BETWEEN WORLDS: Dvořák, Ravel, Simon, Ponce

Njioma Grevious

Violin

Described as “superb” by the Chicago Classical Review, violinist Njioma Chinyere Grevious is an emerging, passionate and versatile solo, chamber and orchestral musician and performer. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School and a winner of its John Erskine Prize for scholastic and artistic achievement. In 2023, Njioma won the Robert F. Smith First Prize and the Audience Choice awards in the Senior Division of the Sphinx Competition and joint prizes in the CAG/YCAT auditions.  As a soloist, she has appeared with the Chicago Philharmonic, Western Michigan Symphony and the Newark Symphony Orchestra.

A founding member of the Abeo Quartet, Njioma completed studies with Ryan Meehan and the Calidore String Quartet at the University of Delaware as a fellow in the Graduate String Quartet in Residence Program. In 2023, Abeo won Third Prize in the Bad Tolz International String Quartet Competition. In 2022, Abeo won First Prize and Audience Favorite Prize at the Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition and was invited to participate in the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition.  As undergraduates the quartet studied with the Juilliard String Quartet and has also been coached by members of the Alban Berg, Quatuor Ebene, Takács, Artemis, Brentano, Miró, Dover and Emerson quartets. 

Njioma is a frequent chamber music series player and has performed at festivals including Rockport Chamber Music, Music@Menlo, Norfolk Chamber Music, Perlman Chamber Music Workshop and more.

Njioma began her studies at 4 years old and was a scholarship recipient through Boston’s Project STEP string training program for black and Latino youth.  Since then she has performed in numerous volunteer concerts, and as a Juilliard Gluck Fellow performed regularly for the medically vulnerable, retirees and children. These days Njioma loves teaching composition and collaboration to NYC children from underrepresented communities through the Opportunity Music Project.

Karla Donehew Perez

Violin

A founding member of the Catalyst Quartet, Karla Donehew Perez maintains a busy performance schedule throughout the United States and around the world. Born in Puerto Rico, Donehew Perez began playing the violin at age three and made her solo debut with the Puerto Rico Symphony at 9 years old. At age 12, her family moved to California where she continued her studies with Anne Crowden, director and founder of The Crowden School. 

Donehew Perez completed her bachelors and masters degrees at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying performance with the heralded violin teachers Paul Kantor, David Cerone, and William Preucil. She has performed as featured soloist with the Berkeley Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, Sphinx Chamber Orchestra, and the New World Symphony among others. As a chamber musician, she has performed with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and collaborated with artists such as Joshua Bell, Zuill Bailey, Awadagin Pratt, Anthony McGill, Stewart Goodyear, Fredericka Von Stade, Garry Karr, and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Takács quartets. Donehew Perez has been guest concertmaster at the Tucson Symphony and spent two years as a fellow at the New World Symphony, where she was often concertmaster or principal second violin.

Donehew Perez performs on a violin made in 2013 by renowned German luthier Stefan Peter Greiner, supported in part by a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant, and a fine violin bow by Victor Fetique on generous loan from the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation.

Paul Laraia

Viola

1st Prize winner of the 13th Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, 1st Prize winner of the 14th National Sphinx Competition, and Gold Medalist with High Distinction at the 5th Manhattan International Music Competition, violist Paul Laraia has established an international career performing as soloist and chamber musician. Acclaimed by the Strad for his "eloquent” and "vibrant" playing, Paul has been soloist with major orchestras such as the Pittsburgh Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Filharmonica de Bogata, New Jersey Symphony, Nashville Symphony, New Haven Symphony, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Sphinx Virtuosi, and has been featured soloist at London's Wigmore Hall, the Shalin Lui Performance Center in Rockport MA, the 40th International Viola Congress, the Kennedy Center in DC, and in various venues across NYC, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Paul has given hundreds of performances globally in venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, the Kennedy Center in DC, Detroit's historic Symphony Hall, Seoul Arts Center, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, Auditorio Leon de Greiff in Colombia, and at New York's Lincoln Center. Additionally, he has been an invited artist at major festivals such as the Yellow Barn, Sarasota, Vail International, Festival Del Sole, incheon music hic et nunc!, Hong Kong Generation Next Arts, Macau International, Sitka, Banff, Grand Canyon, and Portland’s Chamber Music Northwest, where he is artist in residence for the 2022-2024 seasons. The 2022-2023 season also features Paul’s string quartet, Catalyst Quartet, as artists in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where they curated a series of inspired collaborations and performances throughout the year.

Paul has performed and collaborated with some of the greatest artists of our times such as Gil Shaham, Joshua Bell, Anthony Mcgill, Yo-Yo Ma, Jorg Widmann, Vadim Repin, Edgar Meyer, Donald Weilerstein, Khatia Buniatishvili, Kim Kashkashian, Anthony Marwood, Zlatomir Fung, Paul Huang, JP Jofre, and incredible artists of other genres such as Herman Cornejo, Cecile Mclorin Salvant, Aaron Diehl, Machine Dazzle, Caleb Teicher, and Calvin Royal. An avid new music proponent, Paul has worked directly with many of the leading voices in composition such as Jessie Montgomery (played together in Catalyst Quartet), David Ludwig Serkin, Gabriella Lena Frank, Richard Danielpour, Jimmy Lopez, Todd Machover, and maintains an especially close artistic partnership with Taiwanese composer Shiuan Chang, with whom he is crafting a new work as a requiem for peace in our troubled times. 

Paul comes from a Philadelphian viola lineage, beginning studies with Brynina Socolofsky (student of Leonard Mogill), and then continuing with Choon-jin Chang (Principal, Philadelphia Orchestra) and Che-hung Chen, through Temple University’s Center for Talented Youth and the Settlement Music School. In 2007, Paul entered the New England Conservatory of Music with full merit scholarship and began the most central stage of his training under Kim Kashkashian for 4 years, making musical friends and colleagues that continue to influence him to this day.  Other major musical influences from his time at NEC include Dimitri Murath, Roger Tapping, Donald Weilerstein, Paul Katz, and after NEC, Steven Dann at the Glenn Gould School.  

Paul believes that it is crucial to expose the highest level of classical music to all people, and actively engages in community performances, gives masterclasses, performs new music, and explores the boundaries of how classical music is traditionally presented. Paul has brought music to inner city schools, Native American Reservations, hospitals, nursing homes, and has presented concerts to areas and communities with limited access to live concert music. As of 2023 Paul has joined the faculty of the Boston Conservatory at the Berklee School of Music in order to pass on his belief in music’s power to heal and to connect people. Paul is also a recipient of the Sphinx Organization's 2019 MPower artist-grant for his innovative work in self produced/engineered recording projects. Paul’s musical work, as well as his musical writings have been featured in the NYtimes, Strad Magazine, on NPR, and WQXR multiple times. 

Paul performs on a beautiful Hiroshi Iizuka viola in the ‘viola d’amore’ style, a prized Belgian bow by Pierre Guillaume awarded by the Bishops Strings shop in London, and is a proud supporter of Pirastro’s Eva Pirazzi Strings.

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.

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.