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While still in school, he became Principal Cellist of the State Hermitage Orchestra under the direction of Saulus Sondetskis and later joined the orchestra of the Kirov Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre under Valery Gergiev.

In 1987, Mr. Istomin became the cellist of the Leningrad Conservatory String Quartet, and in 1989 the group won the grand prize in the National Soviet Union Competition of String Quartets. Later that same year, Mr. Istomin defected during the quartet’s US tour, and was granted political asylum in the United States.

Immediately following these events, Mr. Istomin joined the Richmond Symphony and became a faculty member of both Virginia State University and the Governor’s School for the Performing Arts at the University of Richmond.

Mr. Istomin was appointed Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Opera and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater orchestras in 1991, and the following year he joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Lorin Maazel.

Mr. Istomin is a winner of both the Passamaneck Award of the Y Music Society and the Pittsburgh Concert Society Major Auditions. He has appeared as a soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Williamsburg Symphonia, the Asheville Symphony, the Knoxville Symphony and others.

In July of 1998, Mr. Istomin returned to St. Petersburg to perform in the Second World Cello Congress under the direction of Mstislav Rostropovich.

Mr. Istomin is a founding member of the Pittsburgh Piano Trio. The Trio has released three CDs on the Minstrel Label to resounding critical acclaim. Three Graces features the chamber music of British composer Armstrong Gibbs; Phantasie is dedicated to the chamber music of Frank Bridge; the CD of Russian music includes the Piano Trio by Georgy Sviridov and Seven Romances inspired by the poems of Alexander Blok. “Encore!…Encore!” is a collection of short works for a piano trio, including compositions by Piazzolla, Schostakovich, Albeniz, Glinka and many others.

A free copy of “Encore!…Encore!” can be obtained at www.FreeTrioCd.com.

Frequent guests at major summer music festivals in the US, Canada and Europe, the Pittsburgh Piano Trio recently premiered a Triple Concerto by post-romantic Russian composer Paul Juon with The Tchaikovsky State Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Fedoseev at the Moscow Conservatory Grand Hall.

Concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Noah Bendix-Balgley has thrilled and moved audiences around the world with his violin performances. In May 2011, he won 1st prize at the Vibrarte International Music Competition in Paris, France. A Laureate of the 2009 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Noah also won 3rd prize and a special prize for creativity at the 2008 Long-Thibaud International Competition in Paris. He was awarded 1st Prize and a special prize for best Bach interpretation at the 14th International Violin Competition “Andrea Postacchini” in Fermo, Italy. In July 2011, Noah was named the new .

Noah has appeared as a soloist with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris), the Orchestre National de Belgique (Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels), the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie (Belgium), the Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana (Italy), the Orchester Jakobsplatz Munich, and the Asheville Symphony (USA). He performed the premiere of a rediscovered Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra by Carl Stamitz at the German Viola Congress in Muenster, Germany. In March 2011, he performed recitals at the Jewish Music Festival in the San Francisco Bay Area featuring little known works by Achron and other members of the St. Petersburg School. Noah has performed in Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Iceland, China, Switzerland, Great Britain, Canada and the United States.

Noah is a passionate and experienced chamber musician. In 2011, he performed on North American tour with the Miro String Quartet. From 2008 to 2011, Noah was the 1st violinist of the Athlos String Quartet, which won a special prize at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Competition in Berlin, and performed throughout Europe. In 2008, Noah was invited  to participate in Chamber Music Connects the World in Kronberg, Germany, where he worked and performed with Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Gary Hoffman and Lynn Harrell. He has collaborated with artists such as Ana Chumachenco, Wen-Sinn Yang, Hariolf Schlichtig, and percussionist Colin Currie.

Noah earned his postgraduate Meisterklasse diploma for violin in 2008 from Hochschule für Musik und Theater Munich, where he studied with Professor Christoph Poppen. In 2006, he received a Bachelor of Music degree with highest distinction from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he was a student of Professor Mauricio Fuks and also a Wells Scholar. He has performed in masterclasses for Gidon Kremer, Ida Haendel, Zakhar Bron, Joseph Silverstein, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Pamela Frank, and Itzhak Perlman.

Born in Asheville, North Carolina in 1984, Noah began playing violin at age 4. At age 9, he played for Lord Yehudi Menuhin in Switzerland. From 1995 to 1997, Noah studied violin with Anne Crowden while attending The Crowden School in Berkeley, California. There he performed the premiere of Recitative and Freilekhs, a piece for violin and chamber orchestra written for him by Arkadi Serper. Noah was also featured as a soloist on the 1997 Crowden School tour of England and Scotland.

In his spare time, Noah enjoys playing klezmer music. He has played with world-renowned klezmer groups such as Brave Old World, and has taught klezmer violin at workshops in Europe and in the United States.

Noah plays on a Lorenzo Ventapane violin, made in Naples in the early 19^th century.

Native Canadian, Jennifer Orchard has repeatedly brought dynamic and highly acclaimed performances to audiences worldwide, both as a soloist and chamber musician. Formerly as violinist with the internationally renowned Lark Quartet, Ms Orchard worked to expand the string quartet repertoire, including co-commissioning the 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning composition ‘musica instrumentalis’ by Aaron Jay Kernis and to bring classical music to some unusual audiences.

Over Ms. Orchard’s eight years with the Lark Quartet she toured Germany, Great Britain, Austria, France, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada and the United States, including performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, St. Paul’s Ordway Theater, and New York’s Avery Fisher and Carnegie Halls. During that time Ms. Orchard recorded extensively on Arabesque Records.

After moving to Pittsburgh IN 2001 as assistant principal second violin of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Ms. Orchard was invited to join the Pittsburgh Piano Trio. In the recent years the Trio just released 3 critically acclaimed CDs.

Ms. Orchard completed her undergraduate education at the Curtis Institute of Music with Szymon Goldberg and her master’s degree from the Juilliard School with Robert Mann and has attended the Marlboro Music Festival.

This past May, Ms. Wang performed at the new Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. Included in her program was the world premiere of “Enchanted Garden”, Preludes Book II by noted composer, Richard Danielpour. (Book I was premiered by Christopher O’Riley on July 4, 1992 at the Aspen Music Festival).

This December, Ms. Wang will record both Book I & II for Naxos. She has been invited back to the Smithsonian Institution where she will present the Washington D.C premiere of the work in March 2010, as part of their Meyer Concert Series. Other highlights include Ms. Wang’s performance of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major with the Manhattan Chamber Players in New York under the direction of the estimable conductor Eduard Zilberkant.

Ms. Wang also performed in recital and as soloist in California, Washington, New Mexico, New Jersey and Florida, notably at the Naples (FL) Philharmonic Hall and as soloist with the Miami Pops Orchestra. This season includes engagements with Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra; the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic; as well as in Danbury, Connecticut; Travis City Opera House, Michigan; a tour of North Carolina and the Hawaiian Islands; Jordan Hall, Boston and Nichols Hall, Chicago. Ms. Wang has released three recordings.

The latest solo album for the Naxos label features the great Russian composer Aleksandr Scriabin in a range of works from his early Chopinesque period to such later compositions as “Vers la Flamme,” Op. 72 and Deux Danses, Op. 73. Ms.

Wang is a Steinway Artist.

Upon graduation, he was one of the very few applicants accepted into the highly renowned St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he continued his piano and conducting studies.. Sirotkine continued his education, enrolling in the Oberlin Conservatory, where he received advanced degrees in Organ Performance, then the Mannes College of Music in New York, where he earned an advanced degree in conducting.

In 1994 he founded the New York Metamorphoses Orchestra which collaborated with the Paul Taylor Dance Company at New York City Center and the Kennedy Center Orchestra at Kennedy Center in Washington.

In 1999, the New York Metropolitan Opera hired Mr. Sirotkine as an Assistant Conductor and a Chorus Master.

In 2005, he debuted with the South African Cape Philharmonic and the Cape Town Opera, conducting a magnificent production of Carmen.

In April 2007 Ms. Drakos was appointed Chief Operating Officer of www.InstantEncore.com, a digital music site for live classical music.

Ms. Drakos is also on the cello faculty of the Manhattan School of Music while maintaining an active performance career.Ms. Drakos served as the cellist of the American String Quartet from 2002-2006. During her time with the quartet, she recorded the Richard Danielpour’s String Quartets for Arabesque Records. Ms. Drakos has served as Associate/Assistant Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony and Principal Cellist of the San Diego and Oregon Symphonies.

She completed her education at the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with David Soyer, founding cellist of the Guarneri Quartet.

A graduate of Yale University (M.M.) and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (B.M.), Mr. Lev has performed on radio throughout Israel and Germany, and has participated in several music festivals including those in Norfolk, Gstaad, Interlochen and Long Beach, as well as the Kfar Blum Chamber Music Festival in Israel. Winner of the Rosa Albano Cavallero International Competition, he has performed concertos of Walton, Paganini, Bach, Mozart and Lou Harrison in Seattle, Ann Arbor and New Haven.

Mr. Lev is an adjunct professor of violin at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

In September 1996, Smith Joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as Assistant Principal horn.

He has appeared as guest soloist for both the Savannah and Jacksonville symphonies as well as the National Symphony Orchestra, at age 18.

Mr. Smith is on the faculty at Duquesne University and actively represents his fellow musicians through the American Federation of Musicians, Local 60-471.

When Yehudi Menuhin visited China in 1979, Jia was selected to play for him. Menuhin offered Jia a full scholarship to the Menuhin International Music Academy in Gstaad, Switzerland. After completeing his studies with Menuhin and Alberto Lysy in Switzerland, Jia came to the United States to participate in the Tanglewood Festival where he was the concertmaster of the Music Center Orchestra. Raphael Druian subsequently offered Jia a full scholarship to study with him at Boston University.

Before being hired by Lorin Maazel as assistant concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Jia held the position with the Baltimore Symphony and Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, where he also served as assistant concertmaster under Charles Dutoit.

Hong-Guang Jia has performed recitals in Europe, Asia and throughout North and South America and has been recorded by the BBC in London and the CBC in Beijing. He performed the Brahms Violin Concerto with Menuhin at festivals in Gstaad and Paris. Jia has also appeared as soloist with the Camarata Lysy, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and with Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, with Charles Dutoit conducting.

In June 2004, Hong-Guang Jia returned to China for the first time in almost 20 years. He performed recitals and taught mastercalsses at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Conservatory of Music in Shenyang. Both conservatories honored him with appointments as Guest Professor of Violin. In July 2005, Jia was invited to the China International Canton Music Summer Academy to tutor students from Asia and perform chamber music concerts. Jia is also a fculty member of the Duquesne University School of Music in Pittsburgh.

At age 12, he was accepted by Central Conservatory in Beijing under the instructions of Mr. Xiao-Long Liu and Mr. Ke-Qiang Sui. In 1997, Mr. Wang came to the states and attended Walnut Hill School in Boston as a full scholarship student studying with former violist for Borromeo String Quartet Hsin-Yun Huang. The next year; he won the top price in The Boston Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition and was accepted by the Curtis Institute of music where he studied with the member of Guarneri String Quartet violist Michael Tree and President of The Curtis Insititue of Music Roberto Diaz, and Karen Tuttle.

Deeply committed to chamber music, Mr. Wang has performed with such distinguished artists as Yo-Yo Ma, Sharon Robinson, Chao-Liang Lin, Jaime Laredo, Joseph Silverstein, Pinkas Zukerman, Barbara Westphal and the pop star Bono. He has appeared in both solo and chamber music performances at major venues includes the Carnegie, Lincoln Center Alice Tully, and The Town Halls in New York, The Kimmel Center for the performing arts in Philadelphia, The Library of Congress, Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, Boston Jordan Hall, Majestic Theater and the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota.

As a member of Kansas City Chamber Music Society, his playing has been broadcasted frequently in many public radio stations. Mr. Wang’s festival appearances have included Sarasota, Music Academy of the West, Marlboro, and Verbier in Switzerland. He also appeared as a guest soloist at the International Music Festival in Maine.

First Prize winner of D’Angelo International Piano competition Natasha Snitkovsky has performed extensively in recitals, with orchestras, and in chamber appearances in the New England Area, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Louisiana, California, Indiana, and Ohio. In 1982 she performed in recital at Carnegie Hall, and has been a soloist with the American Wind Symphony and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In addition, she has been a featured soloist at the Bedford Springs Festival, and has appeared at the “Mostly Mozart Festival” at Heinz Hall. Media exposures have included performance appearances on the “Pittsburgh 2 Day” television program of CBS Group W, affiliate, KDKA, on WQED fine Arts radio station. She was also interviewed on Bloomberg Radio WBBR in New York City about importance of music education for children, and was included in “Who’s Who Among American Teachers” 2003.

She presented Master classes in Japan, Taiwan, Israel, Mexico, and Italy. Her students won many national and international competitions.Ms. Snitkovsky is on the faculty of Duquesne University.

She is the co-founder of City Music Center at Duquesne University, where she is a Chair of Piano Department.She is also Director of Duquesne Young Artist National Competition.

A native of Taiwan, Assistant Concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Huei-Sheng Kao started violin studies at age six with private lessons and played in the BBC Children’s Orchestra in Taiwan for several years. He made his first public appearance at eight, and at the age of eleven won a national violin competition which brought him a solo appearance in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Chinese Youth Orchestra. He spent a summer at Interlochen, where he played the Wieniawski Violin Concerto. From 1971 to 1977 Mr. Kao attended the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with Ivan Galamian and Jaime Laredo.

After earning his diploma in 1977 he joined the Pittsburgh Symphony and was appointed Assistant Concertmaster in the 1979-80 season. In the spring of 1980 he appeared with the Orchestra as a subscription-concert soloist in Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins. In November 1989 he performed Sibelius’ Violin Concerto with the Capetown Symphony Orchestra.

A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, he received his BM and MM from the St. Petersburg State Conservatory, and for almost a decade served as principal English horn with the Kirov Opera and Symphony Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater under Valery Gergiev.

Sirotkin has performed with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and toured with the CSO to Japan and Europe. He has also performed with Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic, and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. An active chamber musician, Sirotkin has appeared at numerous festivals including the Kuhmo International Chamber Music Festival, Finland; Kostamuksha Music Festival, Russia; and the Lucca Music Festival and Togliatti International Music Festival in Italy.

Sirotkin has also given many masterclasses throughout Russia and the United States.

In 2010, his performance was featured on NPR program “Performance Today”.

In 2000, he published the book, “Orchestral Excerpts for oboe and English horn from operas and ballets by Tchaikovsky.” Sirotkin studied under Dr. Valery Sobolev and Dr. Mark Ostoich.

Bursill-Hall has served as acting principal flute with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Bournemouth (England) Symphony Orchestra. He also has performed on the soundtracks for such movies as The Usual Suspects, First Wives Club and The Mirror Has Two Faces. He has taught at colleges and universities throughout California, served as visiting professor of flute at the Indiana University School of Music during the 1993-94 year and has conducted master classes throughout North America.

Damian Bursill-Hall studied with Joseph Mariano at the Eastman School of Music.

A founding member of the Pittsburgh Reed Trio, Jim has performed to critical acclaim with PSO colleagues Scott Bell (oboe) and Ron Samuels (clarinet). Their many and varied concerts have been heard locally, nationally, and abroad. An avid early music enthusiast, Jim likes to perform on dulcian whenever possible. As a pioneer of electric/acoustic bassoon and contrabassoon development, Jim is ever creatively exploring the possibilities of his instruments’ capabilities, both in sound and genre.

WQED-FM‘s Senior Executive Producer, Jim Cunningham hosts the WQED-FM Morning Show weekday mornings from 6-11am, and the nationally syndicated Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra broadcasts which air Sundays at 4pm.

Jim grew up in Warren, Pennsylvania. During the 9th grade he became involved with a radio club at school through which he began to work as an announcer for “The Hightime Show,” a Saturday Morning broadcast on WNAE.

He continued to work in radio while at Thiel college, serving as the general manager of the college radio station, WTGP-FM. During college and after graduation with degrees in English and Business Administration, Jim worked full-time for WGRP-FM & AM as an announcer, producer and account executive. Having worked as an intern for WQED-FM Pittsburgh while a student, Jim returned to the station to work part-time and a few months later was hired as a full time announcer.

Jim served as Station Manager of WQED-FM for fifteen years. As manager Jim lead the team that established WQEJ Johnstown, began 24 hour classical broadcasts, expanded live broadcasts in annual series from Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne University, Chautauqua New York, Heinz Hall and Heinz Chapel. Jim Cunningham is the Classical Music Critic for Pittsburgh Magazine where he contributes a monthly column. Jim is the host and producer of the nationally distributed Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra broadcasts heard on over 150 Public radio Stations.

A life long music lover, Jim took piano lessons from harpsichord builder and organist Jerry Elmgren. He studied guitar with Stephen Wendell.

Currently he is a board member of the Friends of the Carnegie Library, the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony, the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society Executive Committee and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Steinway Society and the Pittsburgh Concert Society.

Suzanne has fulfilled numerous music commissions, including pieces for members of the PSO, Duquesne University, Red Masquers, Medieval and Renaissance Players, Carlow College, and fellow D.U. alums. Her compositions have been featured in many solo recitals, theatre productions, and at the International Conference of the Double Reed Society. Recently, she collaborated on Homeless: the Musical, which received two local performance runs. Her score is heard during the DVD-recorded performance of The Tragedy of Jane Shore. In addition, The Beggar’s Opera was given mention for “Best Scores of 2001” in both the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and the City Paper.

A multi-dimensional composer who listens voraciously to a colossal range of musical styles, his enormously eclectic output reflects this musical world, with a vocabulary ranging from beautiful lyricism to unusual sounds, dissonant clashes, and bizarre juxtapositions. Cutler’s compositions have been commissioned and performed by numerous orchestras and performers. Recent composition accolades include the Sammy Nestico Award, the Millennium Arts Society’s International Competition for Composers and awards from Friends and Enemies of New Music, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, and ASCAP.

Cutler is known for organizing concert productions that marry outstanding performance with the unexpected (whether greeting patrons with costumed performers or ushering them out with a marching band). Many of his shows have interfaced diverse musical expressions with dance, film, actors, stage design, and visual artists.

Dr. Cutler studied at the University of Miami (BM), Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria, Eastman School of Music (MM), and Indiana University (DM). He currently teaches at Duquesne University, where he also serves as the Director of Music Entrepreneurship. For more information, please visit www.trunkmusic.org.

A native of San Francisco, Ron has enjoyed a richly varied career as a symphonic musician, chamber music and concerto soloist, and as a collegiate professor and master class clinician. He graduated from the University of Southern California where he studied with Mitchell Lurie and where he has frequently returned as a guest lecturer. A year after graduation, he won an audition for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, a post he held for six seasons.

In addition to appearances on chamber music and recital series throughout the United States, Ron has been a featured soloist with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra on several occasions, as well as with the San Diego Symphony, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Eureka (CA) Symphony and the Plymouth (MI) Symphony Orchestra. He has recorded contemporary chamber music for Opus One Records, Hearts of Space Records, and a solo CD for KOCH International Classics featuring an all-French program and highlighted by the world-premiere recording of an early 19th-century concerto by Charles Duvernoy. During his years in Los Angeles, he also participated in soundtrack recordings for the motion picture and television studios of Universal, Warner Brothers and Columbia.

Ron has championed the music of several contemporary composers and has participated in performances, on recordings, and as part of consortiums of several new-work commissions. Among these have been Anthony Iannaccone’s Concertante for clarinet and orchestra for which he gave the American premiere; William Albright’s Quintet for clarinet and strings; John Harbison’s Concerto for oboe, clarinet and orchestra; and most recently, David Stock’s Sea of Reeds written for the Pittsburgh Reed Trio, a chamber ensemble which Ron co-founded.

Currently on the faculty of Duquesne University, Ron has been a guest lecturer at the University of Michigan and the Interlochen Arts Academy.

He is currently on the faculty of Duquesne University andCarnegie Mellon University.

Mr. Vosburgh is a graduate of the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. He began his career as an orchestral trumpeter at age 19 as third trumpet and assistant principal of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of David Zinman. After three years with Rochester, he joined theChicago Symphony Orchestraunder the direction of the late Sir Georg Solti as the youngest member of that orchestra’s world-famous brass section.

Ms. Persin has earned much recognition, receiving numerous awards including the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and top prizes at the Premio Borciani and London International Competitions.

With the Biava Quartet, Ms. Persin has recently completed a successful tenure as the Lisa Arnhold Quartet in Residence at the Juilliard School. She previously held the same position at Yale University. Ms. Persin holds the prestigious Artist Diploma degree from both Yale University and the Juilliard School. She is also a graduate with highest honors from the Cleveland Institute of Music where she was a student of Robert Vernon and received a Master’s Degree from the New England Conservatory of Music as a student of Martha Katz.

Having recorded for the Naxos and Cedille record labels, Mary Persin has also been heard on London’s BBC Radio 3, NPR, American Public Media’s Performance Today, as well as in frequent national broadcasts. With the Biava Quartet, she has been featured in Strings and Strad magazines and was the subject of a PBS documentary film.

Ms. Persin has earned much recognition as a soloist and recitalist, receiving numerous awards and was featured in a live radio broadcast on the Performance Pittsburgh Series as winner of the Pittsburgh Concert Society Major Auditions. She made her solo debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1997 and in recent seasons, has appeared as soloist with the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, Erie Philharmonic and Asheville Symphony.

She is Principal Harp with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra (CT) and has performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra with maestros Manfred Honeck, Andrew Davis, Marek Janowski, Peter Oundjian, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, Gianandrea Noseda and James Levine.

Ms. Van Hoesen earned two degrees in harp performance from The Juilliard School of Music under the tutelage of Nancy Allen, and has also studied with Gretchen Van Hoesen, Anne Marguerite-Michaud and Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche. She has been a member of the Sun Valley Summer Symphony (ID) since 2001, and has been a participant in the Strings Chamber Music Festival (Steamboat Springs, CO),
National Repertory Orchestra (Breckenridge, CO), Aspen (CO) Tanglewood (Lenox, MA) and Interlochen (Traverse City, MI).

She has been featured twice as a soloist on ‘From the Top’ on NPR and and has performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as Principal Harp and Second Harp on recordings, domestic and international tours.
Actively competing in domestic and international competitions, she was awarded first place in the Young Professional Division of the American Harp Society (AHS) National Competition in June of 2009. She has been a winner of the Anne Adams Awards (2010) held in Tacoma, as well as the Victor Salvi Awards (2008) held in Chicago. In 2004, she was winner of the Lennox Young Artist Competition playing Gliere’s Concerto for Harp and Orchestra and the 2005 Juilliard School concerto competition in Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp. In 2004 she was the First Prize winner of the American String Teachers Association (ASTA) National Solo Competition.

She was invited back to ASTA to be a guest lecturer and master class clinician at the 2012 National Conference in Atlanta, GA. She has taught master-classes in Pittsburgh (Carnegie Mellon University), New Orleans (Tulane University), Charlotte, Denver, San
Francisco, Syracuse, and Milwaukee.

Born in Archangel, Russia, Metropolitan Opera soprano Olga Makarina, made her first New York appearances at New York City Opera as Lucia di Lammermoor and has performed there as Gilda in Rigoletto, Konstanze in Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio and Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Other roles in Ms Makarina’s repertoire include Ilia in Idomeneo (Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival), Violetta in La Traviata (Kirov Opera) and Eudoxie in La Juive (Opera Orchestra of New York). Ms Makarina has also appeared as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos with the Minnesota Orchestra and in Orff’s Carmina Burana as well.

In recent seasons Ms Makarina returned to Palm Beach Opera as Elvira in Puritani, a role she also sang in Spain at La Coruna. She was the Princess in Respighi’s Bella Dormente at Spoleto USA repeated with exquisite success at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2005, and opened the Rome Opera’s 2005-06 season in November as Amina in La Sonnambula, returned there in February 2006 as Gilda in Rigoletto. Rome’s Messaggero praised her ‘pure and beautiful phrasing’ and “melancholy expression,’. A successful debut at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires as Mimi in La Boheme came in April 2006; Mimi was also the role of her debut at Mexico City’s Teatro Bellas Artes opposite tenor Fernando de la Mora.

A compact disc of Italian Opera Arias featuring Ms Makarina was released recently by Romeo Records and was cited by Opera News as ‘exquisite’ and Fanfare magazine as ‘a revelation of bel canto style.’ A second CD dedicated to Mozart’s motet ‘Esultate Jubilate’, a concert aria and operatic arias from Don Giovanni, Abduction from the Seraglio, Die Zauberflote and Le nozze di Figaro was released in spring 2003 and a recital of songs by Liszt, Tchiakovsky, and Rachmaninov was released in May 2004.

A graduate of the Mannes School of Music, Ms Makarina also has her Masters in piano and voice from the St Petersburg Conservatory. She has won a number of important prizes and awards including the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, the Musicians Emergency Fund and the Liederkranz Competition.

Mr. Howard has always been active as a music educator. In addition to private teaching, he regularly serves as lecturer for various Universities, coaches youth ensembles, such as the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Youngstown Youth Symphony Orchestra, and in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Symphony’s outreach program, visits local grade schools and high schools to coach ensembles and promote music education. Since the spring of 2000, he has been teaching string bass as adjunct faculty at the Dana School of Music, Youngstown State University, and he recently began teaching as adjunct professor at Duquesne University.

As a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Mr. Howard has served on several committees. Most notably, he was a member of the core audition committee for five years, serving as chair for two of those years. While on this committee, he played a role in hiring more than twenty full-time and substitute members of the orchestra. He was also involved in creating a new process, which was instituted in 2005, for hiring new musicians. Currently he is a member of the Orchestra and Artistic Committees.

Mr. Howard received his Bachelor of Music degree from Youngstown State University, and his Masters of Music degree from Duquesne University School of Music. His teachers include Tony Leonardi, Rodney Van Sickle, Edward Pales, Peter Paul Adamiac, and Jeffrey Turner. While still a student, Mr. Howard performed as a member of many regional orchestras, such as the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, and the Erie Philharmonic. He also played as a substitute with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Ballet and Opera Orchestras, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. And in 1995 he took first place in the International Society of Bassists Orchestral Competition.

You can find out more about Michah Howard at www.micahbhoward.com.