Marcia Eckert is a soloist and collaborative pianist who has appeared on the Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as at Merkin, Alice Tully, and Weill concert halls, and London’s Leighton House. She has been referred to as “a pianist of impressive skill and sensitivity, the sort of keyboard collaborator that every instrumentalist dreams of” (Scott Cantrell, Albany Times-Union). Ms. Eckert has recorded for the Cambria and Leonarda labels and has premiered a number of new works as a performer-member of such groups as New York Women , New York Composers Circle, and Composers in Red Sneakers. She partners Deborah Gilwood in a piano duo. Other chamber groups currently include Aurelia Piano Quartet and Trio La Bella. Ms. Eckert is a recipient of the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching at Hunter College, CUNY, and teaches piano and chamber music at Mannes, College of the Performing Arts, The New School. She is the founder/director of Pianophoria!, a summer piano intensive in New York.

Pianist Terry Eder gave her New York debut at Weill Recital Hall in 2004. Since then, she has performed throughout the U.S., including at Alice Tully and Zankel Hall, and in Germany, France, Italy, China, and Singapore, to critical claim. Her discography includes works by Bartok and Dohnanyi, on MSR and Hungaroton, and a recital disc entitled Portrait. Her recitals have been radio broadcast live from Chicago and Los Angeles, and her Dohnanyi CD has been featured on Swiss radio. Ms. Eder founded and runs the NY concert series KEY PIANISTS.

Acclaimed for her unique sound, deep and visceral language, Debra Kaye creates music that blends her classical roots with a wide range of influences including jazz, world music, folk, experimental improvisation, world events, and sounds of daily life. She has been honored with ASCAP Plus Awards for her "creative contributions to American music." Recent highlights include commissions from the Portland Youth Philharmonic, the Community Music Center of Portland, and flutist Carl Gutowski. Support for Debra's music includes grants and awards from Meet the Composer, Mannes College of Music, the Edward T. Cone Foundation, Fort Wayne Children's Choir, Atlanta Music Teachers Association, New School University, and residencies at the Millay Colony and Wurlitzer Foundation. Her debut CD And So It Begins, which features pianist Marcia Eckert and saxophonist Javier Oviedo, was recognized as "an album that will surely stand the test of time."

Boyd McDonald studied piano with Lyell Gustin, composition with Nadia Boulanger, and attended summer schools with , , and . Boyd won the Leschetizky New York Debut Prize in 1963. He toured in USA, Canada, and Europe as a member of the Beckett and McDonald Piano Duo. His compositions include music for theatre, orchestra, choir, chamber ensemble, voice, and various solo instruments. In 1988 he became the Leschetizky Regional Director for Canada. He recently retired as Honorary President of the Gustin Heritage Committee. Recordings include Bellows & Brass...with Boyd, the Beethoven Complete Cello Works with Paul Pulford, and a 2 CD issue of The Brahms Miniatures on an 1851 Streicher fortepiano. As Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University Boyd continues to perform, record, and compose.

Harold Meltzer is inspired by a wide variety of stimuli, from architectural spaces to postmodern fairy tales and messages inscribed in fortune cookies. In Fanfare Magazine, Robert Carl commented that he “seems to write pieces of scrupulous craft and exceptional freshness, which makes each seem like an important contribution.” The first recording devoted to his music, released in 2010 by Naxos on its American Classics label, was named one of the CDs of the year in The New York Times; soon there will be new recordings on the Bridge Records and BMOP/Sound labels. A busy 2016 included performances at Tanglewood during Contemporary Music Week and by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, premieres in March by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and by the Boston Chamber Music Society at Sanders Theatre at Harvard, in May by guitarist Eliot Fisk in Connecticut and by pianist Nadia Shpachenko at Piano Spheres in Los Angeles, and in October by tenor Paul Appleby with pianist Natalia Katyukova and by Music from China with the Talujon Percussion Quartet. A Pulitzer Prize Finalist in 2009 for his sextet Brion, Meltzer has been awarded the Rome Prize, the Barlow Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and both the Arts and Letters Award in Music and the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Commissions in recent years have issued from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Fromm and Koussevitzky Music Foundations, New Music USA, Library of Congress, Boston Chamber Music Society, Concert Artists Guild, and the ASCAP Foundation for the New York Festival of Song. Founder and co-director for fifteen years of the new music ensemble Sequitur, Meltzer lives with his family in the East Village of Manhattan.

Dorothy Rudd Moore is an African-American composer and music educator. She is a co-founder of the Society of Black Composers. Her works are available through the American Composers Alliance. Moore was born in New Castle, Delaware, and began composing at a young age, as well as studying piano and clarinet. She graduated from Howard University in 1963, where she studied with Mark Fax. She received the Lucy Moten Fellowship to study in France. She worked with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and then with Chou Wen-Chung in New York. Moore taught privately and at the Harlem School of the Arts, NYU, and Bronx Community College. Her works Dirge and Deliverance and Songs from the Dark Tower were released by performance Records in 1981. Her opera Frederick Douglass premiered in New York City in 1985. Cellist Halie Morris is a vital presence in the artistic communities of New York City and North Carolina. In recent years, she has performed with the North Carolina Symphony, the North Carolina Opera, Carolina Ballet, the Carolina Philharmonic, the Fayetteville Symphony, Opera on the James, the Richmond Symphony, the Blue Hill Troupe, and other prominent ensembles. In 2015, she made her television debut as a member of the “New York Symphony” on Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle series. She received a Bachelor of Musical Arts along with a Bachelor of Arts in Hispanic Studies from Oberlin College in 2008, and completed her Mas- ter’s Degree in Music at Northwestern University in 2010. Her principal teachers were Hans Jensen, Amir Eldan, and Martha Gerschefski-Schaum. Halie has played the world premieres of several major works, including John Supko’s opera All Souls with New Music Raleigh at the National Gallery of Art and CAM Raleigh, and James MacMillan’s St. Luke Passion with the Duke Chapel Choir at Duke University. She has collaborated with the Duke New Music En- semble and wet ink ensemble in presenting new works by Duke University PhD candidates in composition. She was a member of the Bar Hop String Quartet, which specializes in contem- porary music of multiple genres, and has worked with the chamber-pop band Lost in the Trees. Halie has taught at the Village Music School and privately. She has appeared statewide in the Carolina Philharmonic’s educational outreach initia- tive, part of Carnegie Hall’s nationwide Link-Up Program. In 2005, she taught at the Conservatorio Franz Liszt in Ecuador, working with elementary through high school students as an instructor in chamber music and cello.

Known for bringing exquisite tone color and expressivity to an unusual breadth of repertoire, Nnenna Ogwo has performed in Europe, the Middle East, South America and the United States. Of Caribbean and African descent, Ms. Ogwo began playing the piano at age six, studying at the Peabody Conser- vatory Preparatory and graduating with honors in piano and composition. She received her Bachelor of Music at Oberlin Conservatory, studying piano with Lidia Frumkin, and under the auspices of a Fulbright Fellowship attended the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where she studied with Ferenc Rados and received a Graduate Certificate. Ms. Ogwo completed her Master of Music and Doctor of the Musical Arts degrees with Gilbert Kalish at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Her former coaches and teachers include the late Gyorgy Sebok and Julius Levine, Leon Fleisher, Robert McDonald, Edna Goulandsky, Zelma Bodzin and Edmund Arkus. Ms. Ogwo cur- rently serves on the piano faculty at Third Street Music School in Manhattan. A gifted teacher, she also maintains a private studio in New York City and has successfully prepared students for admission to conservatory. She is the founder of Working Projects, a works-in-progress venue for artists and musicians. She has issued a recording of solo piano music by Bach-Siloti, Beethoven, Debussy, Scriabin and Piazzolla entitled Issue One that is available digitally on her website at www.nnenna.net and in physical form at www.cdbaby.com.

Regarded as one of the brightest soloists of the classical saxophone world, Javier Oviedo is acclaimed for his lustrous tone, passionate musicianship, and formidable technique. He works tire- lessly to present the saxophone as a unique, versatile, exciting classical instrument and has commis- sioned and premiered nearly a dozen works for saxophone and orchestra. He has been praised throughout the U.S., Asia, and both Eastern and Western Europe. He has appeared with the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, the Chattanooga Symphony, L’Orchestre Lamoureux and L’Orchestre Pasdeloup in France, and the National Philharmonics of Moldova and the Russian Federation. Oviedo can be heard on The Classical Saxophone: A French Love Story, featuring original music for saxophone and orchestra from the 19th and 20th Centuries, and Lazy Afternoon: Salon Music for Classical Saxophone of Byron Bellows. Mr. Oviedo and Ms. Eckert recorded Dialogues with the Distant Mountains for Ravello Records on an album entitled And So It Begins…which features chamber music by composer Debra Kaye.

Puerto-Rican born José Pietri-Coimbre has distinguished himself as a violinist and violist, as well as a classical baritone soloist and ensemble singer. As a violinist and violist, José has held principal positions at the Bronx Opera and Delaware Valley Opera Orchestras, Garden State Philharmonic, One World Symphony, Empire Chamber Orchestra, Puerto Rico Sinfonietta and the National Orchestral Institute Orchestra. He has been a member of the Zipoli Ensemble for the Spanish American Baroque, New Jersey Philharmonic, Puerto Rico Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, and is a substitute musician at the "Phantom of the Opera" Orchestra on Broadway, and the Albany and Greenwich Symphony Orchestras. As a baroque violinist, he has performed with Dorian Baroque, Ensemble Leonarda and American Virtuosi, among others. He has performed solo and chamber music with his piano trio, the Saffron Trio, and with Quartetto Tomassini, the Joyce Ensemble, Con Vivo Chamber Players, Harlem Chamber Players, and others. As a singer, José has recently appeared as Sargento in Valledor’s “La Cantada Vida y Muerte del General Malbru” with Early Music New York, Giove in Cavalli’s 'La Calisto' and as Oreste in the same composer's 'Il Giasone' with Julianne Baird’s Baroque Opera Workshop at Queens College. With New York Lyric Opera he has performed in Carnegie’s Weill Hall as Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), Dr. Falke (Die Fledermaus), Figaro (Nozze di Figaro) and Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni). With New York enCANTA Collective he appeared as Shepherd III in Frank Bridge’s "The Christmas Rose", and has sung with One World Symphony the roles of Walter White/Heisenberg (S. Hong's "Breaking Bad- Ozymandias") and Dancairo (Carmen). He was a member of the Puerto Rico Opera Chorus and was a frequent oratorio soloist in the Island. Mr. Pietri- Coimbre has recorded with the New York Virtuoso Singers, Musica Sacra, Bard Festival Singers and The Salvatones Ensemble, among others. José has served on the faculties of the Diller-Quaile School of Music, the Mozart Academy, the Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts, and the Third Street Music School. At the latter he is now the Chairperson for the Barbara Fields Chamber Music Program. José studied at the Puerto Rico Music Conservatory with Jose Figueroa and Dara Morales, and at the Aaron Copland School of Music (Queens College) with Grigory Kalinovsky and Daniel Phillips. He also studied voice with Bernardo Villalobos and Neil Rosenshein in New York City. At the University of Maryland, he studied Chamber Music with members of the Guarneri String Quartet, and trained in Baroque performance practice in New York with harpsichordist Raymond Erickson at Queens College and violinist Judson Griffin.

Adrian Saari began playing the piano at age nine. He graduated from the Mannes School of Music’s prep de- partment in 2014. In 2012 he won the prep division concerto competition and performed the first movement of the Schumann concerto with the prep school orchestra. He is currently finishing his sophomore year at Mannes. Among his favorite composers are Debussy, Scriabin, and Chopin. He enjoys performing chamber music and working with composers on their own music.

Canadian cellist Caroline Stinson performs widely as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician and has appeared at Zankel Hall, Gardner Museum, and the Smithsonian; the Kölner Philharmonie, Lucerne Festival, and Cité de la Musique in Europe, and the Centennial Centre in Canada. In recent seasons she appeared in recital in New York sponsored by the Finnish Consulate, in recital in Brussels, Belgium, with Accroche note in Strasbourg, France, and as a soloist with the Stamford Symphony (CT), under Eckart Stier, where she also serves as Principal Cellist. Ms. Stinson has commissioned and premiered works from solo cello to concerti and has had the privilege of working with Pierre Boulez, John Corigliano, Peter Eötvös, John Harbison, Aaron Kernis, Paul Moravec, Shulamit Ran, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky, Joan Tower, and Andrew Waggoner. As a member of the Lark Quartet, she will celebrate the group’s 30 years with commissions from Harbison, Waggoner, Bunch, Weesner, and Hartke. As a recording artist, Caroline’s CD Lines was released on Albany and she has contributed to more than a dozen chamber music recordings with features on this continent and abroad. Born in Edmonton, Ms. Stinson studied with Alan Harris (Cleveland), Maria Kliegel (Germany), Joel Krosnick (Juilliard), and Tanya Prochazka, with grants from Alberta Heritage and the Canada Council. She has given masterclasses across North America and Europe, and teaches cello and chamber music at The Juilliard School. Caroline is Co-Artistic Director of Weekend Chamber Music in the Delaware River Valley.

Logan Vrankovič is a classical composer, pianist, and conductor based in New York City. Notable works include his Piano Sonata No. 1, Bedside for piano trio, his String Quartet No. 1, and his work for chorus and string orchestra, For You and I, Alone. He studies composition and piano performance at the Mannes School of Music with composer Lowell Liebermann.