2023 Musician

Conductor and cellist Sasha Scolnik-Brower performs regularly in Europe and the United States. This spring, he leads a production of Rossini’s La scala di seta at the Bredeweg Festival in Amsterdam and makes his debut with the Noord Nederlands Orkestin a program 25of Schubert and Sibelius. Other recent projects include serving as an assistant conductor at Theater an der Wien for a new production of Der Freischutz as well as at the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.

As a cellist, Sasha hasperformed as a soloist with orchestras including the Boston Symphony and Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, and has attended festivals such as Marlboro Music and Yellow Barn. He graduated cum laude from the Harvard College -New England Conservatory Dual Degree program where he studied cello with Paul Katz and earned a B.A. in English.

EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks grew up on an organic farm where she presented her girlhood violin performances to a very attentive audience—her flock of merino sheep. As that violin grew from quarter-to a full-size, EmmaLee, with that expressive instrument in hand, made her way onto the stage as soloist with symphonies and then on to Carnegie Hall as a member of the Pangea String Quartet. Her career as a violinist has taken her on adventures across Europe, Japan, South America, Canada, and the United States. With a contagious energy and enthusiasm for sharing her music, EmmaLee enjoys performing classical, baroque, and contemporary music, as well as traditional and fusion fiddle music.

Armed with a performance degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a doctoral degree from SUNY Stony Brook, EmmaLee serves as principal second violinist of the New Bedford Symphony and as a busy chamber player on stage in venues on the East Coast, as well as the Midwest. She is on faculty at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and the Birch Creek Summer Performance Center

A firm believer that music can move people, quite literally, EmmaLee takes the lead in string bands across New England and in the Midwest where her lively fiddle music drives the spirited old-time dancing. As a small tyke she took up her fiddle with the Rusty Pickup String Band, and this champion fiddler adds fiddling in both the classroom and on stage as a spice to enrich classical program

This innovative violinist appreciates the creative aspects of teaching violin and she’s equally at home with individuals and groups of all ages. EmmaLee strives to get to know each student and she tailors her teaching to each individual’s learning style and goals. Her students have gone on to open their own violin studios and to play in orchestras and string quartets.

Violist and Boston area native Nicholas Gallitano found his voice at The Juilliard School and Oberlin Conservatory through the guidance of mentors that include Roger Tapping, Peter Slowik, Molly Carr, and Gillian Rogell. He lives in New York City, where he can frequently be found playing with the New York Philharmonic or exploring the rich food culture across the city.

Violinist Eliot Heaton is the current Concertmaster of the Michigan Opera Theatre, Des Moines Metro Opera, and the Saginaw Bay Symphony. He previously served as Concertmaster of the Terre Haute Symphony and Oberlin Symphony orchestras and has played as guest Concertmaster with the Kalamazoo Symphony, Lansing Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, and the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic. He was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony violin section in the ‘22-’23 season and also plays as an extra musician with the Detroit Symphony.

Eliot has appeared as a soloist with a number of orchestras throughout the midwest, performing a wide variety of concertos from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. He also performs regularly on a number of chamber series, including Chamber Soloists of Detroit, the Scarab Club, New Music Detroit, the Geneva Music Festival, and Manchester Summer Chamber Music.

Eliot was a double major at Oberlin College and Conservatory, earning degrees in History and in violin performance, the latter with Professor Marilyn McDonald. He later received his Master of Music degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying violin with Professor Kevork Mardirossian and completing an outside area specialty in jazz studies. When he’s not playing the violin, Eliot enjoys reading, tennis, and spending time with his wife and their two cats.

As one of the founding members of the Verona Quartet, violist Abigail Rojansky dedicates herself to storytelling through the richness of the chamber music literature.

Recent collaborations include Paul Katz, Merry Peckham, Atar Arad, Kim Kashkashian, the Borromeo Quartet, I’m With Her, Cho-Liang Lin, Orion Weiss and Joseph Lin. Season highlights include performances at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Jordan Hall, Boston Celebrity Series and with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra.

Abigail has also participated in numerous festivals including the Chamber Music Northwest Festival, LaJolla SummerFest and the Caramoor Center for the Arts. She is honored to be taking part in the 2019 Manchester Summer Chamber Music.

Abigail currently resides in Boston and holds degrees from the New England Conservatory, Juilliard School, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and Oberlin Conservatory having studied with Paul Katz, Martha Katz, the Juilliard Quartet, Atar Arad, the Pacifica Quartet and Karen Ritscher respectively.

Violist Kal Sugatski performs regularly with the New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, New York City Ballet, International Contemporary Ensemble, New Jersey Symphony, and on Broadway.They have also appeared with Stevie Wonder, Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Andrea Bocelli, and The National.Their playing can be heard on over 50 recordings and soundtracks, including Judas and the Black Messiah, and other grammy-winning 

Kal was named 2022 Mainer of the Year for their newest project Vigorous Tenderness, an experimental outdoor concerts series centered around composers of color, queer composers, and other marginalized voices in classical music (ig: @vigorous.tenderness).A catalyst for radical change in the arts, Vigorous Tendernesspresents relevant, powerful concert experiences that respond to immediate social, political, and environmental circumstances.These experimental performances resemble an art museum experience, with chamber music ensembles spread across the landscape while the audience forges a self-curated path through the installation.To date, more than 6,000 community members have attended Vigorous Tenderness concerts.

Kal was a 2021-2022 season musician with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.They were a member of New World Symphony, where they were co-principal violist under the baton of Michael Tilson-Thomas and gave their solo debut.They have been featured on NPR twice, both as a soloist and chamber musician.Their 2022-2023 season highlights include performances with the New York Philharmonic, concerts with ChamberQUEER, international touring with American Contemporary Music Ensemble and Max Richter, and community concerts all over NYC with Orchestra of St. Luke’s

Kal is a native of Portland, Maine and holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Manhattan School of Music.In their spare time they are a long-distance backpacker, winter hiker, ocean swimmer, and nature enthusiast

Jacques Lee Wood: DMA, MM, Yale University; BM, New England Conservatory.   Noted for his fluency of playing, and expressive warmth, sensitivity, and technical ease (Boston Musical Intelligencer), Wood’s passion for teaching and research complements a performance career that explores a broad range of interests: from historically informed performance on baroque cello to commissioning, writing, and performing new works on modern and electric cello.  Deeply committed to seeking out new areas in music to explore, Wood is a founding member of the Boston-based Antico Moderno and StringLab, and is currently cellist with the Pedroia String Quartet and resident musician and cellist with the Sumner Quartet at musiConnects (Boston).  He is a frequent guest artist with the Grammy-nominated Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Bachsolisten Seoul, A Far Cry, Firebird Ensemble, and Handel and Haydn Society.

Winner of the 2019 GRAMMY Award for Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance, violinist Keiko Tokunaga spends most of her days touring and performing globally as a soloist and chamber musician. Keiko has been praised by the Strings Magazine for possessing a sound “with probing quality that is supple and airborne” and for her “pure, pellucid bow strokes”. She has soloed with various orchestras including the Spanish National Orchestra, Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya and Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Orchestra.

In 2021, Keiko founded an online concert series,Jukebox Concerts, in order to provide artistic outlets for musicians who lost their engagements due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The performances were made available not only to the subscribers, but also to residents of nursing homes, hospitals and assisted living facilities across the country. Later in the year, she createdINTERWOVEN, a multi-cultural ensemble whose mission is to eliminate discrimination against the AAAPI (Asians, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) community by integrating the musical traditions of the East and West.

While Keiko played with the internationally acclaimed Attacca Quartet between 2005 and 2019, the ensemble won numerous prestigious awardsincluding the GRAMMY Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance; First Prize of the 7th Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in 2011; the Third Prize and the Australian Broadcast Corporation Classic FM Listener’s Choice Award of the 6th Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition in 2011.

She is currently on faculty at Fordham University. Between 2008 and 2019, she taught at The Juilliard School Pre-College Division.

Keiko plays on a J. B. Vuillaume violin from 1845, generously loaned by ananonymous donor. She also enjoys playing on a Baroque-style violin made by Antonio Mariani, circa 1669, formerly in the collection of Gabriel Schaff. Her bow was made by Nicolas Maire circa 1850.,