Concerto, reimagined: Chopin, Haydn, Clyne

Philip Kramp

Viola

Philip Kramp is a versatile performer and teacher whose playing has been heard worldwide. Praised by the New York Times for his “impressive” performances, he has participated in chamber music festivals at Marlboro, Ravinia, Yellow Barn, Sarasota and many others.

Based in Washington, DC, Phil is a former violist in the Kansas City Symphony and a former faculty member of the University of Kansas. Currently, Phil is on the faculty at the University of Maryland and he plays regularly with the National Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony and Pittsburgh Symphony. He has performed on tours worldwide with many orchestras and can be heard on recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Kansas City Symphony, Metropolis Ensemble and The Roots. Phil can also be heard on many motion picture soundtracks and television shows.

In chamber music settings, Phil plays regularly with the Chiarina Chamber Players, as well as in concerts with members of the National Symphony, Baltimore Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra. He is a past participant of the Marlboro Music Festival and has performed on several tours with Musicians from Marlboro. He is also a regular participant and the Twickenham Music Festival and the Music in the Mountains Festival in Durango, Colo. Phil has also enjoyed collaborating with the Mark Morris Dance Group, and has performed alongside many of the world’s greatest artists, such as Richard Goode, Peter Wiley, Michael Tree, Arnold Steinhardt, Marcy Rosen, Miriam Fried and many others.

In competitions, Phil has won prizes in the Irving Klein String Competition, Chicago Viola Society Competition, NEC Concerto Competition and has participated in the Stulberg Competition and the HAMS Viola Competition. Phil received his formal training at the Curtis Institute and the New England Conservatory. His primary mentors include Michael Tree, Roberto Diaz, Kim Kashkashian, Roger Tapping, Joe DePasquale, Peter Wiley and Steven Tenenbom.

Eugena Chang

Cello

Eugena Chang joined the cello section of the National Symphony Orchestra in 2016 under the Music Director of Christoph Eschenbach. She was previously in the Minnesota Orchestra from 2007-2016. She was only 20 years old when she started, being the youngest in the orchestra. She also acted Associate Principal in the Minnesota Orchestra from 2012-2013 and 2015-2016.

Chang was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 14. She studied with Orlando Cole, Peter Wiley, and William Stokking. While she was at Curtis she participated in numerous chamber music, orchestra and solo performances. She attended Itzhak Perlman's summer music program from 2002 to 2006, studying there with Ron Leonard and Paul Katz, and she has also studied with Eleonore Schoenfeld in California. Her last year at Curtis, she served as principal cello and also subbed in the Philadelphia Orchestra.

As the recipient of numerous awards, prizes, and scholarships, Chang has appeared across the nation as a recitalist and chamber musician, and several of her performances have been broadcast on radio and television. In 2009, she made her Paris recital debut at the Auditorium du Louvre.

Regino Madrid

Violin

Regino Madrid is an active soloist, concertmaster, and chamber musician throughout the Washington, D.C. area. Regino is the concertmaster of The American Pops Orchestra and The Tysons McLean Orchestra. He currently plays in the first violin section of the National Symphony under the baton of Maestro Gianandrea Noseda and has toured with the NSO to Moscow, St. Petersburg Russia, and Carnegie Hall. Mr. Madrid was the Assistant Concertmaster of “The President’s Own” Marine Chamber Orchestra and retired this past June after 20 years of service. He has appeared as guest concertmaster for the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, National Gallery Orchestra, National Philharmonic, New Orchestra of Washington, Chesapeake Orchestra at St. Mary’s River Concert Series, the Alexandria Symphony, and the Chamber Orchestra of San Antonio. He is a founding member of the critically acclaimed Teiber Trio and has played in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, and the Phillips Collection.

Sheng-Tsung Wang

Violin

Violinist Sheng-Tsung Wang gave his solo debut at the age of thirteen, performing with the Bremen Symphony Orchestra of Germany. Of the concert, Die Nord Deutsche marveled that Wang “performed the difficult passages with astonishing understanding, as well as interpreting the lyric qualities with sweetness, bravura, and inspired tone.” Dr. Wang presented his Carnegie Hall debut in 1999 with three evenings of solo and chamber performances under the auspices of the La Gesse Foundation. A more recent performance at Carnegie Hall with the Gemini Piano Trio received praise from New York City music critic Edith Eisler, who wrote that the performers, “with such a high level of unanimity and rapport...were concerned only with the music, and used their technical command and tonal variety entirely in its service.” Sheng-Tsung Wang earned his Doctoral of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) degree from the University of Maryland College Park. He received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory, where he was a student of Victor Danchenko. Previous teachers have included Elaine Mishkind, Eugene Drucker of the Emerson String Quartet, Mark Ulrich, and Ik-Hwan Bae. As a member of the prestigious “President’s Own” Marine Chamber Orchestra, SSgt. Wang performs regularly at the White House, as well as at highly distinguished venues in the Washington, D.C. area.

Carrie Bean Stute

Cello

A versatile and promising performer bringing “sonorous life” to the stage [Cleveland Plain Dealer], cellist Carrie Bean Stute’s musical endeavors cover the span of solo, chamber, and orchestral playing. Since 2014 she has held a position with “The President’s Own” Marine Chamber Orchestra in Washington, DC, where she performs in such diverse settings as the White House, State Department, area public schools, and the Phillips Collection. She is co-founder and co-artistic director of the Capitol Hill-based chamber music seriesthe Chiarina Chamber Players. Appearing on most of Chiarina’sconcerts alongside leading regional players, she also manages programming and outreach for a growing audience base.

Carrie was a fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida, and at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she was recipient of the Karl Zeise Memorial Cello Award. As a soloist noted for her “style and virtuosity” [ClevelandClassical], Carrie has performed with the Florida Orchestra and the Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra of Cleveland. She appeared at the Norfolk (CT) and Sarasota (FL) chamber music festivals, and at the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme in Aldeburgh, England. While living in New York, she performed in such notable venues as Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Roulette, and an in-house educational residency at the 92nd Street Y. She has collaborated with such artists as Jaime Laredo, Sarah Chang, Charles Neidich, and Rolf Schulte. Her work with small ensembles and orchestras can be heard on the Albany, Avie, BSO Classics, and GlorClassics recording labels.

As a performer who seeks out the work of today’s composers, Carrie was a member of the New York-based ensemble Hotel Elefant and participated in the 2013 Carnegie Hall workshop "New Voices, New Music," led by David Lang and the International Contemporary Ensemble. She has collaborated with DC’s Inscape Chamber Orchestra and with such diverse composers as John Adams, Oliver Knussen, Michael Gordon, Richard Carrick, SahbaAminikia, and Mary Kouyoumdjian. She took part in Tanglewood’sElliott Carter Centennial celebration and was soloist in a premiere reading of Fang Man’s Tao for Sheng, Cello, and Orchestra at the Aldeburgh Festival.

Carrie is currently an instructor at the DC Youth Orchestra Program and the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop’s Suzuki program. Sheserved as an adjunct instructor at CUNY Queens College, where she taught cello and chamber music. In 2016 she was a teaching artist and performer at the Alonso Marín National Music Festival in Caldas, Colombia. In 2014 and 2012 she served as a guest teaching artist for the National Youth Orchestra of Honduras, in an initiative sponsored by the U.S. Embassy. Carrie taught previously at the Harlem Opus 118 School in New York and at the Eastman Community Music School in Rochester. With the Atlas Piano Trio, she held a two-year residency at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. At the Bowdoin Music Festival, she was a teaching assistant to Professor Steven Doane. In her earlier collaborations with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, she took part in toursto Central America, South America, and Europe, interacting with local youth orchestras in projects designed to mentor young musicians. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of YOA’s expanding pilot program, the Global Leader Program, which offers fieldwork opportunities for teaching artists and a related curriculum.

Carrie holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Indiana University, where she was also a recipient of a faculty-awarded Performer’s Certificate (ESM), Arts Leadership Certificate (ESM), and Jacobs Scholar Award (IU). She was recipient of an Enhanced Chancellor’s Fellowship from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, where she is completing doctoral studies. Her teachers include Steven Doane, Janos Starker, Marcy Rosen, Sharon Robinson, and Scott Kluksdahl. She studied chamber music with members of the Tokyo, Artis, and Ying Quartets, and with the Kalichstein–Laredo–Robinson Trio. She has performed in master classes for such cellists as FransHelmerson, Paul Katz, and Timothy Eddy.

Sam Suggs

Double Bass

Through “brilliant and compelling programming” (The Strad), Sam Suggs gathers musical materials through composition, re-composition, and improvisation, melting barriers of genre and style with fresh interpretations and deft transitions between old and new worlds of sound, colored by the unique physicality and haunting resonance of the double bass and guiding audiences through unfamiliar territory with the soft palette of his voice.
Sam is the first solo bassist in 36 years to join the Concert Artists Guild roster, and was recently recognized with an award for Extraordinary Creativity at the 2017 Bradetich Foundation International Double Bass Competition.
A paradigm-shifting bassist-composer, Sam was named ‘New Artist of the Month’ (October 2015) by Musical America after winning 1st place at the 2015 International Society of Bassists Solo Competition while performing many original works.
As a collaborative bassist, he has performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival, Yellow Barn, Chamber Music Northwest, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and with the Argus Quartet, PUBLIQuartet, Founders, Frisson Ensemble (composer-in-residence), and his contemporary jazz trio Triplepoint.
A native of Buffalo, NY and doctoral candidate at the Yale School of Music, Sam spends his time between the Northeast and the Shenandoah Valley performing with various chamber, crossover, and contemporary groups, giving recitals and masterclasses, and teaching full-time as Assistant Professor of Bass at James Madison University, as well as at the Heifetz Institute, Peabody Bass Works, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, and the Juilliard Summer Strings Program in Shanghai.

Efi Hackmey

Piano

Pianist Efi Hackmey is Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Chiarina Chamber Players, together with cellist Carrie Bean Stute. Mr. Hackmey is an active soloist and chamber musician in NYC and in the DC area. In 2013 he released an album on the Naxos label, which includes several world premiere recordings (Polish Violin Music with violinist Kinga Augustyn). Efi has performed at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Rose Studio, Kennedy Center, Bargemusic, Arion Chamber Music, and the Friends of Mozart series in NYC. He performed many additional concerts in Alabama, California, DC, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming. In his native Israel he performed as soloist with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, as well as at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Jerusalem Music Center, and in special concerts presented by the Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society. He has performed on Israeli TV Channel 2, and his recordings have been broadcast on the Israeli National Public Radio,and in the US on WTSU, WRWA and WTJB. A review of one of his New York performances quotes “excellent Israeli musician... under his fingers the piano sounded noble, and each phrase was full of character”, and further praises his “highly personal, thought through interpretation.” (Roman Markowicz, “Nowy Dziennik”).

Mr. Hackmey has served on the piano faculty at DePauw University, and he also taught at the Indiana University system, Montgomery College in Rockville, MD, and Levine School of Music in Washington, DC. He holds a Doctor of Music degree in piano performance from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and degrees in piano and conducting from Tel Aviv University. He studied with Menahem Pressler, Pnina Salzman and Dina Turgeman, and has had additional coaching with Lazar Berman, Emanuel Ax, Richard Goode, Janos Starker, David Zinman, Richard Stoltzman and Jaime Laredo.