Current Season Guests, Performer, Violinist
Ashley Horne, violinist and native of Los Angeles, has performed professionally around the world. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Ashley is known for his “bright tone and fine overall sense of style” (Dennis Rooney of Strad Magazine.) His artistic integrity and flexibility have placed him in a diverse range of musical experiences, from recitalist at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall to performances with Portishead, Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole, Tony Bennett, and Oliver Lake.
As principal violinist and soloist of The Harlem Chamber Players, performance highlights have included the Sibelius Violin Concerto at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, the Bernstein Serenade at Merkin Hall, a Harlem walking tour video memoir of Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson, and performances at WQXR’s The Greene Space. He is also a founding member of the newly-formed Harlem Chamber Players String Quartet, which recently performed during the reading of names at the World Trade Center’s Ground Zero 20th year memorial tribute.
Mr. Horne is known for championing works by Black composers, such as Noel DaCosta, George Walker, Nkeiru Okoye, and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. In 2019, he was a featured soloist in Carnegie Hall’s sold-out event, Two Wings: The Music of Black America in Migration. He appeared in Le Mozart Noir, the PBS documentary about the life of violinist and composer Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and his recordings of Perkinson’s Louisiana Blues Strut (A Cakewalk), Henry Cowell’s Fiddler’s Jig and William Grant Still’s Mother and Child with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra (Koch International) can be heard on WQXR. Mr. Horne is a member of the American Symphony, and has performed with Brooklyn Philharmonic, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and New York City Opera. He was recently appointed the new Music Director of the Antara Ensemble. Broadway credits include Carousel, Phantom of the Opera, Ragtime, Follies, Chicago, On the Town, and The Producers. Filmgoers can also see Mr. Horne in Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America.
Performer, Violinist
Sylvia D’Avanzo, violinist, has a varied NYC freelance career running the gamut from symphony and ballet to recordings, Broadway and touring.
She has played for over 30 Broadway shows including Sunset Boulevard, The Light in the Piazza, Sunday in the Park with George, She Loves Me, Kiss Me Kate and Sponge Bob Square Pants. Sylvia is currently the concertmaster for the upcoming 2023 Lincoln Center Theater revival of Camelot. She has also toured extensively with Barbra Streisand, Harry Connick Jr and Madeleine Peyroux. Highlights include a performance with Harry and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and a sold out week of shows with Madeleine at Ronnie Scott’s in London.
In addition to her Broadway and touring life, Sylvia has played with the symphonies of Phoenix and Baltimore as well as the Philharmonia Hungarica, American Ballet Orchestra, St. Lukes and the American Theater Orchestra. She holds degrees from Mannes College of Music and Yale University. Her major teachers were Sally Thomas, Paul Kantor and Joyce Robbins. Sylvia lives in Hell’s Kitchen and loves opera, theater, tennis, cooking and travel.
Performer, Violinist
Kiwon Nahm started studying violin at the age of four and was accepted into the Juilliard School, Pre-College Division when she was nine years old, under the tutelage of Naoko Tanaka and the late Dorothy DeLay. Ms. Nahm made her orchestral solo debut at the age of 12 with the Korean Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center.
She has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Kiwon Nahm has been a top prizewinner in the MTNA competition, the Washington Competition, and the Juilliard Concerto Competition. She currently is a very active chamber musician as well as an orchestral performer. Kiwon has collaborated with Philippe Entremont, Peter Frankl, and the late Claude Frank as well as members of the Emerson String Quartet, Tokyo String Quartet, and the St. Petersburg Quartet.
Kiwon Nahm holds a dual bachelors of music and arts degree from Oberlin College & Conservatory and a master’s degree from Yale University. She is a currently on faculty at The Calhoun School and Concordia College in Bronxville, NY.
Performer, Violinist
Praised by The Strad as an “utterly dazzling” artist, with “a marvelous show of superb technique” and “mesmerizing grace” (New York Classical Review), violinist Danbi Um captivates audiences with her virtuosity, individual sound, and interpretive sensitivity. A Menuhin International Violin Competition Silver Medalist, winner of the prestigious 2018 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and a recent top prizewinner of the Naumburg International Violin Competition, she showcases her artistry in concertos, solo recitals, and in collaboration with distinguished chamber musicians.
Her recent and forthcoming engagements include solo appearances with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (Kimmel Center), Brevard Philharmonic, and New York recital debut at Lincoln Center presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Rockefeller University, San Francisco recital debut on Music@Menlo’s celebrated “Carte Blanche” series, Chicago recital debut on Dame Myra Hess Concert Series, and Philadelphia recital debut presented by Astral Artists. In addition, she will debut at the Wolf Trap in Washington D.C., and her return to the Parlance Chamber Music Series (NJ), Caramoor Festival as well as a national tour with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. During 2017-18 season, She also debuted for the Palm Beach Chamber Music Society with pianist Juho Pohjonen, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s “Morning Musicales”, and at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., with pianist Orion Weiss.
After winning the 2014 Music Academy of the West Competition, Ms. Um made her concerto debut in the Walton Violin Concerto with the Festival Orchestra, conducted by Joshua Weilerstein. Recent concerto engagements include appearances with the Israel Symphony, Auckland Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony, and the Dartmouth Symphony. She also recently appeared in recital and in chamber music performances in such venues as the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Harris Theatre in Chicago, Wigmore Hall in London, and at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
An avid chamber musician, Ms. Um is a current artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) and will see her opening the CMS’s 50th anniversary season in fall 2019 at Alice Tully Hall. Festival appearances have included those at Marlboro, Ravinia, Yellow Barn, Moab, Seattle, Caramoor, and North Shore. This past summer, Ms. Um made critically acclaimed debut at the Moritzburg Festival in Dresden, Germany at the invitation of Jan Vogler. Her chamber music collaborators have included Anthony Marwood, Vadim Gluzman, Pamela Frank, Cho-Liang Lin, Paul Neubauer, Frans Helmerson, Jan Vogler, David Shifrin, and Gilbert Kalish.
Born in 1990 in Seoul, South Korea, Ms. Um began violin lessons at the age of three. In the year 2000, she moved to the United States to study at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree. She also holds an Artist Diploma from Indiana University. Her teachers have included Shmuel Ashkenasi, Joseph Silverstein, Jaime Laredo, and Hagai Shaham.
Ms. Um is a winner of Astral’s 2015 National Auditions. She plays a 1683 “ex-Petschek” Nicolo Amati violin, on loan from a private collection.
Performer, Violinist
Violinist Xiao Wang’s great talents have been recognized with many awards and prizes. As the first prizewinner of the 2012 Szigeti International Violin Competition, he performed with the Kodaly Philharmonic Orchestra during its Budapest Spring Festival as well as with the Gewandhaus Academisches Orchester in the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, Germany. Mr. Wang was also awarded first prize at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artists Competition, resulting in a solo performance with the Texas Music Festival Orchestra and Maestro Lavard Skou Larsen. He has appeared under the baton of Maestro Andreas Ligeti in Hungary’s Bela Bartok National Concert Hall as well as in New York as part of the Young Music Forum Series, and been featured in live performances on Houston Public Radio’s “Front Row” series. A passionate chamber musician, he has collaborated with Phillip Entremont, the American String Quartet, and members of the Mendelssohn String Quartet and the New York Philharmonic.
Mr. Wang began playing the violin at age five, and at the age of ten entered the Central Conservatory in Beijing with Professor Wei-dong Tong. He later studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Joseph Silverstein, and is currently completing his Master of Music degree at the Manhattan School of Music under the guidance of Lucie Robert. He has played in master classes for Claude Frank, Midori, Cho-Liang Lin, Arnold Steinhardt and Pamela Frank.
Performer, Violinist
Violinist Yaegy Park was born in Houston, Texas, and has been recognized as a rising young violinist when she joined the Houston Young Artists at age four, the foundation’s youngest member. Under the mentorship of Kyung Sun Lee, Yaegy was named a Jack Kent Cooke Artist, performing on the NPR radio show, “From the Top” and won the Louis Spohr International Competition, the International Russian Rotary Children’s Music Competition, and the American Protégé International Competition.
While attending the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School, Yaegy won top prizes in competitions such as the International Virtuoso Competition, the YWCA New York Music Competition, the NY Chamber Players Competition, the Blount-Slawson Young Artist Competition, and most recently, the Stulberg International Competition. She has also been featured as a soloist with the Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Temple Symphonies, and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra. In 2015, Yaegy was a YoungArts finalist and had her Carnegie Hall debut with the Foundation for the Revival of Classical Culture. In September, 2017, she gave a solo recital on the Chicago Cultural Center’s Dame Myra Hess Recital Series in Preston Bradley Hall.
Yaegy is also an avid chamber musician, and has attended festivals such as Yellow Barn, the Ottawa Young Artists Program, Music @ Menlo, the Sejong International Music Festival, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. She has participated in community outreach projects in collaboration with Daniel’s Music Foundation and the Juilliard School.
Yaegy is currently a fourth year BM student at Juilliard studying with Catherine Cho and Joel Smirnoff, and plays a Zygmuntowicz violin on loan by the Maestro Foundation.
Performer, Violinist
Violinist Abraham Appleman was born in Yokohama, Japan. He began his studies on the violin and piano at the age of four, soon after his family moved to the Boston area. His continued studies there led to his debut, at age fifteen, performing Max Bruch’s G minor Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Since then, Mr. Appleman has had a multifaceted career, performing in Asia, Europe, and the Americas as a soloist, concertmaster, and chamber musician. He is a founding member of the chamber ensemble Voce Intimae and has served as concertmaster of the Colorado Music Festival and the Atlantic Classical Orchestra in Florida.
In New York, Mr. Appleman performs regularly in the first violin section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. As one of the foremost violinists in the recording industry, he can be heard as a soloist on numerous CDs and motion picture soundtracks. During the summer season, Mr. Appleman is regularly invited to perform with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Festival.
Performer, Violinist
Yevgenia Strenger joined the New York City Opera orchestra in 1979 and became the concertmaster of the NYCO in 2001. She is also a member of the New York City Ballet and has been a frequent player with the New York Philharmonic for many years. Ms. Strenger made her debut with the Lvov Symphony (Ukraine) when she was thirteen, performing concertos by Conus and Sibelius. Upon graduating with honors from the Moscow State Conservatory she toured the Soviet Union as a member of the Kalinin String Quartet. Ms. Strenger, in addition to orchestral playing, has appeared on television, radio and in recitals and chamber music concerts in USA, Russia and Belarus.
Performer, Violinist
Violinist Tzu-En Lee was born in Tainan, Taiwan, where she began studying violin when she was only five years of age. From ages seven to seventeen, she won numerous local and national competitions, foremost of which was the Taiwan National Violin Competition. At the local level, she won the Tainan County and City Competitions, the Kao-Hsiung County and City (2008) Competitions, the Kao-Hsiung City Gun-Du-Bae Competition (1998), and the Yunlin County Competition. She studied in the Music Department of the Tainan University of Technology, where she was the principal second violin in the school’s orchestra, conducted by Huei-Ming Twu.
Since coming to the United States, Tzu-En Lee has studied violin performance at Mannes College, The New School for Music, in Manhattan. She graduated with a diploma in the Spring of 2012 and is currently pursuing further studies in the graduate program at Mannes under the tutelage of violinist Yuri Vodovoz. She is a member of the Mannes Community Orchestra, playing first violin, second stand. In addition to her studies, Ms. Lee has enjoyed taking part in the musical life of NYC as a free-lance musician. Since the founding in 2009 of the Pocket Opera of New York, she has performed with its orchestra on two productions (Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutti” and Handel’s “Messiah”), under the artistic leadership of its conductor Wei-En Hsu. Violinist Tzu-En Lee has also sought out opportunities for performing music by contemporary composers. She has participated in the Second and Third Annual Social Networking Concerts, produced and curated by American composer Douglas Townsend at Saint Peter’s Church in Manhattan. (In the 2011 concert she was part of an ensemble led by pianist David Oei which performed a new piano reduction of Townsend’s triple violin concerto. In the 2012 concert she was part of a string quartet which included violinist Muneyoshi Takahashi and which world-premiered a work by Australian composer Houston Dunleavy. Both performances were audio podcast and videotaped for YouTube.)
Performer, Violinist
Polish-born and New York City-based violinist Kinga Augustyn has been described as “an adventurous performer valuable to New York’s scene” (NY Concert Review), “a violinist for whom nothing seems too difficult” (Nowy Dziennik Polish Daily News), “stylish and vibrant” (The Strad Magazine).
She has performed as a soloist with orchestras in the United States and Europe. Among them are the Magdeburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra Leopoldinum, the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra at the Aspen Music Festival, the Empire State Sinfonia, the Gateway Classical Music Society Orchestra, the Broadway Bach Ensemble, the Glacier Symphony, and the Augusta Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to her many orchestra appearances, she maintains a busy concert schedule as a recitalist and chamber musician with appearances at Carnegie Hall (in both the Stern Auditorium and the Weill Recital Hall), Alice Tully Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Merkin Hall, The Kosciuszko Foundation, 7 World Trade Center, Bargemusic, Polish and Hungarian Embassies in Washington, DC, The Aspen Music Festival, and the Ethical Society in Philadelphia. She has also performed as a featured artist at music festivals such as the Paderewski Festival, the Sevenars Music Festival, and the Chopin & Friends Festival.
Her recent prestigious collaborations include solo performances with The Jose Limon Dance Company at the Joyce Theater in NYC. Ms. Augustyn is also a member of pianist Jeffrey Biegel’s Trio 21 with cellist Robert deMaine. The ensemble has recently recorded Glen Roven’s Runaway Bunny CD for GPR Records, with Catherine Zeta- Jones as a narrator, as well as Kenneth Fuchs’ Falling Trio for Naxos. Ms. Augustyn’s Album of Polish music, was just released in June 2013 on Naxos.
Ms. Augustyn is committed to increasing awareness of music by Polish composers, as well as promoting contemporary music. She has premiered Michael White’s Sonata for Violin and Piano and his Trio Sonata, which were composed especially for her. She has also recorded his Quartet for Piano and Strings. Ms. Augustyn’s new album of contemporary music is coming out very soon on GPR Records. Her former discography includes a CD of Niccolo Paganini 24 Caprices for Solo Violin.
Ms. Augustyn has won international awards, including First Prizes at the Alexander & Buono International String Competition (NYC), Artist International Presentations (NYC), J.S. Bach String Competition (Zielona Gora, Poland), and Ackerman Chamber Music Competition at Stony Brook, NY. Other top honors include prizes at the Kosciuszko Foundation Wieniawski Violin Competition (NYC), the Johannes Brahms International Competition (Poertschach, Austria), and the Kloster Schoental International Young Artist Competition (Kloster Scheontal, Germany).
Kinga Augustyn began her music studies at the age of seven in her native Poland. She eventually went on to study at The Juilliard School, where she worked with Dorothy DeLay, Cho-Liang Lin and Naoko Tanaka, and earned both the bachelor’s and the master’s degrees. She also holds a doctorate from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where she took lessons from Phil Setzer and Pamela Frank.
As a teacher, Ms. Augustyn has served as a Violin Faculty for The Alexander & Buono Festival of Music. She has also conducted various violin and chamber music masterclasses and workshops in the United States and Poland.
Kinga Augustyn is thrilled to perform again with the Broadway Bach Ensemble!
