Pierrot

Laura Strickling

Soprano

Laura Strickling has been nominated by the Recording Academy ™ for a 2022 GRAMMY® award for Confessions – her debut solo recording of American art song. She has been recognized by The New York Times for her “flexible voice, crystalline diction, and warm presence.” Celebrated for her work performing and promoting art song, with an emphasis on new additions to the canon, she curated The New Music Shelf Anthology of contemporary art songs for soprano and recently announced the 40@40 Project – a personal initiative to commission 40 new art songs in the year 2021. Featured in the May 2021 issue of Classical Singer Magazine, she has appeared with the Chiarina Chamber Players twice previously, including their inaugural season. She has also performed with the Brooklyn Art Song Society, Cincinnati Song Initiative, Mexicoliederfest, Calliope’s Call, Liederfest in Suzhou (China), the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, Lyric Fest, Joy in Singing, Trinity Concerts at One, the American Liszt Society, Baltimore Lieder Weekend, Concerts on the Slope, National Sawdust, Art Song at the Old Stone House, the Brooklyn New Music Collective, SongFusion, was a featured performer at the 2016 New Music Gathering, and presented a radio broadcast recital of American songs on “Live from WFMT” in Chicago with pianist Daniel Schlosberg. Laura and pianist Liza Stepanova were 2017 Artists in Residence at the Yellow Barn Music Festival, where they presented a program of Granados and modern songs in Spanish, including the world-premiere of Ciudades del Porvenir by Reinaldo Moya. She has presented guest artist recitals and lectures at the University of Georgia, Mercer University, College of William and Mary, Mercer University, University of Notre Dame, New World School of the Arts, Notre Dame University of Maryland, Pittsburg State University, McDaniel College, St. Mary’s College, and University of Richmond. She is on the New Music Advisory Board of the Brooklyn Art Song Society, and the Advisory Boards of Cincinnati Song Initiative and Calliope’s Call.

Equally acclaimed for her work on the concert stage, she has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, National Sawdust, Trinity Church on Wall Street, Washington National Cathedral, and the Opera America Center. Her, “powerful and expressive voice across a large range, her variety of timbre and character,” (Classical Scene), make her a welcome guest soloist for a range of oratorio and concert works, from Handel to Britten. These include Messiah with the Indianapolis Symphony and the Richmond Symphony, Gloria (Poulenc) with the Asheville Symphony, Mass in c minor (Mozart) with the Richmond Symphony, Cathedral Choral Society, and Berkshire Choral International, Stabat Mater (Dvorak) and Elijah (Mendelssohn) with Berkshire Choral International, Ein Deutsches Requiem (Brahms) with the Bel Canto Chorus of Milwaukee and Chorosynthesis, Luonnotar (Sibelius) and Les Illuminations (Britten) with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Barber) and Les Illuminations (Britten) with Mexicoliederfest, Ninth Symphony (Beethoven) and Carmina Burana (Orff) with Choralis, as well as Requiem (Mozart), Credo Mass (Mozart), Dixit Dominus (Handel), Gloria (Vivaldi), Lord Nelson Mass (Haydn), and Mass in C (Beethoven). Her performance of Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Exsultate jubilate with the Cathedral Choral Society was broadcast by WETA, and her performance of Poulenc’s Gloria with the Asheville Symphony was broadcast by Blue Ridge Public Radio.

On the opera stage, Ms. Strickling created the role of Fanni Radnòti in the world premiere of Tom Cipullo’s opera The Parting with Music of Remembrance in Seattle and San Francisco in 2019, and will create the role of Dr. Slade in the world premiere of Everything for Dawn with Experiments in Opera in 2021. An alumna of the Berkshire Opera Company resident artist program, her performance of the Dew Fairy in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel was praised by Opera News: "Laura Strickling offered the creamy, clear, younger-sister-of-Eva-Pogner instrument ideal for singing the role over full orchestration." She appeared as Pamina in the Metropolitan Opera Guild's touring outreach production of The Magic Flute. Ms. Strickling’s operatic roles also include Countess Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Cleopatra (Julius Caesar), Mimi (La boheme), Dinorah (Dinorah), Elvira (L’Italiana in Algeri), Josephine (H.M.S. Pinafore), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), and Micaëla (Carmen). She created the role of Muriel in the world premiere of Thomas Benjamin's The Alien Corn with the Peabody Opera Theater.

Ms. Strickling has received a 2022 GRAMMY® award nomination and widespread critical acclaim for her debut solo album, Confessions: “…a compellingly honest performer, whose rich, expressive soprano conveys vulnerability with a balance of shimmering tone and unaffected diction,” (Opera News Magazine), “This extraordinarily expressive and versatile singer…performs with an intelligent combination of restraint and letting go. Her voice is full and lustrous and then bright and nimble…” (Schmopera), "Strickling fulfills and FILLS this role, her voice as a siren-chameleon, changing shape and color and nature with total control as contexts switch and emotions bend ever so slightly from word to word,” (American Record Guide). She was also praised for the Naxos Opera Classics recording of The Parting by Tom Cipullo, “…deeply expressive, secure voice. Her exposed highs are managed wonderfully, with notable beauty,” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Her discography also includes Times Alone (James Matheson), The Vineyard Songs (Glen Roven), Edna St. Vincent Millay (Jake Heggie), and Of a Certain Age (Tom Cipullo).

A Chicago native, Ms. Strickling is an avid traveler, having lived in Morocco, where she studied classical Arabic at the Arabic Language Institute of Fez, and Kabul, Afghanistan, where her husband was the founding chair of the Department of Law at the American University of Afghanistan. She currently makes her home in St. Thomas, U. S. Virgin Islands. www.laurastrickling.com

Adria Sternstein Foster

Flute

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

Adria is the Principal Flutist of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra - the resident orchestra of the Opera House of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC. It is the only orchestra in the country dedicated solely to the performance of three musical genres: Opera, ballet and musical theater.In this role she performs for the Washington National Opera and has played for virtually all major national and international ballet companies, including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Royal Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet and many more.

As a member of the IBIS Chamber Music Society, Adriahas performed chamber music for flute, harp and strings throughout the Washington, DC metropolitan area. With IBIS she has been heard on WETA’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 new CD of works for flute and harp with Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra principal harpist Susan Robinson.

A native of New York City, Adria attended La Guardia High School of Music and the Arts and studied with 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 collaborateon Volume II 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.

David Jones

Clarinet

David Jones joined the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra as Principal Clarinet in 1998. He has also performed extensively with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as well being a member of the Contemporary Music Forum and a featured artist with the American Chamber Players, and the 20th Century Consort. Comfortable in many different musical situations, Mr. Jones has worked with Tony Bennett, Jose Carreras, Rosemary Clooney, Placido Domingo, Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma, The Manhattan Transfer, Jesse Norman, Luciano Pavarotti, David Sanborn, Rod Stewart and The Temptations as well as the national tours of Kiss Me Kate, Cinderella, Annie, Cabaret, A Chorus Line, The King and I, Showboat, West Side Story and The Wizard of Oz. He can also be heard on numerous radio and television commercials. Mr. Jones attended Northwestern University where he studied with Robert Marcellus, Clark Brody and Russell Dagon.

Ko Sugiyama

Violin

Violinist Ko Sugiyama is the Assistant Concertmaster of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, appointed by music director Philippe Auguin. In addition, he is a member of the Sun Valley Summer Symphony and the King St. Quartet (a National Symphony Orchestra Education Department In-School-Ensemble). Ko has performed at major US venues such as Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd St. Y's Kaufmann Concert Hall, the Kennedy Center, Phillips Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, and Severance Hall. He received his bachelor's degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music and his master's degree from the Juilliard School while studying under Paul Kantor and Masao Kawasaki, respectively. Ko spent four years as a fellow with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, FL. He is a faculty member at the NSO Summer Music Institute.

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.

Nimrod David Pfeffer

Conductor

Nimrod David Pfeffer is a conductor at The Metropolitan Opera, and Music Director of the Lyric Opera Company of Guatemala. 

His recent conducting engagements include The Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia, The Juilliard Opera, and the Israeli Opera. 

This season he will make his Metropolitan Opera conducting debut with Le Nozze di Figaro, sharing the performances with the Met’s Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Earlier this season he conducted the Israeli Opera’s opening production of Die Zauberflöte. 

In 2020/21 he was scheduled to make his original Met conducting debut, in Franco Zeffirelli's production of La Bohème; his Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducting debut with Pinchas Zukerman as soloist; and his Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra conducting debut with Peter Frankel as soloist. These performances were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In 2016 Mr. Pfeffer was named Music Director of the Lyric Opera Company of Guatemala, after conducting the company's inaugural production of Verdi's Rigoletto. In the following seasons he conducted in Guatemala new productions of L’Elisir d’Amore, La Bohème, and La Traviata.

Mr. Pfeffer is also a concert pianist, who performs regularly as soloist with orchestra, recitalist, chamber musician, and vocal accompanist. His piano career highlights include his debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill recital Hall in 2008; performances of the music of Chopin on the stage of The Metropolitan Opera in American Ballet Theatre's production of The Lady of the Camellias in 2010; a live solo recital broadcast from the Russian Kremlin in 2007; and his solo debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 2008, playing the World Premiere of Aharon Harlap's Second Piano Concerto, which resulted in a dedication to him of Mr. Harlap’s Symphonic Dances for Piano and Orchestra in 2015.

Mr. Pfeffer graduated from the Juilliard School’s Orchestral Conducting Program as a student of Alan Gilbert, and is a graduate of Mannes College of Music and The Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. He studied with Pnina Salzman, Gideon Hatzor, Vadim Monastyrski, Michael Wolpe, André Hajdu, Victor Rosenbaum, Byron Janis, David Hayes, Alan Gilbert, James Levine, and Richard Goode.

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.