Joshua Roman & Derek Bermel, Karen Kim and Conor Hanick

Joshua Roman has earned an international reputation for his wide-ranging repertoire, a commitment to communicating the essence of music in visionary ways, artistic leadership and versatility. As well as being a celebrated performer, he is recognized as an accomplished composer and curator, and was named a TED Senior Fellow in 2015.

During the 2016-17 season, Roman will play Mason Bates’s Cello Concerto with four different orchestras: the Portland, Berkeley, Spokane, and Memphis Symphonies. The concerto is dedicated to the cellist, who premiered it with the Seattle Symphony in 2014, and has since played it around the U.S. In the second of two performances with the Omaha Symphony he plays Dreamsongs, a cello concerto written for him by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis, after a concert featuring Tchaikovsky’s Pezzo Capriccioso and Variations on a Rococo Theme. He continues to pursue his artistic vision as Artistic Director of TownMusic at Town Hall Seattle, where last season he presented his own song cycle, … we do it to one another, and as Artistic Advisor of Seattle’s Second Inversion.

Before embarking on a solo career, Roman spent two seasons as principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony, a position he won in 2006 at the age of 22. Since that time he has appeared as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, Moscow State Symphony and Mariinsky Orchestra, among many others. An active chamber musician, Roman has collaborated with Cho-Liang Lin, Assad Brothers, Christian Zacharias, Yo-Yo Ma, the JACK Quartet, the Enso String Quartet and Talea Ensemble. His YouTube series (youtube.com/joshuaromancello), “Everyday Bach,” features Roman performing Bach’s cello suites from beautiful settings around the world. He was the only guest artist invited to play an unaccompanied solo during the YouTube Symphony Orchestra’s 2009 debut concert at Carnegie Hall, and has given a solo performance on the TED2015 main stage. Roman is grateful for the loan of an 1899 cello by Giulio Degani of Venice.

The wide-ranging musical abilities and diverse artistic interests of pianist Conor Hanick have led to acclaimed solo and chamber performances around the world and collaborations with music’s most accomplished instrumentalists, conductors, ensembles, and composers.

In performances ranging from the early Baroque to the newly written, Mr. Hanick has collaborated with some of the world’s leading ensembles and conductors, including Pierre Boulez, David Robertson, and James Levine. He has be heard throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia — and in virtually every prominent arts venue in New York City — and been described as “brilliant,” “astounding,” (New York Times) “expert,” (Philadelphia Inquirer), and “sparkling,” (Strad) while reminding New York Times chief critic Anthony Tommasini of a “young Peter Serkin.” Although Mr. Hanick has been recognized as a “true champion of contemporary music” (NPR) through his deep commitment to the music of our time, Tommasini wrote that Mr. Hanick’s “technical refinement, color, crispness and wondrous variety of articulation … benefit works by any master.”

Mr. Hanick’s season is highlighted by concerto appearances with Carlos Izcaray and the Alabama Symphony in the premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s Piano Concerto; collaboration with Alan Gilbert for the NYPhil Biennial in György Ligeti’s Piano Concerto; recitals in Washington D.C., Houston, and Santa Fe; performances with the Talea Ensemble, ICE, The Knights, and Chatter. In addition, Mr. Hanick joins cellist Jay Campbell in recitals in Seattle, San Francisco, Indianapolis, and New York, including premiere performances of works written for them by Eric Wubbels, David Hertzberg, and David Fulmer; and will also be heard in the Chicago Symphony’s MusicNOW series, performing solo music of Pierre Boulez.

A Yamaha Artist and recent finalist for the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, Mr. Hanick is a graduate of Northwestern University and the Juilliard School, where he received his Masters and Doctorate degrees. He is a faculty artist at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, produces radio for New York Public Radio’s Q2 Music.

Composer and clarinetist Derek Bermel is a musical omnivore, equally at home at major concert halls and pop music clubs and festivals worldwide; the San Francisco
Chronicle writes, “To listen to his music is to run across a wealth of influences, from Bartók and Stravinsky to big band, and from early-period rap to Bulgarian folk music to West African drumming. Also, it seems, theoretical physics.” Now in his fourth season as Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, Bermel has become recognized as a dynamic and unconventional curator of concert series, including ACO’s SONiC Festival, the Gamper Festival at Bowdoin, and the Cone Series at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (where he served four years as Artist-in-Residence).

Bermel’s performance of his own clarinet concerto Voices on BMOP/Sound was nominated for a GRAMMY in 2009, and he has performed it with orchestras from BBC to Beijing. The Boston Globe writes, “There doesn’t seem to be anything that Bermel can’t do with the clarinet.” His discography also includes Soul Garden, small ensemble/solo music (New World/CRI); and Canzonas Americanas with the ensemble Alarm Will Sound (Cantaloupe), and two upcoming CDs with the JACK Quartet and the Albany Symphony.

Bermel’s composition teachers included Louis Andriessen, William Bolcom, and Henri Dutilleux. Over they years he has received commissions from the Pittsburgh, National, Saint Louis, and Pacific Symphonies, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, WNYC Radio, La Jolla Music Society, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, eighth blackbird, Guarneri String Quartet, and the Koussevitzky and Fromm Foundations. His many honors include the Alpert Award in the Arts, Rome Prize, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, and the American Music Center’s Trailblazer Award.

As a conductor, he has appeared with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, ROCO, and Westchester Philharmonic, among others. Recent residencies include Nuova Consonanza Festival in Rome, IC Festival in Hong-Kong, Kempten Classix in Germany, and Hyllos, a collaboration with Veenfabriek and Asko|Schönberg Ensemble in Holland.

Grammy Award-winning violinist Karen Kim is widely hailed for her sensitive musicianship and passionate commitment to chamber and contemporary music. Her performances have been described as “compellingly structured and intimately detailed” (Cleveland Classical) and “muscular and gripping” (New York Classical Review). She has performed in such prestigious venues and series as Carnegie Hall’s Zankel and Weill Recital Halls; the Celebrity Series of Boston; the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society; the Vienna Musikverein; London’s Wigmore Hall; the Musée d’Orsay in Paris; the Seoul Arts Center; and Angel Place in Sydney, Australia. Her recordings as a founding member of the Parker Quartet from 2002 to 2012 include the complete string quartets of György Ligeti, which received the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance in 2011. With the Parker Quartet, Ms. Kim also received the Grand Prize and Mozart Prize at the 2005 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition. Esteemed for her versatility across a broad spectrum of musical idioms and artistic disciplines, Ms. Kim has collaborated with artists ranging from Kim Kashkashian, Paul Katz, Roger Tapping, Jörg Widmann, and Shai Wosner to Questlove & The Roots and the James Sewell Ballet. She is a member of Third Sound, Deviant Septet, Cadillac Moon Ensemble, and Ensemble Échappe, and frequently performs with such groups as the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Talea Ensemble, Metropolis Ensemble, NOVUS NY, and Chameleon Arts Ensemble. Ms. Kim is currently a Teaching Artist for the New York Philharmonic.