FAMILY CONCERT: Harlem’s Little Blackbird

Melissa Wimbish

Soprano

In the world-première of Tom Cipullo’s Josephine with UrbanArias, The Washington Post wrote: “... the afternoon belonged to Melissa Wimbish, who was creating the role of Josephine Baker in this world-première ... Beautifully prepared, vocally stunning, and theatrically riveting, Wimbish effortlessly held the audience in her hand throughout this one-woman show.”

Melissa Wimbish is consistently recognized for her captivating stage work and technical prowess across genres. Her astonishing ability to move between classical, contemporary, and pop styles has resulted in an adventurous career. This season, she was the soprano soloist in Bach’s St. John Passion, Dett’s The Ordering of Moses, Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, and Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem. A gifted interpreter of living works, the coloratura soprano has accumulated dozens of contemporary opera and art song project credits including Stella-Rondo in Why I Live at the P.O., Jessica Meyer’s 20 Minutes of Action with Sandbox Percussion Ensemble, the History Teacher in the world-premiere of Paul’s Case with UrbanArias, and the US-premiere of Harriet: a chamber opera at the Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival.

Melissa made her Carnegie Hall solo recital debut after winning the Grand Prize in the NATS Artist Award National Competition as well as the Franco-American Prize for her command of French diction. Other career milestones include Bernstein’s MASS at The Kennedy Center, Mysteries of the Macabre with Baltimore Symphony, Nimue in Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Camelot, The Ordering of Moses with In Series, the first staged version of Elvis Costello and Brodsky Quartet’s The Juliet Letters, and her groundbreaking, self-directed pandemic recital for the INVISION series.

Melissa lives in Baltimore where she co-leads the pop duo, Outcalls. Their third studio album, Greatest Hits, Vol. 1, was released in February 2022. Learn more at melissawimbish.com and outcallsband.com.

Meredith Riley

Violin

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. 

Celia Hatton

Viola

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

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.