Fairy Tales

Adria Sternstein Foster

Praised by the Washington Post for her “molten phrasing” and tone of “sheer iridescence,” Adria Sternstein Foster enjoys a multi-faceted musical career.

Adria is the Principal Flutist of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra (KCOHO), the resident orchestra of the Opera House of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In this role she performs for the Washington National Opera, Kennedy Center ballet programming and musical theater productions.

For many years Adria performed chamber music for flute, harp and strings throughout the Washington, DC metropolitan area with the IBIS Chamber Music Society. She has been heard on NPR’s Front Row Washington and appears in the 2017 documentary film Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty.

Recordings include Vivaldi’s flute concerto “Il Gardellino” on the disc IBIS x 2, and Iridescence, a CD of works for flute and harp with KCOHO principal harpist Susan Robinson. In 2022 Adria toured South Africa along with a quintet of orchestra colleagues giving masterclasses and performing music for flute, harp, and strings sponsored by the Classical Movements organization.

A native of New York City, Adria attended LaGuardia High School of Music and the Arts and was a student of Bonnie Lichter at Juilliard’s Pre-College Division. She continued her education at Juilliard where she received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees as a student of Julius Baker and Jeanne Baxtresser.

Adria is honored to have collaborated on Volume 2 of the indispensable publication for flutists, “Orchestral Excerpts for Flute with Piano Accompaniment,” with her mentor Jeanne Baxtresser, former Principal Flutist of the New York Philharmonic.

For more information please visit www.adriasfoster.com

Daniel Foster

Violist Daniel Foster’s varied career encompasses orchestral, chamber and solo playing, as well as teaching. After capturing the First Prize in both the William Primrose and Washington International Competitions, Mr. Foster became a member of the National Symphony’s viola section in 1993, and was appointed Principal by Music Director Leonard Slatkin in 1995. Mr. Foster has appeared frequently as soloist with the National Symphony since his appointment.

Mr. Foster is a member of the critically acclaimed Dryden Quartet, along with his cousins Nicolas and Yumi Kendall and National Symphony Concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef, and is also a founding member of the Kennedy Center Chamber Players.

Mr. Foster is on the faculty at the University of Maryland and has given master classes at Oberlin and Peabody Conservatories, the University of Michigan and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has been a faculty member for the National Orchestral Institute, and is a member of the “International Principals” faculty at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan.

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.

Susan Robinson

Susan Robinson has been the principal harpist of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra since 1995. She was previously the principal harpist of the Boston ‘POPS’ Esplanade Orchestra, with whom she toured the Far East and the US, and she performed frequently with the Boston Symphony. Susan was also acting principal harpist of Tampa’s Florida Orchestra and the Sarasota Opera Festival.

Avid performers of chamber music, Susan and her husband, violinist Joseph Scheer, founded IBIS Chamber Music, which for over a decade presented engaging, free concerts in the metro DC area. IBIS was praised as "splendid" and "compelling" by the Washington Post. Susan also enjoys concertizing with colleague Adria Foster, principal flute of the KCOHO, with whom she recorded their first CD, “Iridescence.” Susan is featured on the IBIS CD’s "Souvenir: Music for Violin and Harp" and "IBIS x 2” performing harp concerti by Handel and Debussy.

Among Susan’s solo engagements are performances of Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall with the Opera House Orchestra under Heinz Fricke, and with the Virginia Chamber Orchestra and Emil de Cou. She was re-engaged to perform the Debussy Danses with the Virginia Chamber Orchestra the following season. Susan has also soloed with the Newton (MA) Symphony, the Indian Hill Symphony, the New Hampshire Philharmonic, the Rhode Island Chamber Orchestra, and the Dedham (MA) Choral Society.

Susan is a graduate of Harvard University with a cum laude degree in Art History and French Literature. She also holds an Artist Diploma in Harp Performance from the Boston University School for the Arts, where she was a student of Lucile Lawrence. She and Joseph are the parents of Lillie and Nathanael.