2017 festival artists

• 
  Kristian Chong

  Piano

  Kristian Chong

  Piano

  One of Australia's leading pianists, Kristian Chong has performed throughout Australia and the UK, and in China, France, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, USA, and Zimbabwe. As soloist he has appeared with the Adelaide, Melbourne, Queensland, Sydney and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, and orchestras in the UK, New Zealand and China with conductors such as Werner Andreas Albert, Andrey Boreyko, Nicholas Braithwaite, Jessica Cottis, Roy Goodman, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Nicholas Milton, Tuomas Hannikainen, Marcus Stenz, Arvo Volmer and Marco Zuccarini. His competition successes include the Symphony Australia Young Performers Award (keyboard) and the Australian National Piano Award.

  Concerto highlights have included Rachmaninoff 3rd with the Sydney Symphony, the Rachmaninoff Paganini Rhapsody in Beijing, and Britten with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Recent concerto highlights include Shostakovich 2nd, Chopin 2nd, Rachmaninoff 3rd, Beethoven's Emperor in Melbourne, and Ravel's Left Hand concerto in Melbourne and Dunedin.

  A highly sought after chamber musician, recent collaborations include Australian and Asian tours with the Australian String Quartet, performances with violinists Dale Barltrop, Jack Liebeck, Natsuko Yoshimoto, Sophie Rowell, Elizabeth Layton, Ilya Konovalov, (concertmaster Israel Philharmonic), Tinalley Quartet, and cellist Li-Wei Qin. He recently performed at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, the Bangalow Festival, and made a return appearance at the Huntington Estate Music Festival for Musica Viva Australia. In addition, Kristian debuted for ABC-Classics with baritone Teddy Tahu-Rhodes.

  Other recent solo and chamber highlights include the Adelaide Festival, Adelaide International Cello Festival, the Xing Hai Festival in Guangzhou, Australian Music Week on Gulangyu Island (Xiamen) with the Melbourne Symphony, the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, where Kristian performed the complete Rachmaninoff Preludes, piano trios and the Beethoven Triple Concerto with Yoshimoto and Qin, and the complete Beethoven Piano & Violin Sonatas with Yoshimoto and Rowell at the Melbourne Recital Centre. Kristian studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Piers Lane and Christopher Elton, and earlier with Stephen McIntyre at the University of Melbourne where Kristian currently teaches piano and chamber music. He is also a 'Friend of Australia' for Tourism Australia.

• 
  Joan DerHovsepian

  Viola

  Joan DerHovsepian

  Viola

  Joan DerHovsepian holds the position of Associate Principal Viola of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. She joined the viola section of the Houston Symphony in 1999, hired by Christoph Eschenbach, and began her current position with the HS in the fall of 2010. She is an Artist Teacher of Viola at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, instructing students in viola orchestral repertoire and chamber music. She has given master classes in the study of orchestral excerpts at the New England Conservatory and Baylor University, and has been a viola instructor for the New World Symphony.

  Ms DerHovsepian spends her summers in Wyoming performing with the Grand Teton Music Festival and in Wisconsin as Principal Viola of the Peninsula Music Festival. Her solo appearances with orchestras include performances of the viola concertos of Walton, Penderecki, Telemann, Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante and Harold in Italy by Berlioz.

  Joan was the violist of the award winning Everest Quartet, top prize winners at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. In addition to their residence with the Midland-Odessa Symphony, the quartet presented concerts throughout North America and gave the world premiere of a work by composer Paul Schoenfeld.

  Ms DerHovsepian was Principal Viola of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra from 1997-1999 and played in the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra from 1992-94. She has appeared as guest principal viola with the Cincinnati Symphony. Ms DerHovsepian was the second prize recipient of the 1995 Primrose International Viola Competition.

  Joan holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees and the Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, studying with James Dunham of the Cleveland Quartet. She attended the Hochschule fur Musik in Freiburg, Germany, where she studied with Grammy-award winning violist Kim Kashkashian.

• 
  Jun Iwasaki

  Violin

  Jun Iwasaki

  Violin

  Jun Iwasaki was appointed concertmaster of the Nashville Symphony by Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero at the beginning of the 2011/12 season. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s prestigious Concertmaster Academy, he has been hailed for his combination of dazzling technique and lyrical musicianship. In a review of Iwasaki’s performance at the Mimir Chamber Music Festival, the Fort Worth Star Telegram called him “the magician of the evening. He could reach into his violin and pull out bouquets of sound, then reach behind your ear and touch your soul.”

  Prior to joining the Nashville Symphony, Iwasaki served as concertmaster of the Oregon Symphony from 2007-2011, and he performed with that ensemble at the first annual Spring for Music Festival at Carnegie Hall in 2011.

  Throughout his career, he has appeared with numerous other orchestras, including the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Blossom Festival Orchestra, Rome (Georgia) Philharmonic, New Bedford Symphony, Canton Symphony, Richardson Symphony, Cleveland Pops Orchestra, Plano Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra. In addition, he has served as concertmaster of Asian Artists and Concerts Orchestra (AAC), guest concertmaster of the Santa Barbara Symphony in 2010, and guest concertmaster of the National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa in 2006. He served in the same position with the Canton (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra from 2005-07.

  In addition to teaching at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music, Iwasaki is the artistic director of Portland Summer Ensembles in Portland, Oregon, a workshop for young musicians focusing on chamber music.

• 
  Benjamin Martin

  Piano

  Benjamin Martin

  Piano

  Noted by acclaimed author David Dubal as one of Juilliard's finest musical talents, pianist-composer Benjamin Martin has become known as an artist of exceptional versatility and subtlety of expression. He has been described as ʻthe consummate artistʼ (The Age), and as a composer, ʻdistinctive... arresting in styleʼ (New York Times).

  Benjamin has appeared regularly with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and performed with artists such as Joshua Bell, Alina Ibragimova, Pekka Kuusisto, Richard Tognetti, and Hartmut Lindemann. As a chamber musician Benjamin has recorded for Chandos, Tacet Records (Stuttgart), Melba Recordings, and BIS. In 2014, he released his debut solo album for Melba Recordings featuring 20th Century English music, which was described as "shattering…compelling" by Richard Adams, director of The Arnold Bax Society Website.

  On the composing side, Benjamin's career was launched when John Browning gave the World Premiere of his Three Portrait Etudes in 1993 at The Alice Tully Hall, NY. Martin's Triple-Concerto 'Trinitas' was highly praised by Murray Perahia, who attended the premiere at the MRC in 2013. Benjamin is currently pianist for Firebird Trio, and teaches at The University of Melbourne.

• 
  Rob Nairn

  Double Bass

  Rob Nairn

  Double Bass

  Rob Nairn is a newly appointed Associate Professor of Double Bass at Melbourne University, having previous taught on the faculty of the Juilliard School, Penn State University, and a Kulas Visiting Artist at Case Western Reserve University. He is past-president of the International Society of Bassists and hosted the Society’s 2009 Convention at Penn State. In 2008 he was awarded a Howard Foundation Fellowship from Brown University.

  Rob received his Bachelor of Music with distinction from the Canberra School of Music and a post-graduate diploma from the Berlin Musikhochschule by courtesy of a two-year DAAD German Government Scholarship. His teachers have included Klaus Stoll, Tom Martin, and Max McBride.

  Rob’s performing experience covers Contemporary, Jazz, traditional Orchestral, and Historical Performance Ensembles, with a career that has spanned Europe, the U.S. and Australasia. He has performed with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, The Melbourne Symphony, the Tasmanian Symphony Chamber Players, the Australia Ensemble, The Australian World Orchestra and the Australian String Quartet. He has acted as guest Principle Bassist with the Halle Orchestra, the London Mozart players, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and held the position of Principle bass with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. As a soloist he has performed concerti with the Australian Chamber, Adelaide and Darwin symphony orchestras and Handel and Haydn Society.

  Rob has recorded for Deutsche Grammaphon, Sony Classical , EMI, Naxos, Tall Poppies, RCA and ABC Classics; he recently released a CD of double bass and viola duos by American composers and a solo CD of Australian music for bass will be released on the Tall Poppies label in 2014.

  His recording on the English ‘Coro’ label of Mozart’s “Per Questa Balla Mano” was the first on Viennese bass and his duo CD of the repertoire of Dragonetti and Lindley was released in Oct 2012. A review in the ‘Strad’ described how the players ‘demonstrate their virtuosity and excellent rapport’.

  In the Historical performance world he holds the position of Principal Double Bass with the Handel Haydn Society and the Boston Early Music Festival; he is a member of Juilliard Baroque and has also worked with the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, the English Baroque Soloists, Concerto Caledonia, The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Ironwood, Washington Bach Consort, the Aulos Ensemble, Rebel, Florilegium and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

  Rob is also active in commissioning new works and has premiered more than forty compositions for both solo bass and chamber music featuring the bass, championing in particular the music of Australian composers. In these performances he has worked both alone and with such groups as the London Sinfonietta, Gruppe Neue Musik Berlin, Australysis, the Music Theatre of Wales, and the Sydney Alpha Ensemble. In 2009 he premiered a new concerto by Barry Conyngham and by Doug Bailliet in 2016. He has performed recitals in Europe, Scandinavia, China, the U.S. and Australia.

• 
  Stephen Rose

  Violin

  Stephen Rose

  Violin

  Stephen Rose is Principal Second Violin of Cleveland Orchestra, a position he has held since 2001. He joined the Orchestra in 1997 as a member of the first violin section and made his solo debut with the Orchestra in 2011. He again appeared as a soloist with the orchestra in 2013. He has also been heard in solo appearances and chamber music concerts throughout North America and Europe. From 1992-96, Mr. Rose was the first violinist of the Everest Quartet, top prize winners at the 1995 Banff International String Quartet Competition.

  Stephen Rose is a faculty member at The Cleveland Institute of Music, where he maintains a studio and directs the orchestral violin repertoire classes. He also serves on the faculty of Kent/Blossom Music, National Orchestral Institute, and The New World Symphony. A participant at many summer music festivals, Mr. Rose regularly appears at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Mimir Chamber Music Festival, Colorado College Music Festival, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival and Pacific Music Festival in Japan.

  In 1994 Stephen Rose received the Masters of Music degree and Performers’ Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, preceded by the Bachelor of Music degree in 1992 from the Cleveland Institute of Music. He was honored with the Alumni Achievement Award from CIM in 2005.

• 
  Brant Taylor

  Cello

  Brant Taylor

  Cello

  Brant Taylor was appointed to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by Daniel Barenboim. He was previously cellist of the Everest Quartet, prizewinners at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, as well as a member of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. His varied career includes solo appearances and collaborations with leading musicians throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

  Mr. Taylor made his solo debut with the San Antonio Symphony at the age of fourteen as the winner of a concerto competition, and has since appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, performing, among others, the works of Dvorak, Haydn, Elgar, Shostakovich, Lalo, Boccherini, Saint-Saens, and Brahms.

  A dedicated teacher of both cello and chamber music, Mr. Taylor has combined performance and pedagogy throughout his career, conducting master classes and writing articles on a wide variety of musical topics. With the Everest Quartet, he performed and taught extensively in North America and the Caribbean and gave the world premiere of a work by Israeli-American composer Paul Schoenfield. He has given audition training seminars and lessons at Miami’s New World Symphony, of which he was a member and to which he has returned to perform as concerto soloist under the batons of Michael Tilson-Thomas and Nicholas McGegan.

  Mr. Taylor has taught and performed at music festivals around the world, including the Festival der Zukunft in Ernen, Switzerland, the Portland Chamber Music Festival, the Shanghai International Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Mimir Chamber Music Festival, the Mammoth Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Music Festival Santo Domingo, Michigan's Village Bach Festival, Music at Gretna in Pennsylvania, where he has made repeated appearances as a concerto soloist, and Arizona Musicfest, where he serves as principal cello.

  Mr. Taylor is a member of the faculty of DePaul University’s School of Music and acts as Consulting Artistic Director of Rush Hour Concerts, an organization committed to free public access to high-quality music (www.imfchicago.org).

  A fan of many styles of music, Mr. Taylor had a seven-year association with the band Pink Martini. With this unique ensemble, he appeared on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," "The Late Show with David Letterman," at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and in nightclubs and theaters across North America. He can be heard on Pink Martini's studio release, "Hey Eugene.”

  Mr. Taylor holds a Bachelor of Music degree and a Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, where he won the school's concerto competition and performed as soloist with the Eastman Philharmonia. His Master of Music degree is from Indiana University. His primary teachers have been Janos Starker and Paul Katz.

• 
  Curt Thompson

  Violin

  Curt Thompson

  Violin

  Violinist Curt Thompson serves as Associate Professor and Head of Strings at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, where he is a founding member of the Ormond Quartet, whose residency at the Conservatorium began in 2016. He is Founder and Executive Director of the Fort Worth, Texas-based Mimir Chamber Music Festival, which will present its 19th season in Fort Worth and 4th season in Melbourne this year. Prior teaching appointments include the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and the TCU School of Music.

  Thompson performs throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia as concerto soloist, recitalist, concertmaster, and chamber musician in such prestigious venues as Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Salle Gaveau (Paris), Teatro Naçional de Costa Rica (San José) and the Shanghai Concert Hall. His debut recording of the violin sonatas by Charles Ives (Naxos) is regularly broadcast worldwide and has received outstanding reviews, including The Strad, The Wire, and The New York Times, where it was included in a listing of “Critics’ Favorites” and was called “…a hole in one…perfectly demonstrating Ives’ spicy, earthy rawness and appeal….” Gramophone acclaimed the CD in 2016 as one of the “Top 10 Ives Recordings” alongside those by the New York Philharmonic (with Leonard Bernstein) and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, stating that of the recordings of the violin sonatas, “…This is now the version to choose….”

  Concerto appearances include the Qingdao Symphony (China), Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra (Colombia), the symphonies of Corpus Christi, San Angelo, Las Colinas, Irving, Arlington, Garland, and the Texas Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Thompson has been a featured artist in the Copland/Shostakovich Festival (Rio de Janeiro), the Festival de Primavera (Oaxaca, Mexico), the Seventh Centennial Festival of Villarobledo (Spain), and Inter-Harmony International Music Festival (Hinterzarten, Germany). As Concertmaster, Curt has performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Spoleto Festival Orchestra (Italy), and the Corpus Christi, Las Colinas, and San Angelo symphonies. He has given master classes at the Royal Academy of Music (London), The Juilliard School, Beijing Central Conservatory, El Escorial Conservatory (Spain), and the Bulgarian State Academy of Music.

  Thompson has served as juror in several international competitions, including the National Concerto Competition of New Zealand, the Pancho Vladigerov International Violin Competition (Bulgaria) and the Dorcas Mclean competition (Australia), and he serves on the Artistic Committee of Chamber Music Australia. He holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees and the prestigious Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rice University. His principal teachers included Nelli Shkolnikova and Sergiu Luca.

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