Doors open one hour before the performance.

The WWCMF Emerging Artist Quartet Fellowship, now in its fifth year, welcomes Synchrony Quartet. Like past Fellows Ivalas Quartet, masso, Cerus Quartet and Poiesis Quartet, Synchrony is both active and successful on the competition circuit. Competitions are one kind of proving ground, but it is Synchrony’s community presence in their native Chicago that makes this must-see quartet WWCMF material. They maintain a residency at Clara (named for none other than Clara Schumann), a bar in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, where they test out new material and hone their craft.

In addition to their individual skill as performers, each member is also responsible for creating arrangements of classical and popular music for saxophone quartet. This hands-on approach extends the quartet repertoire and enhances a canon that inherently thrives on new music. The saxophone is a much more recent invention than, say, bowed string instruments, and its core repertoire expands in real time. Hence, Synchrony Quartet affirms that classical music is a living art form that draws breath from our time and place, a reflection and response to the world around us. WWCMF returns to longtime venue partner Foundry Vineyards to kick off the 2026 June Festival. Works include music by Astor Piazzolla, Caroline Shaw, Travis Laplante, Anton Webern and Manuel de Falla.

Artists: Matthew Johnson, tenor saxophone; Haven Kahn, baritone saxophone; Philip Kleutgens, soprano saxophone; Hudson O’Reilly, alto saxophone

All works will be announced from the stage.

WWCMF will publish a setlist on our social media channels following the performance.

Doors open one hour before the performance.

WWCMF welcomes back flutist Tracy Doyle for her third WWCMF appearance. It’s high time we got to know her better. She is both Professor of Flute and Director of the School of Music at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. If you are doing the math as you go, you have just figured out that Tracy is therefore your author’s boss. It should make for an interesting conversation!

Tracy is an artist of tremendous curiosity and range. Her program summons the immortal strains of Pan (the OG flutist), winds through the Indian Subcontinent, finds time for a quintessentially American meditation on Summer, pauses in the British Isles and eventually finds its way (back) to the flutiest place on earth, France. There is music by Claude Debussy, Reena Esmail, Ian Clarke, William Grant Still, Georges Hüe and Jacques Ibert. And by the way, is it flutist or flautist? You can expect both clarity on the subject and a phenomenal concert.

Artists: Winston Choi, piano; Timothy Christie, Viola; Tracy Doyle, flute; MingHuan Xu, violin

All works will be announced from the stage.

WWCMF will publish a setlist on our social media channels following the performance.

Doors open one hour before the performance.

Cellist Andrea Yun makes her WWCMF debut. With degrees in mathematics, education and performance, Andrea approaches music from all angles. She also loves roller skating and swing dancing. At home in the opera pit, onstage in a period baroque ensemble or out in front of a symphony orchestra as a concert soloist, Andrea has done it all. And there’s more. There are teachers all over the country who studied teaching with Andrea. She was named the state of Michigan’s Teacher of the Year by the American String Teacher’s Association in 2020.

As I write this concert note, Andrea is on tour in Australia. Come to think of it, Australia has a Walla Walla, too. In the indigenous Wiradjuri language, it means “place of many rocks.” We will definitely ask Andrea if she managed the unprecedented Quadruple-Walla by visiting the Wallas of both hemispheres.

Artists: Xiaohui Yang, piano; Andrea Yun, cello

All works will be announced from the stage.

WWCMF will publish a setlist on our social media channels following the performance.

Doors open one hour before the performance.

Cellist John Popham made his WWCMF debut during the January 2026 Winter Festival. It was Tasting Music night, Beethoven’s Op. 59 No. 2. As the overly talkative Artistic Director mused about the character of the key of E minor, invoking the Brahms Cello Sonata of the same key, John gamely riffed, providing the opening melody of that piece without hesitation. In so doing, he more or less committed to being the subject of a future — now present! — PoA recital.

Long a New Yorker by way of Louisville, KY, John is a fairly recent transplant to the Pacific Northwest. In Fall 2025, he began his tenure as Professor of Cello and String Chamber Music at the University of Washington. Prior to his westward migration, he taught in the Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program and served for three years as Juilliard’s Artistic Administrator for Community Engagement, where he mentored Juilliard teaching fellows; produced interactive, multidisciplinary educational programs; and curated the school’s Young People’s Concert series.

And tonight, we get to find out what makes him tick. Maybe we’ll even hear a little of that Brahms that got us started back in January…

Artists: John Popham, cello; Ronaldo Rolim, piano

All works will be announced from the stage.

WWCMF will publish a setlist on our social media channels following the performance.