Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival

2008 Musicians

Described by the Fort Worth Star Telegram as a pianist of "artistic instinct and natural charisma," Stephen Beus is recognized as one of the most promising pianists of his generation. In the space of four months, Mr. Beus won first prize in the 2006 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, first place in the Vendome Prize International Competition (Lisbon) and he was awarded the Max I. Allen Fellowship of the American Pianists Association (Indianapolis).

His 2007-2008 season includes appearances with the Indianapolis, Salt Lake, Walla Walla, Yakima (WA) and Muncie (IN) Symphonies and he will perform in Casablanca and Marrakech with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Morocco. Mr. Beus will also be appearing in solo performances in the Salle Gaveau, Salle Cortot (Paris), San Carlo (Naples), Merkin Hall, as well as in Miami, Nevada City (CA), Phoenix and St. George. In addition, Mr. Beus is scheduled to perform for the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth and with the Jupiter Players in New York City.

Among the competitions Mr. Beus has won are the Junior Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition (age 14) and the pre-college division of the Corpus Christi International Young Artists Competition (age 15). At age 17 he was the national high school winner of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) and won the collegiate level of the same competition four years later, for which he received a Steinway Model M. In 2004 Mr. Beus came in first at the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition and subsequently performed in Carnegie Hall. He has recorded on the Endeavor Classics Label and will release a CD on the Harmonia Mundi label in the Fall of 2007.

The fourth of eight children, Mr. Beus was born and raised in Othello, WA and started lessons at age five. Four years later he made his orchestral debut playing Mozart’s Concerto K. 488. Mr. Beus holds degrees from Whitman College and The Juilliard School where his teachers have included Leonard Richter and Robert McDonald. For more details, visit www.stephenbeus.com.

Back to Top

The Biava Quartet is recognized as one of today's most exciting young American quartets. Winner of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and top prizes at the Premio Borciani and London International Competitions, the Quartet has established an enthusiastic following in the United States and abroad, impressing audiences with its sensitive artistry and communicative power. The Quartet takes its name from Maestro Luis Biava, who has been a mentor and inspiration to the Quartet since its inception.

The Biava Quartet has performed to acclaim in major concert halls throughout North America, Europe and Asia, including Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, London's Wigmore Hall and the Baroque Art Hall in Seoul. Other highlights from recent seasons include appearances at the Mostly Mozart and Aspen Music Festivals, Chautauqua Institution, and Pacific Music Festival in Japan. Visit their website at www.biavaquartet.com for more information.

Cellist Jason Calloway has performed to acclaim throughout North America, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East as soloist and chamber musician. He has appeared at festivals including Lucerne, Spoleto USA, Darmstadt, Klangspuren (Austria), Acanthes (France), Perpignan, Valencia, Citta’ della Pieve (Italy), Jerash (Jordan), Casals (Puerto Rico), Sarasota, Blossom, Music Academy of the West, the New York String Seminar, and Encore. Mr. Calloway has collaborated in chamber music with members of the Curtis, Juilliard, Miami, and Amernet String Quartets and appears across the U.S. as a member of ‘In Freundschaft,' a duo with trombonist, Steve Parker, and with Animato!, a duo with pianist Christopher Weldon. He gave his Carnegie Hall recital debut under the auspices of Artists International and has also been heard in New York at Alice Tully Hall, Steinway Hall, the Museum of Modern Art, the Kosciuszko Foundation, the 92nd Street Y, and the Polish Consulate; in Los Angeles at Disney Hall, the Bing Theatre, the Skirball Center and Pepperdine University; in San Francisco at Hoover Auditorium; in Philadelphia at the Academy of Music and the Ethical Society; and live on WQXR (NYC), KMZT (Los Angeles), WFLN (Philadelphia), and on RAI television (Italy).

Bill Doerrfeld's youth was spent mastering the piano and composition. At age 13, he was invited to perform his original piano work in Japan and across the United States where at a young age he regularly competed in and won national music competitions including a coveted DB award from Downbeat magazine and the prestigious Jacksonville and All That Jazz Great American Jazz Piano Competition. Bill studied classical piano and composition at Interlochen Arts Academy, Eastman School of Music and Yale School of Music during which time he earned numerous national awards and commissions for his original compositions with performances by internationally acclaimed organizations such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

After taking a break to raise a family, in late 2007 Bill returned to music and after re-claiming mastery of the piano began composing scores of new work. In 2008 Bill recorded his first album, Awoken Heart, featuring all original solo piano compositions in the jazz and jazz/classical idioms. For additional information, please visit the Bill Doerrfeld Web site at www.BillDoerrfeld.com.

Finisterra Trio plays “Chamber music at the highest level,” says Richard Lester, cellist of the famed Florestan Trio. Forming in 2006 in their current membership, Kwan Bin Park, violin, Kevin Krentz, cello, and Tanya Stambuk, piano, use their combined talents to bring inspired performances to both the connoisseur and the uninitiated. The Seattle-based trio has emerged as an artistic force with a rapidly growing audience across the U.S. The group has been featured on national broadcasts by NPR and Seattle’s classical station, KING FM. Sean MacLean of WGBH Boston said, "Their Brahms (B Major) was perhaps the finest performance I have heard, live or recorded, of that work."

Their work as a group brought them much acknowledgment when, in the one year they were eligible to enter competition, they won in the the Zinetti International Chamber Music and the Greenlake National Chamber Music Competition where they also won the Audience Prize. In 2006, after meeting the famed Florestan Trio, the Finisterra Trio was invited to London for mentorship and their London debut.

Most recently, the Finisterra trio has been invited as Artists-in-Residence at The Seasons concert series in Yakima, Washington. The Trio is expanding its audience by highlighting a variety of musics “from the ends of the earth” while often incorporating various media, including story-telling, in a fresh and innovative fashion.

Comfortable in a variety of styles and genres, Finisterra was heard nationally in a live concert recording of a recent collaboration with the famed Bill Mays jazz trio in a ground-breaking format blurring the lines between classical and jazz.

Excited by the incredibly communicative new music being currently written by our best composers, Finisterra has developed a rich relationship with composer Daron Hagen, having commissioned Trio Nos. 3 and 4 as well as a forthcoming chamber opera that will be premiered this fall. Trio No. 4, The Angel Band, received its World Premiere live with Bill McGlaughlin of St. Paul Sunday in 2007. Currently, Finisterra is recording all four of Mr. Hagen’s piano trios for the Naxos label.

In 2008, Finisterra Trio, launched a new series of concert in Seattle, called Finisterra and Friends

Christopher Hahn has performed as a solo and collaborative artist throughout North America and Europe. As a guest of the American Embassy in Sarajevo, Dr. Hahn gave a concert tour of Bosnia-Herzgovenia with performances in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, and at the Luciano Pavarotti Center in Mostar. The recitals were highly anticipated and elicited enthusiastic responses: “a stellar performance...combining technical proficiency with a mature musicality.” [Vercernje Novosti, Sarajevo].

Christopher has been featured in recital at The Music Gallery in Toronto, the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival, the National Saxophone Conference at Northwestern University, the International Horn Competition of America, and the Society of Composers, Inc. National and Regional Conferences. He has been invited to present recitals and master classes at Interlochen Arts Academy, Stanford University, Ithaca College, North Carolina School of the Arts, Wilfrid Laurier University, Idaho State University, and the University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire. Christopher will make his New York debut in March 2008 at Carnegie-Weill Recital Hall.

He was honored to collaborate with the Metropolitan Opera’s Leona Mitchell in a performance for the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Christopher has also collaborated with such recognized artists as flutist Christina Jennings, trumpet/piano virtuoso Guy Few, pianist Lydia Brown, and Russian dissident poet, Evgeny Yevtushenko. An avid supporter of contemporary music, he was a winner of the NUMUS Chamber Music Competition for New Music in Canada. At the composer’s behest, Christopher recently collaborated with Libby Larsen in a recording of her duet, Gavel Patter.

As a member of the CanAm Piano Duo, Christopher performs frequently with his duo partner, Karen Beres throughout the US and in Canada. They perform a varied repertoire of new works and masterpieces of the twentieth century alongside more traditional works for the genre, and are actively involved in promoting and performing contemporary composers, including a recent commissioning project for two pianos and percussion from internationally renowned composer David Maslanka. Please visit www.canampianoduo.com for more information.

Christopher is an assistant professor of piano at the University of Montana where he teaches applied and group piano, pedagogy, accompanying, and is the artistic director of the UM Contemporary Chamber Players.

Having an enthusiasm for teaching and performance, violinist Austin Hartman of Columbia, Pennsylvania, enjoys an active career that has featured him in concerts and masterclasses around the world. As a founding member of the Biava Quartet, Mr. Hartman has most recently been awarded an Artist Diploma from Yale University School of Music where he served as a teaching assistant for the Tokyo Quartet. Hartman has also earned recognition as a solo violinist and recitalist. In 1999, Mr. Hartman was awarded first place, the Gold Medal Prize at the Julius and Esther Stulberg International String Competition in Michigan. As the winner of the Albert Greenfield and the Mann Music Center Concerto Competitions, Austin Hartman was featured as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra performing under the baton of Maestro Luis Biava (for whom the quartet is named). Mr. Hartman has also made solo appearances with the Kennett Symphony, the Landsdowne Symphony, the Temple University Orchestra, as well as the Lancaster Symphony and The Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra as winner of the annual concerto competition.

Violinist Hyunsu Ko began her violin studies at the age of four in South Korea, her native country. Before transferring to the Cleveland Institute of Music to study with Donald Weilerstein in 1999, Ms. Ko studied at the Seoul National University where she was a student of Min Kim, Dean of the College of Music and Director of the Korea Chamber Ensemble. While residing in Korea, Ms. Ko won numerous musical awards including: the grand prize at the Jeju-Korea Broadcasting System Music Competition, first prize at the Chosun Newspaper Music Competition, second prize at the Ewha Kyounghyang Music Competition, and the gold medal prize at the Hankook Newspaper Music Competition. She also won the grand prize at the Ahn Ik-Tae Music Competition (named in honor of the composer of the Korean National Anthem), resulting in her debut performance with the Seoul City Philharmonic Orchestra at the Sejong Music Hall. In January 2006, Ms. Ko performed at the Seoul Arts Center as a soloist with the Korean Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Ko participated in the Bartok Symphonic Series and performed the Bartok Violin Concerto No. 2.

Artistic Director, Kevin Krentz, cello, is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. Although he began his musical life as a cellist at 12 in the public school program, he soon dropped the cello to sing for the rest of his youth. He only decided to devote his energies to the cello at the age of 20, largely through a pre-med undergraduate, after finally succumbing to the cello’s charms.

Mr. Krentz studied with Gary Hardie at Baylor University where he was three quarters of the way through a pre-med program and made quick progress. He then went to study with Florian Kitt of the Hochschule in Vienna, earned a Master degree and was assistant to Owen Carman, at Michigan State University and The Meadowmount School for Strings, and was assistant to Toby Saks at the University of Washington. From his late start, Kevin has gone on to perform throughout the U.S. as well as Austria, Italy, Canada and Great Britain as recitalist and soloist.

In 2000 Kevin was a winner at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, with his clarinet, piano, and cello trio, In Flight 3. With Finisterra, Kevin was a winner in the 2005 Greenlake National Chamber Music Competition where they also won the Audience Prize. In 2004 Finisterra won the Silver Medal at the Zinetti International Chamber Music Competition in Verona, Italy. In addition to his chamber music credits Kevin has also won several concerto competitions and the Ladies Musical Club of Seattle Award/Tour Competition. He has been featured on NPR as well as KING FM's Live! By George program and has performed throughout the U.S. to critical acclaim.

Kevin is very active as a recording studio session player in Seattle where he can be heard on many major films, as well as commercials, video games, and CD’s from Dave Matthews Band to Evanescence. Kevin can also be heard as the solo cellist on the recent movie, Bordertown, starring Antonio Banderas, Jennifer Lopez, and Martin Sheen. Sought after for his ability to improvise his own parts, Kevin can be heard on many different projects with independent artists both classical and popular.

Violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim enjoys a dynamic musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral performer, recording artist, and teacher. Widely known for his work as co-founder of the renowned Corigliano Quartet, he is in demand as a chamber musician and as a performer of new and experimental music. He is a member of Open End, a new music and improvisatory group, and makes frequent appearances as a solo performer of electro-acoustic music. Lim also holds a first violin position in the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra in New York City.

Lim’s solo engagements have included appearances with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the International Chamber Orchestra of Girona, Spain, the Indiana University Philharmonic, the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra as well as a performance in Weill Recital Hall for a tribute concert for celebrated American composer John Corigliano.
As a member of the Corigliano Quartet, Lim has enjoyed critical acclaim across the U.S. and abroad and has won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and the ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming. The Corigliano Quartet has performed in the nation’s leading music centers, including Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, and the Kennedy Center.

Lim was born in Lafayette, Indiana and began playing the violin at the age of four, studying with his mother, Sun Boo Lim. He went on to study with Vartan Manoogian before beginning his formal training at Indiana University, where for many years he was a pupil of the legendary violinist and teacher Josef Gingold. Lim received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Indiana University, where he won First Prize in the school’s Violin Concerto Competition. He also held a faculty position at Indiana as a Visiting Lecturer. Later, he taught chamber music at the Juilliard School as an assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet.

Lim has recorded for DreamWorks, Albany Records, CRI, Bayer Records, and Aguava New Music, and appears on numerous television and film soundtracks. He has performed live on WFMT-Chicago’s Live From Studio One and has been heard on NPR programs such as Performance Today and All Things Considered. Most recently he was featured with the Corigliano Quartet as Naxos Artist of the Week and has made radio and television appearances in the U.S., Spain, Costa Rica, and Korea

Violinist Yuri Namkung was born in Seattle, Washington. Her concert debut came at the age of nine with the Northwest Chamber Orchestra. In 1995, she was invited by Gerard Schwarz to perform with the Seattle Symphony and was immediately re-engaged for a second performance in 1996. Since then, she has been performing throughout the United States and in September of 2002, made her European debut with the Zürich-Tonhalle Orchestra in Switzerland under the direction and invitation of David Zinman.

In May of 2004 she joined violinist Cho-Liang Lin in a performance of the Bach Double Concerto with the Seattle Symphony and again in May of 2005 with the Orchestra of St.Luke’s at Alice Tully Hall under conductor Li Jian. This concert was presented by the Musicians Emergency Fund, of which Miss Namkung was awarded the MEF Junior Award. In September of 2007, she appeared in concert as an MEF award recipient with Li Jian and Kyoko Takezawa at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.

Festival appearances include La Jolla Chamber Music Society’s SummerFest (CA), Music@Menlo (CA), Ravinia Festival-Steans Institute (IL), Verbier (Switzerland), Mozarteum Academy (Salzburg), Music Mountain (VT), Perlman Music Program NY), Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, and the Virginia Arts Festival. Summer 2008 marks visits to Hong Kong as a member of the Matrix Music Collaborators in New York and to Venezuela as a representative of the New England Conservatory where she will work with members of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra under the direction of incoming LA Philharmonic Music Director, Gustavo Dudamel. A member of the Moët Trio, the trio is in professional residency at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

Recent and upcoming performances include the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Boston’s Jordan Hall, Old South Meeting House, and recitals throughout Boston and Philadelphia. The San Francisco ClassicalVoice had this to say of them: “Separately and together, these are musicians you will want to hear repeatedly in coming years.”

She received her B.A. at Columbia University in May of 2005. Being a participant of Columbia's Joint Program with the Juilliard School, she completed her graduate studies at Juilliard with Cho-Liang Lin and Donald Weilerstein in 2006. She currently studies with Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried in the Graduate Diploma Program at the New England Conservatory.

Kwan Bin Park, violin, was born in South Korea and by age eleven attended the Juilliard pre-college program. Since then, his teachers have included Gabriel Banat, Denes Zsigmondy, Joseph Fuchs, Stephen Clapp, Ron Patterson and Ruggiero Ricci. He received a Bachelor and Master of Music Degrees from the Juilliard School. He has performed as soloist with the Princeton Youth Orchestra and the Philadelphia College Symphony. A recipient of the William Randolph Hearst Award and the Dorothy Delay Violin Awards he has attended the Meadowmount Institute, the Kneisal Hall Chamber Music School, and has performed in the Torre Mountgri Chamber Music Festival, the Mostly Nordic Chamber Music Series and the Seattle Chamber Music Festival. He was a founding member of the Corelliard Chamber Orchestra and has performed as soloist and chamber musician throughout Spain, Germany, Canada, South Korea and the United States.

Mary Persin, founding member and violist of the Biava Quartet, has distinguished herself with performances throughout the United States and abroad. A native of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Ms. Persin is a recent Artist Diploma recipient and graduate of Yale University where she also served as a teaching assistant to the Tokyo Quartet. Ms. Persin has received 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 was the winner of the Duquesne University, Westmoreland Symphony and Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Concerto Competitions, as well as the PADESTA Solo Competition and Duquesne Young Artist Competition. Ms. Persin made her solo debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in Heinz Hall in 1997. In addition, she has also made solo appearances with the Pittsburgh and Westmoreland Youth Symphonies and was most recently invited to solo with the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, performing the Mozart "Sinfonia Concertante" in collaboration with Austin Hartman.

On the occasion of her debut at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Tanya Stambuk, pianist, was hailed as "a player with a powerful technique, ideas of her own, and considerable promise" by the New York Times. Since then, her concert career has taken her across the United States and throughout Western and Eastern Europe. She has performed with the Orchestre de Toulouse in France, the Virginia Symphony, Chicago Civic Orchestra in Orchestra Hall, the Bergen Philharmonic, the Lake Charles Symphony and Rapides Symphony Orchestra in Louisiana, Oregon's Rogue Valley Symphony, Washington’s Olympia Symphony, and the Seattle Symphony. Tanya Stambuk has performed at the 92nd Street Y and Merkin Hall in New York City, the Music Academy in Philadelphia, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, the Piano Series at the San Diego Art Museum, and at Brigham Young University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Hawaii. She has recorded the piano works of Norman Dello Joio on the Centaur label. She is currently on the piano faculty at the University of Puget Sound.

Paul Taub is Professor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts where he has been faculty since 1979. Paul was trained at Rutgers University and the California Institute of the Arts; his teachers include Marcel Moyse, Samuel Baron, Michel Debost and Robert Aitken.
A founding member of Seattle Chamber Players, Paul has had a strong musical presence in the Seattle chamber music scene as a member of the New Performance Group, Sonora and Taneko. He has recently formed duo partnerships with Seattle guitarist Michael Partington and pianists Jovino Santos Neto and Byron Schenkman. He is an active soloist and recitalist, with extensive work in American, Soviet/Russian, and international contemporary repertoire. He has appeared in venues throughout the US Northwest and Southeast, Western Canada, Southern France, and Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania. He has given world and US premieres of music by Henry Brant, John Cage, George Crumb, Janice Giteck, Sofia Gubaidulina, Toru Takemitsu, Peteris Vasks and many others. Paul's program of twelve pieces commissioned for his twentieth anniversary in Seattle (1999) was performed in Seattle in Benaroya Hall's first flute recital and reprised in Atlanta and New York. Oo-ee, the CD of this repertoire, is available on the Periplum label. He is the Chairman of the New Music Advisory Committee of the National Flute Association and a member of the Program Committee for Chamber Music America.

Described as “staggeringly virtuosic” by The Strad, violist Melia Watras has been hailed by audiences and critics alike for her electrifying and vibrant performances. She has long been at the forefront of the American new music scene, performing numerous commissions and world premieres as a soloist and co-founder of the award winning Corigliano Quartet (www.coriglianoquartet.com). She enjoys a multi-faceted career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, and recording artist.

Watras has performed in many of the nation’s leading venues including Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Kennedy Center and has appeared as a soloist with renowned violist Atar Arad in performances of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. A versatile performer, Watras made her dance debut at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York City, where she played viola and danced in the premiere of Kathryn Sullivan's At Home.

With the Corigliano Quartet, Watras has concertized extensively throughout the United States and abroad, performing to much critical acclaim. Described as “Musicians who seem to say ‘Listen to this!’” by the New York Times, the quartet was also praised by The Strad for their “abundant commitment and mastery.” The group has won awards such as the Grand Prize at the Fischoff Competition and the ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming, and has appeared at the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop at Carnegie Hall and festivals including Aspen and Ravinia.

Ms. Watras’s debut solo CD, Viola Solo, was released by Fleur De Son (www.fleurdeson.com) and earned high praise from the media. Strings remarked, “Watras is a young player in possession of stunning virtuosic talent and deserving of the growing acclaim.” The Strad called her “excellent” and “authoritative,” while the American Record Guide proclaimed, "Watras is a terrific violist." For the CD, Watras adapted John Corigliano’s Fancy on a Bach Air for viola. Her edition of this work is published by G. Schirmer, Inc. With the Corigliano Quartet, she has recorded for Naxos, Albany, Bayer, CRI, Riax, and Aguava and has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and Performance Today and WFMT-Chicago’s Live from Studio One.

In 2004, Watras was appointed Assistant Professor of Viola at the University of Washington, where she teaches viola and chamber music. Watras currently resides in Seattle with her husband, Corigliano Quartet violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim. She plays a viola made by Samuel Zygmuntowicz.