Jackiw has performed in numerous important festivals and concert series, including the Aspen Music Festival, Ravinia Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Philharmonie de Paris, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Celebrity Series of Boston, and the Washington Performing Arts Society. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with such artists as Jeremy Denk, Steven Isserlis, Yo-Yo Ma, and Gil Shaham, and forms a trio with Jay Campbell and Conrad Tao.

Born to physicist parents of Korean and German descent, Stefan Jackiw began playing the violin at the age of four. His teachers have included Zinaida Gilels, Michèle Auclair, and Donald Weilerstein. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University, as well as an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory, and is the recipient of a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Jackiw plays a violin made in 1750 in Milan by G.B. Guadagnini, on generous loan from a private collection. He lives in New York City.

Kaplan has also maintained a flourishing international career for over four decades, with highly acclaimed concerto and recital appearances in all the musical centers of Europe – London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Prague, Zurich, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Milan – as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. 

Also devoted to chamber music. Mr. Kaplan appears with pianist Yael Weiss and cellist Peter Stumpf as the Weiss-Kaplan-Stumpf Trio, with recordings and concerts world-wide.

Mr. Kaplan has a wide range of repertoire available on CD.  His second recording of Bach’s solo violin works was issued in 2016 by Bridge Records, and due for release this season is a Weiss-Kaplan-Stumpf Trio set of Beethoven’s complete Trios.  Other recordings include concerti of Berg Stravinsky,  Lalo, Bartók, Paganini, Wieniawski and Viotti, Sonatas of Schumann and Schubert, Spanish Dances of Sarasate, trios of Brahms, Debussy, Dvorak, Fauré, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninov, Saint-Saens, Schubert, Smetana and Tchaikowsky.

Since 2005, Mark Kaplan has been Professor of Violin at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, and prior to that he served as Professor with Distinction at UCLA.  He is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Dorothy DeLay.  Kaplan plays a violin made by Antonio Stradivari in 1685, known as the Marquis.                             

She solos regularly with many of the major orchestras around the world, from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to Seattle Symphony, and has appeared in recital in such prestigious venues and series as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Carnegie Hall’s Distinctive Debuts series in Weill Hall (2017).

She is also a highly acclaimed fiddler in the tradition of her native Kentucky, delighting audiences with programming that includes Appalachian and bluegrass music and inspiring composers to write for her – most notably SKY, a bluegrass-inspired violin concerto written for Tessa by Michael Torke which earned both a GRAMMY nomination for Tessa and a Pulitzer finalist distinction for Torke.

Lark is a graduate of New England Conservatory and completed her Artist Diploma at The Juilliard School. She plays a ca. 1600 G.P. Maggini violin on loan from an anonymous donor through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

A founding trustee of Chamber Music America (and its president from 1983 to 1987), she also served on the boards of the American String Teachers Association, Aspen Music Festival, and the Perlman Music Program. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Fischoff Competition. Castleman has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including two teacher of the year awards from the American String Teacher Association, Chamber Music America’s Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, the American Viola Society’s Maurice W. Riley Viola Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Viola, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Montreal. She holds a BA from Wellesley College and a MA from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and studied with Dorothy DeLay and Paul Doktor.

Chiang is a founding member of The Aspen String Trio. The group concertizes internationally, and was Ensemble in Residence at the University of Baltimore. Currently a member of the artist/faculty of the Peabody Conservatory and the Aspen Music Festival, Chiang has given master classes throughout the world. Formerly on the faculty of The Juilliard School and the Hartt School of Music, and a former member of the board of the American Viola Society, her students hold significant positions in orchestras, in string quartets, and on conservatory faculties across the US and in Europe. Additionally, Chiang has taught at the Perlman Music Program: Winter Residency in Sarasota, Madeline Island Chamber Music Festival, Heifetz International Music Institute, Domaine Forget, Great Wall Festival (Beijing) among others.

Chiang earned the Master of Music degree and Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, and the Bachelor of Music degree from the Cincinnati College‐Conservatory of Music. Her principal teachers include Heidi Castleman and Masao Kawasaki, viola; and Dorothy DeLay and Kurt Sassmannshaus, violin.

Jean-Michel is a founding member of the Quatuor Ravel which received top prizes at the Evian International String Quartet Competition in 1989 and won the Victoire de la Musique Classique in 1994. The Quatuor Ravel performed annually at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, as well as regularly at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Salles Gaveau, and Suntory Hall. They also toured extensively throughout the United Kingdom, Germany, and North America. Jean-Michel created and led the first ever string quartet residency program in France.

Recent collaborations include performances with Leon Fleisher, Peter Frankl, Claude Frank, Nobuko Imai, Gilbert Kalish, Kim Kashkashian, Anthony Marwood, Menahem Pressler, and Mark Steinberg. Jean-Michel has also performed alongside the Amadeus, Escher, Fine Arts, Pro Arte, and Tokyo Quartets. He has recorded extensively for Albany Records, MSR Classics, Centaur Records, and Musidisc-France.

A passionate and dedicated teacher, Jean-Michel previously served on the faculty of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon, France before coming to San Francisco. His students have won international competitions — including the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition — and gone on to major solo, chamber, and orchestral careers. His students have appeared at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, the Concertgebouw, the Wigmore Hall, the Verbier Festival, and on many more of the world’s premier stages. In addition to his annual residence at Yellow Barn, he previously taught at Domaine Forget, the Casalmaggiore International Music Festival, and the Morges Summer Academy in Switzerland.

Jean-Michel is currently a member of the San Francisco Piano Trio together with violinist Axel Strauss and pianist Jeffrey Sykes. The Trio performs annually at the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, along with regular performances throughout North America. He also performs regularly with the Houston-based Music in Context ensemble dedicated to historically informed performance on period instruments.

Jean-Michel studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Musique de Paris and plays cellos made by Francesco Goffriller in 1730 and Andrew Carruthers in 2016. He lives in Berkeley, CA together with his wife Dana.

Highlights in the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 seasons include premiering and touring Jessie Montgomery’s Divided for solo cello and orchestra, around thirty recitals, a residency at Colburn Conservatory, curating and performing chamber music programs with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and duo recording projects with Olga Kern, JP Jofre, and Michelle Cann. Next season’s venues will include Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, The Supreme Court of the United States, Colburn School of Music, Kohler Foundation and numerous others.

Brandon Vamos, a Grammy-award winning cellist, has performed solo and chamber music recitals both in the U.S. and  abroad  to critical  acclaim.  Called  a “first-rate cellist” by the Chicago Reader and praised for his “gutsy bravura” by the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Vamos has appeared as soloist with orchestras worldwide, including performances with the Taipei City Symphony, the Suwon Symphony in Seoul, the Samara Symphony in Russia, and the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Elgin Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Vamos has collaborated with many distinguished artists, including Paul Katz, Michael Tree, Yo-Yo Ma, Menahem Pressler, and the Emerson Quartet, and has recorded for Cedille, Naxos, and Cacophony Records. Awarded a Performer’s Certificate at the Eastman School of Music, where he earned a Bachelor’s of Music Degree as a student of Mr. Katz,  Mr. Vamos has also studied with distinguished artists such as Tanya Carey in Macomb, Illinois, and Aldo Parisot at Yale University, where he earned a Master of Music Degree. As a member of the Pacifica Quartet, with whom he performs over 90 concerts a year, he won a 2009 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance and the Cleveland Quartet Award, in addition to being named Musical America’s 2009 Ensemble of the Year. 

Winner of the 2008 Sphinx Competition, Ms. Belen has appeared as a soloist with the Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Nashville and San Francisco Symphonies, the Boston Pops, and the Florida and Cleveland Orchestras. Zachary Lewis from the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote “Violinist Danielle Belen… captivated every ear with an assured, impassioned performance of Ravel’s “Tzigane,” knocking off the daunting showpiece as if it were a trifle.”

A graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music and the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles, Ms. Belen joined the faculty of the Colburn School of Performing Arts in 2008. In addition to maintaining her own violin studio, she was the teaching assistant to renowned pedagogue Robert Lipsett for five years. During that time, Ms. Belen also served as the Director of the Ed and Mari Chamber Music Institute at Colburn.

In 2010, Ms. Belen founded Center Stage Strings, a summer camp and performance festival for gifted young musicians in central California. After gaining national attention, CSS moved to the campus of The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor as part of MPulse, a summer program at the School of Music, Theatre and Dance. As the Artistic Director and head of the violin faculty for Center Stage Strings, she has attracted students and seasoned artists from around the world. Lynn Harrell, James Ehnes, Arnold Steinhardt, Sarah Chang, William Hagen, Rohan de Silva and Stefan Jackiw have joined to perform in support of the program.

As the winner of the 2014 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, Ms. Belen performed for Justice Sonia Sotomayor and her guests at the Supreme Court in Washington DC, where she was awarded a $50,000 career grant. In turn, she used that money towards a matching campaign for Center Stage Strings, doubling the amount into $100,000 for student scholarships.

Ms. Belen plays on a violin made in Mantua, Italy by Stefano Scarampella.