Blanka Bednarz
Prof. Blanka Bednarz, DMA 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.
Klara Berkovich
Klara Berkovich has been among successful violin teachers both in the former Soviet Union and in the USA. She studied at Kiev and St. Petersburg conservatories earning her degrees (B.M. and M.M.) with distinction. Prof. Berkovich taught in St. Petersburg, Russia for nearly 30 years before coming to Baltimore, Maryland, where she has taught privately as well as at the Peabody Preparatory Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. Her students include successful teachers, orchestra members, and soloists around the world, particularly in Germany, Russia, Israel, Canada and the USA. Prof. Berkovich has been a senior faculty member at IMIF-USA since 2003. Among her most renowned former students is the acclaimed young American violinist Hilary Hahn. The Maryland Chapter of the American String Teacher Association recognized Berkovich for her teaching achievements by awarding her the title “String Teacher of the Year.”
Emmanuel Borowsky
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. (Click here to go to Emmanuel Borowsky's Official Website)
Jonathan Carney
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.
Jose Miguel Cueto
José Miguel Cueto, violinist, was born in Puerto Rico, where he received his early musical training. After graduating in 1974 from the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico with a diploma in violin performance, he was awarded scholarships from the Institute of Culture of Puerto Rico and the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, where he completed both his bachelor's and master's degrees under the tutelage of laureate violinist Berl Senofsky. During his studies at Peabody he served as concertmaster of the conservatory orchestra and was chosen to perform Vivaldi's Triple Violin Concerto with his teacher, violinist Ruggiero Ricci, in the "Masters of Today and Tomorrow" concert series. Other distinctions include several prizes, among them the Premio Colegio San Ignacio and awards: Interlochen Chamber Music, Melissa Tiller Memorial, and Peabody Alumni Association. In addition to his solo performances in the United States and abroad, Mr. Cueto is in great demand as chamber musician, having performed with such ensembles as the Kennedy Center Chamber Players, the Washington Chamber Music Society, the Casals Festival Players, and the Tidewater Chamber Players. At home with both traditional and contemporary repertoire, he has premiered several contemporary chamber music compositions by composers of the Americas. As soloist, José Cueto has played under the baton of conductors Fiora Contino, Leon Fleisher, Odon Alonso, Edward Polochick, Frederick Prausnitz, Peter Bay, and most recently Kenneth Kiesler and the Illinois Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Cueto has been admired by both the public and the critics for his "solid technique, as well as his rich and beautiful tone" (El Mundo, San Juan). In March of 1993, STRAD magazine recognized Cue to's Carnegie Hall performance at the Weill Recital Hall as "grounded, confident, and superb in all particulars." During recent seasons he has appeared at the La Gesse Festival in France and the Autunno Musicale Veronese in Italy. He has toured in both Argentina and the eastern part of the United States. Mr. Cueto is concertmaster of the Baltimore Opera Orchestra and Concert Artists of Baltimore.
Chin Kim
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. (Click here to go to Chin Kim's Official Website)