FAMILY CONCERT: Harlem’s Little Blackbird

Meredith Riley

Meredith Riley enjoys a varied career as an orchestral player, chamber musician,  teacher, jazz violinist, and musical collaborator. She is currently contracted on a  one year section violin position with the National Symphony Orchestra in  Washington, DC. Previously, Meredith was Associate Principal second violin of  the Richmond Symphony Orchestra in Virginia. Prior to Richmond, she was a  member of the Erie Philharmonic and Canton Symphony, and appeared as guest  Concertmaster of Johnstown Symphony all while completing graduate studies  at Carnegie Mellon University under the direction of Andrés Cárdenes. Ms.Riley  received her BMus in Violin Performance at the University of Texas. 

Since 2016, Ms. Riley has been touring with Sphinx Virtuosi throughout the US,  each year performing in the country’s most renowned concert halls including  Carnegie Hall, Ordway Concert Hall, The Kimmel Center for Performing Arts,  The Kennedy Center, The New World Center and more. As a devoted chamber  musician, Riley has performed with the Smithsonian Chamber Players on the  Axelrod Stradivarius violins at the National Museum of American History in  Washington, DC. She has performed with Chamber Music Society of Central  Virginia and records and collaborates frequently with Spacebomb Records in  Richmond, VA. Meredith is currently on faculty as an adjunct professor of violin  at Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Ms. Riley’s accolades include recognition in the Young Texas Artist Awards,  Crescendo Music Awards, National Sphinx Competition, a Bank of America  Fellow for the National Alliance for Audition Support, a Sphinx MPower Grant  recipient, and selection as a Young Artist for the Starling Delay Symposium at the  Juilliard School. Solo appearances include those with the Cayuga Chamber  Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, New England String Orchestra, both  University of Texas Symphony ensembles, the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra,  Sunflower Festival Orchestra, and Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic. 

Melissa Wimbish

Coloratura soprano and bandleader Melissa Wimbish is a genre-defying vocalist known for her ability to move between opera, art song, oratorio, Renaissance polyphony, and pop music with alarming ease. She has premiered works for the stage written especially for her, most notably in the title role of JOSEPHINE presented by UrbanArias when “... the afternoon belonged to Melissa Wimbish ... Beautifully prepared, vocally stunning, and theatrically riveting, [she] effortlessly held the audience in her hand throughout this one-woman show.” (WASHINGTON POST)

Melissa made her Carnegie Hall debut as winner of the NATS Artist Award Grand Prize. Career highlights include the 50th anniversary of Bernstein’s MASS at The Kennedy Center, the world-premiere of PAUL'S CASE with UrbanArias and the later NYC-premiere at The Prototype Festival, Anna in Kurt Weill’s SEVEN DEADLY SINS at the National Gallery, Alice in the US-premiere of HARRIET by Hilda Paredes at Yellow Barn Music Festival, her Baltimore Symphony debut in MYSTERIES OF THE MACABRE, and the role of Nimue in the Helen Hayes Award-winning production of CAMELOT with Shakespeare Theatre DC.

This season, Melissa was the soprano soloist in Bach’s B MINOR MASS and ST. JOHN PASSION presented by Bach in Baltimore and the soprano soloist for the entire MESSIAH by Handel presented by the Baltimore Basilica. At Yellow Barn Music Festival, Melissa performed the one-woman opera LA VOIX HUMAINE as well as traditional spirituals and chamber works by Balch, Pesson, Sokolovic, Tulve, Debussy, and Widmann. She gave the world-premiere of Robert Manno’s PORTRAIT OF MILLAY for soprano and string orchestra at the 2024 Windham Chamber Music Festival.

Melissa is lead singer, clarinetist, and songwriter for the critically-acclaimed and award-winning pop duo, OUTCALLS. Since 2017, they have released three studio albums, several singles, and written an interdisciplinary stage show titled RELEASE THE GOWNS. Outcalls has toured throughout the US and Canada. Learn more at melissawimbish.com and outcallsband.com.

Efi Hackmey

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.

Celia Hatton

Based in New York City, violist Celia Hatton has performed throughout Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, South America, and the US. Her solos as Principal Viola of Experiential Orchestra can be heard on GRAMMY winning album “The Prison.” She is a member of A Far Cry and Co-Principal of Chamber Orchestra of New York. She has performed with The Knights, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and toured internationally as Principal Viola of Sphinx Virtuosi. Hatton is an Honorary Ambassador for the New York in Chuncheon Festival in South Korea. Her world premieres include string quartets by Colin Matthews, Derek Bermel, and Felix Jarrar. She has performed with Harlem String Quartet, Blair String Quartet, Manhattan Chamber Players, and North Country Chamber Players. She can be heard on the movie scores of Joker (2019), I Tonya, A Dog’s Purpose, Goldfinch, The Greatest Showman, and West Side Story (2021). Hatton earned degrees from New England Conservatory with Kim Kashkashian and Manhattan School of Music with Karen Dreyfus.

Carrie Bean Stute

Cellist Carrie Bean Stute is co-founder and co-artistic director of the Washington, DC-based Chiarina Chamber Players, a chamber music series and flexible ensemble that has won critical acclaim for its artistry and innovative programming. Carrie’s chamber music performances have been broadcast on Classical WETA’s Front Row Washington. In DC, she performs with the National Symphony Orchestra, has served as an adjunct professor of music at George Washington University, and is currently assistant principal cellist of “The President’s Own” Marine Chamber Orchestra, where she performs in such diverse settings as the White House, area public schools, and for events hosted by the United Nations and State Department.

A performer who seeks out the voices of today, she collaborates with a growing set of composers, including Reinaldo Moya, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Juhi Bansal, and Kennedy Center composer-in-residence Carlos Simon. Carrie authored a doctoral dissertation on the cello works of Pēteris Vasks and in 2021 performed as soloist in the North American premiere of his Cello Concerto No. 2. She took part in the Carnegie Hall workshop “New Voices, New Music” and has performed chamber music at such venues as the Phillips Collection, Zankel Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Roulette, and an in-house educational residency at the 92nd Street Y.

Carrie holds degrees from The Graduate Center at the City University of New York (Doctor of Musical Arts), Indiana University, and the Eastman School of Music. She was a fellow at the New World Symphony and Tanglewood Music Center. Forthcoming in 2024-25 are recordings of chamber music by Carlos Simon (with Domenic Salerni, Efi Hackmey, and Carl DuPont) and clarinet trios by Brahms and Beethoven (with Robert DiLutis and Rita Sloan).