Berkshire Chamber Players Concert – WAITING LIST ONLY

Berkshire Chamber Concert – WAITING LIST ONLY

Sunday, March 30 at 2:00 PM.

Please call our front desk at 413-298-5501 if you’d like to be put on the wait list.

Solomiya Ivakhiv and Jessica Tong, violins

Ed Gazouleas, viola; Ronald Feldman, cello

Robert Sheena, english horn

Ukrainian born violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv is a highly celebrated soloist, chamber musician and educator. She has made solo appearances with the Istanbul State Symphony, Charleston Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Lviv National Philharmonic of Ukraine, and the Hunan Symphony Orchestra in China, and has performed at such prestigious concert halls as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, CBC Glenn Gould Studio, Curtis Institute Field Concert Hall, Philharmonic Hall in Kyiv, Pickman Hall in Cambridge, and Concertgebouw Mirror Hall. She has been featured at chamber music festivals worldwide, including Tanglewood, Ottawa Chamberfest, Bach Festival of Philadelphia, Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music, San Jose Chamber Music Society, Newport and Nevada Chamber Music Festivals, Emerson Quartet Festival, “Contrasts,” “Virtuosi,” and KyivFest, and she is Artistic Director of the Caspian Monday Music Festival in Greensboro, VT.

Dr. Ivakhiv’s recordings – Ukraine: Journey to Freedom (NAXOS), Mendelssohn Concertos (Brilliant Classics), Haydn & Hummel Concertos (Centaur Records), and Poems & Rhapsodies (Centaur Records), Ukrainian Masters (NAXOS), Ukrainian Christmas (NAXOS) – have been featured on top charts in iTunes and Spotify, as well as NPR, WRTI, WQXR and radio stations around the globe. A champion of new music, she has premiered works by composers such as David Ludwig, John B. Hedges, David Dzubay, Bohdan Kryvopust, Yevhen Stankovych, and Oleksandr Shchetynsky.

Since 2010, Dr. Ivakhiv has served as Artistic Director of Music at the Institute (MATI) Concert Series in New York City, where her primary focus is to introduce audiences to Ukrainian classical music. At MATI, Dr. Ivakhiv presents programs featuring Ukrainian women composers, young Ukrainians, and newly commissioned works, as well as children’s events, book presentations, and a recent concert at Carnegie Hall celebrating MATI’s 25th anniversary.

A dedicated educator, Dr. Ivakhiv has led master classes and coached chamber music at Yale, Columbia, Penn State, University of Hartford Hartt School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Curtis SummerFest, University of Maryland, Bard College Prep, SUNY – Fredonia Universities, Oberlin, Guangzhou and Hunan Conservatories in China, and regularly collaborates with high schools in outreach programs throughout the United States.

Dr. Ivakhiv’s performances have been featured on NPR’s Performance Today, and her “crystal clear and noble sound” (Culture and Life, Ukraine) make her “[one of the] major artists of our time” (Fanfare Magazine). She was recently named Honored (Merited) Artist of Ukraine, her native country’s highest cultural honor. She holds degrees from Curtis Institute of Music and Stony Brook University, where she studied with the late Joseph Silverstein, Rafael Druian and Pamela Frank. While at Curtis, Dr Ivakhiv served as a concertmaster of Curtis Symphony and Tanglewood Orchestra.

Solomiya is Professor of Violin and Viola, Head of Strings at UConn and faculty at the Longy School of Music of Bard College.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Dr. Ivakhiv has been very active in organizing and performing benefit concerts to help displaced Ukrainian musicians, wounded civilians, and the “Tikva” orphanage in Odesa. She has collaborated with the Lisa Batiashvili Foundation “Relief Fund for Ukrainian Musicians.”

Canadian violinist Jessica Tong has garnered international acclaim as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, having been described as an “outstanding talent” (Performing Arts in Canada) with “keen sensitivity and receptivity” (Bloomington Herald Times), who “allow[s] us to savour her sense of ardour and intensity, but never at the detriment of her tonal beauty.” (ClassiqueInfo France). A recipient of a Canada Council Grant for Musicians and a DAAD scholar, she has been a top prizewinner at the Eckhardt-Gramatte, Toronto Symphony, Canadian Music, and Yellow Springs International Chamber Music Competitions, as well as the recipient of the David Ouchterlony Award for Outstanding Artist.

A devoted chamber musician, Jessica’s performances have taken her to Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Merkin Hall, les Invalides in Paris and the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and led to collaborations with artists such as Pamela Frank, Leon Fleisher, Cho-Liang Lin and members of the Cleveland, Vogler, Brentano and Borromeo Quartets. She has served as the first violinist of the Vinca and Larchmere String Quartets, and held the post of Artist-in-Residence at the University of Evansville and concertmaster of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra in Indiana. Her debut album of chamber works by Stephan Krehl with the Larchmere Quartet and clarinetist Wonkak Kim was released in 2016 by Naxos Records to critical acclaim.

Dedicated to finding innovative ways to make the classical music art form relevant and understood by current society, Jessica is also a passionate advocate for music education and humanizing the concert experience. She has been an Artist-in-Residence for the Perlman Music Program in Florida, the Gorgeous Sounds Program in Oregon and a two time recipient of the ProQuartet Odyssee Residency Grant in France. She has also served as a Co-Artistic Director for several chamber music workshops including Chamber Music of the Rockies in Colorado, University of Florida’s ChamberFest, and the Harlaxton Music Festival in England. In addition to being the co-founder of Music Beyond the Chamber, she currently serves as the Chamber Music Director for the Composers Conference, Assistant Professor of Violin at the State University of New York Fredonia, and Co-Artistic Director of Avaloch Farm Music Institute.

A pupil of Pamela Frank, Jessica has also studied with Kathleen Winkler, Donald Weilerstein, and Zhang yun Zhang, and has been mentored as a chamber musician by members of the Alban Berg, Vogler, Artemis and Brentano Quartets. Jessica is a former Tanglewood Music Center Fellow.

Violist Ed Gazouleas has emerged as one of the finest teachers of his generation and his students now populate the viola sections of many orchestras globally. Mr. Gazouleas was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 24 years, where he held the Lois and Harlan Anderson Viola Chair and often led the viola section. While in Boston, he was active in orchestra governance, chairing the orchestra’s artistic advisory committee. As a chamber music performer, Mr. Gazouleas has appeared with members of the Fine Arts, Pacifica, Muir, Lydian, and Johannes string quartets, among others. A prize-winner at the Eighth International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France, he has also collaborated with such artists as Christian Tetzlaff, Stephanie Blythe, Roberto Díaz, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and the principal string players of the Cleveland Orchestra.

Mr. Gazouleas works to expand and promote new works for the viola. In 2019 he performed the North American premiere of Letters from Warsaw by English composer Joseph Phibbs. He has also served on the faculties of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music as a tenured professor, Boston University College of Fine Arts, Boston Conservatory, Wellesley College, and New England Conservatory. Mr. Gazouleas is a 1984 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied viola with Michael Tree and Karen Tuttle. He joined the Curtis faculty in 2017 and was named the Gie and Lisa Liem Artistic Director in 2021 and Provost in 2022. Mr. Gazouleas was recently named the Director of The Tanglewood Music Center.

 Ronald Feldman – Two-time winner of the League of American Orchestras’
ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, Ronald
Feldman has achieved critical acclaim for his work as a conductor and cellist.
He has appeared as guest conductor with major orchestras, including the
London Symphony Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the St.
Louis Symphony, and the Quebec Symphony. He served as assistant to
Boston Pops Principal Conductor and composer John Williams from 1989 to
1993. Seiji Ozawa, Conductor Laureate of the Boston Symphony Orchestra,
called Feldman “an outstanding conductor…with a deep musical mind, which
is clearly conveyed through his performances.” John Williams regarded
Feldman as “a brilliant conductor who displays the best leadership qualities…
and an outstandingly high level of musicianship that imbues his conducting
style with strength, taste, and imagination.”
Feldman joined the Boston Symphony at the age of 19. He has appeared as a
soloist in concerto repertoire from Dvořák to Ligeti. Chamber music affiliations have included performances with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Collage New Music, and the Williams Chamber Players. Other
performances have included collaborations with violinist Gil Shaham, cellist
Yo-Yo Ma, and pianists Emanuel Ax and Garrick Ohlsson.
In 2001, Feldman left the Boston Symphony Orchestra to pursue other
musical interests. He was appointed Music Director of Longwood Symphony
Orchestra in July 2012. He also served as Music Director of the Berkshire
Symphony Orchestra, a regional orchestra in residence at Williams College. He
is Artist in Residence and Lecturer in Music at Williams College.

Robert Sheena has been the English horn player of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops Orchestra since 1994, during which time his uniquely vocal style of playing has garnered accolades from audience members and the media alike. In his more than 30 years as a member of the BSO, Sheena has performed as soloist with the orchestra on several occasions, most notably in the world premiere performances of George Tsontakis’s “Sonnets: tone poems for English horn and Orchestra”— a BSO commission composed specifically for him — at Symphony Hall in February 2016 with Andris Nelsons conducting, followed by a Tanglewood performance that August. He has also been featured in BSO performances at Tanglewood of André Previn’s “Reflections” and Aaron Copland’s “Quiet City”. With the Boston Pops, he has been featured at Symphony Hall in “Quiet City” and Michael Daugherty’s “Spaghetti Western”.

From 1987 to 1991 Sheena was the Assistant Principal Oboe and English horn of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Since then, he has made numerous trips to perform in Asia, not only with the BSO, but also in Japan as a guest English hornist with the Super World Orchestra in 2001, Affinis Music Festival in 2009, and Seiji Ozawa’s Saito Kinen Orchestra in 2014. From 1991 until he joined the BSO in 1994 he was Assistant Principal Oboe and English horn with the San Antonio Symphony. From 1984 to 1987 he was a freelance oboist in the Chicago area, playing in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and frequently as a substitute oboist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Sheena is an instructor of both oboe and English horn at Boston University’s School of Music and Tanglewood Institute and an Associate Professor at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. An alumnus of The Tanglewood Music Center’s Fellowship program (1984) he works with the current Fellowship students there every summer, now as a TMC faculty member, coaching chamber music and giving English horn master classes. Sheena occupies the Beranek Chair in the BSO.

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