Art has been a primary force in my life from early childhood when my Uncle John first showed me how to draw a puppy by tracing my thumb. All through school I was known for my drawing and the constant movement of my pencil, a habit for which I am still known. After high school I became one of the first students in Williamsport Area Community College’s new Advertising Art program. That program was strongly grounded in the technical aspects of the Graphic Arts and led to a career in advertising, publishing, computer graphics
and printing.

In 1979 I moved to Southern California where I worked in the art department of the PennySaver, a weekly direct mail advertising publication that served 103 communities. I ran the night shift art department, which was a high pressure, deadline driven, production art environment, using cut and paste mechanical art production. While there I got my first taste of Computer Graphics when the Company purchased the Compugraphic Advantage, a precursor to the Desktop Publishing tools of today. My aptitude with that system inspired me to seek training on other types of computer graphic equipment. This led to working in the Los Angeles office of a Silicon Valley Computer Graphics Company. Over the next several years I would work for various start-up publishing and Graphics businesses in Southern California using my skills in this emerging technology.

In 1990 I returned to Pennsylvania using my knowledge of Graphic Arts to find employment in the printing industry. Working for a Sheet Fed, Offset Printing Company located in the Lehigh Valley I worked closely with advertising agencies and art departments in a variety of industries to produce full color promotional and marketing materials. In 1996 I returned to Graphic Design working in the Marketing Dept. for United Receptacle producing specialty graphics projects, photography, print, and internet marketing materials as well as product design.

Joining the Walk-In Art Center in 2014 was a huge step outside my artistic comfort zone. I’ve come a long way artistically since then thanks to the inspiration and creative energy I got being part of an art community.

Primarily I am a sketcher. My sketchbook has long been my trusty companion. In my fine art I try to achieve the loose spontaneous style I value in my sketching. Watercolor complements that need for spontaneity.

My art can be an unruly beast. He and I struggle. If we’re lucky, sometimes that struggle lets art happen.

AGNÈS MAURER, violist, is a native of France, where she studied the violin privately. At the age of sixteen, she joined the Ensemble Instrumental Andrée Colson, a professional chamber orchestra. In the United States she studied with Karen Tuttle at Peabody Conservatory, Kim Kashkashian at New School of Music and Geoffrey Michaels.

She teaches violin and viola at her home studio in New Ringgold, PA
Ms. Maurer is principal violist with the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra, and the Lehigh University Choral Arts. She is a member of Satori, of Bach Choir of Bethlehem, and the Gabriel Chamber Ensemble (now in its 35th season). She is also co-founder and executive director of the Ensemble.

Her solo appearances include performances of Stamitz, Handel-Casadesus, and Telemann Viola Concerti, “Harold in Italy” by Berlioz, Hindemith “Trauermusik” and Mozart Symphonie Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra with Schuylkill Symphony Orchestra, Musica Sacra Atlanta, Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra Bloomsburg Chamber Orchestra and others.

Barbara Jaffe, violinist, received a Master of Music degree in Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music, where she was a student of Donald Weilerstein. She graduated magna cum laude from the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts with a Bachelor of Music degree and was the recipient of the PCPA Book Prize for excellence in the Liberal Arts. Former teachers include Edgar Ortenberg, Charles Castleman, David Cerone, and Yumi Ninomiya-Scott.

A founding member of Elysian Camerata, Ms. Jaffe’s chamber music career began in 1982 in Great Falls, Montana with the Cascade String Quartet, the resident quartet affiliated with the Great Falls Symphony, and followed with a position in the Bradley University String Quartet in Peoria, Illinois.

In the greater Philadelphia area, Ms. Jaffe has performed with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Ballet and Opera Delaware Orchestras, Philly Pops, Relache, the Fairmount String Quartet and Chamber Ensemble, and the Arioso Quartet. In the Lehigh Valley she has performed with the Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra, the Gabriel Chamber Ensemble and the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Jaffe has performed in Switzerland as a member of the New Bridge Ensemble.

Barbara Jaffe has taught violin students at Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges and maintains a teaching studio in her home as well. In the summer she is a faculty member, performer and chamber music coach at the Vermont Music and Arts Center in Lyndonville, Vermont.

Ron Stabinsky received his first musical lessons at the age of five from Michael Hoysock, his grandfather. Throughout childhood, he learned important fundamental musical skills of harmony, sight reading and basic skills on multiple instruments from Robert Bernatonis. He took advantage of many important opportunities to grow as a young musician as a student in the Pottsville Area School District music program. While at Mount Hope Elementary School, he started violin lessons with Katherine Hoopes and continued to participate in the string program through his years at John S. Clarke Elementary Center and, finally, in the D.H.H. Lengel Middle School’s Orchestra. He also began horn lessons in the D.H.H. Lengel Middle School band program with David Seward and continued private study with Richard Fries while participating in the Pottsville Area High School Band. His skills in sight-reading continued to be developed through the encouragement of Francis Portland while playing piano in the Pottsville Area High School chorus program.

Ron enjoys working in stylistically diverse musical contexts throughout the United States and Europe with many musicians and ensembles. These include free-improvising saxophonist Jack Wright, lead trumpet legend Dave Stahl, bass trombone virtuoso David Taylor, NEA Jazz Master David Liebman, innovative trumpeter/composer Peter Evans, and phenomenal drummer/composer Christian Lillinger’s “Open Form for Society.” Festival appearances include Newport Jazz Festival (Rhode Island), Big Ears Festival (Knoxville, TN), North Sea Jazz Festival (Netherlands), Moers Festival (Germany), Donaueschingen Music Days (Germany), JazzFest Berlin (Germany), Jazzfestival Saalfelden (Austria), Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (San Francisco), and Summerfest (Milwaukee).  In 2016, his debut album, Free for One, received four stars in DownBeat and tied for number one debut of the year in the 2016 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll. He is currently a regular member of numerous groups including Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Relâche, Grassy Sound, Chris Coyle’s Phantasma, and the Meat Puppets.

Active as a teacher, composer and performer, Paul W. Miller is a practicing musician (piano and drums) whose professional career spans over 50 years and two continents.  He studied drums with Robert J. Williams and Joe Morello, piano with John Valerio, Peter Geisselbrecht and Gary Nesteruk and music composition with Daniel J. Perlongo (Professor of Music Composition at IUP), Clifford Taylor (Professor of Music Composition at Temple University) and Bojidar Dimov (Professor of New Music and Composition at the Rheinischen Musikschule in Köln, Germany).

Miller’s work as a composer, which includes piano music, chamber music, music for orchestra, music for mixed ensembles, works in the jazz idiom, choral works, songs, and music for band, has been heard in leading venues in the United States, Germany and the Czech Republic.  His Sonata for Cello and Piano won First Prize in the College Music Society European Composition Competition and was also awarded the Dr. John Henry Heller Prize for music composition at Temple University.  His works have been performed and/or recorded by (among others) Ted Rosenthal, Marylene Dosse, Dick Oatts, Scott Colley, Terry Clark, John Swana, Ron Stabinsky, The Riverside String Quartet, The Gabriel Chamber Ensemble, members of the Bonn (Germany) Opera Orchestra, The Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra, The Schuylkill Symphony Orchestra and The Pottsville Area High School Band.

Miller’s work is showcased in his two-act opera, A Coal Region Opera (composed in 1991), which was performed as the centerpiece of American Music Week in Bonn, Germany, in November, 1993.  This production was awarded financial support by both the German government and the United States Department of State, which also supported the show’s tour of Germany and the Czech Republic.  A concert version of A Coal Region Opera was performed at Carnegie Recital Hall in Manhattan in May, 1994.

Miller has taught at Temple University in Philadelphia (1985-1989), Overbrook High School in Philadelphia (1986), The New School University in Manhattan (1999-2002), Phillipps University of Marburg in Marburg, Germany (1996), and since 2005, has been teaching at the Institut für Musikwissenschaft und Musikpaedagogik at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.  From 1989 until his retirement in 2017, Miller was Assistant Professor of Music and Humanities at The Pennsylvania State University Schuylkill Campus.

Miller earned a B.A. in Music (Percussion Performance) from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in Music Composition from Temple University in Philadelphia.

Domenick began the study of the double bass with Wes Fisher in Reading, Pennsylvania at the age of 14. He attended the Philadelphia Musical Academy where he was a student of John Schaeffer, Principal Bass, New York Philharmonic. After graduation, Domenick free‑lanced in the Philadelphia and New York City areas, performing in Broadway shows, The Brooklyn Philharmonia, National Ballet of Canada, and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, as well as playing electric bass for Philadelphia Orchestra Pops Concerts. He earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree from West Chester(Pa.) University in 1987 and began teaching in the Ephrata, Pa. School District. Domenick has been Director of Orchestras and Chamber Music at: The Mid‑Southeast Suzuki Institute, Chicago Institute, Calgary Suzuki Institute, Central Pennsylvania Institute, Snowmass Suzuki Institute, and the Hartford Suzuki Institute, as well as clinician at the Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Hickory , North Carolina, and Augusta, Ga. Suzuki workshops and has conducted the national student orchestra at the National Suzuki Conference in Cincinatti, Ohio. From 1997 – 2007 he was the Director of the 5 Suzuki Orchestras of the Community Division at the Hartt School of the University of Hartford where he also had a thriving young bass program through the Community Division at Hartt. Domenick currently lives in Orefield, Pa. and, with his wife Linda, co-directs DaCore Performing Srings, as well as the Ogontz Suzuki Institute in New Hampshire. Both Linda and Domenick also perform regularly with several ensembles in the area.

A native of Minersville, Pennsylvania, Dana Allaband studied under Simon Maurer, Sylvia Ahramjian, James Stern and Arnold Steinhardt and has received degrees from West Chester University, Pennsylvania and University of Maryland. Dana has concertized in Venezuela, Romania, Cameroon, Carnegie Hall and various universities across the country. She has been principal second violinist of the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra for over a decade and has served as concertmaster with Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, Kennett Symphony and Anthracite Philharmonic. She’s also performed as an orchestral musician with Reading Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Annapolis Symphony and Pennsylvania Sinfonia. As an active chamber musician, Dana is currently a violinist with the Gabriel Chamber Ensemble, Monteverde String Quartet, Mill Race Collective and was a member of Elysian Camerata for many years.

Expressing her interest in various genres of music, Dana has performed rock music with Rachel Barton Pine and tango music with Trifilio Tango. She regularly appears as first violinist with Philadelphia singer/songwriter Andrew Lipke and the Azrael String Quartet and is the violinist in One Alternative.

Mrs. Allaband has taught at Millersville University and Albright College and is currently Assistant Director of Sunday Sinfonia at Albright College. She is the recipient of the 2016 LLMEA Private Teacher Award. While currently maintaining a private violin and viola studio, Dana also coaches chamber music each summer at the Bear Crossing Chamber Music String Camp in New Ringgold, Pennsylvania and Vermont Music and Arts at Northern Vermont University in Lyndonville, Vermont.

Cellist Sara Male received an Associate of the Arts in Music degree from Victoria Conservatory of Music in Canada, where she was presented the Principal Emeritus Prize. Ms. Male earned Bachelor of Music with high honors from Rutgers University, and Master of Music from the Mannes College of Music in New York City.| She is sought after as a chamber-music recitalist and soloist, having performed in major venues in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia. She is the founding cellist of the Lancaster based Newstead Trio from 1993-2018. Ms. Male also founded Duo Chiaroscuro in 2012, in collaboration with award-wining pianist Maria Corley. This ensemble has for over eight years been dedicated to creating musical experiences that both touch and thrill their audiences. Recently, Duo Chiaroscuro decided to make their art available to those on the autism spectrum or with other distinct needs. They created a series entitled Silence Optional which blends visual and musical components.

Sara also collaborates in chamber-music programs with her husband and violist Peter Kenote, a member of the New York Philharmonic. She is principal cellist of the York Symphony Orchestra, assistant principal cellist of the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra and Chair of the
LSO Board of Directors. She also plays frequently with the Reading Symphony, Allentown Symphony and Baltimore Chamber Orchestra. In 2018 Sara was a featured guest artist with the Reading Symphony performing Joel Puckett’s Short Stories for string quartet and orchestra. She also soloed in 2019 & 2020 with Allegro, the Chamber Orchestra of Lancaster. She performs the Haydn D-major cello concerto with the York Symphony this season.

Sara is Senior-Assistant-Adjunct Professor of Cello at Franklin & Marshall College. She has directed Chamber Music Programs and was involved in the successful accreditation to the National Association of Schools of Music for the Pennsylvania Academy of Music. Sara is
under constant demand as a private teacher working with cellists of all ages from Lancaster County and beyond. Her teaching reflects the pedagogy of her former teachers, Jim Hunter. Bernard Greenhouse, Zara Nelsova and Timothy Eddy. Sara has also participated in programs that allowed her to study with Anner Bylsma, Janos Starker and Channing Robbins. Over the
last twenty-five years, her students have won competitions, awards and performed with the most prominent regional orchestras. Sara’s students have gone on to study cello in post-secondary institutions such as Oberlin, Ithaca, Duquesne, Cleveland Institute, Kings College,
Mannes College of Music, Peabody Conservatory and were selected to play in masterclasses for members of the New York Philharmonic, Ying Quartet, Cassat Quartet and Yo Yo Ma to name a few. Sara raised her three children in Lancaster and continues to appreciate the many unique and rich qualities of life in this diverse and artistically vibrant community.

Christopher started the cello at the age of 4 with his parents, both of whom are established performers and teachers in the Lehigh Valley.

When he turned 16, Christopher began his undergraduate studies at the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut. After two years, he transferred to the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he completed his undergraduate degree in Cello Performance while studying with Stephen Geber, former principal cellist of the Cleveland Orchestra.

After graduating, Christopher moved to Chicago to study with Stephen Balderston and Brant Taylor of the Chicago Symphony, and graduated with a Masters in Cello Performance, and a Performance Certificate degree from DePaul School of Music.

Christopher currently lives in Washington, DC, and regularly performs with various orchestras and choral groups in D.C., Northern Virginia, and Maryland.

Violist Renee Warnick is an active orchestral, chamber, and recording musician and teacher in the greater Philadelphia region. She is Assistant Principal Viola of the Lancaster Symphony and has toured nationally and internationally with the Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra. She has performed with such groups as Bay-Atlantic Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, Delaware Symphony, Philly Pops, Kennett Symphony, Opera Philadelphia, Ocean City Pops, Allentown Symphony, Reading Symphony, and the Endless Mountain Music Festival. She is a member of the Halcyon Consort and was part of the Elysian Camerata from 2017-2020. Ms. Warnick has played in the pit orchestra for Broadway at the Kimmel Center and Arden Theater productions and was featured as an on-stage musician for the 2012 American premiere of Love Story, the Musical at the Walnut Street Theater. She has recorded numerous commercial string tracks at Milk Boy, Minor Street, and Morningstar Studios and with the Dark Horse Orchestra, including tracks for the 2014 Michael Jackson album Xscape.

Ms. Warnick holds Bachelor’s and Master of Music degrees from Temple University and has completed Level 4 certification from the Organization of American Kodály Educators at West Chester University. Currently, she is a full-time member of the music faculty at Germantown Friends School, where she teaches K-2 general music. Ms. Warnick has previously been on the string faculties of Temple Music Prep and Settlement Music School. She resides in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia and enjoys cooking, traveling, knitting, and spending time in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

Critically acclaimed performer, author and teacher, John Riley has worked with the world’s
leading Jazz musicians for over 40 years.  A four time GRAMMY award winner and 14 time
nominee, John has played on hundreds of recordings and at major venues with Miles Davis,
Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Woody Herman, John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Bob Mintzer, The
Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and many others.

John is the author of The Art of Bop Drumming, currently published in five languages, Beyond
Bop Drumming, The Jazz Drummer’s Workshop and The Master Drummer.

John has a BM in Jazz Studies from the University of North Texas, 1975, and an MM in Jazz
Studies from the Manhattan School of Music, 1985.  He is on the faculty of Manhattan School of
Music and Kutztown University, an Artist in Residence at the Amsterdam Conservatory in
Holland and has given master classes around the world.

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9:00 am:  Coffee and baked goods

9:30: Relaxing movement (outdoors, weather permitting)

9:45: Technique class: focus on shifting (using the Sevcik method)

10:30: Large and small ensembles, coached session

Noon: Lunch by Agnès Maurer: each day a different ethnic theme

1:00 pm:  Games or small group sessions with special focus

1:30: Chamber Music coached session

2:30: Chamber Music coached session

3:30: Sight reading sessions

4:30: Dismissal

Simon Maurer grew up in Switzerland and studied music at the Conservatory in Biel. He continued his studies in the U.S. with Geoffrey Michaels and Joyce Robbins. Maurer is an accomplished musician performing chamber music solo and orchestra concerts throughout the eastern United States, Europe and China. He currently plays violin, viola, Baroque violin.

A founding member of Gabriel Chamber Ensemble (GCE), he has performed with the ensemble for over 32 years and is the artistic director of the concert series in Schuylkill Haven. Other chamber music ensembles in which Maurer performs include the Ravel Trio, Trio Clavino, and the Pennsylvania Chamber Ensemble. He is also currently Assistant Concertmaster of the Pennsylvania Sinfonia, performs with Valley Vivaldi, Satori, and Allentown Symphony Orchestra.Maurer currently conducts a string Orchestra in residence at Albright College in Reading Pa, Sunday Sinfonia, a mixed group of Albright Students and Community members.

Maurer ventures in the practice of jazz and free style improvisation. He has been a featured soloist in Philadelphia area jazz clubs, has performed at “Jazzfest” in Schuylkill County. He has recorded numerous projects with folk singers and rock groups such as Maggi, Pierce and EJ and Zen for Primates.Maurer teaches violin, viola, cello and bass in Lancaster, and in his studio in New Ringgold.

Maurer lives on a converted 20-acre YMCA camp, where he built his own 2000 square foot concert hall and enjoys the outdoors. Tennis is the preferred exercise. He has three granddaughters and one grandson.

Chinese-American pianist Xun Pan received his early musical training from his grandmother and pianists-parents, Pan Yiming and Ying Shizhen. He continued his studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Syracuse University in New York, and earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Mr. Pan has won many international piano competitions and awards, beginning with first prize in the 1986 China National Piano Competition in Beijing, and the “Dr. Luis Sigall” International Piano Competition in Chile in 1987, the International Festival Piano Competition in Korea in 1990, the Frinna Awerbuch International Piano Competition in New York in 1992, and the Artists International Competition in New York in 1993. A student of Theodore Lettvin, Mr. Pan has performed solo recitals worldwide from Carnegie Weill Hall to the Beijing National Center for Performing Arts. He has performed in Moscow, Santiago, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, London, Los Angeles, Frankfurt, Taipei, Budapest, Salzburg, Sicily, New York, Seoul, Pyongyang, Biel, Bern, Brussels, Vina Del Mar, Washington DC, Lisbon, Toronto, Boston, San Jose, San Francisco, and many other cities in the world. He “…excites his audience with extraordinary power and masterful technique.” (The Star-Ledger)

A noted chamber musician, Mr. Pan is the pianist of the Newstead Trio and Trio Clavino. Their work has been broadcast live on radio and television, and they have released several highly acclaimed recordings. Trio Clavino toured seven cities in China with Fulbright Grants managed by US Embassy in Beijing in 2014, and again in 2016. Mr. Pan has been served as a judge in many competitions include “Frinna Awerbuch” International Piano Competition in New York, United States Music Open Competition in Oakland, CA, United States International Music competition in Stanford, CA, and Maria Clara Cullell International Piano Competition in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Dr. Pan is the Director of Keyboard Studies of The Tell School of Music at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, and is a visiting professor at many universities and conservatories in China, includes Central Conservatory of Music, China Conservatory of Music, Guangzhou Xinghai Conservatory of Music, Sichuan Conservatory of Music, China Northwest University for Nationalities, Fuzhou University, Yantai University, Shandong University, Qinghai Normal University, and Wenzhou University. He taught and served as the Chairman of the Piano Department at Pennsylvania Academy of Music between 1996 and 2009.

Dr. Pan is one of the founding members and the Artistic Director of the Lancaster International Piano Festival in Pennsylvania, USA.

His next project is going to perform the entire 32 piano sonatas, 10 piano/violin sonatas, and 8 piano/cello works of Beethoven to celebrate his 250th anniversary of birth from fall of 2018.

German-born recorder artist Rainer Beckmann performs with a large variety of early music ensembles in the Philadelphia Tri-State area. He is a founding member of La Bernardinia Baroque Ensemble and New World Recorders. As featured soloist and guest musician, he regularly appears with groups such as Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra Tempesta di Mare, The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Brandywine Baroque, Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra, Camerata Ama Deus, Piffaro: The Renaissance Band and Vox Renaissance Consort. With recorder ensembles Il Flauto Giocoso, Landini Consort, Ad Libitum, and others, he has extensively performed in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Italy, Israel and Brazil. Rainer teaches at Amherst Early Music workshops, coaches the recorder players of Temple University’s Early Music Ensemble, and serves as the music director of the Philadelphia Recorder Society. He is a graduate of the Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands where he studied recorder and historical performance practice with Heiko ter Schegget, Baldrick Deerenberg and Marion Verbruggen.

A Philadelphia native, Elena Kauffman maintains an active career as a performing and teaching artist. She is the cellist and manager of Blue Line Quartet, and she performs frequently with Fairmount String Quartet, Elysium String Quartet, and many other chamber ensembles in the Philadelphia area. She is the principal cellist and personnel manager of the Wayne Oratorio Society and Haverford-Bryn Mawr Chorale Orchestra, and she has performed with the Philadelphia Ballet Orchestra, Reading Symphony, Bay Atlantic Symphony, Riverside Symphonia, and West Jersey Chamber Orchestra.

Praised for her “customary acuity and beauty” (Broad Street Review), Elena has a passion for historical string instruments, and she performs regularly on baroque cello and viola da gamba. She has appeared on tour with Venice Baroque Orchestra, and she was the viola da gamba soloist in New York City Opera’s production of Los Elementos by Antonio Literes. She has participated in the American Bach Soloists Academy in San Francisco, the International Masterclasses Festival in Gaming, Austria, and Juilliard at Piccola Accademia in Montisi, Italy. Elena is a founding member of Filament, and has appeared as a guest with Tempesta di Mare, The Thirteen Chamber Choir Baroque Orchestra, Bach Collegium Philadelphia, Gamut Bach Ensemble, Crescendo Period Instrument Orchestra, Ex Umbris, and Elm City Consort. She has studied with Sarah Cunningham, Phoebe Carrai, and has performed in masterclass for Thomas Fritzsch and Paolo Pandolfo.

A dedicated educator, Elena maintains a private studio and is the Orchestra Operations Director and Lower Strings Specialist at Cornerstone Christian Academy in Southwest Philadelphia.

Elena is a graduate of Temple University, where she studied with Jeffrey Solow.

John Walthausen has been heard across Europe, North and South America, and Asia as an organ and harpsichord soloist and ensemble artist. He holds degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, and the Schola Cantorum of Basel, Switzerland, and from 2015 to 2016 he served as Organist in Residence at Sapporo Concert Hall in Hokkaido, Japan, which released his debut album, De Fil en Aiguille. In 2012 he won first prize at the Pierre de Manchicourt International Organ Competition in Béthune, France, a competition devoted to North German music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Praised as “a brilliant young artist” in The Diapason, John appears regularly with groups throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, including Washington Bach Consort, Variant 6, the Philadelphia Bach Collegium, and Tempesta di Mare. He also serves as Director of Music at the First Presbyterian Church of Germantown and worked in 2024 as Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Organ Festival.

Lauded by the Washington Post for her “burnish tone,” cellist Dr. Ai-Lin Hsieh is a versatile musician with a repertoire that ranged from the timeless classics to the avant-garde. She is equally accomplished as a soloist, chamber and orchestra musician.

Dr. Hsieh began her early music training on both piano and cello. After receiving the Bachelor of Music degree in cello performance from Soochow University in her native Taiwan, she continued her study at the Eastman School of Music and earned a Master of Music degree. In 2000, she was admitted by the University of Maryland, College Park with Graduate Assistantship to pursue her doctoral study. Five years later, she was awarded Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Cello Performance. Her primary teachers include such prominent performers and pedagogues as Steven Doane, Evelyn Elsing and Kenneth Slowik. She also received her chamber music coaching from members of the Guarneri Quartet and the Ying Quartet.

Among the many solo and chamber performances she has given, noteworthy are her collaboration with the late Mistislav Rostropovitch in a cello octet performance in 1997 and her two-week tour in China performing as a member of the Pennsylvania Chamber Ensemble (now Gabriel Chamber Ensemble) in 2019. In addition to chamber music, she is currently the Assistant Principal Cellist of the York Symphony in Pennsylvania. Prior to this appointment, she performed with several orchestras in Asia and America. Their concerts have brought her to major cities including Los Angeles, New York, Taipei and Tokyo.

Aside from her deep interest in chamber performance, Dr. Hsieh has a passion for training a new generation of cellists. She was a cello instructor in the D.C. Youth Orchestra program and at Montgomery College in Maryland. She coached chamber music at the Pennsylvania Academy of Music. She also served as an adjunct faculty at Lebanon Valley College. Currently, she is an adjunct faculty teaching applied cello lessons at both Millersville and Messiah University, and runs a private cello studio in Hummelstown, PA.