Isabel Hagen is a stand-up comedian and classically-trained violist. Every little girl’s dream. As a stand-up, she has been featured on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and as a New Face of Comedy at the Just for Laughs festival in Montréal. Isabel started stand-up immediately after earning her Bachelors and Masters degrees in viola performance from the Juilliard School. 

As a violist, Isabel has played in the orchestra for several productions on Broadway including Les Miserables, Fiddler on the Roof, and Rocktopia. She has toured internationally and performed and worked with numerous artists such as Björk, Ed Sheeran, Max Richter, The National, and Steve Reich. Isabel has appeared multiple times with musical guests on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Isabel is also a filmmaker whose web series IS A VIOLIST can be seen on YouTube. She is currently in post-production for a feature film inspired by the series which she wrote, directed and starred in.

ABOUT KYLE DUNNIGAN

Kyle is an Emmy, Peabody and Writer’s Guild Award winning comedy writer. He also won an Emmy for the most outstanding original music for the song “Girl You Don’t Need Make Up”.

​Coming up Kyle stars in the new Jerry Seinfeld movie "Unfrosted" as both Johnny Carson and Walter Cronkite, along with a new cartoon series starring Adam Carolla.

Kyle can also be heard regularly on the Howard Stern Show and the Adam Carolla Podcast, doing various impressions. Kyle has a significant online presence with over 1.3 million followers and was featured in The New York times best comedy of 2018.​

Kyle starred in several sketches on the hit Comedy Central show “Inside Amy Schumer”. He also recurred on “Reno 911” as Craig a.k.a The Truckee River Killer, and worked as a series regular and writer on FOX’s “Cedric the Entertainer Presents”. As a standup comic Kyle has had his own half hour special on Comedy Central and has appeared on Conan O’brien, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Seth Meyers, Jay Leno and Craig Ferguson along with numerous festival performances including SF Sketch Fest, Montreal and Chicago Just For Laughs.

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ABOUT JOSH GONDELMAN

Josh Gondelman is a writer and comedian who incubated in Boston before moving to New York City, where he currently lives and recently worked as the head writer and an executive producer for Desus & Mero on Showtime. Gondelman also contributed to the final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which was a thrill for both him and his parents. Prior to that, he spent five years at Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, first as a web producer and then as a staff writer where he earned four Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, and three WGA Awards. His debut standup special People Pleaser (2022) was produced by Comedy Dynamics and is available to stream now.

If his face seems familiar, you may recognize it from his appearances on Conan (TBS), Late Night With Seth Meyers (NBC), and The Late Late Show with James Corden (CBS). But you may also know his voice from his regular appearances on the NPR news quiz show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me. Gondelman is also the author of the essay collection Nice Try: Stories of Best Intentions and Mixed Results published September 2019 by Harper Perennial. And, if you remember this far back, he was the co-creator of the popular Modern Seinfeld Twitter account.

Josh’s album Dancing On a Weeknight came out in 2019 on Blonde Medicine Records. (His prior album Physical Whisperdebuted in March of 2016 at #1 on the iTunes comedy charts (as well as #4 on the Billboard comedy chart)  and stayed there for…well…longer than he expected, honestly.)Additionally, Gondelman is also the co-author (along with Joe Berkowitz) of the book You Blew It, published October 2015 by Plume. In the past, Josh has written for Fuse TV’s Billy On The Street. His writing has also appeared in prestigious publications such as McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, New York Magazine, and The New Yorker. For a while he had his own game show podcast called Make My Day that was a lot of fun. You can still listen to it if you’d like. Why wouldn’t you? It’s new to you.

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ABOUT JAMIE LEE

Jamie Lee is a standup comedian and actress whom Elle Magazine recently named as one of the top comedians to watch. Jamie starred as Ali Reissen, the female lead in the second season of the Judd Apatow-produced HBO series CRASHING, opposite Pete Holmes. She started as a writer for the series’ first season and returned as Ali and a producer of the show for the third and final season. Jamie just wrapped as a supervising producer on the upcoming TED LASSO series for Apple, executive produced by Bill Lawrence and Jason Sudeikis. In addition to being one of the core cast members of MTV’s hit show “Girl Code,” Lee has appeared on “Conan,” “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” “Last Call with Carson Daly,” “Chelsea Lately” and “@Midnight.” She was also the host of the TruTV series "10 Things" and the EW.com series "Polished." In December 2016, Lee released her debut book Weddiculous (Harper Collins), which quickly rose to #1 on Bustle.com’s list of best wedding books. She has also setup a half-hour comedy at ABC Signature with James Griffiths attached to direct and executive produce.

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ABOUT CHELSEA STARBUCK SMITH

Acclaimed as a violinist of “compelling presence, fearless attack, and technical aplomb and bravado” (New London’s The Day), Chelsea Starbuck Smith is a young artist known for her infectious enthusiasm for the violin. She has performed as solo and chamber artist in venues across the United States and abroad, including Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, David Geffen Hall, Elbphilharmonie, Musikverein Wien, Citi Field, Carnegie Hall, Palais de Fontainebleau in France, and Centre National des Arts in Ottawa.

As a chamber, theater, and orchestral musician, Chelsea is at home with both classical and crossover styles. Recent collaborators include Diana Ross, Baz Luhrmann for the Met Gala, Chris Thile of the Punch Brothers, The Eagles, Kelly Clarkson, Debbie Harry & Blondie, and The Knights Chamber Orchestra. Chelsea has performed in over ten Broadway and off-Broadway shows, is a regular section-member of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular orchestra, and has served as concertmaster for Broadway’s A Christmas Carol and Rocktopia. She is currently performing in Broadway’s &Juliet. For more theatre credits, click here. As one-half of the crossover violin duo, Les Deux, she has been hailed as “unarguably gifted with a keen ear for arranging” by the New York Examiner. In 2015 the duo dazzled Citi Field with Chelsea’s original arrangement of the Star-Spangled Banner at a New York Mets home game.

Chelsea has made solo appearances with the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra in Charleston, SC, and the Southern Finger Lakes Orchestra in Corning, NY. Her solo debut with the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was called a “show-stopper,” and she was described by music critic Milton Moore as “dominating the stage and electrifying her audience with her high-powered and knowing performance.”

Beyond the concert stage, Chelsea can be seen in such television series as Glee and, perhaps most recognizably, as the featured violinist in the long-running NYU Langone national television commercial set in New York’s Grand Central Station. Other appearances include American Public Media’s Live from Here, The Today Show, WMNR Fine Arts Radio and Connecticut Public Radio, and The String Fingers Band’s debut bluegrass album Don’t Forget.

Chelsea completed her studies at The Juilliard School in 2016, receiving a Master of Music degree under the tutelage of David Chan and Laurie Smukler, and graduating with the Norman Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant for “talent, promise, creativity, and potential to make a significant impact in the performing arts.” She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Juilliard where she studied with Sally Thomas. Other teachers and mentors include Ann Setzer, Glenn Dicterow, Laura Wright, Jorja Fleezanis, James Gaffigan, Pinchas Zukerman, and Patinka Kopec. A third-generation teacher, Chelsea is on faculty at Temple Emanu-El’s Nursery School and has taught in the NYC Public Schools as a teaching artist with the New York Philharmonic. You can listen to Chelsea’s newly released EP with Adam Rothenberg performing the Corigliano Sonata, and her debut album, Les Deux, featuring original arrangements, available on iTunes and Spotify. Chelsea performs on a 2004 Kurt Widenhouse violin.

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ABOUT KATE DREYFUSS

Hailed by Musical America for her “deliciously meaty” tone, violinist KATE DREYFUSS is an adventurous musician known for her “uncompromising commitment” and “fearless approach” (Cacophony Magazine) to performance. A staunch advocate for the music of our time, Dreyfuss co-founded the violin-clarinet-percussion trio F-PLUS, is a core member of Contemporaneous, and has been a guest violinist with ETHEL and Hub New Music. She has premiered over 70 new solo and chamber music works, and has collaborated closely with such composers as Matthew Barnson, Shih-Hui Chen, Andreia Pinto Correia, Donnacha Dennehy, Perry Goldstein, John Harbison, Takuma Itoh, Missy Mazzoli, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Dan Trueman, and Julia Wolfe. Dreyfuss has shared the stage with members of the Emerson String Quartet, Colin Carr, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and has held fellowships at the Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Bang on a Can Summer Festival. She has also appeared at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival with F-PLUS, where the trio was mentored by the Emerson String Quartet and Eighth Blackbird as part of the festival’s Shouse Institute for young, emerging chamber ensembles. In 2019, she performed all four of Julia Wolfe's string quartets with ETHEL at The Jewish Museum in New York City.Dreyfuss holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University, where she studied with Jennifer Frautschi and Arnaud Sussmann. She previously completed her Master of Music degree at Stony Brook, and earned her Bachelor of Arts in French literature, with honors, at Princeton University. Previous teachers include Elizabeth Chang and Louise Behrend at the Pre-College division of The Juilliard School, and Ryan Meehan of the Calidore String Quartet.

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ABOUT MITCH LYON

Cellist Mitchell Lyon approaches music making with a zeal for harnessing the unique power of musical experience. At home with audiences of all types, he has performed in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to intimate private homes. Mitch is a founding member of Empire Wild, a genre-bending crossover trio and Ambassador Prize Winner of the 2020 Concert Artist Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition. Last season the trio delighted audiences with their signature mix of original songwriting and unique arrangements at venues across the country including a stop at South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center and a concert on the Harriman-Jewell concert series in Kansas City. This fall will feature a Midwest tour through ten states along with educational workshops in Iowa and Ohio.

Passionate about community engagement and education, Mitch has been on the Teaching Artist Faculty of the New York Philharmonic since 2014, visiting schools across all five boroughs of NYC and scripting and performing interactive concerts for thousands of students. He frequently leads workshops for students of all ages and abilities, most recently at The Juilliard School Extension Division and the Preucil School Chamberfest (IA). An alumnus of Juilliard (B.M., M.M.), Mitch was the recipient of several fellowships and led a multidisciplinary team of performing artists—actors, dancers, and musicians—to New Orleans in 2012 and 2013 to help rebuild the city after Hurricane Katrina.

Mitch regularly spends summers as an artist faculty member at Omaha Conservatory of Music’s Soundwaves Festival and the Charles Ives Music Festival at WCYO. In past summers, Mitch has performed at the Caroga Lake Music Festival, the Fontainebleau School in France, Finchcocks Museum of Keyboard Instruments in Kent, UK, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and at the Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School in Santa Cruz, CA.

Mitch’s primary teachers have included Bonnie Hampton and Timothy Eddy along with masterclasses with Steven Isserlis, Mark Kosower and Andres Diaz. He also spent four summers at the Meadowmount School of Music working with Melissa Kraut and Hans Jensen, as well as time at the Castleman Quartet Program and Montecito Summer Music Festival. Away from the cello, he can be found cooking, reading something geeky or plotting his next hike.