SUN, JAN 8th, 2023 at 7:30pm
CHAMBER MUSIC by CANDLELIGHT
Sponsored by the Melvin Ringel Bequest
Hybrid Concert, presented in-person and livestreamed on YouTube.
Livestream will be available for thirty days after the concert.
Venue: Second Presbyterian Church, 4200 Saint Paul St, Baltimore, MD 21218
Free concert with open seating. No tickets or reservations required.
PROGRAM
Quintet for Piano and Winds in E flat Major, K. 452
W.A. Mozart (1756-1791)
Largo — Allegro Moderato
Larghetto
Allegretto
Eric Conway, piano
Katherine Needleman, oboe
YaoGuang Zhai, clarinet
Nikolette LaBonte, horn
Harrison Miller, bassoon
Valerie Coleman (b. 1970)
“Tzigane” for Woodwind Quintet
Katherine Needleman, oboe
YaoGuang Zhai, clarinet
Nikolette LaBonte, horn
Harrison Miller, bassoon
Mimi Stillman, flute
String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden”
Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)
Allegro
Andante con moto
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Presto
Holly Jenkins, violin
Julian Maddox, violin
Lisa Steltenpohl, viola
Seth Low, cello
Quintet for Piano and Winds in E flat Major, K. 452
W.A. Mozart (1756-1791)
Largo — Allegro Moderato
Larghetto
Allegretto
Eric Conway, piano
Katherine Needleman, oboe
YaoGuang Zhai, clarinet
Nikolette LaBonte, horn
Harrison Miller, bassoon
Valerie Coleman (b. 1970)
“Tzigane” for Woodwind Quintet
Katherine Needleman, oboe
YaoGuang Zhai, clarinet
Nikolette LaBonte, horn
Harrison Miller, bassoon
Mimi Stillman, flute
String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden”
Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)
Allegro
Andante con moto
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Presto
Holly Jenkins, violin
Julian Maddox, violin
Lisa Steltenpohl, viola
Seth Low, cello
Notes on the Program
Quintet for Piano and Winds L. 452 (Mozart)
The Quintet was first presented on April 1, 1784, as part of a mammoth concert of Mozart’s works entirely new or new to Vienna, in the capital’s Burgtheater. K. 452 is in the three movements of a concerto. The first movement is brief, with a slow, sonorous introduction, in which each of the five players is allowed to strut their stuff, with a powerful concluding wind tutti over the piano. A gratifying surprise comes after only 20-odd measures have passed with the succeeding allegro, a tour-de-force of variety and inspiration, each wind allotted its brief theme. While the key of B-flat is in Mozart usually a vehicle for frivolous thoughts, in the second movement of K. 452 it is employed to convey a sadly sweet mellowness. The thematically rich rondo finale is the longest movement of the three, crowned by a long cadenza for all five instruments.
“Tzigane” for Woodwind Quintet (Valerie Coleman)
Inspired by Ravel's work for violin, and in the tradition of virtuoso string showpieces by Sarasate, Tzigane is a high-charged, passionate journey through woodwind virtuosity. The third annual Imani Winds Chamber Music festival was opened with this piece, which, according to Lucid Culture, is "an imaginative blend of gypsy jazz and indie classical with intricately shifting voices.” Valerie Coleman is an award-winning living composer and founding member of Imani Winds.
String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D. 810 (Schubert)
The title 'Death and the Maiden' comes from one of Schubert’s earlier pieces (a song) in which a terror-stricken maiden begs death to pass her by. But death consoles her saying 'I am not rough, you shall sleep gently in my arms'. It's impossible to listen to all four movements of the quartet without an awareness of death’s shadow stalking Schubert and emerging in the most funereal passages.
The quartet was written in 1824 when Schubert’s health was a cause for concern. He wrote to a friend, “Imagine a man whose health will never be right again, and who, in sheer despair over this, even makes things worse instead of better. Imagine a man, I say, whose most brilliant hopes have perished.” This music is filled with the resignation he spoke off, as well as an all-pervading anguish and yearning.
Musically, this is a masterwork among quartets. Using the theme from his original song and building variations upon it, Schubert creates a pattern where the dark and powerful opening is met by the soft lyrical reply of the maiden. Or is it the defiance and terror of the maiden, met by the gentle subverting caress of death? It’s a dialogue which continues throughout the quartet, and there’s little escape from the fear and the fury of this music.
The Quintet was first presented on April 1, 1784, as part of a mammoth concert of Mozart’s works entirely new or new to Vienna, in the capital’s Burgtheater. K. 452 is in the three movements of a concerto. The first movement is brief, with a slow, sonorous introduction, in which each of the five players is allowed to strut their stuff, with a powerful concluding wind tutti over the piano. A gratifying surprise comes after only 20-odd measures have passed with the succeeding allegro, a tour-de-force of variety and inspiration, each wind allotted its brief theme. While the key of B-flat is in Mozart usually a vehicle for frivolous thoughts, in the second movement of K. 452 it is employed to convey a sadly sweet mellowness. The thematically rich rondo finale is the longest movement of the three, crowned by a long cadenza for all five instruments.
“Tzigane” for Woodwind Quintet (Valerie Coleman)
Inspired by Ravel's work for violin, and in the tradition of virtuoso string showpieces by Sarasate, Tzigane is a high-charged, passionate journey through woodwind virtuosity. The third annual Imani Winds Chamber Music festival was opened with this piece, which, according to Lucid Culture, is "an imaginative blend of gypsy jazz and indie classical with intricately shifting voices.” Valerie Coleman is an award-winning living composer and founding member of Imani Winds.
String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D. 810 (Schubert)
The title 'Death and the Maiden' comes from one of Schubert’s earlier pieces (a song) in which a terror-stricken maiden begs death to pass her by. But death consoles her saying 'I am not rough, you shall sleep gently in my arms'. It's impossible to listen to all four movements of the quartet without an awareness of death’s shadow stalking Schubert and emerging in the most funereal passages.
The quartet was written in 1824 when Schubert’s health was a cause for concern. He wrote to a friend, “Imagine a man whose health will never be right again, and who, in sheer despair over this, even makes things worse instead of better. Imagine a man, I say, whose most brilliant hopes have perished.” This music is filled with the resignation he spoke off, as well as an all-pervading anguish and yearning.
Musically, this is a masterwork among quartets. Using the theme from his original song and building variations upon it, Schubert creates a pattern where the dark and powerful opening is met by the soft lyrical reply of the maiden. Or is it the defiance and terror of the maiden, met by the gentle subverting caress of death? It’s a dialogue which continues throughout the quartet, and there’s little escape from the fear and the fury of this music.
Musician Biographies
Eric Conway, piano
Eric Conway is the Chairperson of the Fine and Performing Arts Department as well as the Director of the Morgan State University Choir. He served as associate conductor and principal accompanist for the Morgan State University Choir for over twenty years under the leadership of the late Nathan Carter.
He received his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where he majored in Piano Performance and minored in Conducting. While at the Peabody, Conway was a recipient of the prestigious Liberace Scholarship, as well as a winner in the Yale Gordon Concerto Competition where he earned the honor of playing Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra.
Some of his significant accomplishments as pianist include, a tour of Eastern Africa, sponsored by the United States Information Agency. One of the highlights of the tour was a solo performance for Madagascan television and radio. He has performed as soloist with several orchestras including, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Concert Artists, Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, Georgetown University Orchestra, and the Millbrook Orchestra in Shepardstown, West Virginia. In January, 2006 he performed Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to wide acclaim.
Dr. Conway is also sought after as a collaborative artist. He has worked with several leading artists including Trevor Wye, Hillary Hahn, Daniel Heifetz, William Brown, Janice Chandler, to name a few. He is also an orchestral pianist for the Baltimore Symphony. In 1994 and 1997, he toured with the orchestra to Eastern Asia.
Dr. Conway's choral accomplishments include working closely with some of the greatest conductors of the 20th Century including Robert Shaw, Sir Nevelle Mariner, and Donald Neuen. In 2001, he was chorusmaster for the Baltimore Symphony Chorus' performance of the Verdi Requiem. He travels around the mid-Atlantic area giving Choral Master Classes and workshops for Collegiate and High School levels. In June of 2006, Dr. Conway was Chorusmaster for performances of Mahler Symphony #2, ending the tenure of Baltimore Symphony's music director, Yuri Temirkanov.
Most recently, he conducted the forces of both the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Soulful Symphony in the Meyerhoff Hall's Annual Martin Luther King Concert. In addition to his musical accomplishments, he holds degrees in both Accounting and Business Management and is also a Certified Public Accountant. Most recently, Conway has been appointed by Governor O'Malley as a member of the MD State Arts Council.
Dr. Conway is married to Bessie Elizabeth Conway, and they are blessed to have three sons, Eric, Jr.; Christopher; and Ryan.
Holly Jenkins, violin
Originally from House Springs, Missouri, Holly Jenkins joined the Second Violin section of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in September, 2016. Ms. Jenkins has performed as a soloist and as a chamber musician in recitals in seven different countries. She has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Cleveland’s Trinity Lutheran Church and St. Louis’ Sheldon Concert Hall. She began her performing career at the age of 11, when she was selected to solo with the Alton Symphony Orchestra. Subsequent concerto performances have included appearances with the Oberlin Conservatory, St. Louis Chamber Orchestra, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Sarasota Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra, Principia College Orchestra, Belleville Philharmonic and the Clayton Symphony. Ms. Jenkins was also a member of the New York City based conductorless string ensemble, Shattered Glass, from 2013-2016, touring the Midwest and East Coast and performing regularly across New York City.
In addition to performing, Ms. Jenkins is passionately committed to promoting peace, dialogue and cross cultural awareness through music. During the summer of 2011, she and a colleague conducted a tour of Jordan and the West Bank in cooperation with Musicians Without Borders, Nablus a Culture and several other organizations, teaching and performing in schools and community centers. In 2012, she participated in a two-week trip to Pakistan with Cultures in Harmony to perform and conduct music workshops.
Ms. Jenkins holds degrees with the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Manhattan School of Music. Most recently she has attended Bard College to play with The Orchestra Now. Her teachers have included Milan Vitek, Laurie Smukler, Amy Oshiro-Morales, and Winifred Crock.
Nikolette LaBonte, horn
Nikolette LaBonte is Associate/Assistant/Utility Horn of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra where she has served since 2016, and during the 2022-2023 season she will also have the privilege of performing as Visiting Guest Principal Horn of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Originally from South Florida, Nikolette also serves as the principal horn of the Music in the Mountains summer festival, previously held a position with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, and served as Acting Principal Horn of the Fort Worth Symphony from 2019-2021. She has also had the opportunity to perform with orchestras across North America including guest principal engagements with the Vancouver Symphony, Tucson Symphony, and the Dallas Chamber Symphony and regular season performances with the New York Philharmonic and Buffalo Philharmonic.
Ms. LaBonte received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of W. Peter Kurau. In addition to her degree studies, she has served as the Instructor of Natural Horn at Eastman, has been a guest lecturer at institutions including Baylor University and the University of Texas at Austin, and is an avid chamber musician having performed with groups such as the Antara Winds, Fort Worth Symphony Brass Quintet, and Music in the American Wild. Nikolette is also an award-winning soloist and was a participant in the prestigious ARD International Competition in 2021, the only American horn player invited.
Outside of the concert hall, Ms. LaBonte is active in promoting classical music throughout the community. She is a faculty member of the Eastman Horn Institute, serves as the Assistant Artistic Director of the Kendall Betts Horn Camp, and has presented performances and lectures as a member of the International Horn Society and the International Women’s Brass Conference. Away from the horn, she enjoys hiking, bicycling, and scuba diving, although she must reserve the latter for her visits to more tropical destinations.
Seth Low, cello
Raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, cellist Seth Low has been a member of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 1985. Before joining the BSO, he was principal cellist of the Richmond Symphony and taught cello at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Mr. Low holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and from Queens College of the City University of New York. His teacher at Oberlin was Richard Kapuscinski, an early student of Leonard Rose. It was Kapuscinski’s teaching, with its special emphasis on the bow arm and fine tone production that became Low’s main formative influence as a cellist. Later at Queens College and at the Aspen Festival, he also studied with Claus Adam, long-time cellist of the Juilliard Quartet.
Having been born into a musical family — his grandmother was a violin teacher, his mother an amateur violist and his father played the recorder — he began cello lessons at age eight. During high school he studied with Evelyn Elsing, professor of cello at the University of Maryland.
Mr. Low has appeared twice as soloist with the BSO, performing the Bruch Kol Nidrei and the Caprice and Elegy by Frederick Delius. In addition he appears occasionally as a chamber musician in the Baltimore area and also teaches cello. He is the principal cellist of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra.
Julian Maddox, violin & Co-Director of Chamber Music by Candlelight Series
Julian Maddox is a violinist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He began studying the violin at the age of six, working extensively with Sally O'Reilly. Julian received his undergraduate degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2019, and he is also pursuing his Master's degree at CIM as a student of Jaime Laredo and Jan Sloman. Julian has been a prizewinner in numerous competitions, including the Schubert Club, Thursday Musical, MNSOTA, Dakota Valley Symphony, and MTNA Competitions.
As an avid chamber musician, his ensembles have won first place in the MNSOTA Chamber Music Competition, and have worked with members of the Cleveland, Takacs, Emerson, Danish, Jupiter, and Cavani String Quartets. Currently, he is a contract member of the Canton Symphony Orchestra, and a substitute with the Akron Symphony, Cleveland Pops, Firelands Symphony, New World Symphony, and ProMusica Chamber Orchestras. Julian is also committed to engaging with his local community in Cleveland. He is a founding member of the CIM Black Student Union, and serves as a mentor for the CIM Musical Pathways Fellowship program. In 2018, he worked alongside Cleveland Orchestra members at the Cleveland School for the Arts in a special collaboration for the Cleveland Orchestra's "Prometheus Project" centennial celebration.
In addition to his musical endeavors, he is passionate about brewing coffee, and is a big basketball and football fan. Julian is currently based in Shaker Heights, OH, where he lives with his wife, Charrine, and their 20-month-old son, Theodore.
Harrison Miller, bassoon
Principal Bassoonist Harrison Miller has performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2017. Appointed to the principal bassoon position in 2021 by Music Director Marin Alsop, Harrison joined the BSO as acting principal bassoon in 2017. Additional orchestral experience includes frequent guest work with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Louisville Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, American Ballet Theatre, and the Symphony in C (Haddonfield, New Jersey).
Harrison received his Bachelor of Music from The Juilliard School in May 2017, where he studied with Judith LeClair. In addition to receiving a Kovner Fellowship, Harrison was the winner of Juilliard’s 2017 Peter Mennin Prize for outstanding achievement and leadership in music.
Born in Greenwich, Connecticut, Harrison began his formal musical education studying with Joyce Kelley before going on to attend the Juilliard Pre-College as a student of Marc Goldberg in 2010. The first bassoonist in Juilliard’s history to win concerto competitions in two divisions, Harrison performed as soloist with both the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra and the Juilliard Orchestra.
A devoted chamber musician, Harrison studied with the New York Woodwind Quintet as a member of their Juilliard seminar and has since gone on to perform in New York's annual ChamberFest, masterclasses at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and in a woodwind quintet with members of the New York Philharmonic for their Very Young People’s Concerts.
Summer festivals include participation at the Aspen Music Festival and School as a New Horizons Fellow, the Tanglewood Music Center, the Music Academy of the West, the Sarasota Music Festival, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. During his undergraduate degree, Harrison was a teaching assistant for Marc Goldberg at the Juilliard Pre-College. He lead reed-making classes, assisted in lessons, mentored students in orchestra, and coached chamber music. He now maintains his own private studio, and frequently leads sectionals for both the Baltimore Youth Symphony Orchestra and Howard County Youth Orchestras. Harrison has been on faculty at the Philadelphia International Music Festival, and the Interlochen Center for the Arts’ 2019 Summer Camp and has presented masterclasses at the Juilliard School, University of Toronto, Manhattan School of Music, and the University of North Carolina Greensboro. This summer Harrison will be on faculty at the inaugural season of Hidden Valley’s Festival of Winds.
Katherine Needleman, oboe
Katherine Needleman joined the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as principal oboist in 2003, the same year she won first prize at the International Double Reed Society’s Gillet-Fox Competition. She has appeared with the BSO as soloist in works of Bach, Beethoven, Lukas Foss, Martinu, Mozart, Christopher Rouse, Strauss, Vaughan Williams, and Vivaldi. Ms. Needleman has also been soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Haddonfield Symphony, Symphony of Westchester, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia. She has performed as guest principal oboist with the New York Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, San Diego and New Zealand.
Ms. Needleman is a founding member of the oboe trio Trio La Milpa, the first American chamber ensemble to perform in Greenland; the woodwind quintet Astral Winds; and Mico Nonet, an improvisational ambient chamber music ensemble involving colleagues from the Berlin Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Richmond Symphony and 1970’s synthesizers. Ms. Needleman’s other chamber music engagements have taken her to Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall and the Metropolitan Museum in New York; Jordan Hall and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston as well as the Freer Gallery in Washington D.C. She has appeared at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, Italy’s Spoleto Festival, the Alpenglow Festival, and the Newport Music Festival. A participant at the Marlboro Music Festival, she has also appeared on two tours with “Musicians from Marlboro.”
Devoted to the music of our time, Ms. Needleman has premiered numerous works and has commissioned works by Luis Prado, Chia-Yu Hsu and David Ludwig. She gave the American premiere of Brenno Blauth’s Concertino. She recorded Christopher Rouse’s Oboe Concerto with the Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller (release TBA), and gave the West Coast Premiere of the work with Marin Alsop at the Cabrillo Festival.
A Baltimore native, Ms. Needleman attended high school at the Baltimore School for the Arts but left early to attend the Curtis Institute of Music, where she received a bachelor of music degree as a student of Richard Woodhams. Ms. Needleman is on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music’s Young Artist Summer Program. She has released a solo album with pianist Jennifer Lim on the GENUIN label.
Lisa Steltenpohl, viola
Lisa Steltenpohl, the newly‐appointed principal viola of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. She has served as principal violist of The Curtis Symphony Orchestra and the Haddonfield Symphony, now Symphony in C. Ms. Steltenpohl has also performed with such ensembles as The Philadelphia Orchestra and The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. She began her musical studies on viola at age eleven and while a student in high school was one of the youngest members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
Ms. Steltenpohl made her Orchestra Hall debut performing Bartók’s Viola Concerto with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2001. In addition to her orchestral career, she has participated in many chamber music concerts and festivals, performing alongside notable musicians such as Arnold Steinhardt, Leonidas Kavakos, and others.
Originally from North Barrington, Ill., Ms. Steltenpohl comes from a musical family. She and her twin sister Anna, oboe and English horn, have been featured on the educational series “Musical Encounters” and have performed many recitals together highlighting the viola and oboe repertoire. Prior to joining the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Steltenpohl was a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Her teachers have included Misha Amory, Roberto Diaz, Desiree Ruhstrat, and Stephen Wyrczynski. She made her Baltimore Symphony Orchestra solo debut performing Bach’s Sixth Brandenburg Concerto last season.
Mimi Stillman, flute
Flutist Mimi Stillman is an internationally acclaimed solo, chamber, and recording artist hailed by the
New York Times as “not only a consummate and charismatic performer, but also a scholar. Her
programs tend to activate ear, heart, and brain.” Praised for her “exquisite purity of sound and depth of emotion” (Diario de Yucatán), she has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras and as recitalist and chamber musician at prestigious venues throughout the United States and internationally. Renowned for her virtuosity, insightful interpretation, and adventurous programming, she has appeared as soloist with orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Marine Chamber Orchestra of "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Bach Collegium Stuttgart, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Yucatán; and at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Symphony Space, Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Sawdust, Roulette, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, La Jolla Music Society, Verbier Festival (Switzerland), Kol HaMusica (Israel), on Curtis On Tour's virtual Latin American tour 2021 in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. In May 2022, she gave the world premiere of Grammy-nominated composer Zhou Tian's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, written for her, with the Marine Chamber Orchestra and Director Col. Jason K. Fettig. The work was commissioned with a consortium of seven American orchestras, with which she will perform the concerto over the next two seasons.
Mimi Stillman is the founding Artistic Director of the popular Dolce Suono Ensemble (DSE), performing Baroque to new music in Philadelphia and on tour, in programs with high intellectual content setting music in its broadest cultural context. Some of DSE's outstanding projects include Mahler 100 / Schoenberg 60; Women Pioneers of American Music; and A Place and a Name: Remembering the Holocaust. “All programs should have this much to say, and say it so well.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
YaoGuang Zhai, clarinet
YaoGuang Zhai is Principal Clarinet with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra appointed by Maestra Marin Alsop in 2016.
A native of Tai Yuan, China, YaoGuang began his musical pursuit at the age of three on the violin, switched to the clarinet seven years later. He studied at the China Central Conservatory in Beijing, the Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild California, and then the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. YaoGuang was instructed by many distinguished clarinetists, including: Yehuda Gilad, Donald Montanaro, Ricardo Morales and Joaquin Valdepeñas. In 2009, he represented the Curtis Institute of Music to tour in the U.S. as the solo and chamber clarinetist, the solo performance was also awarded to the Curtis Institute CD of the Year. During his study, he has won the Hellam Competition, Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, the Blount-Slawson Young Artists Competition, the Spotlight Award and the Pacific Symphony Concerto Competition.
After graduation, he held position as Principal Clarinet at the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in China for 2 seasons, and as the Associate Principal Clarinet with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra appointed by maestro Peter Oundjian for 5 seasons.
Along with his solo appearances with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, YaoGuang has performed with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (China), Toronto Summer Music Festival Orchestra, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra (Aspen) and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. He is featured to play the Copland Clarinet Concerto with the Victoria Symphony in Canada in 2017. He has actively participated in various music festivals as both soloist and chamber musician; such as: Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival invited by violinist Cho-Liang Lin; Music From Angel Fire Festival invited by violinist Ida Kavafian; Laguna Beach Chamber Music Festival invited by pianist Christopher O’Riley; Aspen Music Festival; Pacific Music Festival in Japan; Beijing International Clarinet Festival; Toronto Summer Music Festival; and ChongQing International Clarinet Festival in China.
He was also one of the clarinetists chosen to record the Royal Conservatory of Music's exam level commercial CD, which has been sold across North America. He played the principal clarinet during live recording of Messiah with Toronto Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sir Andrew Davis in year end 2015; The CD is to be released in 2017 by Chandos Records.
YaoGuang Zhai is a Buffet Crampon Performing Artist.
Eric Conway is the Chairperson of the Fine and Performing Arts Department as well as the Director of the Morgan State University Choir. He served as associate conductor and principal accompanist for the Morgan State University Choir for over twenty years under the leadership of the late Nathan Carter.
He received his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where he majored in Piano Performance and minored in Conducting. While at the Peabody, Conway was a recipient of the prestigious Liberace Scholarship, as well as a winner in the Yale Gordon Concerto Competition where he earned the honor of playing Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra.
Some of his significant accomplishments as pianist include, a tour of Eastern Africa, sponsored by the United States Information Agency. One of the highlights of the tour was a solo performance for Madagascan television and radio. He has performed as soloist with several orchestras including, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Concert Artists, Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, Georgetown University Orchestra, and the Millbrook Orchestra in Shepardstown, West Virginia. In January, 2006 he performed Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to wide acclaim.
Dr. Conway is also sought after as a collaborative artist. He has worked with several leading artists including Trevor Wye, Hillary Hahn, Daniel Heifetz, William Brown, Janice Chandler, to name a few. He is also an orchestral pianist for the Baltimore Symphony. In 1994 and 1997, he toured with the orchestra to Eastern Asia.
Dr. Conway's choral accomplishments include working closely with some of the greatest conductors of the 20th Century including Robert Shaw, Sir Nevelle Mariner, and Donald Neuen. In 2001, he was chorusmaster for the Baltimore Symphony Chorus' performance of the Verdi Requiem. He travels around the mid-Atlantic area giving Choral Master Classes and workshops for Collegiate and High School levels. In June of 2006, Dr. Conway was Chorusmaster for performances of Mahler Symphony #2, ending the tenure of Baltimore Symphony's music director, Yuri Temirkanov.
Most recently, he conducted the forces of both the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Soulful Symphony in the Meyerhoff Hall's Annual Martin Luther King Concert. In addition to his musical accomplishments, he holds degrees in both Accounting and Business Management and is also a Certified Public Accountant. Most recently, Conway has been appointed by Governor O'Malley as a member of the MD State Arts Council.
Dr. Conway is married to Bessie Elizabeth Conway, and they are blessed to have three sons, Eric, Jr.; Christopher; and Ryan.
Holly Jenkins, violin
Originally from House Springs, Missouri, Holly Jenkins joined the Second Violin section of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in September, 2016. Ms. Jenkins has performed as a soloist and as a chamber musician in recitals in seven different countries. She has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Cleveland’s Trinity Lutheran Church and St. Louis’ Sheldon Concert Hall. She began her performing career at the age of 11, when she was selected to solo with the Alton Symphony Orchestra. Subsequent concerto performances have included appearances with the Oberlin Conservatory, St. Louis Chamber Orchestra, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Sarasota Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra, Principia College Orchestra, Belleville Philharmonic and the Clayton Symphony. Ms. Jenkins was also a member of the New York City based conductorless string ensemble, Shattered Glass, from 2013-2016, touring the Midwest and East Coast and performing regularly across New York City.
In addition to performing, Ms. Jenkins is passionately committed to promoting peace, dialogue and cross cultural awareness through music. During the summer of 2011, she and a colleague conducted a tour of Jordan and the West Bank in cooperation with Musicians Without Borders, Nablus a Culture and several other organizations, teaching and performing in schools and community centers. In 2012, she participated in a two-week trip to Pakistan with Cultures in Harmony to perform and conduct music workshops.
Ms. Jenkins holds degrees with the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Manhattan School of Music. Most recently she has attended Bard College to play with The Orchestra Now. Her teachers have included Milan Vitek, Laurie Smukler, Amy Oshiro-Morales, and Winifred Crock.
Nikolette LaBonte, horn
Nikolette LaBonte is Associate/Assistant/Utility Horn of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra where she has served since 2016, and during the 2022-2023 season she will also have the privilege of performing as Visiting Guest Principal Horn of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Originally from South Florida, Nikolette also serves as the principal horn of the Music in the Mountains summer festival, previously held a position with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, and served as Acting Principal Horn of the Fort Worth Symphony from 2019-2021. She has also had the opportunity to perform with orchestras across North America including guest principal engagements with the Vancouver Symphony, Tucson Symphony, and the Dallas Chamber Symphony and regular season performances with the New York Philharmonic and Buffalo Philharmonic.
Ms. LaBonte received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of W. Peter Kurau. In addition to her degree studies, she has served as the Instructor of Natural Horn at Eastman, has been a guest lecturer at institutions including Baylor University and the University of Texas at Austin, and is an avid chamber musician having performed with groups such as the Antara Winds, Fort Worth Symphony Brass Quintet, and Music in the American Wild. Nikolette is also an award-winning soloist and was a participant in the prestigious ARD International Competition in 2021, the only American horn player invited.
Outside of the concert hall, Ms. LaBonte is active in promoting classical music throughout the community. She is a faculty member of the Eastman Horn Institute, serves as the Assistant Artistic Director of the Kendall Betts Horn Camp, and has presented performances and lectures as a member of the International Horn Society and the International Women’s Brass Conference. Away from the horn, she enjoys hiking, bicycling, and scuba diving, although she must reserve the latter for her visits to more tropical destinations.
Seth Low, cello
Raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, cellist Seth Low has been a member of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 1985. Before joining the BSO, he was principal cellist of the Richmond Symphony and taught cello at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Mr. Low holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and from Queens College of the City University of New York. His teacher at Oberlin was Richard Kapuscinski, an early student of Leonard Rose. It was Kapuscinski’s teaching, with its special emphasis on the bow arm and fine tone production that became Low’s main formative influence as a cellist. Later at Queens College and at the Aspen Festival, he also studied with Claus Adam, long-time cellist of the Juilliard Quartet.
Having been born into a musical family — his grandmother was a violin teacher, his mother an amateur violist and his father played the recorder — he began cello lessons at age eight. During high school he studied with Evelyn Elsing, professor of cello at the University of Maryland.
Mr. Low has appeared twice as soloist with the BSO, performing the Bruch Kol Nidrei and the Caprice and Elegy by Frederick Delius. In addition he appears occasionally as a chamber musician in the Baltimore area and also teaches cello. He is the principal cellist of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra.
Julian Maddox, violin & Co-Director of Chamber Music by Candlelight Series
Julian Maddox is a violinist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He began studying the violin at the age of six, working extensively with Sally O'Reilly. Julian received his undergraduate degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2019, and he is also pursuing his Master's degree at CIM as a student of Jaime Laredo and Jan Sloman. Julian has been a prizewinner in numerous competitions, including the Schubert Club, Thursday Musical, MNSOTA, Dakota Valley Symphony, and MTNA Competitions.
As an avid chamber musician, his ensembles have won first place in the MNSOTA Chamber Music Competition, and have worked with members of the Cleveland, Takacs, Emerson, Danish, Jupiter, and Cavani String Quartets. Currently, he is a contract member of the Canton Symphony Orchestra, and a substitute with the Akron Symphony, Cleveland Pops, Firelands Symphony, New World Symphony, and ProMusica Chamber Orchestras. Julian is also committed to engaging with his local community in Cleveland. He is a founding member of the CIM Black Student Union, and serves as a mentor for the CIM Musical Pathways Fellowship program. In 2018, he worked alongside Cleveland Orchestra members at the Cleveland School for the Arts in a special collaboration for the Cleveland Orchestra's "Prometheus Project" centennial celebration.
In addition to his musical endeavors, he is passionate about brewing coffee, and is a big basketball and football fan. Julian is currently based in Shaker Heights, OH, where he lives with his wife, Charrine, and their 20-month-old son, Theodore.
Harrison Miller, bassoon
Principal Bassoonist Harrison Miller has performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2017. Appointed to the principal bassoon position in 2021 by Music Director Marin Alsop, Harrison joined the BSO as acting principal bassoon in 2017. Additional orchestral experience includes frequent guest work with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Louisville Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, American Ballet Theatre, and the Symphony in C (Haddonfield, New Jersey).
Harrison received his Bachelor of Music from The Juilliard School in May 2017, where he studied with Judith LeClair. In addition to receiving a Kovner Fellowship, Harrison was the winner of Juilliard’s 2017 Peter Mennin Prize for outstanding achievement and leadership in music.
Born in Greenwich, Connecticut, Harrison began his formal musical education studying with Joyce Kelley before going on to attend the Juilliard Pre-College as a student of Marc Goldberg in 2010. The first bassoonist in Juilliard’s history to win concerto competitions in two divisions, Harrison performed as soloist with both the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra and the Juilliard Orchestra.
A devoted chamber musician, Harrison studied with the New York Woodwind Quintet as a member of their Juilliard seminar and has since gone on to perform in New York's annual ChamberFest, masterclasses at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and in a woodwind quintet with members of the New York Philharmonic for their Very Young People’s Concerts.
Summer festivals include participation at the Aspen Music Festival and School as a New Horizons Fellow, the Tanglewood Music Center, the Music Academy of the West, the Sarasota Music Festival, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. During his undergraduate degree, Harrison was a teaching assistant for Marc Goldberg at the Juilliard Pre-College. He lead reed-making classes, assisted in lessons, mentored students in orchestra, and coached chamber music. He now maintains his own private studio, and frequently leads sectionals for both the Baltimore Youth Symphony Orchestra and Howard County Youth Orchestras. Harrison has been on faculty at the Philadelphia International Music Festival, and the Interlochen Center for the Arts’ 2019 Summer Camp and has presented masterclasses at the Juilliard School, University of Toronto, Manhattan School of Music, and the University of North Carolina Greensboro. This summer Harrison will be on faculty at the inaugural season of Hidden Valley’s Festival of Winds.
Katherine Needleman, oboe
Katherine Needleman joined the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as principal oboist in 2003, the same year she won first prize at the International Double Reed Society’s Gillet-Fox Competition. She has appeared with the BSO as soloist in works of Bach, Beethoven, Lukas Foss, Martinu, Mozart, Christopher Rouse, Strauss, Vaughan Williams, and Vivaldi. Ms. Needleman has also been soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Haddonfield Symphony, Symphony of Westchester, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia. She has performed as guest principal oboist with the New York Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, San Diego and New Zealand.
Ms. Needleman is a founding member of the oboe trio Trio La Milpa, the first American chamber ensemble to perform in Greenland; the woodwind quintet Astral Winds; and Mico Nonet, an improvisational ambient chamber music ensemble involving colleagues from the Berlin Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Richmond Symphony and 1970’s synthesizers. Ms. Needleman’s other chamber music engagements have taken her to Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall and the Metropolitan Museum in New York; Jordan Hall and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston as well as the Freer Gallery in Washington D.C. She has appeared at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, Italy’s Spoleto Festival, the Alpenglow Festival, and the Newport Music Festival. A participant at the Marlboro Music Festival, she has also appeared on two tours with “Musicians from Marlboro.”
Devoted to the music of our time, Ms. Needleman has premiered numerous works and has commissioned works by Luis Prado, Chia-Yu Hsu and David Ludwig. She gave the American premiere of Brenno Blauth’s Concertino. She recorded Christopher Rouse’s Oboe Concerto with the Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller (release TBA), and gave the West Coast Premiere of the work with Marin Alsop at the Cabrillo Festival.
A Baltimore native, Ms. Needleman attended high school at the Baltimore School for the Arts but left early to attend the Curtis Institute of Music, where she received a bachelor of music degree as a student of Richard Woodhams. Ms. Needleman is on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music’s Young Artist Summer Program. She has released a solo album with pianist Jennifer Lim on the GENUIN label.
Lisa Steltenpohl, viola
Lisa Steltenpohl, the newly‐appointed principal viola of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. She has served as principal violist of The Curtis Symphony Orchestra and the Haddonfield Symphony, now Symphony in C. Ms. Steltenpohl has also performed with such ensembles as The Philadelphia Orchestra and The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. She began her musical studies on viola at age eleven and while a student in high school was one of the youngest members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
Ms. Steltenpohl made her Orchestra Hall debut performing Bartók’s Viola Concerto with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2001. In addition to her orchestral career, she has participated in many chamber music concerts and festivals, performing alongside notable musicians such as Arnold Steinhardt, Leonidas Kavakos, and others.
Originally from North Barrington, Ill., Ms. Steltenpohl comes from a musical family. She and her twin sister Anna, oboe and English horn, have been featured on the educational series “Musical Encounters” and have performed many recitals together highlighting the viola and oboe repertoire. Prior to joining the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Steltenpohl was a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Her teachers have included Misha Amory, Roberto Diaz, Desiree Ruhstrat, and Stephen Wyrczynski. She made her Baltimore Symphony Orchestra solo debut performing Bach’s Sixth Brandenburg Concerto last season.
Mimi Stillman, flute
Flutist Mimi Stillman is an internationally acclaimed solo, chamber, and recording artist hailed by the
New York Times as “not only a consummate and charismatic performer, but also a scholar. Her
programs tend to activate ear, heart, and brain.” Praised for her “exquisite purity of sound and depth of emotion” (Diario de Yucatán), she has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras and as recitalist and chamber musician at prestigious venues throughout the United States and internationally. Renowned for her virtuosity, insightful interpretation, and adventurous programming, she has appeared as soloist with orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Marine Chamber Orchestra of "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Bach Collegium Stuttgart, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Yucatán; and at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Symphony Space, Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Sawdust, Roulette, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, La Jolla Music Society, Verbier Festival (Switzerland), Kol HaMusica (Israel), on Curtis On Tour's virtual Latin American tour 2021 in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. In May 2022, she gave the world premiere of Grammy-nominated composer Zhou Tian's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, written for her, with the Marine Chamber Orchestra and Director Col. Jason K. Fettig. The work was commissioned with a consortium of seven American orchestras, with which she will perform the concerto over the next two seasons.
Mimi Stillman is the founding Artistic Director of the popular Dolce Suono Ensemble (DSE), performing Baroque to new music in Philadelphia and on tour, in programs with high intellectual content setting music in its broadest cultural context. Some of DSE's outstanding projects include Mahler 100 / Schoenberg 60; Women Pioneers of American Music; and A Place and a Name: Remembering the Holocaust. “All programs should have this much to say, and say it so well.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
YaoGuang Zhai, clarinet
YaoGuang Zhai is Principal Clarinet with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra appointed by Maestra Marin Alsop in 2016.
A native of Tai Yuan, China, YaoGuang began his musical pursuit at the age of three on the violin, switched to the clarinet seven years later. He studied at the China Central Conservatory in Beijing, the Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild California, and then the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. YaoGuang was instructed by many distinguished clarinetists, including: Yehuda Gilad, Donald Montanaro, Ricardo Morales and Joaquin Valdepeñas. In 2009, he represented the Curtis Institute of Music to tour in the U.S. as the solo and chamber clarinetist, the solo performance was also awarded to the Curtis Institute CD of the Year. During his study, he has won the Hellam Competition, Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, the Blount-Slawson Young Artists Competition, the Spotlight Award and the Pacific Symphony Concerto Competition.
After graduation, he held position as Principal Clarinet at the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in China for 2 seasons, and as the Associate Principal Clarinet with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra appointed by maestro Peter Oundjian for 5 seasons.
Along with his solo appearances with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, YaoGuang has performed with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (China), Toronto Summer Music Festival Orchestra, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra (Aspen) and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. He is featured to play the Copland Clarinet Concerto with the Victoria Symphony in Canada in 2017. He has actively participated in various music festivals as both soloist and chamber musician; such as: Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival invited by violinist Cho-Liang Lin; Music From Angel Fire Festival invited by violinist Ida Kavafian; Laguna Beach Chamber Music Festival invited by pianist Christopher O’Riley; Aspen Music Festival; Pacific Music Festival in Japan; Beijing International Clarinet Festival; Toronto Summer Music Festival; and ChongQing International Clarinet Festival in China.
He was also one of the clarinetists chosen to record the Royal Conservatory of Music's exam level commercial CD, which has been sold across North America. He played the principal clarinet during live recording of Messiah with Toronto Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sir Andrew Davis in year end 2015; The CD is to be released in 2017 by Chandos Records.
YaoGuang Zhai is a Buffet Crampon Performing Artist.
Eric Conway, piano
Eric Conway is the Chairperson of the Fine and Performing Arts Department as well as the Director of the Morgan State University Choir. He served as associate conductor and principal accompanist for the Morgan State University Choir for over twenty years under the leadership of the late Nathan Carter.
He received his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where he majored in Piano Performance and minored in Conducting. While at the Peabody, Conway was a recipient of the prestigious Liberace Scholarship, as well as a winner in the Yale Gordon Concerto Competition where he earned the honor of playing Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra.
Some of his significant accomplishments as pianist include, a tour of Eastern Africa, sponsored by the United States Information Agency. One of the highlights of the tour was a solo performance for Madagascan television and radio. He has performed as soloist with several orchestras including, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Concert Artists, Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, Georgetown University Orchestra, and the Millbrook Orchestra in Shepardstown, West Virginia. In January, 2006 he performed Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to wide acclaim.
Dr. Conway is also sought after as a collaborative artist. He has worked with several leading artists including Trevor Wye, Hillary Hahn, Daniel Heifetz, William Brown, Janice Chandler, to name a few. He is also an orchestral pianist for the Baltimore Symphony. In 1994 and 1997, he toured with the orchestra to Eastern Asia.
Dr. Conway's choral accomplishments include working closely with some of the greatest conductors of the 20th Century including Robert Shaw, Sir Nevelle Mariner, and Donald Neuen. In 2001, he was chorusmaster for the Baltimore Symphony Chorus' performance of the Verdi Requiem. He travels around the mid-Atlantic area giving Choral Master Classes and workshops for Collegiate and High School levels. In June of 2006, Dr. Conway was Chorusmaster for performances of Mahler Symphony #2, ending the tenure of Baltimore Symphony's music director, Yuri Temirkanov.
Most recently, he conducted the forces of both the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Soulful Symphony in the Meyerhoff Hall's Annual Martin Luther King Concert. In addition to his musical accomplishments, he holds degrees in both Accounting and Business Management and is also a Certified Public Accountant. Most recently, Conway has been appointed by Governor O'Malley as a member of the MD State Arts Council.
Dr. Conway is married to Bessie Elizabeth Conway, and they are blessed to have three sons, Eric, Jr.; Christopher; and Ryan.
Holly Jenkins, violin
Originally from House Springs, Missouri, Holly Jenkins joined the Second Violin section of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in September, 2016. Ms. Jenkins has performed as a soloist and as a chamber musician in recitals in seven different countries. She has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Cleveland’s Trinity Lutheran Church and St. Louis’ Sheldon Concert Hall. She began her performing career at the age of 11, when she was selected to solo with the Alton Symphony Orchestra. Subsequent concerto performances have included appearances with the Oberlin Conservatory, St. Louis Chamber Orchestra, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Sarasota Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra, Principia College Orchestra, Belleville Philharmonic and the Clayton Symphony. Ms. Jenkins was also a member of the New York City based conductorless string ensemble, Shattered Glass, from 2013-2016, touring the Midwest and East Coast and performing regularly across New York City.
In addition to performing, Ms. Jenkins is passionately committed to promoting peace, dialogue and cross cultural awareness through music. During the summer of 2011, she and a colleague conducted a tour of Jordan and the West Bank in cooperation with Musicians Without Borders, Nablus a Culture and several other organizations, teaching and performing in schools and community centers. In 2012, she participated in a two-week trip to Pakistan with Cultures in Harmony to perform and conduct music workshops.
Ms. Jenkins holds degrees with the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Manhattan School of Music. Most recently she has attended Bard College to play with The Orchestra Now. Her teachers have included Milan Vitek, Laurie Smukler, Amy Oshiro-Morales, and Winifred Crock.
Nikolette LaBonte, horn
Nikolette LaBonte is Associate/Assistant/Utility Horn of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra where she has served since 2016, and during the 2022-2023 season she will also have the privilege of performing as Visiting Guest Principal Horn of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Originally from South Florida, Nikolette also serves as the principal horn of the Music in the Mountains summer festival, previously held a position with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, and served as Acting Principal Horn of the Fort Worth Symphony from 2019-2021. She has also had the opportunity to perform with orchestras across North America including guest principal engagements with the Vancouver Symphony, Tucson Symphony, and the Dallas Chamber Symphony and regular season performances with the New York Philharmonic and Buffalo Philharmonic.
Ms. LaBonte received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of W. Peter Kurau. In addition to her degree studies, she has served as the Instructor of Natural Horn at Eastman, has been a guest lecturer at institutions including Baylor University and the University of Texas at Austin, and is an avid chamber musician having performed with groups such as the Antara Winds, Fort Worth Symphony Brass Quintet, and Music in the American Wild. Nikolette is also an award-winning soloist and was a participant in the prestigious ARD International Competition in 2021, the only American horn player invited.
Outside of the concert hall, Ms. LaBonte is active in promoting classical music throughout the community. She is a faculty member of the Eastman Horn Institute, serves as the Assistant Artistic Director of the Kendall Betts Horn Camp, and has presented performances and lectures as a member of the International Horn Society and the International Women’s Brass Conference. Away from the horn, she enjoys hiking, bicycling, and scuba diving, although she must reserve the latter for her visits to more tropical destinations.
Seth Low, cello
Raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, cellist Seth Low has been a member of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 1985. Before joining the BSO, he was principal cellist of the Richmond Symphony and taught cello at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Mr. Low holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and from Queens College of the City University of New York. His teacher at Oberlin was Richard Kapuscinski, an early student of Leonard Rose. It was Kapuscinski’s teaching, with its special emphasis on the bow arm and fine tone production that became Low’s main formative influence as a cellist. Later at Queens College and at the Aspen Festival, he also studied with Claus Adam, long-time cellist of the Juilliard Quartet.
Having been born into a musical family — his grandmother was a violin teacher, his mother an amateur violist and his father played the recorder — he began cello lessons at age eight. During high school he studied with Evelyn Elsing, professor of cello at the University of Maryland.
Mr. Low has appeared twice as soloist with the BSO, performing the Bruch Kol Nidrei and the Caprice and Elegy by Frederick Delius. In addition he appears occasionally as a chamber musician in the Baltimore area and also teaches cello. He is the principal cellist of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra.
Julian Maddox, violin & Co-Director of Chamber Music by Candlelight Series
Julian Maddox is a violinist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He began studying the violin at the age of six, working extensively with Sally O'Reilly. Julian received his undergraduate degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2019, and he is also pursuing his Master's degree at CIM as a student of Jaime Laredo and Jan Sloman. Julian has been a prizewinner in numerous competitions, including the Schubert Club, Thursday Musical, MNSOTA, Dakota Valley Symphony, and MTNA Competitions.
As an avid chamber musician, his ensembles have won first place in the MNSOTA Chamber Music Competition, and have worked with members of the Cleveland, Takacs, Emerson, Danish, Jupiter, and Cavani String Quartets. Currently, he is a contract member of the Canton Symphony Orchestra, and a substitute with the Akron Symphony, Cleveland Pops, Firelands Symphony, New World Symphony, and ProMusica Chamber Orchestras. Julian is also committed to engaging with his local community in Cleveland. He is a founding member of the CIM Black Student Union, and serves as a mentor for the CIM Musical Pathways Fellowship program. In 2018, he worked alongside Cleveland Orchestra members at the Cleveland School for the Arts in a special collaboration for the Cleveland Orchestra's "Prometheus Project" centennial celebration.
In addition to his musical endeavors, he is passionate about brewing coffee, and is a big basketball and football fan. Julian is currently based in Shaker Heights, OH, where he lives with his wife, Charrine, and their 20-month-old son, Theodore.
Harrison Miller, bassoon
Principal Bassoonist Harrison Miller has performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2017. Appointed to the principal bassoon position in 2021 by Music Director Marin Alsop, Harrison joined the BSO as acting principal bassoon in 2017. Additional orchestral experience includes frequent guest work with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Louisville Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, American Ballet Theatre, and the Symphony in C (Haddonfield, New Jersey).
Harrison received his Bachelor of Music from The Juilliard School in May 2017, where he studied with Judith LeClair. In addition to receiving a Kovner Fellowship, Harrison was the winner of Juilliard’s 2017 Peter Mennin Prize for outstanding achievement and leadership in music.
Born in Greenwich, Connecticut, Harrison began his formal musical education studying with Joyce Kelley before going on to attend the Juilliard Pre-College as a student of Marc Goldberg in 2010. The first bassoonist in Juilliard’s history to win concerto competitions in two divisions, Harrison performed as soloist with both the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra and the Juilliard Orchestra.
A devoted chamber musician, Harrison studied with the New York Woodwind Quintet as a member of their Juilliard seminar and has since gone on to perform in New York's annual ChamberFest, masterclasses at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and in a woodwind quintet with members of the New York Philharmonic for their Very Young People’s Concerts.
Summer festivals include participation at the Aspen Music Festival and School as a New Horizons Fellow, the Tanglewood Music Center, the Music Academy of the West, the Sarasota Music Festival, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. During his undergraduate degree, Harrison was a teaching assistant for Marc Goldberg at the Juilliard Pre-College. He lead reed-making classes, assisted in lessons, mentored students in orchestra, and coached chamber music. He now maintains his own private studio, and frequently leads sectionals for both the Baltimore Youth Symphony Orchestra and Howard County Youth Orchestras. Harrison has been on faculty at the Philadelphia International Music Festival, and the Interlochen Center for the Arts’ 2019 Summer Camp and has presented masterclasses at the Juilliard School, University of Toronto, Manhattan School of Music, and the University of North Carolina Greensboro. This summer Harrison will be on faculty at the inaugural season of Hidden Valley’s Festival of Winds.
Katherine Needleman, oboe
Katherine Needleman joined the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as principal oboist in 2003, the same year she won first prize at the International Double Reed Society’s Gillet-Fox Competition. She has appeared with the BSO as soloist in works of Bach, Beethoven, Lukas Foss, Martinu, Mozart, Christopher Rouse, Strauss, Vaughan Williams, and Vivaldi. Ms. Needleman has also been soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Haddonfield Symphony, Symphony of Westchester, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia. She has performed as guest principal oboist with the New York Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, San Diego and New Zealand.
Ms. Needleman is a founding member of the oboe trio Trio La Milpa, the first American chamber ensemble to perform in Greenland; the woodwind quintet Astral Winds; and Mico Nonet, an improvisational ambient chamber music ensemble involving colleagues from the Berlin Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Richmond Symphony and 1970’s synthesizers. Ms. Needleman’s other chamber music engagements have taken her to Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall and the Metropolitan Museum in New York; Jordan Hall and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston as well as the Freer Gallery in Washington D.C. She has appeared at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, Italy’s Spoleto Festival, the Alpenglow Festival, and the Newport Music Festival. A participant at the Marlboro Music Festival, she has also appeared on two tours with “Musicians from Marlboro.”
Devoted to the music of our time, Ms. Needleman has premiered numerous works and has commissioned works by Luis Prado, Chia-Yu Hsu and David Ludwig. She gave the American premiere of Brenno Blauth’s Concertino. She recorded Christopher Rouse’s Oboe Concerto with the Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller (release TBA), and gave the West Coast Premiere of the work with Marin Alsop at the Cabrillo Festival.
A Baltimore native, Ms. Needleman attended high school at the Baltimore School for the Arts but left early to attend the Curtis Institute of Music, where she received a bachelor of music degree as a student of Richard Woodhams. Ms. Needleman is on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music’s Young Artist Summer Program. She has released a solo album with pianist Jennifer Lim on the GENUIN label.
Lisa Steltenpohl, viola
Lisa Steltenpohl, the newly‐appointed principal viola of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. She has served as principal violist of The Curtis Symphony Orchestra and the Haddonfield Symphony, now Symphony in C. Ms. Steltenpohl has also performed with such ensembles as The Philadelphia Orchestra and The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. She began her musical studies on viola at age eleven and while a student in high school was one of the youngest members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
Ms. Steltenpohl made her Orchestra Hall debut performing Bartók’s Viola Concerto with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2001. In addition to her orchestral career, she has participated in many chamber music concerts and festivals, performing alongside notable musicians such as Arnold Steinhardt, Leonidas Kavakos, and others.
Originally from North Barrington, Ill., Ms. Steltenpohl comes from a musical family. She and her twin sister Anna, oboe and English horn, have been featured on the educational series “Musical Encounters” and have performed many recitals together highlighting the viola and oboe repertoire. Prior to joining the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Steltenpohl was a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Her teachers have included Misha Amory, Roberto Diaz, Desiree Ruhstrat, and Stephen Wyrczynski. She made her Baltimore Symphony Orchestra solo debut performing Bach’s Sixth Brandenburg Concerto last season.
Mimi Stillman, flute
Flutist Mimi Stillman is an internationally acclaimed solo, chamber, and recording artist hailed by the
New York Times as “not only a consummate and charismatic performer, but also a scholar. Her
programs tend to activate ear, heart, and brain.” Praised for her “exquisite purity of sound and depth of emotion” (Diario de Yucatán), she has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras and as recitalist and chamber musician at prestigious venues throughout the United States and internationally. Renowned for her virtuosity, insightful interpretation, and adventurous programming, she has appeared as soloist with orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Marine Chamber Orchestra of "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Bach Collegium Stuttgart, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Yucatán; and at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Symphony Space, Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Sawdust, Roulette, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, La Jolla Music Society, Verbier Festival (Switzerland), Kol HaMusica (Israel), on Curtis On Tour's virtual Latin American tour 2021 in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. In May 2022, she gave the world premiere of Grammy-nominated composer Zhou Tian's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, written for her, with the Marine Chamber Orchestra and Director Col. Jason K. Fettig. The work was commissioned with a consortium of seven American orchestras, with which she will perform the concerto over the next two seasons.
Mimi Stillman is the founding Artistic Director of the popular Dolce Suono Ensemble (DSE), performing Baroque to new music in Philadelphia and on tour, in programs with high intellectual content setting music in its broadest cultural context. Some of DSE's outstanding projects include Mahler 100 / Schoenberg 60; Women Pioneers of American Music; and A Place and a Name: Remembering the Holocaust. “All programs should have this much to say, and say it so well.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
YaoGuang Zhai, clarinet
YaoGuang Zhai is Principal Clarinet with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra appointed by Maestra Marin Alsop in 2016.
A native of Tai Yuan, China, YaoGuang began his musical pursuit at the age of three on the violin, switched to the clarinet seven years later. He studied at the China Central Conservatory in Beijing, the Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild California, and then the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. YaoGuang was instructed by many distinguished clarinetists, including: Yehuda Gilad, Donald Montanaro, Ricardo Morales and Joaquin Valdepeñas. In 2009, he represented the Curtis Institute of Music to tour in the U.S. as the solo and chamber clarinetist, the solo performance was also awarded to the Curtis Institute CD of the Year. During his study, he has won the Hellam Competition, Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, the Blount-Slawson Young Artists Competition, the Spotlight Award and the Pacific Symphony Concerto Competition.
After graduation, he held position as Principal Clarinet at the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in China for 2 seasons, and as the Associate Principal Clarinet with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra appointed by maestro Peter Oundjian for 5 seasons.
Along with his solo appearances with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, YaoGuang has performed with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (China), Toronto Summer Music Festival Orchestra, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra (Aspen) and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. He is featured to play the Copland Clarinet Concerto with the Victoria Symphony in Canada in 2017. He has actively participated in various music festivals as both soloist and chamber musician; such as: Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival invited by violinist Cho-Liang Lin; Music From Angel Fire Festival invited by violinist Ida Kavafian; Laguna Beach Chamber Music Festival invited by pianist Christopher O’Riley; Aspen Music Festival; Pacific Music Festival in Japan; Beijing International Clarinet Festival; Toronto Summer Music Festival; and ChongQing International Clarinet Festival in China.
He was also one of the clarinetists chosen to record the Royal Conservatory of Music's exam level commercial CD, which has been sold across North America. He played the principal clarinet during live recording of Messiah with Toronto Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sir Andrew Davis in year end 2015; The CD is to be released in 2017 by Chandos Records.
YaoGuang Zhai is a Buffet Crampon Performing Artist.
Eric Conway is the Chairperson of the Fine and Performing Arts Department as well as the Director of the Morgan State University Choir. He served as associate conductor and principal accompanist for the Morgan State University Choir for over twenty years under the leadership of the late Nathan Carter.
He received his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where he majored in Piano Performance and minored in Conducting. While at the Peabody, Conway was a recipient of the prestigious Liberace Scholarship, as well as a winner in the Yale Gordon Concerto Competition where he earned the honor of playing Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra.
Some of his significant accomplishments as pianist include, a tour of Eastern Africa, sponsored by the United States Information Agency. One of the highlights of the tour was a solo performance for Madagascan television and radio. He has performed as soloist with several orchestras including, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Concert Artists, Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, Georgetown University Orchestra, and the Millbrook Orchestra in Shepardstown, West Virginia. In January, 2006 he performed Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to wide acclaim.
Dr. Conway is also sought after as a collaborative artist. He has worked with several leading artists including Trevor Wye, Hillary Hahn, Daniel Heifetz, William Brown, Janice Chandler, to name a few. He is also an orchestral pianist for the Baltimore Symphony. In 1994 and 1997, he toured with the orchestra to Eastern Asia.
Dr. Conway's choral accomplishments include working closely with some of the greatest conductors of the 20th Century including Robert Shaw, Sir Nevelle Mariner, and Donald Neuen. In 2001, he was chorusmaster for the Baltimore Symphony Chorus' performance of the Verdi Requiem. He travels around the mid-Atlantic area giving Choral Master Classes and workshops for Collegiate and High School levels. In June of 2006, Dr. Conway was Chorusmaster for performances of Mahler Symphony #2, ending the tenure of Baltimore Symphony's music director, Yuri Temirkanov.
Most recently, he conducted the forces of both the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Soulful Symphony in the Meyerhoff Hall's Annual Martin Luther King Concert. In addition to his musical accomplishments, he holds degrees in both Accounting and Business Management and is also a Certified Public Accountant. Most recently, Conway has been appointed by Governor O'Malley as a member of the MD State Arts Council.
Dr. Conway is married to Bessie Elizabeth Conway, and they are blessed to have three sons, Eric, Jr.; Christopher; and Ryan.
Holly Jenkins, violin
Originally from House Springs, Missouri, Holly Jenkins joined the Second Violin section of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in September, 2016. Ms. Jenkins has performed as a soloist and as a chamber musician in recitals in seven different countries. She has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Cleveland’s Trinity Lutheran Church and St. Louis’ Sheldon Concert Hall. She began her performing career at the age of 11, when she was selected to solo with the Alton Symphony Orchestra. Subsequent concerto performances have included appearances with the Oberlin Conservatory, St. Louis Chamber Orchestra, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Sarasota Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra, Principia College Orchestra, Belleville Philharmonic and the Clayton Symphony. Ms. Jenkins was also a member of the New York City based conductorless string ensemble, Shattered Glass, from 2013-2016, touring the Midwest and East Coast and performing regularly across New York City.
In addition to performing, Ms. Jenkins is passionately committed to promoting peace, dialogue and cross cultural awareness through music. During the summer of 2011, she and a colleague conducted a tour of Jordan and the West Bank in cooperation with Musicians Without Borders, Nablus a Culture and several other organizations, teaching and performing in schools and community centers. In 2012, she participated in a two-week trip to Pakistan with Cultures in Harmony to perform and conduct music workshops.
Ms. Jenkins holds degrees with the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Manhattan School of Music. Most recently she has attended Bard College to play with The Orchestra Now. Her teachers have included Milan Vitek, Laurie Smukler, Amy Oshiro-Morales, and Winifred Crock.
Nikolette LaBonte, horn
Nikolette LaBonte is Associate/Assistant/Utility Horn of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra where she has served since 2016, and during the 2022-2023 season she will also have the privilege of performing as Visiting Guest Principal Horn of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Originally from South Florida, Nikolette also serves as the principal horn of the Music in the Mountains summer festival, previously held a position with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, and served as Acting Principal Horn of the Fort Worth Symphony from 2019-2021. She has also had the opportunity to perform with orchestras across North America including guest principal engagements with the Vancouver Symphony, Tucson Symphony, and the Dallas Chamber Symphony and regular season performances with the New York Philharmonic and Buffalo Philharmonic.
Ms. LaBonte received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of W. Peter Kurau. In addition to her degree studies, she has served as the Instructor of Natural Horn at Eastman, has been a guest lecturer at institutions including Baylor University and the University of Texas at Austin, and is an avid chamber musician having performed with groups such as the Antara Winds, Fort Worth Symphony Brass Quintet, and Music in the American Wild. Nikolette is also an award-winning soloist and was a participant in the prestigious ARD International Competition in 2021, the only American horn player invited.
Outside of the concert hall, Ms. LaBonte is active in promoting classical music throughout the community. She is a faculty member of the Eastman Horn Institute, serves as the Assistant Artistic Director of the Kendall Betts Horn Camp, and has presented performances and lectures as a member of the International Horn Society and the International Women’s Brass Conference. Away from the horn, she enjoys hiking, bicycling, and scuba diving, although she must reserve the latter for her visits to more tropical destinations.
Seth Low, cello
Raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, cellist Seth Low has been a member of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 1985. Before joining the BSO, he was principal cellist of the Richmond Symphony and taught cello at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Mr. Low holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and from Queens College of the City University of New York. His teacher at Oberlin was Richard Kapuscinski, an early student of Leonard Rose. It was Kapuscinski’s teaching, with its special emphasis on the bow arm and fine tone production that became Low’s main formative influence as a cellist. Later at Queens College and at the Aspen Festival, he also studied with Claus Adam, long-time cellist of the Juilliard Quartet.
Having been born into a musical family — his grandmother was a violin teacher, his mother an amateur violist and his father played the recorder — he began cello lessons at age eight. During high school he studied with Evelyn Elsing, professor of cello at the University of Maryland.
Mr. Low has appeared twice as soloist with the BSO, performing the Bruch Kol Nidrei and the Caprice and Elegy by Frederick Delius. In addition he appears occasionally as a chamber musician in the Baltimore area and also teaches cello. He is the principal cellist of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra.
Julian Maddox, violin & Co-Director of Chamber Music by Candlelight Series
Julian Maddox is a violinist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He began studying the violin at the age of six, working extensively with Sally O'Reilly. Julian received his undergraduate degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2019, and he is also pursuing his Master's degree at CIM as a student of Jaime Laredo and Jan Sloman. Julian has been a prizewinner in numerous competitions, including the Schubert Club, Thursday Musical, MNSOTA, Dakota Valley Symphony, and MTNA Competitions.
As an avid chamber musician, his ensembles have won first place in the MNSOTA Chamber Music Competition, and have worked with members of the Cleveland, Takacs, Emerson, Danish, Jupiter, and Cavani String Quartets. Currently, he is a contract member of the Canton Symphony Orchestra, and a substitute with the Akron Symphony, Cleveland Pops, Firelands Symphony, New World Symphony, and ProMusica Chamber Orchestras. Julian is also committed to engaging with his local community in Cleveland. He is a founding member of the CIM Black Student Union, and serves as a mentor for the CIM Musical Pathways Fellowship program. In 2018, he worked alongside Cleveland Orchestra members at the Cleveland School for the Arts in a special collaboration for the Cleveland Orchestra's "Prometheus Project" centennial celebration.
In addition to his musical endeavors, he is passionate about brewing coffee, and is a big basketball and football fan. Julian is currently based in Shaker Heights, OH, where he lives with his wife, Charrine, and their 20-month-old son, Theodore.
Harrison Miller, bassoon
Principal Bassoonist Harrison Miller has performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2017. Appointed to the principal bassoon position in 2021 by Music Director Marin Alsop, Harrison joined the BSO as acting principal bassoon in 2017. Additional orchestral experience includes frequent guest work with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Louisville Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, American Ballet Theatre, and the Symphony in C (Haddonfield, New Jersey).
Harrison received his Bachelor of Music from The Juilliard School in May 2017, where he studied with Judith LeClair. In addition to receiving a Kovner Fellowship, Harrison was the winner of Juilliard’s 2017 Peter Mennin Prize for outstanding achievement and leadership in music.
Born in Greenwich, Connecticut, Harrison began his formal musical education studying with Joyce Kelley before going on to attend the Juilliard Pre-College as a student of Marc Goldberg in 2010. The first bassoonist in Juilliard’s history to win concerto competitions in two divisions, Harrison performed as soloist with both the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra and the Juilliard Orchestra.
A devoted chamber musician, Harrison studied with the New York Woodwind Quintet as a member of their Juilliard seminar and has since gone on to perform in New York's annual ChamberFest, masterclasses at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and in a woodwind quintet with members of the New York Philharmonic for their Very Young People’s Concerts.
Summer festivals include participation at the Aspen Music Festival and School as a New Horizons Fellow, the Tanglewood Music Center, the Music Academy of the West, the Sarasota Music Festival, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. During his undergraduate degree, Harrison was a teaching assistant for Marc Goldberg at the Juilliard Pre-College. He lead reed-making classes, assisted in lessons, mentored students in orchestra, and coached chamber music. He now maintains his own private studio, and frequently leads sectionals for both the Baltimore Youth Symphony Orchestra and Howard County Youth Orchestras. Harrison has been on faculty at the Philadelphia International Music Festival, and the Interlochen Center for the Arts’ 2019 Summer Camp and has presented masterclasses at the Juilliard School, University of Toronto, Manhattan School of Music, and the University of North Carolina Greensboro. This summer Harrison will be on faculty at the inaugural season of Hidden Valley’s Festival of Winds.
Katherine Needleman, oboe
Katherine Needleman joined the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as principal oboist in 2003, the same year she won first prize at the International Double Reed Society’s Gillet-Fox Competition. She has appeared with the BSO as soloist in works of Bach, Beethoven, Lukas Foss, Martinu, Mozart, Christopher Rouse, Strauss, Vaughan Williams, and Vivaldi. Ms. Needleman has also been soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Haddonfield Symphony, Symphony of Westchester, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia. She has performed as guest principal oboist with the New York Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, San Diego and New Zealand.
Ms. Needleman is a founding member of the oboe trio Trio La Milpa, the first American chamber ensemble to perform in Greenland; the woodwind quintet Astral Winds; and Mico Nonet, an improvisational ambient chamber music ensemble involving colleagues from the Berlin Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Richmond Symphony and 1970’s synthesizers. Ms. Needleman’s other chamber music engagements have taken her to Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall and the Metropolitan Museum in New York; Jordan Hall and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston as well as the Freer Gallery in Washington D.C. She has appeared at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, Italy’s Spoleto Festival, the Alpenglow Festival, and the Newport Music Festival. A participant at the Marlboro Music Festival, she has also appeared on two tours with “Musicians from Marlboro.”
Devoted to the music of our time, Ms. Needleman has premiered numerous works and has commissioned works by Luis Prado, Chia-Yu Hsu and David Ludwig. She gave the American premiere of Brenno Blauth’s Concertino. She recorded Christopher Rouse’s Oboe Concerto with the Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller (release TBA), and gave the West Coast Premiere of the work with Marin Alsop at the Cabrillo Festival.
A Baltimore native, Ms. Needleman attended high school at the Baltimore School for the Arts but left early to attend the Curtis Institute of Music, where she received a bachelor of music degree as a student of Richard Woodhams. Ms. Needleman is on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music’s Young Artist Summer Program. She has released a solo album with pianist Jennifer Lim on the GENUIN label.
Lisa Steltenpohl, viola
Lisa Steltenpohl, the newly‐appointed principal viola of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. She has served as principal violist of The Curtis Symphony Orchestra and the Haddonfield Symphony, now Symphony in C. Ms. Steltenpohl has also performed with such ensembles as The Philadelphia Orchestra and The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. She began her musical studies on viola at age eleven and while a student in high school was one of the youngest members of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
Ms. Steltenpohl made her Orchestra Hall debut performing Bartók’s Viola Concerto with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2001. In addition to her orchestral career, she has participated in many chamber music concerts and festivals, performing alongside notable musicians such as Arnold Steinhardt, Leonidas Kavakos, and others.
Originally from North Barrington, Ill., Ms. Steltenpohl comes from a musical family. She and her twin sister Anna, oboe and English horn, have been featured on the educational series “Musical Encounters” and have performed many recitals together highlighting the viola and oboe repertoire. Prior to joining the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Steltenpohl was a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Her teachers have included Misha Amory, Roberto Diaz, Desiree Ruhstrat, and Stephen Wyrczynski. She made her Baltimore Symphony Orchestra solo debut performing Bach’s Sixth Brandenburg Concerto last season.
Mimi Stillman, flute
Flutist Mimi Stillman is an internationally acclaimed solo, chamber, and recording artist hailed by the
New York Times as “not only a consummate and charismatic performer, but also a scholar. Her
programs tend to activate ear, heart, and brain.” Praised for her “exquisite purity of sound and depth of emotion” (Diario de Yucatán), she has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras and as recitalist and chamber musician at prestigious venues throughout the United States and internationally. Renowned for her virtuosity, insightful interpretation, and adventurous programming, she has appeared as soloist with orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Marine Chamber Orchestra of "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Bach Collegium Stuttgart, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Yucatán; and at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Symphony Space, Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Sawdust, Roulette, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, La Jolla Music Society, Verbier Festival (Switzerland), Kol HaMusica (Israel), on Curtis On Tour's virtual Latin American tour 2021 in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. In May 2022, she gave the world premiere of Grammy-nominated composer Zhou Tian's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, written for her, with the Marine Chamber Orchestra and Director Col. Jason K. Fettig. The work was commissioned with a consortium of seven American orchestras, with which she will perform the concerto over the next two seasons.
Mimi Stillman is the founding Artistic Director of the popular Dolce Suono Ensemble (DSE), performing Baroque to new music in Philadelphia and on tour, in programs with high intellectual content setting music in its broadest cultural context. Some of DSE's outstanding projects include Mahler 100 / Schoenberg 60; Women Pioneers of American Music; and A Place and a Name: Remembering the Holocaust. “All programs should have this much to say, and say it so well.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
YaoGuang Zhai, clarinet
YaoGuang Zhai is Principal Clarinet with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra appointed by Maestra Marin Alsop in 2016.
A native of Tai Yuan, China, YaoGuang began his musical pursuit at the age of three on the violin, switched to the clarinet seven years later. He studied at the China Central Conservatory in Beijing, the Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild California, and then the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. YaoGuang was instructed by many distinguished clarinetists, including: Yehuda Gilad, Donald Montanaro, Ricardo Morales and Joaquin Valdepeñas. In 2009, he represented the Curtis Institute of Music to tour in the U.S. as the solo and chamber clarinetist, the solo performance was also awarded to the Curtis Institute CD of the Year. During his study, he has won the Hellam Competition, Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, the Blount-Slawson Young Artists Competition, the Spotlight Award and the Pacific Symphony Concerto Competition.
After graduation, he held position as Principal Clarinet at the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in China for 2 seasons, and as the Associate Principal Clarinet with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra appointed by maestro Peter Oundjian for 5 seasons.
Along with his solo appearances with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, YaoGuang has performed with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (China), Toronto Summer Music Festival Orchestra, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra (Aspen) and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. He is featured to play the Copland Clarinet Concerto with the Victoria Symphony in Canada in 2017. He has actively participated in various music festivals as both soloist and chamber musician; such as: Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival invited by violinist Cho-Liang Lin; Music From Angel Fire Festival invited by violinist Ida Kavafian; Laguna Beach Chamber Music Festival invited by pianist Christopher O’Riley; Aspen Music Festival; Pacific Music Festival in Japan; Beijing International Clarinet Festival; Toronto Summer Music Festival; and ChongQing International Clarinet Festival in China.
He was also one of the clarinetists chosen to record the Royal Conservatory of Music's exam level commercial CD, which has been sold across North America. He played the principal clarinet during live recording of Messiah with Toronto Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sir Andrew Davis in year end 2015; The CD is to be released in 2017 by Chandos Records.
YaoGuang Zhai is a Buffet Crampon Performing Artist.