Burke Schuchmann

Cellist


Burke Schuchmann studied in London, England with William Pleeth for five years, where he made his debut at the age of 19. He also studied for extended periods with Margaret Rowell and Colin Hampton. After his studies in England, he became principal cellist and soloist with the Salzburger Solisten in Austria. He has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician in Europe, the U.S. and Israel. He has also been principal cellist and soloist with the Sacramento Symphony and the Mendocino Festival Orchestra.

Mr. Schuchmann is known for the beauty and depth of his musical interpretation as a performing soloist as well as chamber musician. He is greatly sought after as a chamber music coach of young musicians and adult amateurs. He was for many years the director of the Mendocino Music Festival's Young Musician's Scholarship program. A gifted teacher, Mr. Schuchmann has taught at the University of California at Berkeley and also CSU Chico. He currently teaches string technique classes, directs the Berkeley and Marin chamber music workshops. He is the artistic director of the Palomarin Chamber Music Foundation and has recently inaugurated an all-cello workshop ("Cello Heaven") in Berkeley, California. He has also been a member of the faculty of the San Domenico High School Conservatory of Music and is presently coaching in the adult chamber music program at the Crowden School.

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Yael Ronen

Flutist



Yael Ronen holds a bachelor of music degree from the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University, and a master of music from California State University, Sacramento. She studied with William Bennett and Trevor Wye in London for two years. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, including appearances at the Piccadilly Festival, City of London Festival in England and Music Unlimited à La Valette in Belgium. She also has recorded for the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Commission and Israeli National Radio. In Israel, she performed with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic, under conductors Zubin Mehta and Leonard Bernstein.

Ms. Ronen lives in California where, she has served as the principal flutist with the Camellia Orchestra in Sacramento. Currently, she is principal flutist with the North State Symphony and is principal flutist and soloist with the Apollo Orchestra. She teaches flute on the faculty at California State University, Chico, as well as maintaining an active career teaching privately and performing recitals and chamber music both in California and Europe. A CD of her recording together with Israeli flutist Idit Shemer of the Six Sonatas for Two Flutes by W.F. Bach was produced by Empire Master Sound, Belgium.

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Brian Ganz

Pianist


Brian Ganz is widely regarded as one of the leading pianists of his generation. Washington Post critic Joan Reinthaler has written: "One comes away from a recital by pianist Brian Ganz not only exhilarated by the power of the performance but also moved by his search for artistic truth."

Brian Ganz was winner of one of two First Grand Prizes awarded in the 1989 Marguerite Long Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris, where he was also awarded special prizes for the best recital round of the competition and the best performance of the required work. That same year he won a Beethoven Fellowship awarded by the American Pianists Association, and in 1991 he was a silver medallist with third prize in the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Piano Competition. After his performance in the finals of the Brussels competition, the critic for La Libre Belgique wrote: "We don't have the words to speak of this fabulous musician who lives music with a generous urgency and brings his public into a state of intense joy."

Mr. Ganz has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic (of Russia), the Baltimore Symphony, the National Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the City of London Sinfonia, L'Orchestre Lamoureux, and L'Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. He has performed in such halls as the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Le Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, De Doelen in Rotterdam, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, L'Arena Theater in Verona, and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

In 1992 Mr. Ganz made his recording debut for the Gailly label in Belgium, and his recordings of works of Chopin and Dutilleux have been released on the Accord label in Paris. In 2001 he began a project with Maestoso Records in which he will record the complete works of Frederic Chopin. Mr. Ganz was also recently engaged as artist/editor of various works of Chopin for the new Schirmer Performance Editions (published jointly by Hal Leonard and G. Schirmer). His first edition, the Chopin Preludes, was published in the summer of 2005.

Some of Mr. Ganz' recent concert highlights include performances of Mozart Piano Concerti K. 466, with the Memphis Symphony, and K. 467, with the National Philharmonic Orchestra at the new Strathmore Hall in Rockville, Maryland. In the summer of 2006 he returned to the Kennedy Center concert hall in a critically acclaimed performance with the Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Yoel Levi. He has also performed with such conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Mstislav Rostropovich, Philippe Entremont, Pinchas Zukerman, Leon Fleisher, Jerzy Semkow, and Gustav Meier.

Mr. Ganz is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Leon Fleisher. Earlier teachers include Ylda Novik and the late Claire Deene. Gifted as a teacher himself, Mr. Ganz is Artist-in-Residence at St. Mary's College of Maryland, where he has been a member of the piano faculty since 1986, and in 2000 he joined the piano faculty of the Peabody Conservatory. In December of 2001 he was honored to serve on the jury of the Long Thibaud competition in Paris.

Brian is an active explorer of the many ways in which the study and performance of great music can remind us of the Spirit that unites all living things. He has donated numerous performances in benefit concerts, and was a founding member of the Washington Chapter of Artists to End Hunger.

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