Grammy-nominated violist Melissa Reardon is an internationally renowned performer whose solo and chamber playing spans all musical genres. In addition to serving as PCMF's Artistic Director, Melissa is a member of the Borromeo String Quartet, Artist in Residence at Bard College and Conservatory, and a founding member and former Executive Director of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO). As a member of the Ensō String Quartet from 2006 until its final season in 2018, Melissa toured both nationally and internationally, with highlight performances in Sydney, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center to name a few. Melissa is married to the cellist Raman Ramakrishnan and they live in New York with their son Linus.

Efe Baltacigil joined the Seattle Symphony in 2011–2012 season as Principal Cello and was given 1680 Cremonese Francesco Rugieri cello by his Turkish Sponsor in 2010. Mr. Baltacıgil won the 2005 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. He was also awarded The Peter Jay Sharp Prize, which presented his New York debut in December 2005, and the Washington Performing Arts Society Prize, which presented his Washington, DC, debut in April 2006. He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and is a member of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two. Mr. Baltacıgil was born in Istanbul, Turkey. He started studying the violin at the age of five and changed to the cello at the age of seven. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Mimar Sinan University Conservatory in Istanbul in 1998 and an Artist Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 2002, where he studied with Peter Wiley and David Soyer. He was the recipient of The Curtis Institute’s Jacqueline DuPré Scholarship. His hobbies include windsurfing, sailing, drawing and volleypong.

Maurycy Banaszek was born in Warsaw, Poland. He has performed at the Marlboro, Seattle, Santa Fe, Aldeburgh, Moritzburg, Mozart, Kingston, Martha's Vineyard, Warsaw Autumn festivals. He regularly tours with the Musicians from Marlboro and appears at the Barge Music in New York. As a founding member of The Elsner String Quartet he has played in such prestigious venues as the Carnegie Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, among others. In August 1998 he was invited by the members of the legendary Amadeus String Quartet to perform at the Amadeus Quartet 50th Anniversary Gala Concert in London.  He was recently invited to be the soloist with the New Jersey Lyric Orchestra at their Carnegie Hall debut performance and with the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra in Jordan Hall, Boston. He was also chosen by Gidon Kremer to participate in Chamber Music Connects the World Festival in Kronberg, Germany where he performed with the Guarneri String Quartet. He holds a position of Principal Viola at the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra. He is also a founding member of ECCO - the conductor-less chamber orchestra. He is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music in New York where he studied with Michael Tree. He plays a viola made by Hiroshi Iizuka in Philadelphia in 1997.

Returning to PCMF this year is saxophonist Steven Banks, who strives to bring his instrument to the heart of the classical music world, and is an active and intentional supporter of diverse voices in the future of concert music. In 2022, he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and was a chosen artist for WQXR’s Artist Propulsion Lab. He was the first saxophonist to be awarded First Prize at the Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions. Banks serves as Saxophone and Chamber Music Faculty and Artist-in-Residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Ran Dank is an ardent advocate for contemporary music, and has performed in recent seasons Kevin Puts’ piano concerto “Night,” the Tobias Picker concerto, “Keys to the City,” Frederic Rzewski’s “The People United Will Never Be Defeated,” William Bolcom’s Pulitzer winning set of “Twelve New Etudes,” and has given, alongside pianist and wife, Soyeon Kate Lee, the world premieres of Frederic Rzewski’s “Four Hands,” and Alexander Goehr’s “Seven Impromptus.” The recipient of numerous honors, Ran Dank won a coveted place on the Young Concert Artists roster in 2009 and subsequently made his New York recital debut. He was a laureate of the Cleveland International Competition, the Naumburg Piano Competition, the Sydney International Piano Competition, and the Hilton Head International Piano Competition.

Mr. Dank serves as an Associate Professor of Piano at the Eastman School of Music. His mentors and teachers include Emanuel Ax, Richard Goode, Joseph Kalichstein, Julian Martin, Robert McDonald, and Ursula Oppens.

The critically acclaimed East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO) is a collective of dynamic like-minded artists who convene for select periods each year to explore musical works and perform concerts of the highest artistic quality. Drawing from some of the world's finest orchestras, chamber groups, and young soloists, ECCO strives for vitality and musical integrity; a self-governing organization, each member is equal and has a voice in every step of the artistic process, from programming to performance. ECCO believes that the best musical experience can speak to all audiences regardless of age or socioeconomic background and performs accordingly across a wide range of venues.

Nathan Farrington is a bassist, singer, and composer living in Los Angeles. He regularly appears in the bass sections of many of America's top orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and the Seattle Symphony. In 2016, Nathan was named the Principal Bass of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra under James Conlon. He has appeared at the Marlboro Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Olympic Music Festival, ChemberFest Cleveland, and at the Da Camera Society. Wherever he is performing, Nathan makes sure to take along his trusty guitar and pairs singing and playing operatic arias and folk songs alongside his bass playing.

Philadelphia violinist and violist Min-Young Kim is a founding member and first violinist of the Daedalus Quartet with whom she has been presented by many of the world’s leading musical venues including Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, the Musikverein in Vienna, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Min is also the concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and is a frequent guest with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She has been featured as a soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Apollo’s Fire, the Boston Pops in Symphony Hall and with the Bard Festival Orchestra. She performs on historical violin and viola with Apollo’s Fire and Tempesta di Mare and enjoys working closely with composers, commissioning and premiering new works. In her quest to play many strings, Min also plays a five string violoncello da spalla, a six string electric violin and the guitar. A graduate of Harvard and Juilliard, she currently teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.

Henry Kramer began playing piano at the relatively late age of 11 in his hometown of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. In 2016, he garnered international recognition with a Second Prize win in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, and was awarded a 2019 Avery Fisher Career Grant—one of the most coveted honors bestowed on young American soloists. A sought-after collaborator, he has appeared at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Mainly Mozart Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest, in addition to regular appearances at PCMF. Part of a pedagogical lineage extending back to Beethoven, Chopin and Buson, Kramer serves on the music faculty of Université de Montréal.

Violinist SooBeen Lee has been praised by The Washington Post for “her poised presence, sumptuous sound, flawless intonation, and a bow arm that will undoubtedly be the envy of her peers.” She has already appeared as a soloist with all the major Korean orchestras, including the Seoul and Busan Philharmonics and the KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) Symphony Orchestra. Other notable distinctions include performances for former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, at the Blue House for the King and Queen of Malaysia, with the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra of China at the Seoul Arts Center, as well as for numerous state guests in Korea.

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SooBeen has appeared as concerto soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Rockford Symphony, the Plymouth Philharmonic, the Longwood Symphony (Boston), the Palm Beach Symphony, and the Aiken Symphony. She has given recitals at the Duszniki Chopin Festival (Poland), the Usedom Music Festival (Germany), the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, for the Buffalo Chamber Music Society, at the Morgan Library & Museum, Merkin Hall (Kaufman Music Center), Rockefeller University, and the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C.

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SooBeen began studying the violin at the age of four. At the 2022 Indianapolis Competition, she received a prize as well as the special award for “Best Performance of a Work by Paganini, Ernst or Milstein” for her interpretation of Milstein’s Paganiniana Variations. Following this success, she won the Bronze Medal at the Montreal International Musical Competition. SooBeen performs on a 1794 Giuseppe Guadagnini violin from Cremona, generously loaned by the Kumho Cultural Foundation.

First prize winner of the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition, Korean-American pianist Soyeon Kate Lee has been lauded by The New York Times as a pianist with "a huge, richly varied sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style," and by the Washington Post for her "stunning command of the keyboard. A second prize and Mozart Prize winner of the 2003 Cleveland International Piano Competition and a laureate of the Santander International Piano Competition in Spain, she is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she was awarded the William Petschek Piano Debut Award at Lincoln Center and the Arthur Rubinstein Award upon graduation, and received her Doctor of Musical Arts from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her major mentors and teachers have been Richard Goode, Julian Martin, Robert McDonald, Jerome Lowenthal, and Ursula Oppens. In 2022, Soyeon Kate Lee joined the faculty at the Juilliard School, making her the first woman of Asian descent to join the illustrious piano faculty. She was an associate professor of music in piano at the Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music from 2014 to 2022, where she received the 2021 University of Cincinnati Cohen Award for excellence in teaching. During the summers, she serves on the piano faculty at the Bowdoin International Music Festival and resides in New York with her husband and their two children, Noah and Ella.

Praised by the New York Times for his "aptly traversed palette of emotions, from languid introspection to fevered intensity with gorgeous tone and an edge-of-seat intensity,” Israeli violinist Kobi Malkin is making his mark as an exciting soloist and a perceptive chamber musician. Concertmaster of the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra, he is the winner of the prestigious Ilona Kornhauser Prize and the Canetti International Violin Competition, and appears regularly in such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus, Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. An avid chamber musician, Kobi has collaborated with Frans Helmerson, Kim Kashkashian, Mitsuko Uchida, and Peter Wiley, among others.

Geoff Manyin is passionate about scrumptious vegan food, always searching for Austin's best tacos, Thai, or tofu scramble. Don't forget about good drink too - just be sure to think twice before asking him about mezcal or whisk(e)y. An avid videogamer, you'll often find him enjoying a role-playing game, a story-rich one-off, or whatever may strike his fancy that month. Sometimes though, all he needs to be happy is a stroll through a local park on a crisp afternoon, a great Netflix show, or a nice chat with an old friend.

Anthony Marwood enjoys a wide-ranging international career as a soloist, director and chamber musician. Forthcoming solo performances include projects with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and Australian Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician he has a wide circle of regular collaborators ; composers Thomas Adès, Steven Mackey and Sally Beamish have written concertos for him ; and he is a prolific recording artist, with close to forty albums on the Hyperion label alone. Anthony, who resides in Sussex and part-time in Koringberg, South Africa, is co-Artistic Director of the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival in East Sussex. He was awarded an MBE in the 2018 Queen’s New Year’s Honours List.

A man of many origins (i.e. Maryland, Siberia, Montana), Zach Matteson is proud to call Austin, TX his home base. When he's not making tunes with Invoke, you can find him at a a local coffee shop writing down some haikus, playing in the Austin Symphony, slurping down ramen from Ramen Tatsuya, or adding to his crazy collection of shirts from the local goodwill.

When he isn’t performing and teaching with Invoke, Karl Mitze enjoys baseball, board games, and walking his dog Max. A huge baseball fan, he follows the Cincinnati Reds avidly and listens to as many games as possible, usually when running at the park. Karl is also kind of a nerd: he’s a weekend Xbox player, loves fantasy novels, and enjoys anything Dungeons and Dragons related. You can often find him enjoying a beer at a trivia night somewhere in Austin, TX.

When he's not banjo pickin' or fiddle scrapin' with Invoke, you might find Nick Montopoli at the recording studio of composer Graham Reynolds, where he works as Graham's assistant, or pumping iron at the Montopoli Barbell Club. He also loves kicking back with a prime bourbon, relaxing to the soothing tones of power metal, or stalking around the stage of a reunion show as lead singer of the former D.C. hair metal band, Sextacy.

A winner of the 2004 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Tai Murray has appeared in recital and with major ensembles around the world. She has been named a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and has been a member of Chamber Music Society II at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In addition to touring with Musicians from Marlboro, Murray has performed at the BBC Proms, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, IMS Prussia Cove, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, and West Cork Chamber Music Festival. In 2021 Tai joined the faculty at the Yale School of Music where she teaches applied violin and coaches chamber music.

Praised by The New York Times as "deeply communicative and engrossing," violinist Ayano Ninomiya is committed to creating invigorating live performance experiences from concert stages to private homes and public schools. She has joined “Musicians from Marlboro” (Marlboro Festival) and “Musicians from the Steans Institute” (Ravinia Festival) in tours of France and the west and east coasts of North America. She is a founding member of the conductorless string orchestra, ECCO (East Coast Chamber Orchestra), which is composed of soloists and leaders of quartets and orchestras from around the United States. Ayano, whose principal teachers and mentors include Miriam Fried, Robert Mann, Eszter Perenyi, Michele Auclair, and Robert Levin, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University. She graduated with her Master’s degree from The Juilliard School and then went on to study at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, Hungary. From 2010-2015, Ayano was first violinist of the renowned Ying Quartet and Associate Professor at the Eastman School of Music. In the fall of 2015 she joined the faculty of New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She has been a volunteer tutor for at-risk high school students at the East Harlem Justice Center and volunteer at the Lighthouse Music School (NYC). In her spare time, she loves to paint and practice Aikido.

Clarinetist Todd Palmer is a three-time Grammy nominee and has appeared as soloist, recitalist, collaborator, educator, and arranger in a variety of musical endeavors around the world. As a winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and grand prize winner in the Ima Hogg Young Artist Auditions, he has collaborated with some of the world's most renowned artists and ensembles. Todd has championed and recorded Osvaldo Golijov’s klezmer clarinet quintet, The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, and also premiered David Bruce’s Gumboots at Carnegie Hall. His festival appearances include Spoleto USA, Music@Menlo, Marlboro, and Tanglewood, where he received the Leonard Bernstein fellowship as a student. His Broadway credits include South Pacific, The King & I, Les Misérables, My Fair Lady and Sweeney Todd, where he recently appeared with members of the cast on NPR's Tiny Desk.

Australian-born Susie Park, first associate concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra,  first picked up a violin at age three, made her solo debut at five, and, by fifteen, had performed with every major orchestra in her country. Park has grown into a musician distinguished by unusual passion and versatility, and today performs internationally as an orchestral, chamber, and solo artist. She is a founding member of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, was violinist in the GRAMMY-nominated Eroica Trio from 2006 to 2012, was a member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two, and has toured multiple times with Musicians from Marlboro. Park's diverse musical interests have also led to collaborations with artists such as trumpeter Chris Botti, with whom she performed 41 consecutive shows at the Blue Note jazz club in New York.

Praised for her electrifying and soulful energy, Annaliesa Place enjoys a diverse career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educational director. A passionate chamber musician, she has performed at many festivals including Encore, Sarasota, Yellowbarn, Music Academy of the West, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Holland Music Sessions, Verbier, Skaneateles, and many others. She is a founding member of the conductor-less string orchestra ECCO, East Coast Chamber Orchestra. In the two-decade span of growing this musical family, she continues to be inspired by her incredible colleagues in this dynamic ensemble. At age 3, Annaliesa began studying the violin and shortly after began studying the piano with the Suzuki Method. After studying with Vasile Beluska until age 13, she joined the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, as a student of David Russell and David Updegraff. She received her Bachelor of Music from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University with Victor Danchencko. She earned her Master of Music from the Juilliard School, studying with Robert Mann. Annaliesa performs on a Peter Aznavoorian violin made in 2007. She lives in Piermont, NY, with her husband, cellist, and conductor, Diego Garcia, and their two daughters.

Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan enjoys performing chamber music, old and new, around the world. For two decades, as a founding member of the Horszowski Trio and the Daedalus Quartet, he toured extensively through North and South America, Europe, and Asia, and recorded for Bridge Records and Avie Records, including, most recently, the complete piano trios of Robert Schumann. Mr. Ramakrishnan is currently an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, and is on the faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

New York-based horn player Eric Reed is a member of the American Brass Quintet and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School and New York University. Eric also performs regularly with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and is a former member of the Canadian Brass, Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and the New Jersey, Harrisburg, Oregon and New World symphonies. Holding degrees from Rice University and The Juilliard School, he resides in the Bronx with his wife, violinist Sarah Zun and their sons Oliver and Elliot.

Brant Taylor’s varied career has included solo appearances and collaborations with leading artists in chamber music, orchestral, pedagogical and popular music settings on five continents. Before his appointment to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by Daniel Barenboim, he was cellist of the Everest Quartet, prize winners at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, as well as a member of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. A dedicated teacher of both cello and chamber music, Taylor frequently combines performance and pedagogy, conducting master classes and writing articles on a wide variety of musical topics. He is a member of the faculty of DePaul University’s School of Music and serves on the board of cellobello.org.

Violist Jessica Thompson is a passionate chamber musician who performs regularly throughout the United States and abroad as a member of the Daedalus Quartet. The quartet, Grand Prize winner of the 2001 Banff International String Quartet Competition and resident quartet at Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two from 2005-07, is currently in residence at the University of Pennsylvania. As a member of Daedalus, Ms Thompson has premiered works by such composers as Fred Lerdahl, Joan Tower, Richard Wernick, and Vivian Fung. Ms. Thompson has also toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed at numerous festivals, including the Halcyon Music Festival, the Newport Music Festival, and the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival. 

Praised by the Seattle Times as “Simply marvelous,” violinist/violist Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu enjoys a versatile career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator. Cindy has collaborated in concerts with renowned artists such as Yefim Bronfman, James Ehnes, Lynn Harrell, Leila Josefowicz, Cho-Liang Lin, Midori, Thomas Quasthoff, Yuja Wang, and members of the Alban Berg, Guarneri, Orion, and Tokyo string quartets at prominent venues such as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and festivals such as Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and the Marlboro Music Festival. Cindy is a recipient of many awards including the Milka Violin Artist Prize from the Curtis Institute of Music, and third prize at the International Violin Competition of David Oistrakh. She has taught at the University of Southern California, and curated programs for the Da Camera Society in Los Angeles as the Artistic Partner. She is currently the Music Director of New Asia Chamber Music Society and founded Sunkiss’d Mozart.