Winston Choi
Piano

Winston Choi Winner of the 2002 Orléans Concours International and Laureate of the 2003 Honens International Piano Competition, Canadian pianist Winston Choi is an inquisitive performer whose fresh approach to standard repertory, and masterful understanding, performance and commitment to works by living composers, make him one of today’s most dynamic young concert artists.

Choi maintains an active international performing schedule. In demand as a concerto soloist, he has appeared with l’Orchestre National de Lille, l’Orchestre Symphonique d’Orléans, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Victoria Symphony Orchestra, the CBC Radio Orchestra, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra, the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra, the Peninsula Music Festival Orchestra, La Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia, the Fort Collins Symphony, and the Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, among others.

Known for his colorful approach to programming and insightful commentary from the stage, Choi has recently appeared in recital at the National Arts Center of Canada, the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, New York’s Carnegie Recital Hall and Merkin Recital Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the Kravis Center in Florida, and the “Cicle Grans Solistes” in Spain. Choi performs extensively in France, having played venues such as the Salle Cortot, Lille’s Festival Rencontre Robert Casadesus, the Messiaen Festival, and the Strasbourg Festival. Frequently in demand throughout his native Canada, he has been awarded numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. His numerous performances can often be heard on CBC radio broadcasts. Recently, he toured Eastern Ontario and Quebec under the auspices of Jeunesses Musicales and embarked on a 10-city Prairie Debut tour of the Canadian Prairie provinces. An accomplished chamber musician, he tours regularly with his wife, MingHuan Xu as Duo Diorama.

As a dedicated champion of contemporary music, Choi has premiered and commissioned over 100 works by young composers as well as established masters. A composer himself, being involved with the creative process is an integral part of his artistry. He was the first pianist to perform Pierre Boulez’s last version of Incises in North America and made the South American premiere of Luciano Berio‘s Sonata for pianoforte solo. He also regularly appears in concert at IRCAM, the world’s most renowned institution for contemporary music. Composers he has collaborated with include William Bolcom, Elliott Carter, Brian Ferneyhough, Bright Sheng, Christian Wolff, Chen Yi and John Zorn. He is a member of the new music enseble Brave New Works.

Already a prolific recording artist, Choi’s debut CD, the complete piano works of Elliott Carter (l’Empreinte Digitale in France) was given 5 Stars by BBC Music Magazine. He has also recorded 2 CD’s of the piano music of Jacques Lenot for the Intrada label, having won the Grand Prix du Disque from l’Academie Charles Cros for Volume 1. Other labels he can be heard on include Arktos, Crystal Records, and QuadroFrame.

Choi began his studies in Toronto with James Tweedie and Vivienne Bailey. He obtained both his Bachelor and Master Degrees at Indiana University, receiving the Performer’s Certificate studying With Menahem Pressler. Further studies were with Ursula Oppens at Northwestern University, where he completed his Doctorate of Music. An accomplished teacher, he is also in demand as a master class clinician. Previously on the faculties of Bowling Green State University and the Oberlin Conservatory, he is Assistant Professor and Head of Piano at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.

Tim Christie
Violin & Viola
WWCM Founder &
Artistic Director

Violinist/Violist Timothy Christie serves on the music faculty of the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma Washington and the Brevard Music Center in Brevard, North Carolina. The solo violist of Brave New Works since the group’s inception in 1997, he has performed and premiered numerous solo and chamber works of the 20th and 21st centuries, working closely with composers such as Michael Dougherty, George Crumb, Bright Sheng, William Bolcom, Bernard Rands, David Schiff, and Forrest Pierce. Timothy currently performs with the Pacific Northwest Ballet orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Seattle Opera, and numerous chamber music series throughout the Northwest.

Timothy is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival.

Benjamin Gish is the director of the Walla Walla Valley Academy String Orchestra and has a large studio of cellists and bassists ranging in age from 4 through 20-something. He is also the director of the Walla Walla Symphony Youth Orchestra and is artist-in-residence at Walla Walla University. Several of his students have won top awards in state, regional, and national competitions. Many students from his studio and orchestras have been awarded major scholarships to colleges and universities, including University of Michigan, Cornell College, University of Southern California, Yale, University of Idaho, Washington State University, and Gonzaga University.

Mr. Gish is also assistant principal cellist of the Walla Walla Symphony. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Music from Walla Walla College, and a Master's degree in Cello Performance and Conducting from Andrews University. He continued post-graduate studies in cello performance at Michigan State University. His teachers include Neil Roth, Christopher von Baeyer, Owen Carmen, Channing Robbins, and Joel Krosnick. Mr. Gish performs in solo and chamber music recitals throughout the United States and occasionally in Canada and Europe. His orchestras perform widely throughout the Northwest in churches, social clubs, schools, retirement centers, veteran's hospitals, and children's hospitals. They have also gone on tours to California, Canada, Hawaii, and Europe. Mr. Gish is frequently asked to be a clinician for orchestra festivals and guest cello teacher on various campuses. For the past 25 years he has attended summer music camps in the role of student, parent, and faculty member. These include many of the Suzuki Institutes across America as well as Encore and Meadowmount Summer Schools of Music. Currently Mr. Gish is the director of the Walla Walla Suzuki Institute.

He is married to Connie Camp Gish who teaches junior high math and science. They have two children, daughter Julia Gish-Salerno (a violin performance doctoral student at USC and married to Tres Salerno), and son Jamie, a freshman at Walla Walla Valley Academy and a cellist in their orchestra.

Norbert Lewandowski
Cello

Norbert Lewandowski was born in Milwaukee, WI and began cello studies at the age of 13. He holds a Master’s degree in performance and literature from the Eastman School of Music and currently resides in Charleston, SC where he performs as assistant principal cellist of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. Prior to his position in Charleston Norbert performed as a member of the Rochester and Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestras, the Minnesota Opera, and the chamber music festival in Taos, New Mexico. He has also been featured as a soloist on numerous occasions including past performances with the New World Symphony, the South Carolina Philharmonic Orchestra, and the National Repertory Orchestra. Norbert's extensive experience with new music includes a wide array of performances and recordings with the groups Alarm Will Sound and Brave New Works, and was highlighted in early 2008 by an appointment as cellist of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. Norbert's cello was made by Emil Hjorth in Copenhagen, 1890, and is on a generous loan from the Virtu Foundation in Charlottesville, VA.

Christina McGann
Violin

Christina McGann has an active performing career as soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player. She has been a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Richardson Symphony, and the National Chamber Orchestra in Washington D.C. She is the first violinist of The iO Quartet, formerly the Graduate String Quartet in-Residence at SUNY Purchase.

Christina’s musical education began at the Peabody Conservatory, Preparatory Division with Elizabeth Bellamy and Victor Danchenko. Later, she studied with Donald Weilerstein at the Cleveland Institute of Music Young Artist Program and the New England Conservatory Pre-College program. Christina received both her BM and MM from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann, Nicholas Mann, and Ronald Copes. Christina also studied with Laurie Smukler and Calvin Wiersma in New York City as part of her quartet’s residency program at SUNY Purchase.

Christina has had great success at national and international competitions, winning First Prizes at the National Symphony Young Soloist Competition, the Lennox Competition, and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, junior division. She was also awarded Third Prize at the Johansen International Competition and Second Prize at Chamber Music Yellow Springs with the iO Quartet.

She has also served as concertmaster of the Music Academy of the West orchestra, the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra, and the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra at New England Conservatory.

Christina has attended music festivals around the world, including Yellow Barn (Vermont), Music Academy of the West (Santa Barbara), Keshet Eilon (Israel), Ishikawa Music Academy (Japan), Kneisel Hall (Maine), International School for Musical Arts (Canada), and ENCORE School for Strings (Ohio).

Stephen Miahky's most recent performances include appearances at the Netherlands' De Lakenhal, the American Academies in Rome and Berlin, the Eastman School of Music, the Boston Conservatory, New York's Merkin and Steinway Halls, Symphony Space, Bargemusic, Vancouver's Sonic Boom Festival, Atlanta's ProMozart Society, and on NPR's Performance Today. He is in demand as a soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist, having performed concertos in Germany with the Cornell Symphony Orchestra, with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, the University of Michigan Philharmonia, and at the Aspen Music Festival. Miahky is currently a member of the iO Quartet, Brave New Works, and is a member and frequent concertmaster of the IRIS Orchestra under the direction of Michael Stern. Miahky has performed with such musicians as Martin Katz, Nicholas Eanet, Andres Cardenes, and members of the Tokyo, Concord, Blair, Arianna, and Cleveland Quartets.

As a performer of contemporary music, Miahky has collaborated closely with many of the great composers of our time, including William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, Steven Stucky, Paul Moravec, Leslie Bassett, Sydney Hodkinson, Christopher Rouse, and has performed with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. He will be heard on upcoming releases from Naxos, AMP, and New Dynamic Records featuring world-premiere recordings of works by Albright, Leshnoff, Bolcom, Puts, and Jalbert. Miahky has appeared at numerous festivals including Chamber Music Ann Arbor, Steamboat Springs, Kent/Blossom Music, the Southwest Virginia Festival of the Arts, Ottawa's National Arts Centre, the Aspen Music Festival, the Meadowmount School of Music, and the Perlman Music Program. Miahky has given master classes at Tufts University, Bowling Green State University, and the University of the Puget Sound. He has also served on the faculties of the Point CounterPoint Chamber Music Camp and Cornell University. He received his B.M. and M.M. from the University of Michigan, where he remains an unprecedented two-time winner of the Earl V. Moore Award for outstanding achievement, and his D.M.A. from Rutgers University. His principal teachers are Arnold Steinhardt, Paul Kantor, Stephen Shipps, and Alan Bodman.

Violinist Philip Payton enjoys an active and diverse performance career in New York city and around the country. Mr. Payton attended the University of Michigan and the Cleveland Institute of Music, receiving both undergraduate and graduate degrees, studying with Stephen Shipps and David Russell respectively.

After graduating, Mr. Payton won a position with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida where he was a co-concertmaster and principal second violinist collaborating with several eminent conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas, Marin Alsop, Nicholas McGegan, Yan Pascal-Tortilier, Maximillan Valdes, Andreas Delfs, Hugh Wolf, Zdneck Macal and others. He also attended the Pacific Music Festival in Japan and was one of the first Americans to attend the Nationaal Jeugd Orkest in The Netherlands. While at New World Symphony, Mr. Payton was deeply involved in the Community Outreach Program presenting many educational programs in inner-city schools and community centers, mentored underprivileged violin students, performed in senior centers and local schools and went on a string quartet tour to rural Tennessee and Kentucky to present educational programs to schools that had not been exposed to classical music.

Now, Mr. Payton performs in a wide variety of groups and genres in New York and abroad. He regularly performs at all the major venues in New York City including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Riverside church among others. Also, Mr Payton can be heard as resident violinist on the Broadway show Westside Story, and as a regular guest artist with Wicked, Phantom of the Opera and Spring Awakening on violin, viola, and electric guitar.

Mr. Payton has performed, recorded and/or collaborated with a diverse group of major performing artists including Smokey Robinson, Wayne Newton, Duncan Sheik, Clay Aiken, LeAnn Rimes, Quincy Jones, Natalie Cole, Dionne Warwick, Anat Cohen, R&B artist Joe, Corrine Bailey Rae, Barbara Striesand, Met Opera tenor Rolando Villazon, R&B artist Lyfe Williams, Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine, rock band Hem, Jose Carerras and with Luciano Pavarotti during his farewell tour. He has performed on Saturday Night Live, Sex in the City and was a musician-extra in the upcoming motion picture Margaret, the new Lenny Kravitz video I'll Be Waiting, and can be heard on the soundtrack of the upcoming film See You In September.

Dedicated to music education, Mr. Payton has taught violin through most of his adult life. He currently teaches violin in Newark , New Jersey at the Gray Charter School and formerly taught at the Bloomingdale House of Music, the Multicultural Program, Opus 118/Harlem Center for Strings (on which the movie Music of the Heart was based) and has adjudicated mock violin auditions at the Orchestral Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music.

Maria Sampen
Violin

Ms. Sampen is a native of Bowling Green, Ohio. She enjoys a vibrant musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral performer, recording artist and teacher. She is in demand as a performer of new and experimental works and has premiered dozens of compositions by leading composers. She is violinist with Brave New Works (www.bravenewworks.org), a chamber ensemble devoted to the promotion and performance of contemporary music.

In addition to her busy performing schedule, Ms. Sampen is a dedicated teacher. She is currently Associate Professor of Violin at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington where she maintains a studio of eighteen to twenty college violinists, coaches chamber music and is chair of the string department. In her six years at the University of Puget Sound she has twice received the university’s Thomas A. Davis Teaching Award for excellence in teaching (2005 and 2008).

Ms. Sampen holds bachelor and doctoral degrees from the University of Michigan and a master of music degree from Rice University. Her major teachers include Paul Kantor, Kenneth Goldsmith and Paul Makara. She was winner of both the University of Michigan Concerto Competition and the Shepherd School of Music (Rice University) Concerto Competition.

Ms. Sampen has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras throughout the United States and has appeared as a chamber musician in Europe, Asia and North America. Highlights include multiple performances of William Bolcom's Violin Concerto in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Texas and Colorado; an all-Schoenberg chamber music program with Pierre Boulez and members of the Ensemble Intercontemporaine at Carnegie Hall; and serving as concertmaster/solo violinist for productions of Bright Sheng's opera, Silver River, in Singapore. Ms. Sampen made her New York City debut at Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Auditorium in June of 1996. She has been featured as a soloist on several radio broadcasts throughout the country including live appearances on KING FM in Seattle, and public radio stations in Michigan, Nevada, Indiana and Illinois.

Ms. Sampen has held fellowships at the Aspen Music Festival and the Tanglewood Music Festival. She has also performed and studied at the Mozarteum Sommerakademie in Salzburg, Austria, the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada and with the Dexter Quartet, as ensemble in residence at the Musicorda Festival in Massachusetts. She is currently a member of the violin faculty of the Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina where she works with high school and college string players from around the world and plays in the Brevard Music Center Orchestra.

Ms. Sampen’s upcoming appearances include the world premier of Robert Hutchinson’s Concerto for Violin and Wind Ensemble at the University of Puget Sound (March 09); concerts in Tacoma, Seattle, the Icicle Creek Music Center (Leavenworth, WA), the University of Kansas, Denison College (Ohio), and the Boston Conservatory; performances of the Brahms Violin Concerto in Tacoma and Seattle (fall 09) and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in Longview, WA; and concerts with the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival (June 09).

Kevin Schempf
Clarinet

Kevin Schempf is Associate Professor of Clarinet at Bowling Green State University and Solo Clarinetist with Brave New Works. After graduating from the Interlochen Arts Academy and the Eastman School of Music, he performed with the United States Coast Guard Band and toured with them throughout the United States and to St. Petersburg, Russia. A frequent soloist with the Band, he was featured on NPR broadcasts and on their 75th Anniversary CD Recording. He was on the faculty at Connecticut College and performed with the New London Contemporary Ensemble. He has also taught at Wesleyan University where he played with the New World Consort, which gave regular concerts throughout Connecticut, in New York City, and at the Kennedy Center.

Mr. Schempf played Second and Eb clarinet with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra for nine years, appearing as a concerto soloist on several occasions. He has also performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the Lima Symphony, and the Toledo Symphony. Chamber music engagements include performing with the Ying Quartet, concerts and a CD recording with the Society for New Music in Syracuse, NY, appearances at the Skaneanteles Festival, and with the Wall Street Chamber Players. He has recently appeared with TILT Dance Company in Hawaii, fEARnoMUSIC in Portland, and CrossSound in Juneau. He also was also the solo clarinetist with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble for the past five years.

He has performed in Canada, Germany, Russia, Sweden, and the Netherlands. CD recordings include the premiere recording of Stephen Albert’s Wind Canticle with the Bowling Green Philharmonia, Appalachian Spring with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra and Drunken Moon/Night Music and against the emptiness with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble.

British cellist Sally Singer has performed in the major concert halls of London, Vienna, Salzburg and New York. Sally is a member of the Icicle Creek Piano trio, with whom she recently released a debut recording of Schubert and Ravel Piano trios with Con Brio Recordings. This recording was highly acclaimed by the the Strad magazine and Gramophone Magazine from the UK and the American Record Guide and Fanfare Magazine from the USA, the latter of which declared “The performance by the Icicle Creek Trio comes as close to being “definitive” as any I expect to hear in my lifetime”. Ms. Singer has given numerous world premier performances of solo and chamber works in Europe and throughout the States and performed as a soloist with orchestras in New York, Washington, Bulgaria, and Connecticut as well as gaining a top prize in the Corpus Christi International Young Artists Competition. Chamber performance highlights include the Tanglewood Music Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, Alice Tully Hall, NY, First prize in the John Ireland Chamber Music Competition, UK, British National Television and collaborations with Ian Swensen, Nathaniel Rosen, Heasook Rhee, Steven Doane and Karen Dreyfus. As Co-Artistic Director, Ms.Singer co-presents and performs in the Canyon Wren Concert Series, an innovative chamber series running throughout the year at the Icicle Creek Music Center in Washington State, and co-directs an International Chamber Music Festival each July, as well as offering tandem educational programs for young artists. She plays a Bernard Simon Fendt cello, made in England, 1835.

MingHuan Xu
Violin