. He has had great success in competitions since the age of fifteen with top prizes awards in the Premio Paganini International Violin Competition and the Indianapolis International Violin Competition. He received Gold Medal Awards in the Kingsville International Competition, the Irving M. Klein International Competition, and the D'Angelo International Competition.

In Addition to his solo career, Mr. Huang is deeply committed to chamber music. He has attended the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia's Steans Institute and the Caramoor Festival, and has collaborated with the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra and the Sejong Soloists in New York. He as recently selected by the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society to perform regularly at Alice Tully Hall as part od the highly prestigious CMS II program.

Mr. Huang studied with Robert Mann at The Juilliard School, Donald Weilerstein at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and with Fredell Lack. His New York City recital debut, presented by the Naumburg Foundation, will take place at Alice Tully Hall on January 15, 2004.

Judy Kang, Violin

Since gaining attention at the age of ten, in her critically acclaimed performance with the National Arts Center Orchestra, young, gifted violinist, Judy Kang is a rising star in the music world, today. She has performed with virtually all the major orchestras and ensembles in Canada and abroad including the Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, L'Orchestre Symphonique Metropolitain, Quebec Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Puchon Philharmonic, and the Euro-Asian Philharmonic, among others. She gave her first solo recital at age four and since then appeared throughout North America, France, Austria, and Asia in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Montreal, Vienna, Toronto, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. As a chamber musician, she was invited to perform in prestigious festivals as Marlboro, Ravinia, Banff, Evian, the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, and the 'Focus' Festival in New York and has performed and given masterclasses in Barbados and Canada. Ms Kang has collaborated with esteemed artists as Claude Frank, Kyung Wha Chung, Miriam Fried, Leon Fleisher, and the late Felix Galimir, and with members of the Mendelssohn, Guarneri, and Juilliard String Quartet, among others. She has also worked with American composer Leon Kirchner and German composer Alexander Goehr.

Ms Kang had the honor of performing for the Canadian Prime Minister and Governor General. As a member of the renowned International Sejong Soloists, she has toured across America and Asia and was a featured soloist in concert including the inaugeration of the Daegwallyeong International Music Festival in Pyongchang, Korea.

Since the age of five, she has garnered numerous awards and honors including top prizes at major competitions such as the CBC National Competition, the Dong-A International Competition, Naumburg International Competition, and the Kreisler International Violin Competition. At the age of eleven, she was accepted on full scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Music and graduated with a Bachelors Degree when she was seventeen, one of the youngest students even to be accepted and graduate. As a Surona Foundation Scholarship student at Juilliard, she received her Masters Degree and Professional Studies at the age of nineteen.

She has been featured in numerous newspapers, television and magazines. Ms Kang has recorded two solo CDs which received wide acclaim and have been nominated for awards. She is frequently heard on national and international radio. In recognition of her outstanding achievements and contribution to the arts, Ms Kang will be featured as an accomplished artist and inspiration in a book entitled Korea and Canada: A Shared History.

Melissa Reardon, Viola

Violist Melissa Reardon made her debut as a soloist with the Boston Symphony at the age of thirteen as has since garnered top prizes in several international competitions including Fischoff, HAMS International and most recently, First Prize in the 2003 Washington International Competition. She has performed with the Borromeo String Quartet, the Boston Chamber Music Society, at Bargemusic and has toured with the Silk Road Ensemble in 2003. Melissa has also participated in numerous festivals including Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute for Young Artists, Sarasota Music Festival, Taos School of Music and the Marlboro Music Festival. In April 2004 Melissa will participate in a Musicians from Marlboro tour. She has studied with Samuel Rhodes, Hsin-Yun Huang, Michael Tree, Karen Tuttle, Joseph dePasquale and Kim Kashkashian. Melissa received her BM from the Curtis Institute of Music and her MM and GD from the New England Conservatory of Music.

Stephen Sas, Bass

* The Juilliard School, BA, MA, and DMA/ Studies with David Walter and Eugene Levinson. DMA dissertation, "A History of Double Bass Performance Practice, 1500-1900", one of the first historical surveys of double bass performance practice in any language.

* Regular performances in New York City and numerous tours to Europe, Asia, South America nd the United States with the New York Philharmonic. Recordings with the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur for the Telarc label. Participation with New York Philharmonic in Live from Lincoln Center Broadcasts. Performances with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (Carnegie Hall, several domestic tours), the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (including participation in Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival). Performances with NYC based new music ensemble Continuum, including performances at Presences Festival, Paris France and ISCM World Conference, Seoul Korea. Performances in Spoleto (Italy), Evian (France), Aspen, and Tanglewood festi vals.

Ole Akahoshi, Cello

German-born Ole Akahoshi began studying cello at the age of four in Berlin. His early teachers were Georg Donderer and Wolfgang Boettcher. At the age of eleven he was the youngest pupil ever to be accepted by the late Pierre Fournier, with whom he studied for four years. In 1989 he moved to the United States to further his studies. He received the Bachelor of Music Degree from the Juilliard School, the Artist Diploma Degree from Indiana University, where he studied with Janos Starker, and the Masters of Music Degree from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Aldo Parisot. He served as teaching assistant to both Mr. Starker and Mr. Parisot.

He gave the world and U.S. premieres of works by Iannis Xenakis and Shulamit Ran with violinist Edna Michell in the closing concert of the Lincoln Center Festival 1996, with the Orchestra of St. Luke's under the direction of Yehudi Menuhin in Avery-Fisher-Hall. Mr. Akahoshi has been also soloist with the Symphonisches Orchester Berlin, Czechoslovakian Radio Orchestra, Zilina Symphony Orchestra (Slovak Republic), Paraiba Orchestra (Brazil), Orquesta Sinfonica Vina del Mar (Chile), Orquetra de Musicos do Festival des Artes de Itu (Brazil), and the International Sejong Soloists, substituting for Lynn Harrell at the Aspen Music Festival. His other international recital engagements have included formal debuts at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, at the Kammermusiksaal der Berliner Philharmonie, at Suntory Hall and Tsuda Hall in Tokyo, as well as in Israel, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Canada, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Korea, and the United States. He was top prizewinner in numerous national and international competitions including Concertino Praga, Wettbewerb Jugend Musiziert, and the Luis Sigall International Cello Competition. He was also awarded the generous fellowship grant by Mrs. Charlotte White's Salon de Virtuosi. Broadcasts of his performances have been heard on RIAS-Berlin, Hessischer Rundfunk, Sender-Freies-Berlin, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and WQXR.

An avid chamber musician, he has collaborated with SyokoAki, Atar Arad, Boris Berman, Sarah Chang, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, Peter Frankl, Erick Friedman, Nai-Yuan Hu, Jesse Levine, Frank Morelli, Reiko Neriki, Gyorgy Pauk, Marina Piccinini, Derek Lee Ragin, Peter Salaff, Elizabeth Sawyer Parisot, Aldo Parisot, and Janos Starker. Invited by harpist Naoko Yoshino and flutist Wolfang Schulz he just had a chamber music tour in Japan with them. He has performed at several European music festivals, and has served on the faculties of the Banff Centre for the Arts, Festival des Artes de Itu, Camp Encore/Coda, and at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, where he is often a featured guest artist.

He joined the faculty of the Yale University School of Music in 1997 and is cellist of the International Sejong Soloists in New York. Since 1998 he has been also a member of Seiji Ozawa's Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra.

Richard O'Neill, Viola

Violist Richard O'Neill has performed to critical acclaim as chamber musician and soloist throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. An accomplished chamber musician, he frequently collaborates with the today's most celebrated musicians including members of the Juilliard, Guarneri, Mendelssohn and Orion String Quartets, violinists Gil Shaham and Cho-Liang Lin, among others. In 2004, he will begin a residency with the Chamber Music Society Two of Lincoln Center, a program featuring the world's finest young chamber musicians. His festival appearances include Marlboro, Aspen, Bridgehampton, Cooperstown, Olympic, and Ravinia (Rising Stars) Festivals as well as performances for Bargemusic, the Da Camera Society of Los Angeles, and the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth. He has also participated in several national tours with Musicians from Marlboro.

Richard made his solo debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2000, and more recently performed and recorded Schoenberg's String Quartet Concerto with Fred Sherry and Robert Craft conducting the 20thCentury Classics Ensemble and Elliot Carter's ASKO Concerto at Carnegie Hall. He is a member of the International Sejong Soloists, a conductorless string ensemble, which he tours internationally performing as soloist and principal viola. He has appeared live on NPR's Performance Today and the Korean Broadcasting System.

The first violist to be accepted into the prestigious Artist Diploma Program at Juilliard, he holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Southern California, where he graduated magna cum laude, and a Master of Music from the Juilliard School. He has studied with Paul Neubauer, Karen Tuttle, Donald McInnes, and Sally Peck. O'Neill performs on a viola made by Gasparo da Salo of Brescia Italy, circa 1590, a generous loan from the Samsung Foundation of Culture.

Upcoming highlights include Opening Night 2003 and the"35 Years of Commissions" series for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in Alice Tully Hall, his participation in the Meet the Composer Series at Carnegie Hall, and solo performances of Britten's Lachrymae and Bach's Brandeburg Concerto No. 6 with the International Sejong Soloists as part of a two week residency for National Public Radio in Washington D.C..

Russ Stewart, Violin

Russ Stewart, age 20, is currently a student of Hyo Kang. His first solo performance was with the Wisconsin Youth Symphony at the age of nine, and he has since given solo performances with the Madison, Oshkosh, and Milwaukee Symphonies. Russ developed as a musician under the guidance of Klara Fenyo Bahcall. He has studied violin performance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with David Perry for two years under full scholarship, now studying at the Juilliard School. He was a first violinist in the Disney Young Musicians' Symphony Orchestra for two years, was a member of (and concertmaster of) the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra for nine years, and was a member of Madison Symphony Orchestra during the 2001-2002 season. Russ has attended the New York String Orchestra Seminar in December 2001, the Aspen Music School from 2000-2003 (currently a fellowship student at the Aspen Music School), and has attended the Mark O'Connor Fiddle Camp in Nashville, TN.

He was a finalist in the Stulberg International Competition in March 2001. As the violinist in the Favrile Piano Quartet from 2000-2001, he was a finalist in the Coleman International Chamber Competition, performed on PRI's live radio program "From the Top", and attended the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop in 2001 culminating in a performance at Carnegie Hall's Isaac Stern Auditorium. He has worked with members of many string quartets, including the Emerson, Orion, Juilliard, and Guarneri String Quartets. Russ recently was named the winner of the Juilliard Spring 2003 violin competition, and has given a solo performance with the Juilliard Orchestra this Spring.

Seyoung Lee, Violin

Seyoung Lee, a native of Korea, began violin studies at age six. She has won major competitions in Korea including Dong-A competition and HanKook competition and also appeared as a soloist with Korean symphony, Chunju Symphony and Prime Philharmonic etc.

Ms. Lee traveled to the United States to complete her bachelor's and master's degree at the Manhattan School of Music, where she served as assistant teacher to Sylvia Rosenberg. Ms. Lee has been a full scholarship recipient at the Aspen Music Festivl, Bowdoin Music Festival, New York String Seminar at Carnegie Hall and Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland.

During the 2000-2001 season, she toured throughout Canada, Korea and the U.S as a member of International Sejong Soloists and also appeared as a soloist with Brno Philharmonic in Austria. From 2001, she has moved to San Francisco and continued her study on Chamber Music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, performing with artists such as Kim Kashkashian and Ian Swensen.

Yu Jeong Lee, Violin

Yu Jeong Lee began her violin studies at the age of five and made her debut with Busan symphony orchestra at the age of twelve. In her native Korea, she won the Grand Prize at Busan Music Competition, and in 1998 she performed in the Young Promising Artists Series sponsored by Seoul Arts Center.

Ms. Lee has been featured as a soloist with numerous orchestras such as the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Korean Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Youth Orchestra, Aspen Chamber Orchestra at Aspen Music Festival, Corelliard Chamber Orchestra, New York Seoul Symphony Orchestra and the Juilliard Orchestra.

As a chamber musician, she has been a member of International Sejong Soloists and she performed at the UN as a member of Rose of Sharon Artists. She has given many solo recitals and chamber recitals in such venues as Weill recital hall at Carnegie hall, Lincoln Center, the Banff Music Centre, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and the Seoul Arts Center. She also was the principal violinist of the Pucheon Philharmonic Orchestra in Korea. She has been a concertmaster of New York Seoul Symphony, New York Sinfonietta and the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Lee graduated from the Juilliard School where she earned her Bachelor of Music degree and Master of Music degree under the tutelage of Hyo Kang. She is currently continuing her study in the Doctor of Music Arts program at the University of Maryland.

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