Prof. Cecylia Barczyk has achieved international recognition as a complete artist, successful teacher, and great humanitarian. She has given concerts, recitals, and master classes throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas, including appearances with prominent orchestras in Baltimore, Beijing, Berlin, Boston, Bucharest, Budapest, Cracow, Ho Chi Minh City, London, Moscow, New York, Prague, Salvador, Seoul, Shanghai, Sofia, St. Petersburg, Taiwan, Tel Aviv, Tianjin, Tokyo, and Warsaw. Ms. Barczyk has frequently performed on radio and television in the USA and abroad. Her recordings have been highly valued by experts and greatly appreciated by music lovers in many lands. She won top prizes in prestigious music competitions including the Danczowski Cello Competition (Poznan), the Pablo Casals International Cello Competition (Budapest), the Tchaikovsky International Cello Competition (Moscow), the Aldo Parisot International Competition (Brazil), the J.S. Bach International Competition (Leipzig), the Cassado International Cello Competition (Florence), and the W.C. Byrd Young Artists Competition (Michigan). For her musical and pedagogical achievements, she has received awards and honors from professional, cultural, and government institutions in China, Germany, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Poland, and the USA. The Maryland Chapter of the American String Teachers Association named her “Teacher of the Year” (1995, 2005). The Tianjin Conservatory of Music (China) granted her the title Distinguished Honorary Professor. The International Friends of the Cello Association granted her the Award for Great Achievements in Cello Music, and the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Poland gave her the Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Society and Culture. She has studied at the Chopin Conservatory in Warsaw, Tchaikowsky Conservatory in Moscow, and Yale School of Music with Kazimierz Wilkomirski, Natalya Gutman and Aldo Parisot. Since 1983, she has taught at Towson University, continuing her solo career while educating young cellists from virtually every part of the globe. Website

Blanka Bednarz enjoys a versatile career as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, concertmaster and teacher. She has concertized in the USA, United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, and Lithuania; at venues such as the Jordan Hall in Boston, Miller Hall, Philadelphia Ethical Society, Kosciuszko Foundation House, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, Aula UAM and White Hall in Poznan, Lake Placid Center for the Arts, Cardiff City Hall; and at various prestigious festivals. As a soloist Bednarz has appeared with the Connecticut Virtuosi, the Georgia Southern Symphony, the Great Poland Symphony, Sinfonietta Polonia, the Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra, and the New England Conservatory Honors Symphony and Chamber Orchestra (Bednarz was particularly influential in the establishment of the latter). Bednarz is an avid chamber musician, performing in a variety of settings and with renowned artists such as Rita Sloan, Barry Snyder, Richard Stolzman, Adrian Levine, William Ransom, Joanna Kurkowicz, Daniel Veis, Roeland Hendrix, Eddie Gomez, Timothy Deighton, Heng-Jin Park, Ning An, Sergei Schepkin, Martin Storey, the Corigliano Quartet, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston, and Alarm Will Sound. In 2007 she was invited to join the Vega Quartet for a residency with the Piedmont Symphony (NC) and subsequently as first violinist with Vega Quartet-in-residence at Emory University in Atlanta GA. Bednarz is a member of the Atma Trio and is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at Dickinson College, PA.

Prof. Charles H. Borowsky, Ph.D. has been internationally acknowledged for his many academic, educational, and leadership achievements. He received several distinctions, awards and honorary degrees from professional, social, and cultural organizations both in the USA and abroad. Borowsky has authored numerous articles and books in the areas of social movements and change, politics and religion, development and quality of life, sociology of culture, and sociology of youth, published in America, Europe, and Asia. He has been on the faculty of prominent universities including Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Social Studies, and the University of Maryland and has lectured in 66 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In 2002, UNESCO/International Music Council published Dr. Borowsky’s works "Creativity and Innovation in Music" and “The Function of Music In Society.” Currently, Dr. Charles H. Borowsky is the President of Intermuse Performing Artists’ Bureau, and also the elected President of the International Friends of Music Association and Senior Advisor to the public and private organization in the USA and abroad.

Emmanuel Borowsky has been lauded as an outstanding musician of his generation, performing concerts internationally from a young age. At age ten, he performed Vivaldi’s A-minor concerto to an audience of over 9,000 people in Washington D.C.'s National Shrine. At thirteen, he represented North America at the UNESCO World Child Prodigies Concert in Amman (Jordan) and was honored with the distinguished Cultural Achievement Award. At fifteen, he was selected to perform on the nationally syndicated radio show From the Top, and at the age of seventeen he received the Erick Friedman Prize for Outstanding Young Musicians and performed his New York Debut at Carnegie Hall. Emmanuel has been featured as a soloist with respected orchestras including the Tianjin Symphony Orchestra, Eisenach Festival Orchestra, Young German Symphony Orchestra, Poznan Symphony, National Conservatory Orchestra of Jordan, Israeli Soloists Orchestra, Szczecin Philharmonic, Susquehanna Symphony Orchestra, Loudon Symphony, Katowice Philharmonic, and Rzezow Chamber Orchestra. His performance with the Polish Camerata was broadcast internationally by Pol-Sat TV. Among the awards Emmanuel has received are the Erick Friedman Prize for Outstanding Young Musicians, Pro Musica Award, Merit Award from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, Best Classical CD 1999 (for Pearls of Music), Maryland Young Talent Competition, and the Montpelier Performing Arts Center Classical Recital Competition. He has been mentored by Victor Danchenko, Dorothy DeLay, Erick Friedman, Herbert Greenberg, Konstanty Kulka, Zoltan Szabo, Gudny Gudmundsdotir, and Roman Totenberg. Since August 2006, Emmanuel has been studying at Indiana University Bloomington under the guidance of famed violinists Jaime Laredo and Mark Kaplan. Website

Jonathan Carney has been hailed as one of the great Concertmasters of his generation. He comes from a unique musical background; all six members of his family graduated from The Juilliard School in New York. After completing his studies with Ivan Galamian and Christine Dethier, he was awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship and moved to London to continue his studies at the Royal College of Music. After making successful tours of the Americas, Europe and the Far East as both leader and soloist with numerous international ensembles, he was invited by Vladimar Ashkenazy to become leader of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He made his debut with the orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in 1991 and has since appeared as a soloist in many of the concert halls in Britain and the continent working with conductors such as Gatti, Kreizberg and Yuri Temirkonov as well as an extensive tour of South America with Yehudi Menuhin. In 2002 Jonathan started his post as Concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In addition to his recordings for CBS Masterworks, Decca, ASV and Naxos, he is regularly featured on the BBC and has most recently recorded solo works by John Cage and Bruno Moderna. He was also Director of the Royal Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble and has recorded over twenty discs for Tring International including The Four Seasons, The Lark Ascending and Mozart’s Third and Fifth Concertos, as well as the Sinfonia Concertante. New releases include a disc of virtuoso works of Sarasate and Kreisler, an award winning recording of the Nielson concerto with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for the Naxos label and Michael Nyman’s The Piano Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Carney. An avid exponent of twentieth-century music, his solo repertoire also includes works by Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Janacek, Hindemith, Glass, Cage, Takemitsu, Maxwell Davis, Britten, William Bolcom and John Corigliano.

American violist, Sharon Eng, is a seasoned international strings educator, clinician, chamber recitalist and conductor.  Her rich musical career has spanned five continents, including contracts with the American Ballet Theatre and New York City Opera, and such leadership positions as the Greenwich Philharmonic, Jakarta Chamber Orchestra and Polish Sinfonietta. Early in her career, she represented the United States at the von Karajan International Youth Orchestra in Berlin; and studied chamber music with some of the leading string quartets of our time: the Juilliard, Guarneri, Hungarian and Cleveland quartets. In 1998, Eng co-founded Classical Nuances, a unique trio of oboe, viola and piano that performed in 12 countries including at the United Nations in NYC, Seoul Performing Arts Center, Athens Opera House, and as guests of the Sultan’s family in Kuwait.  Splitting her time in several Southeast Asian countries over a 20 year period, Dr. Eng was professor of violin and viola at the University of Pelita Harapan Conservatory of Music, and from 1996 to 2010 headed the High School and Middle School strings program at Jakarta International School, conducting JIS flagship orchestras in Shanghai, Budapest, Vienna and other principal cities in Europe and Asia.  Her solo viola performances have involved collaborations with pianists on both coasts of the United States and internationally, including—among many-- world premieres of works at Lincoln Center, the Bennington Contemporary Music Forum, and the 20th Century Consort, solo performances at the Queensland Conservatory of Music in Brisbane, Australia, solo with orchestra at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, and a recital tour of five major cities in Indonesia. Eng has served on the faculty of the summer International Music Institute and Festival at Coolfont and at Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland since IMIF’s inception in 2003. Eng, earned her Bachelor and Master Degrees in viola performance at the Juilliard School where she was a five-year scholarship student of William Lincer and Paul Doktor. Dr. Eng plays on a viola made in 1978 by Margaret Shipman of Los Angeles. Website

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 medalist 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.” 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. Website

Pianist Lura Johnson has established herself as one of Baltimore/Washington’s most prominent pianists. Hailed as “brilliant” by the Washington Post, Ms. Johnson is celebrated for her passionate and insightful interpretations of the standard repertoire, and esteemed by colleagues for her uncommon sensitivity and skill as a collaborative partner. Trained by luminaries Leon Fleisher and Robert McDonald, she performs regularly in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Marin Alsop.  She has collaborated extensively in orchestral performances and recordings with such artists as Yo Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Leila Josefowicz, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet.  Recently appointed Principal Pianist of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Johnson performs as soloist with regional orchestras in Maryland, Ohio, Delaware, and Massachusetts. Devoted to chamber music from an early age, Johnson fields a steady stream of invitations to play in ensembles, most frequently with colleagues in the BSO, including concertmaster Jonathan Carney, with whom she has presented the complete Brahms violin sonata cycle. She has been a frequent guest artist at the Garth Newel Music Center in Warm Springs, Virginia. Recent recital partners include clarinetist Anthony McGill, cellist Amit Peled, and flutist Marina Piccinini, among others. Johnson was most recently appointed Artistic Director of Baltimore chamber music series Music in the Great Hall, a well-established Baltimore area series with performances by both emerging and established artists. Equally at home with contemporary music, Johnson plays with VERGE Ensemble, who are in residence at Washington’s Corcoran Gallery and have rapidly established a commanding presence in the new music community both nationally and abroad. Johnson’s discography includes a chamber music disc released in 2001 with award winning flutist Christina Jennings which won praise from critics. In November 2010 Centaur Records released her second chamber music disc, Inner Voice, a recital with BSO violist Peter Minkler featuring sonatas by George Rochberg and Dmitri Shostakovich as well as short pieces by Benjamin Britten and Arvo Pärt. Ms. Johnson can also be heard on several recordings released by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, including Naxos’ Grammy nominated release of the Bernstein Mass, on which she played principal keyboard. A committed teacher, Johnson serves on the faculty of Peabody Conservatory. Ms. Johnson is a Steinway Artist. Website

Chin Kim has concertized extensively throughout North America, Asia and Europe as guest artist with orchestras including those of Philadelphia, St. Louis, Montréal, and Atlanta, conductors like Leonard Slatkin, John Nelson, Myung Whun Chung, and Sixten Ehrling, and in major halls of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Montréal, Toronto, Brussels, and Seoul. He was top prizewinner in several of the most prestigious international violin competitions including the Concours International de Musique de Montréal, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, the Paganini Competition, and the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. His debut recording of Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2 in g minor with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic (Russia), under the baton of Paul Freeman, and the Prokofiev Sonata No. 2 in D Major with pianist David Oei, was released on the ProArte/Fanfare label. His second CD consisting of the Mendelssohn c minor, and the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio with the "Starr-Kim-Boeckheler Piano Trio" was released on the Mastersound label, and his most recent CD, the Glazunov and Tchaikovsky Concertos was recorded and released by Intersound/Fanfare label in the Fall of 1995. Prof. Kim is the recipient of the Nan-Pa Prize, which is one of the highest honors given to a Korean-born musician. He graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music and, subsequently from the Juilliard School where he received the Petschek Award, and won the Concerto Competition. He currently teaches at the Mannes College of Music in New York. His major teachers include Dorothy DeLay, Ivan Galamian, and Josef Gingold. Website

A native of Kyoto, Japan, Yoshie Kubota has appeared on Radio FM Osaka and performed in major cities in Japan, including Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Chiba, Kochi and Kyoto. In the United States she has performed in CA, OH, DC, CT, WV, PA, NJ, MD, NY including at the Lincoln Center. Ms. Kubota received a Master of Music degree in piano performance from the Mannes College of Music in 1990. Yoshie is a member of a chamber group Baltimore Canon since 2006. Yoshie started to compose her original music since the Spring of 2006. She has been an official accompanist at IMIF-USA since 2006. Website

Frederick Minger has been well known to Maryland audiences as a pianist for more than thirty years. He is most widely known as a collaborative pianist, in particular as a vocal accompanist and chamber musician. In the years 1976-86 he performed and recorded with the Baltimore Symphony both as a member of the orchestra and as a soloist. He earned the B.M. from Oberlin College Conservatory and the M.M and D.M.A . from the Peabody Conservatory. He studied piano with Leon Fleisher, Miklos Schwalb, and Arthur Dann; chamber music with Berl Senofsky and Robert Koff; and vocal accompanying with Alice Gerstl Duschak and Ellen Mack. Dr. Minger taught piano, music theory, and music history at Towson University from 1971 to 1983. Active in the Baltimore Music Club since 1998, he was head of the Baltimore Music Club Competition from 1999 to 2003.

(*) denotes visiting guest artist