Chamber Ensembles

Andres Cardenes, violin; Anne Martindale Williams, cello; David Deveau, piano

The original Carnegie Mellon Trio was founded in 1947 with faculty from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Music. Its current members, violinist Andres Cardenes, cellist Anne Martindale Williams and pianist David Deveau have been together since 1991. The Trio has performed concerts throughout the United States and Canada, and has appeared at many prestigious music festivals, including Strings in the Mountains, Rockport, and Mainly Mozart. Recent appearances performing Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Pacific and Pittsburgh Symphonies drew rave reviews.

Ayano Ninomiya, Jasmine Lin, violins; Che-Yen Chen, viola; Jacob Braun, cello

Winners of the First Prize and the Amadeus Prize at the Tenth London International String Quartet Competition in 2006, the Formosa Quartet was formed in 2003 when the four founding members came together for a concert tour of Taiwan, the land of their shared heritage. With recent performances at the Ravinia Festival, the Chicago Cultural Center, Wigmore Hall and the Royal Academy of Music, this season includes concerts at the New School (New York), the Caramoor Festival, the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, San Francisco State University, as well as a tour of the UK. The members of the Formosa Quartet have already established themselves as leading solo, chamber and orchestra musicians. With degrees from Juilliard, the New England Conservatory, the Cleveland Institute, Curtis, Harvard and Yale, they have performed in major venues around the US, Asia, Europe and South America. They have been top prizewinners in the Primrose, Paganini and Naumburg competitions. They have held title positions in the San Diego and Cincinnati Symphonies and have been on the chamber music faculty at Interlochen, University of California San Diego, Taos School of Music and Northwestern University.

Erik Applegate, bass, has performed throughout the US with renowned jazz artists and can be heard on recordings including Dana Landry’s Grammy-nominated Journey Home. He has appeared at the Montreaux and North Sea Jazz Festivals in Europe and the Glenelg Jazz Festival in Australia. Mr. Applegate holds degrees from Berklee College of Music and the University of Northern Colorado, where he serves on the faculty.

Mike Garson, piano 

Todd Reid, drums, has been active as a jazz musician since childhood. He graduated from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music in Jazz and Commercial Music and a Master of Music in Percussion. In 1992, Mr. Reid moved to Denver and settled into the jazz scene, playing in the house band at Denver’s famed El Chapultepec for a number of years.

The Lyrica Quartet is the Festival’s 2008 Young Artists-in-Residence Quartet. The members of the ensemble met at Northwestern University and will perform for the community outreach programs including Music on the Green, Senior Outreach concerts and concerts for the Boys and Girls Club of Craig. The members also perform with the Strings Chamber Orchestra. During their residency, they also serve as Stage Managers for the Festival and study with festival artists.

David Armstrong, violin, holds a Master's of Music degree in violin performance from Northwestern University and a Bachelor's of Music degree in violin performance from Michigan State University. His principal teachers include Almita Vamos, Charles Avsharian and Walter Schwede. During the past two years, he has been a regular member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in which he recently served as Principal Second Violinist.

Jennise Hwang, violin, is studying violin with Almita and Roland Vamos at Northwestern University. She was awarded the Twin Cities Union AFM Award in the WAMSO Young Artist Competition in 2008. In 2007, she was a winner of the Samuel and Elinor Thaviu Scholarship Competition and the Northwestern University Concerto Competition. She served as Concertmaster of the Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra and the Colburn School Chamber Orchestra and as a member of the Disney Young Musician Symphony Orchestra.

Adam Neeley, viola, is a viola student of Roland Vamos at Northwestern University. He is an active orchestral and chamber musician, serving as the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Violist and performing on several chamber music recitals per year. In June, he completed his Bachelor's of Music Performance degree at Northwestern and will enroll for a Master's degree in the fall. He will also begin a two year service with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

Char Prescott, cello, is a senior at Northwestern University where she studies cello performance with Hans Jorgen Jensen. In 2008, she won the Northwestern University Concerto Competition. She has soloed with the Reston Chamber Symphony, West Potomac Sinfonietta and the Barry Studio Orchestra. She is a 2008 Semifinalist in the Klein International String Competition and has won second prize at the Feuer Memorial String Competition.

Károly Schranz, Edward Dusinberre, violins; Geraldine Walther, viola; András Fejér, cello

The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér, while all four were students. It first received international attention in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. Violinist Edward Dusinberre joined the Quartet in 1993 and violist Geraldine Walther joined in the summer of 2005. In 2001, the Takács Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight’s Cross of the Republic of Hungary. Currently based in Boulder at the University of Colorado, the Takács Quartet performs eighty concerts a year worldwide, performing throughout Europe as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Korea. The Quartet’s multi-award winning recordings include the Late Quartets by Beethoven which won Disc of the Year in 2005, a Chamber Award from BBC Music Magazine, a Gramophone Award and a Japanese Recording Academy Award. Their recordings of the early and middle Beethoven quartets collected a Grammy, another Gramophone Award, a Chamber Music of America Award, and two further awards from the Japanese Recording Academy. The Quartet has made sixteen recordings for the Decca label since 1988.