2026-27 Season Artists

Violin & Artistic Director

Angella Ahn

Korean American violinist Angella Ahn is a recitalist, chamber musician, and educator. As the violinist of the Ahn Trio, Angella has performed in over 35 countries and every state in the U.S., at venues as diverse as Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colon, Vienna’s Musikverein, New York’s Lincoln Center, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, Beijing’s Concert Hall, Istanbul’s Aya Irini in Topkapi Palace, and the White House. She has collaborated and been featured with such musical luminaries as Phil Aaberg, Darol Anger, Rachel Barton Pine, Emmylou Harris, and the late John Prine.

In addition to live performances, Angella has an impressive discography with her trio. The nine enthusiastically received albums include Lullaby for My Favorite Insomniac, released by Sony (No. 8 in the Billboard Charts for 26 weeks) and Dvorak, Suk and Shostakovich, released by EMI (winner of Germany’s prestigious ECHO Award).

A graduate of the Juilliard School, Angella leverages her tutelage under foremost violin pedagogue Dorothy DeLay with her decades-long performance career, helping to shape the next generation of young musicians. She is Associate Professor of Violin and Viola at Montana State University and has given masterclasses throughout North America, Asia, and Europe.

Angella is active in the Montana community where she lives, serving her second term on the Montana Arts Council. She is the Artistic Director of Montana Chamber Music, bringing world class chamber music to Montana, and she also serves on the Advisory Board of Opera Montana. She can be seen in “Angella Ahn & Friends” on Montana PBS’ Emmy award- winning 11th & Grant with Eric Funk, as well as in The Hive, a film produced by Tippet Rise Art Center in collaboration with the acclaimed sculptor Stephen Talasnik and director Matthew McKee.

Angella plays on a Pietro Antonio Dalla Costa, circa 1760.

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Composer

Bruce Adolphe

Composer, author, lecturer, and performer Bruce Adolphe — known to millions of Americans from his public radio show Piano Puzzlers, which was broadcast weekly on Performance Today, hosted by Fred Child, from 2002 to 2025 — has created a substantial body of chamber music and orchestral works inspired by science, visual arts, and human rights. Mr. Adolphe has composed several works based on writings by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio: Body Loops (piano and orchestra); Memories of a Possible Future (piano and string quartet); Self Comes to Mind (solo cello and two percussionists); Obedient Choir of Emotions (chorus and piano); and Musics of Memory (piano, marimba, harp, guitar).  Yo-Yo Ma premiered Self Comes to Mind, with a text written by Antonio Damasio especially for the project, in 2009 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Mr. Adolphe’s other science-based music include Einstein’s Light for violin and piano, recorded by Joshua Bell and Marija Stroke on Sony Classical. Among his human rights works are I Will Not Remain Silent for violin and orchestra and Reach Out, Raise Hope, Change Society for chorus, wind quintet, and three percussionists, both recorded on the Naxos/Milken Archive label. His string octet Thakla, an Arabic word meaning a parent’s grief over the death of a child, was premiered in 2025 by Accordo in Minneapolis (recording on YouTube). Mr. Adolphe is the resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the author of several books, including Visions and Decisions: Imagination and Technique in Music Composition (Cambridge, 2023); The Mind’s Ear  (third edition, OUP, 2021), and Dreaming and Thinking in Music: Exercises Exploring Inspiration and Imagination in Musical Creativity (OUP, 2025). He contributed the chapter “The Musical Imagination: Mystery and Method in Musical Composition” to the book Secrets of Creativity: What Neuroscience, the Arts, and Our Minds Reveal (OUP, 2019), an anthology of writings by neuroscientists and artists. Mr. Adolphe contributed the chapter “The Sound of Human Rights: Wordless Music that Speaks for Humanity” to The Routledge Companion to Music and Human Rights (2022).

Viano Quartet

Praised for their “virtuosity, visceral expression, and rare unity of intention” (Boston Globe), the Viano Quartet has quickly soared to international acclaim as one of the most dynamic and in-demand string quartets of their generation. Winners of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2025, the ensemble has captivated audiences worldwide ever since they were awarded First Prize at the 13th Banff International String Quartet Competition, with appearances at renowned venues such as Lincoln Center inNew York, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Hong Kong’s City Hall, and London’s Wigmore Hall. The Viano Quartet are Bowers Program Artists at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from 2024-2027.

Highlights of the Viano Quartet’s 2026/2027 season include debut performances at Chamber Music Houston, Austin Chamber Music Center, Chicago Chamber Music Society, Montana Chamber Music, thePhillips Collection in Washington DC, the Los Angeles Music Guild, the Royal Concertgebouw, Coast Recital Society, Caramoor Center for the Music and Arts, Schubert Club in St. Paul MN, and Chamber Music Charleston. The quartet also makes return appearances at Chamber Music Tulsa, Society of the Four Arts, Music at Evergreen in Baltimore, Cecilian Chamber Series, and a tour through Oregon with Chamber Music Northwest. The quartet looks forward to visiting residencies this season at University of California Santa Barbara, Washington University in Saint Louis, the University of Victoria, Music in the Vineyards in Napa Valley, and Vancouver Academy of Music Chamberfest. This season also features exciting collaborations with pianist Sir Stephen Hough, pianist Illia Ovcharenko, tenor Nicholas Phan, bassist Nina Bernat, and guitarist Jason Vieaux.

Equally committed to both beloved masterworks and contemporary repertoire, the Viano Quartet actively collaborates with today’s leading composers, including Sir Stephen Hough, Gavin Bryars, Kevin Lau, Chris Rogerson, and Caroline Shaw. Most recently, they premiered a newly written string quartet by Indian American composer Reena Esmail in July of 2026.

The quartet’s recent discography highlights the ensemble’s range across both traditional and modern repertoire. Their first full-length album, Voyager, was released in summer 2025 on Apple Music’s Platoonlabel. Inspired by humankind’s enduring spirit of exploration that connects music and people across vast boundaries, the album features Beethoven’s Op. 130 alongside Alistair Coleman’s Moonshot. Gramophone praised the album as “a gripping voyage into the sublime.” Their debut EP, Portraits, was released in 2023 as one of the first albums launched on the Curtis Studio label, featuring works by Schubert, Florence Price, Tchaikovsky, and Ginastera.

Passionate about sharing their love for chamber music with the next generation of musicians, the quartet has worked with some of the most talented young artists at the world’s leading universities and music institutions, including Northwestern University, University of Buffalo, Music@Menlo Chamber Music Institute, the Colburn Academy, Duke University, and Indiana University South Bend. They have also collaborated with many of the world’s finest artists, including Emanuel Ax, Inon Barnatan, Fleur Barron, Mahan Esfahani, Marc-André Hamelin, James Ehnes, Bridget Kibbey, Paul Neubauer, David Shifrin, and Pinchas Zukerman.

The Viano Quartet was formed in Los Angeles at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in 2015. Each member of the quartet is grateful for the unwavering support from their mentors at the Curtis Institute and Colburn Conservatory, including members of the Dover, Guarneri, and Tokyo string quartets.

“Viano” is a portmanteau that symbolizes how the four individual instruments of a string quartet—each beginning with the letter “v”—work harmoniously as one, like a piano, creating a unified instrument called the “Viano.”

Violin

Livia Sohn

Hailed by Opus Magazine as “a stunning musician”, Livia Sohn has performed widely on the international stage as concerto soloist, recitalist, and festival guest artist in North America, Europe, and Asia. The Strad magazine says, “Livia Sohn possesses a remarkably lithe and transparent tone of exceptional purity. [Her] virtually blemishless accounts are nothing short of remarkable. Even when under the most fearsome technical pressure at high velocity, every note rings true with pinpoint accuracy.”

Livia is the recent founder of Coast Live Music, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to create community through music. CLM presents music in traditional venues such as concert halls and performance theaters, but also at places such as soup kitchens, behavioral health centers, cancer wards, unhoused communities, and VA hospitals – places where music is equally needed and appreciated.

Cello

Timothy Lovelace

Pianist and conductor Timothy Lovelace directs the Collaborative Piano program at the University of Minnesota and maintains an active international career as a recitalist and collaborator. He has appeared at major venues including Rio de Janeiro’s Sala Cecilia Meireles, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Merkin Concert Hall, as well as on prominent concert series across the United States. As a soloist, he has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä.

A sought-after collaborator, Lovelace has performed with artists such as Miriam Fried, Nobuko Imai, Robert Mann, Charles Neidich, Paquito D’Rivera, and Dawn Upshaw. He spent thirteen seasons as a staff pianist at the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, working closely with leading musicians including Barbara Bonney, Christoph Eschenbach, Thomas Hampson, Christa Ludwig, and Yo-Yo Ma.
As a conductor, he has led ensembles including the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Civic Orchestra of Minneapolis. A dedicated advocate for new music, he has premiered works by composers such as John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, and Libby Larsen. He is also a published composer.

Lovelace’s recordings appear on Albany, Arabesque, Avie, Blue Griffin, Boston Records, MSR, and Naxos. His principal teachers include Harold Evans, Clifford Herzer, Gilbert Kalish, Donna Loewy, Gerhard Samuel, and Frank Weinstock.

Double Bass

Marguerite Cox

“Marguerite Cox, a double bassist from northeast Ohio, is a versatile and in-demand collaborator in numerous musical settings throughout the United States.

A recent alumna of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect fellowship, she performs regularly with A Far Cry, Palaver Strings, and Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, and counts forthcoming appearances with The Knights, AMOC*, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Ruckus, Teatro Nuovo, and other chamber ensembles exploring music through the ages.

As an orchestral musician, she has appeared as a substitute with the Baltimore and Charleston Symphonies, held the principal bass position at Symphony in C from 2022 to 2024, and was a member of the 2023 Cabrillo Festival Orchestra; she was also a member of the inaugural NYO All-Stars Orchestra.
In 2024, Maggie toured and recorded extensively with experimental folk band Big Bend in collaboration with producer and musician Shahzad Izmaily. In 2022, she was in residence at Avaloch Farm with composer Ted Babcock’s Dialogues Quintet.

Marguerite received her undergraduate degree at Rice University’s Shepherd School and her master’s at the Curtis Institute, where she was the first bassist to receive that degree. Based in New York, she instructs budding musicians of all ages across the city, lately at Brooklyn High School of the Arts through her Ensemble Connect placement.”