Named the Yale School of Music 2019 Distinguished Teaching Artist of the Year, American oboist Hassan Anderson is a soloist, chamber musician, conductor, and teacher.

Noted for his clarity of tone, range of colors, and energetic stage presence, Mr. Anderson was the oboist of the acclaimed, innovative New York-based chamber music ensemble SHUFFLE Concert (Ensemble Mélange), a position he held from 2011-2018. With the ensemble, Mr. Anderson toured Israel three times and performed on series throughout the US and Canada, including the Duplex, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Rose Studio at Lincoln Center, New York’s Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society Series, Los Angeles’s L'Ermitage Concert Series, Pennsylvania’s Lancaster Performing Arts Center, and Pepperdine University Center for the Arts in California, as well as at such distinguished summer festivals as Cooperstown Music Festival, Buck Hill Skytop Music Festival, Canada’s Chamberfest Ottawa, to name a few.

Mr. Anderson has recorded an album of works by various artists, including Schumann, Gershwin, Avner Dorman (world premiere), and Jonathan Keren (world premiere) with SHUFFLE Concert (in-house label, October 2013). He is also featured on “Unremembered,” a song cycle by Sarah Kirkland Snider (New Amsterdam Records, September 2015). In March  2020, Mr. Anderson released (New Focus Recordings) a world-premiere recording with the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble of John Alyward’s “Angelus.” Mr. Anderson’s latest release is the 2023 Broadway Cast Recording of Lerner and Lowe’s Camelot.

A popular collaborator, amongst his numerous guest appearances with distinguished ensembles, are performances with the New York Philharmonic, American Ballet Theater, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, East Coast Contemporary Ensemble (ecce), and The Harlem Chamber Players.

Equally adept in the classical and jazz genres and dedicated to the next generation of musicians, Mr. Anderson regularly schedules teaching opportunities around his performances. He has been a teaching artist for Carnegie Hall (Weill Music Institute), The Little Orchestra Society in New York City, and Jazz House Kids, the only community arts organization in New Jersey exclusively dedicated to educating children through jazz. Mr. Anderson has also served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Harlem School of the Arts.

Mr. Anderson has led a wide range of ensembles as a conductor, including The Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, The University Orchestra of the City University of New Jersey, and numerous choral and smaller orchestral groups on the East and West Coast. From 2014-2021, Mr. Anderson served as the conductor of the Juilliard School Music Advancement Chorus.

In March of this year, Mr. Anderson made his Broadway debut, serving as Principal Oboe for Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot on Broadway.

Mr. Anderson is the Co-Artistic Director of The East Coast Contemporary Ensemble (ECCE), Assistant Professor of Oboe, and Coordinator of Teaching Artistry at the University of South Carolina.

NYC-based violinist Brendan Speltz, second violinist of the world renowned Escher String Quartet, has toured the globe with groundbreaking ensembles such as Shuffle Concert, the Manhattan Chamber Players, A Far Cry, and the Harlem Quartet. As founder of FeltInFour Productions, Mr. Speltz has produced innovative concert events across the New York City area that have been described by The New Yorker as “Thrilling, poignant, unexpected, and utterly DIY.” Most recently, Mr. Speltz co-created a cross-disciplinary presentation of Steve Reich’s Different Trains with aerial dance troupe ABCirque which was sponsored by Meyer Sound Labs.

In NYC he has performed as guest with the New York New Music Ensemble, Mark Morris Dance Group, American Ballet Theatre, the American Symphony, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and as a founding member of the conductorless string orchestra Shattered Glass. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and his Master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Speltz plays a 1925 Carl Becker violin.

Cellist Sofia Nowik is a recent graduate of the Juilliard School where she received both her Bachelor and Master's Degrees, studying with David Soyer, Bonnie Hampton, and Darrett Adkins. Sofia served for five years as one of the principal cellists of the Juilliard Orchestra.

During her graduate studies Sofia worked for the Juilliard Pre-College Division as both a chamber music and orchestral mentor, coaching individual chamber groups and leading string sectionals. She now continues her educational outreach  teaching cello in New York City with Opportunity Music Project, a non-profit music mentoring program, which offers full tuition scholarship for private instrumental lessons, chamber and orchestral training to kids from families who would otherwise be unable to afford the costs of a music education. In the fall she will join the faculty at the Great Neck Music Conservatory in Long Island.

Sofia was the recipient of the Samuel Mayes Cello Award for her participation as an orchestral fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center this past summer, and has been invited back as a returning fellow for this coming summer season.

An active freelance musician in the New York and New Jersey Area, Sofia enjoys a diverse career as a chamber, orchestral, and studio musician. She recently joined the roster of the Shuffle Concert Ensemble, the Exponential Ensemble, and has performed as principal cellist with the Arcos Chamber Orchestra, the Arco Ensemble, and is a substitute cellist for Symphony in C and the New World Symphony. As a soloist she has performed concerti with local orchestras in New Jersey, including the Livingston Symphony, Manalapan Symphony, The Tim Keyes Consort, Central Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and the New Jersey Youth Orchestra. This coming fall she will perform the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra in New York City.

Clarinetist Moran Katz recently won all top prizes of the prestigious 2013 Ima Hogg Competition - - First Prize, Audience Prize, and Artistic Encouragement voted on by the Houston Symphony Musicians. She has also won first and second prizes respectively in the Freiburg (Germany) and Beijing International Clarinet Competitions. Her performance credits include recitals for the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, the Dame Myra Hess Recital Series in Chicago; a NY debut recital at Merkin Concert Hall as part of the Tuesday Matinee Recital Series and a Debut at the Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic. Chamber music appearances at the Marlboro Music Festival, United Nations Hall (Switzerland), France's "Les Musicales" chamber music Festival in Colmar, Les Invalides in Paris, Music in Drumcliffe (Ireland) and Homburg Musiktage (Germany). She received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees and an Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School, where she was admitted with presidential distinction and a full scholarship. Ms. Katz was a member of Ensemble ACJW - - The Academy, a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the NYC department of Education, performing chamber music at Carnegie Hall and bringing classical music to students in the NYC public schools.

ARIADNE GREIF, praised for her "luminous, expressive voice" (NYTimes), her "elastic and round high notes" (classiqueinfo), and her "mesmerizing stage presence" (East Anglian Daily Times), began her opera career as a ‘boy’ soprano in the Los Angeles area and at the LA Opera, eventually making an adult debut singing Lutoslawski’s Chantefleurs et Chantefables with the American Symphony Orchestra. She starred in roles ranging from Therese/Tirésias in Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias, singing a “thoroughly commanding and effortless” run at the Aldeburgh Festival, a "sassy" Adina in The Elixir of Love with the Orlando Philharmonic, to Sappho in Atthis by Georg Friedrich Haas, for which the New York Times noted her “searing top notes,” and “dusky depths,” calling it “a solo high-wire act for Ms. Greif,” “a vehicle for Ms. Greif’s raw, no-holds-barred performance,”“one of the most searingly painful and revealing operatic performances in recent times.”

Praised as possessing both “ironclad technique” and “ample suppleness” by The New York Times, Eliran Avni is an emerging force in the contemporary classical music scene. Hailed as “The new hope of Israeli music” by Ma’ariv (Israel’s main newspaper), he made his debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta at age 17. Since then, he has appeared as a soloist and chamber music collaborator throughout Europe, North and South America, as well as in his native Israel, and has played for live broadcasts for the Israeli and German broadcasting systems.

As a soloist, Eliran is known as a preeminent interpreter of the music of composer Avner Dorman. Solo performance highlights include Dorman’s Azerbaijani Dance with the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta at Carnegie Hall, Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Piano Concerto with the Alabama Symphony, and the Grieg Concerto with the Oakland East Bay Symphony.

Having developed a strong affinity for chamber music after studying with world-renowned musicians Yo-Yo-Ma and Isaac Stern, Eliran has collaborated with numerous artists such as Yehonatan Berick, Daniel Müller-Schott, Sharon Kam, Terrence Wilson, William Sharp, and the Chicago Chamber Music Players, as well as actors Sigourney Weaver and Richard Chamberlain. In 2010, Eliran founded SHUFFLE Concert, a mixed chamber ensemble of six virtuoso musicians based on his original performance concept which has the audience select music to be performed during the concert from a varied list of composers and genres. He served as Artistic Director of the ensemble from 2010-2018, performing throughout the US, Canada, and Israel.

On the recording front, Eliran has recorded for the Naxos, Tzadik, and SHUFFLE Concert labels. He has recorded two CDs of composer Avner Dorman’s music: “The Piano Works of Avner Dorman,” recorded at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall and produced by Grammy winner David Frost, and a recording of Dorman’s Chamber Concerti with the Metropolis Ensemble and Maestro Andrew Cyr, both for Naxos. For Tzadik, he performed chamber music on composer Andrew Laster’s album, “Andrew Laster: Riptide.” With SHUFFLE Concert, he released its original self-titled album.

A charismatic lecturer and teacher, Eliran has presented master classes and lectures on the connection between music and emotion in both the United States and Israel and has taught at prestigious institutions such as The Juilliard School and the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival. He is currently teaching “The Musician Toolkit” course at SUNY Fredonia which is designed to assist artists with stage anxiety.

Having begun his childhood musical training at the Tel Aviv Academy with Marina Bondarenko, Eliran won first prize in both the Clairmont and Rachmaninoff Competitions at the age of 16. From 1989-2000, he was an annual scholarship recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation.

Eliran received both his BM and MM degrees while studying with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky at The Juilliard School and completed his DMA degree as a student of both Dr. Kaplinsky and Jerome Lowenthal. His dissertation: “The Musician’s Challenge: Merging Emotion and Structure in Performance”, written under the advisement of Carl Schachter, presents an original methodology designed to assist musicians in discovering and understanding the emotional content of musical works.

Eliran is currently a piano faculty member at SUNY Fredonia and a member of the Ekstasis Duo with cellist Natasha Farny. Since their debut in 2018, Ekstasis Duo has appeared on reputable series including New York City’s Merkin Hall, Saugerties ProMusica, and Rochester’s Live from Hochstein, and the Del W. Webb Center, Their debut CD "Women's Voices" will be released on October 10th.