ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Apollon Musagète Quartet

The award-winning Apollon Musagète Quartet regularly collaborates with renowned chamber musicians such as Martin Fröst, Nils Mönkemeyer, István Várdai, and Jörg Widmann. They have appeared in symphonic series with BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, and Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, and their recent engagements have taken them to the Auditori Barcelona, Konzerthaus and Philharmonie Berlin, Edinburgh International Festival, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall, and the Tonhalle Zurich. They have collaborated with Berlin-based performance group Nico and the Navigators, a ballet production at the National Theatre in Nuremberg, and a world tour with pop singer Tori Amos.

Kobie Boykins

Kobie Boykins is a principal mechanical engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. Originally from Omaha, Nebraska, Boykins graduated Cum Laude from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, before joining JPL. In more than twenty-five years at the lab, he has worked on the Pathfinder mission; built the solar arrays for the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit, and Opportunity; led the mobility and remote sensing teams for the Mars Science Laboratory Rover Curiosity; and is serving as Chief Engineer on the Europa Clipper team. In 2013, Boykins received a NASA Exceptional Service Medal, one of the highest honors given to NASA employees and contractors.

Michael Gerdes, lecturer

Michael Gerdes is Director of Orchestras at San Diego State University, where he conducts the San Diego State Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, and Opera Orchestra. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education and Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Selected by the San Diego Union-Tribune as one of three “Faces to Watch in Classical Music” during his first year as Director of Orchestras, Gerdes is focused on creating a thriving orchestral community at San Diego State University.

Jess Gillam, saxophone

Jess Gillam is the first saxophonist to reach the finals of the BBC Young Musician competition and the youngest ever soloist to perform at the Last Night of the Proms. Both of her albums to date have reached No. 1 in the UK Classical Music Charts. Among her many awards is an MBE for Services to Music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2021. Gillam has performed in prestigious concert halls and with world-class orchestras around the globe including the NDR Hannover, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, and the UK’s leading orchestras. She also tours with her Jess Gillam Ensemble. She is currently Artist in Residence at Wigmore Hall.

Robert John Hughes, lecturer

Journalist, broadcaster, musician, author, record producer. Hughes has interviewed hundreds of musical artists in classical, jazz, pop, rock, R&B, and blues, including Sting, Wynton Marsalis, Bonnie Raitt, Paul Simon, B.B. King, Adele, and Peter Gabriel. As a record producer and member of the GRAMMY® Academy, Hughes has released five albums of live performances by artists heard on San Diego FM station 102.1 KPRi. Hughes has hosted La Jolla Music Society Preludes since 2018.

Randall Goosby, violin

American violinist Randall Goosby is the youngest recipient ever to win the Sphinx Concerto Competition. His 2021–22 season included debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl, Baltimore Symphony, Detroit Symphony, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Philharmonia Orchestra. He made recital appearances at Wigmore Hall, the 92nd Street Y, Davies Symphony Hall, and Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. In June 2021 he released his debut album for Decca, Roots, a celebration of African-American music featuring three world premieres. Goosby has performed with orchestras across the United States including the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, and New World Symphony. His recital appearances have included the Kennedy Center, Kravis Center, and Wigmore Hall.

Storm Large

Musician, actor, author, and playwright Storm Large shot to national prominence in 2006 as a finalist on the CBS show Rock Star: Supernova, and in the 2021 season of America’s Got Talent. She has been guest vocalist with the band Pink Martini since 2011, recording and touring nationally and internationally. She has also sung with k.d. lang, Kirill Gerstein, John Doe, Rufus Wainwright, and George Clinton. Large has performed with the Philly Pops, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Seattle Symphony; the Houston, Detroit, Toronto, and BBC Symphonies; the New York Pops; and the Louisville Orchestra, with whom she recorded the 2017 album All In. Alongside Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey, Storm joined Michael Feinstein as special guest with the Pasadena Pops. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2013, singing Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins with the Detroit Symphony.

Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano

Mezzo-soprano artist Isabel Leonard returned to The Metropolitan Opera in her role debut as Der Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, and the title role of Cinderella. She also made her debut in the title role of Carmen in Francesca Zambello’s productions at Washington National Opera and Santa Fe Opera. Leonard regularly appears at the world’s leading opera houses including The Metropolitan Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Wiener Staatsoper, Los Angeles Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, and San Francisco Opera, and collaborates with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Gustavo Dudamel, EsaPekka Salonen, Yannick Nézét-Seguin, Edo de Waart, Marin Alsop, and Michael Tilson Thomas. Leonard was named recipient of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award and has won three GRAMMY® Awards.

Kristi Brown Montesano, lecturer

Dr. Kristi Brown-Montesano approaches graduate seminars, adult-education classes, podcasts, and pre-concert lectures with the same philosophy: that offering context— rigorously researched, provocative, and humanistic—empowers listeners and musicians to make their own meaningful connections to classical music. Currently Chair of Music History at the Colburn Conservatory and Lecturer in Musicology at UCLA, Dr. Brown-Montesano also has ongoing relationships with many of Southern California’s most distinguished musical organizations, including the Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, La Jolla

Music Society, and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County. Her book, Understanding the Women of Mozart’s Operas, offers fresh critical takes on the female roles in the Da Ponte operas and The Magic Flute.

Garrick Ohlsson, piano

Last summer, pianist Garrick Ohlsson appeared with the Indianapolis and Cleveland orchestras, in recital in San Francisco, at the Brevard Festival, and Chicago’s Ravinia Festival. Most recently he performed with the KBS orchestra in Seoul followed by the Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle symphonies, BBC Glasgow, and orchestras in Prague, Hamburg, Lyon, and St. Petersburg, and in recital across the US and Europe. Ohlsson has collaborated with the Cleveland, Emerson, Tokyo, and Takacs string quartets. He can be heard on the Arabesque, RCA Victor Red Seal, Angel, BMG, Delos, Hänssler, Nonesuch, Telarc, Hyperion, and Virgin Classics labels.

Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, guitar

Pablo Sáinz-Villegas has been acclaimed by the international press as the successor of Andrés Segovia and an ambassador of Spanish culture to the world. Since his debut with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, he has performed in more than 40 countries and been invited to play with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philharmonic of Israel, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the National Orchestra of Spain. He has recorded a duo album with Plácido Domingo, as well as participating in the tribute held in Domingo’s honor at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid and in a concert on a floating stage on the Amazon River, televised for millions around the world.

Poncho Sanchez

For more than three decades, conguero Poncho Sanchez has been a master of straight-ahead jazz, soul music, and melodies and rhythms from a variety of Latin American and South American sources. Throughout his career he has followed in the steps of innovators such as Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, and Cal Tjader, while incorporating the influence of iconic saxophonist John Coltrane. On his latest album Trane’s Delight, Sanchez pays tribute to the late jazz legend with Latin-tinged reimaginings of Coltrane classics as well as new pieces composed in honor of the tenor titan. Trane’s Delight continues Sanchez’s 37-year relationship with Concord, a legacy that has now yielded 27 albums. In 1999, Sanchez’s album Latin Soul received a GRAMMY® Award as Best Latin Album.

Daniil Trifonov, piano

Pianist Daniil Trifonov, Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year, won the GRAMMY® Award for Best Instrumental Solo Album of 2018. As well as giving European and U.S. recitals tours, Trifonov recently performed Brahms’ First Piano Concerto with the Dallas Symphony and Philharmonia Zurich, Mozart’s Ninth “Jeunehomme” Piano Concerto on a European tour with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and all five Beethoven’s Piano Concertos with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, and Toronto Symphony. In 2016 Trifonov was named Gramophone’s Artist of the Year and in 2021 a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. He is the winner of First Prize in Tel Aviv’s Rubinstein Competition and both First Prize and Grand Prix in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition. Zhu Wang, piano

Pianist Zhu Wang was awarded First Prize in the 2020 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, among many other awards and competitions. This season Wang made his debuts at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. His New York debut made the New York Times’ “Best of Classical Music 2021” list. He has performed in China, Italy, Poland, Japan, and across the US at prestigious venues including the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the Berliner Philharmonie, Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, Shanghai Concert Hall, Chicago Cultural Center, and the Morgan Library. Also an active chamber musician and champion of new music, Wang performed the world premiere of American composer Timo Andres’ Moving Etúdes on his national tour.

The War and Treaty

The War And Treaty have amassed a following as eclectic as their sound itself with “voices that will stop you in your tracks” (Garden and Gun) and their bluesy but joyful fusion of Southern soul, gospel, Country, and rock-and-roll. The husband-and-wife team of Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter “continue their commando, no-limits journey to the top of the music world” (Associated Press) following their latest widely acclaimed release, Hearts Town. The versatile duo has opened for artists such as Al Green, Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, John Legend, and Lauren Daigle, while their multifaceted collaborative efforts include Dierks Bentley, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Leslie Jordan, Mumford & Sons, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Sturgill Simpson. They were named 2021 International Folk Music Awards Artist of the Year and Americana Music Association’s 2019 Emerging Artist of the Year.

Thomas Weaver, piano

Thomas Weaver is an American pianist and composer currently on the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. He regularly performs in many concert halls, including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Greene Space, Lincoln Center, and Merkin Hall; Washington DC’s Phillips Collection; Boston’s Jordan Hall; and in Chicago, Nashville, Dallas, Tanglewood, and Berlin. He has performed with eminent musicians including Elmira Darvarova, Jess Gillam, Kenneth Radnofsky, Jennifer Frautschi, Gene Pokorny, and members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and others. Weaver is currently a member of the Amram Ensemble, Trio Ardente, and New England Chamber Players.