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.

Violist Pierre Lapointe is the violist and co-founder of the acclaimed Escher String Quartet. Lapointe earned a D.M.A. degree from the Manhattan School of Music in 2012 after writing a thesis about the unusual structure of Alexander Zemlinsky’s second string quartet. Almost simultaneously, Lapointe finished a two-year recording project of the complete cycle of quartets written by Zemlinsky for the Naxos label.

Lapointe received a prize in 2004 from the lieutenant governor of Quebec for his work at the Gatineau Music Conservatory. In March 2002, Lapointe performed one of his own compositions for the radio show “Jeunes Artistes” of Radio-Canada in Montreal to great acclaim. Lapointe was also awarded a gold medal in 2000 by the University of Ottawa for his undergraduate studies in composition and violin performance.

Born in Hull, Canada, Lapointe started violin lessons at age 5 with Yaela Hertz Berkson and studied violin with Calvin Sieb and composition with Steven Gellman at the University of Ottawa before devoting himself entirely to the viola.

As an educator, Lapointe is often invited by universities and music schools to coach chamber music groups and give master classes to viola students. He has taught at Stony Brook University, Manhattan School of Music Precollege and is presently an adjunct associate professor at SMU Meadows School of the Arts.

Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, praised as a “superb young soloist” (The New Yorker) and for being "impassioned ... the audience seduced by Mr. Canellakis's rich, alluring tone" (The New York Times).  A multifaceted artist, Canellakis has forged a unique voice combining his talents as soloist, chamber musician, curator, filmmaker, and composer/arranger.

Recent concert highlights include concerto appearances with the Virginia, Albany, Delaware, Stamford, Richardson, Lansing, and Bangor Symphonies, the Erie Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, the New Haven Symphony as Artist-in-Residence, and the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall. He performs recitals throughout the U.S. with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown, and recent appearances have included Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Four Arts in Palm Beach, New Orleans Friends of Chamber Music, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and Wolf Trap near Washington D.C.

Canellakis is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with which he performs regularly in Alice Tully Hall and on tour internationally, including London’s Wigmore Hall, The Louvre in Paris, the Seoul Arts Center in Korea, and the Shanghai and Taipei National Concert Halls. He is also a regular guest artist at many of the world's leading music festivals, including Santa Fe, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Bard, Bridgehampton, La Jolla, Hong Kong, Moab, Chamberfest Cleveland, and Music in the Vineyards. He was recently renewed as the artistic director of Chamber Music Sedona, in Arizona, where he has made a major impact through his dynamic programming and educational and community outreach.

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory, his teachers included Orlando Cole, Peter Wiley and Paul Katz, and he was a student of Madeleine Golz at Manhattan School of Music Pre-College. He began his Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center career as a member of the Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), and he has also been in residence at Carnegie Hall as a member of Ensemble Connect.

Canellakis’s next album with Michael Stephen Brown, (b)romance, featuring some of his original compositions and arrangements, will be released by First Hand Records in 2023.

Filmmaking and acting are special interests of Canellakis. He has produced, directed, and starred in several short films and music videos, including his popular comedy web series "Conversations with Nick Canellakis.” His latest film, “Thin Walls,” was nominated for awards at many prominent film festivals, and is currently available on Amazon Prime.

Canellakis plays on an outstanding Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, from 1840.

Polish-American pianist Adam Golka (born 1987) first performed all of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas when he was 18 years-old, and in 2020-2021 Adam Golka performed the cycle of Beethoven's 32 Sonatas at the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park (Florida) and at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (NYC), in socially-distanced and live-stream formats. Adam's performances of each Sonata were complemented by 32 short films he created, known as 32@32 (available on YouTube), documenting his preparation for climbing the Everest of piano literature and featuring an amalgam of distinguished guests, from an astrophysicist to Alfred Brendel.

Adam Golka's principal teachers have been José Feghali, with whom he studied at Texas Christian University, and Leon Fleisher, at the Peabody Conservatory. Since finishing his formal studies, Adam has continued to develop his artistry through mentorship from Alfred Brendel, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, Mitsuko Uchida, Evelyne Crochet, Ferenc Rados, Rita Wagner, and Sir András Schiff, who invited Adam to give recitals at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Tonhalle Zürich, for the "Sir András Schiff Selects" concert series. Adam has also given solo recitals in Tokyo's Musashino Hall, New York's Alice Tully Hall (presented by the Musicians Emergency Fund), and Amsterdam's Kleine Zaal in Het Concertgebouw.

As a concerto soloist, he has appeared with dozens of orchestras, including the BBC Scottish Symphony, NACO (Ottawa), Warsaw Philharmonic, NFM Leopoldinum, Shanghai Philharmonic, as well as the San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, New Jersey, and San Diego symphonies in the US, among many others. Adam has enjoyed collaborations with conductors such as Joseph Swensen, Donald Runnicles, Pinchas Zukerman, Mark Wigglesworth, and his brother, conductor Tomasz Golka. Adam gave his Carnegie Stern Auditorium début in 2010 with the New York Youth Symphony.

Chamber music is an integral part of Adam Golka's life, and he has performed repeatedly at the Krzyżowa-Music "Music for Europe" festival, which has included tour performances at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Beethoven Bonn festivals, as well as Konzerthaus Berlin. He also performed at the Marlboro, Ravinia, Caramoor chamber music festivals in the US. Adam collaborates regularly with the Manhattan Chamber Players and in recital with baritone John Moore, pianist Yannick Rafalimanana, cellist Jonathan Swensen and violinist Itamar Zorman, with whom he recently debuted at The Wigmore Hall in London.

Adam's professional life began when he was awarded the first prize and audience prize at the 2nd China Shanghai International Piano Competition. In 2009, he won the Max I. Allen Fellowship from American Pianists Association. As a pedagogue, he acted as Artist-in-Residence for six school years at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Adam has recorded works by Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms for London-based First Hand Records and he has premiered works composed for him by Richard Danielpour, Michael Brown, and Jarosław Gołębiowski.