Steven Doane, Cellist
A member of the cello faculty at the Eastman School of Music since 1981, STEVEN DOANE has earned an international reputation both as performer and teacher. Formerly principal cellist of the Milwaukee Symphony and Rochester Philharmonic, and a member of the Naumburg Award-winning New Arts Trio during the 1980s, Mr. Doane has since built a performance career as concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician.

He travels frequently to the United Kingdom for recitals, clinics, and master classes, and has performed concertos in recent seasons in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Dublin, Ireland. Recital appearances with pianist Barry Snyder have included concerts at New York's Alice Tully Hall, Boston's Sanders Theater, two recitals at London's Wigmore Hall, and numerous other engagements in the United States and United Kingdom.

The second in a series of recordings for the Bridge label with Mr. Snyder (works by Benjamin Britten and Frank Bridge) won a 1996 NAIRD award from the US music press, and the Bridge Sonata was declared "the best performance on record" by BBC Music Magazine. An earlier disc on the Bridge label of the complete works for cello and piano by Fauré received a "Petit Diapason d'Or" from the French press.

Mr. Doane holds the Eisenhart Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Eastman School and the Piatigorsky Commendation for teaching excellence from the New England Conservatory. Appearances as guest teacher and performer have twice taken Mr. Doane to the Manchester International Cello Festival, and as guest artist and teacher to most of the major music colleges in England. He is also a regular professor and participant at the International Musician's Seminar in Cornwall, England.

Between 1995 and 1999, Mr. Doane was an Associate in Cello at the Royal College of Music in London, and, following a series of master classes at the Royal Academy in London, has been named visiting professor by that institution. In addition to his recordings on the Bridge label, Mr. Doane has recorded for Pantheon, Daedmon, Gasparo, and Sony.

Katie Schlaikjer, Cellist
Katie Schlaikjer joined the award-winning Colorado Quartet in July of 2009.  She is an accomplished chamber musician having performed throughout the United States, Canada, England, Australia and Israel. In demand as a teacher and chamber music coach, she is a regular guest at the Apple Hill center for chamber music and joined the faculty at the University of Connecticut in the fall of 2010.

A Boston native, Katie attended the Walnut Hill School for the performing arts and the New England Conservatory (BM earned with distinction in performance) where her teachers included Laurence Lesser, Andres Diaz, Peter Stumpf and Eugene Lehner.  Katie spent three months as a resident artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts where she performed and studied with David Takeno, Scott St John, John Perry and Edgar Meyer.  She completed both her Master's and Doctoral degrees at Stony Brook University where her teachers included Timothy Eddy, Julius Levine and Gilbert Kalish.
During her three-year membership with the Avalon String Quartet she was awarded top prizes from the Concert Artist Guild, the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, and the Banff International String Quartet Competition, participated in residencies at Ravinia’s Steans Institute, Aspen’s Center for Advanced Quartet Studies and studied under the Vermeer and Emerson String Quartets at the Northern Illinois University and Hartt schools respectively. Also with the Avalon Quartet, Katie participated in seminars runs by Issac Stern both in New York at Carnegie Hall and in Jerusalem. Following their final performance at the Stern workshop in Carnegie Hall the quartet was described by the New York Times as “altogether a superb team”.

Ms Schlaikjer has performed at the Ravinia, Tanglewood, Aspen, Icicle Creek and Caramoor festivals, collaborated with artists including Renée Fleming, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, and Peter Wiley and recorded for the Albany and Naïve Classique labels.  Katie is an active participant in NYC’s music scene, and has appeared with SONYC (the string orchestra of NYC), Manhattan Sinfonietta, Azure Ensemble, and the new music ensembles Argento and Newband.  An advocate of new music, she has worked with many composers including Gunther Schuller, Chen Yi, Laura Kaminsky and Lee Hyla.  Over the past year, Ms Schlaikjer's appearances with the Colorado Quartet have included a world-wide live broadcast performance from Symphony Space’s 2010 Wall to Wall marathon concert and performances in San Francisco, Ohio, Virginia, Delaware and the British Virgin Islands.  Upcoming projects with the quartet include two performances of the complete Bartok quartets at the University of Connecticut and at the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Louise Dubin, Cellist
Described as "a superior instrumentalist and intelligent, tasteful musician" (NY Concert Review), cellist Louise Dubin is an active recitalist throughout the US. A fellow at both Tanglewood and Norfolk Festivals, she has recently collaborated with artists Reiko Uchida, Daniel Hope, Hiroko Sasaki, Anne Drummond, and Andrew Armstrong at festivals including Caramoor, the Savannah festival Sensations Series, and Spoleto. She has recently recorded with Stefon Harris's African Tarantella nonet, and performed with him at Chicago's Symphony Hall and New York's Zankel Hall.

Ms. Dubin has served as Principal Cellist of the Charleston Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonia, and as guest principal cellist of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, and has appeared as concerto soloist with the Charleston Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonia, and the South Orange Symphony. She has just completed her dissertation on the French cellist and Romantic composer, Auguste Franchomme, at Indiana University's School of Music in Bloomington, where she was a cello student of Janos Starker. Two grants for doctoral research from that university funded the research trip to France where she met descendants of Franchomme and discovered some of the rarely heard music you will hear at her presentation. She has recorded several of these Franchomme compositions for the Eroica Classical label and her published reprints of some of these same works will appear concurrently with the recording. Listen to recordings of these works here.

Nicole Johnson, Cellist
Nicole Johnson has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician throughout the U.S. and Germany. She has appeared in performances with the Vermeer Quartet on their series in Chicago, on the Composers' Guild concerts in New York City and at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Most recently, she was the cellist of the Avanti Ensemble in Blacksburg, Virginia, where she also chaired the cello and chamber music departments at the Renaissance Music Academy. Ms. Johnson holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Her teachers have included Andres Diaz, Alan Harris and Joel Krosnick. Ms. Johnson plays an 1806 Nicholas cello.

Julie Ribchinsky , Cellist
Professor Julie Ribchinsky is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where she studied with Ronald Leonard, Alan Harris and Paul Katz. An avid performer of solo and chamber works Julie founded the Orion String quartet, which received awards and fellowships to the Aspen, Taos and Bitten–Pears festivals as well as a debut under the auspices of Artist International. As member of the the Connecticut Trio in residence at Central CT State University she has performed regular concerts on campus as well as at the New Britain Museum of American Art in addition to several concerts in NY at Weill Hall and abroad in Hamburg, Germany. Julie performed a concerto with the New Britain Symphony in 2000 and will again appear with the symphony in spring 2004 in a performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. As a recitalist she has collaborated with pianist Linda Laurent, harpsichordist Linda Skernick and pianist William Braun. Professor Ribchinsky received a CSU research grant and sabbatical leave in the fall of 2000 to investigate chamber music repertoire and pedagogy. She also was awarded the visiting faculty at Yale fellowship to study with Lawrence Leighton Smith. She has been elected president of the statewide chamber of the American String Teachers Association (ASTA) and will assume that position in 2004. As president-elect of that body she organized the first statewide chamber music workshop for high school students held at CCSU in the fall of 2003. She regularly presents workshops for the annual Connecticut Music Educators Association and will be presenting a chamber music workshop at that conference in the spring of 2004. As a member of the faculty at CCSU, professor Ribchinsky teaches applied cello and cello and bass pedagogy and ear training courses. She coaches chamber music and co-directs the university Sinfonietta with Dr. Daniel D'Addio.

Tom Calabro comes from a family of musicians located in Bennington Vermont, where he began his musical studies at an early age. He played a variety of musical instruments before discovering the cello at age 13. Through High School he studied with George Finckel then with his son Michael Finckel. During those years he played with the Vermont Symphony and with multiple cello groups put together by the Finckle’s as well as the usual high school festivals and school programs. After high school he went to study composition at Peabody Conservatory, where he also studied cello with Laurence Lesser, then went on to complete his undergraduate studies at Bennington College (B.A.), and finished his formal education in graduate school at Syracuse University (M.Mus.).

A freelance cellist since 1983, Mr. Calabro has performed with a wide variety of musical groups including symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, dance, theatre and improvisational groups throughout the United States and other countries. Before moving to Connecticut in 1998 he played with the Syracuse Symphony and several chamber groups in the Albany area such as Capitol Chamber Artists and the Vivante Trio. He was a member of the Bennington Cello Quartet, playing many concerts throughout the northeast and recording a CD for Opus One titled, ‘Cello Quartets of the 20th Century’.  Since then he has been playing in a variety of regional musical events and with local groups like the Nutmeg String Trio and the Hop River Chamber Players.  

A committed and much sought-after cello teacher, Mr. Calabro has been on the faculty at UConn’s Community School of the Art’s for the last 12 years.  In addition to his private students, he has also taught at Thames Valley Music School, the Pomfret School, Breckenridge Music Institute, and Ecole Saint Trinity in Haiti.  He has had the opportunity to mentor many students from their earliest stages of development through various competitions and auditions for all the middle and high school music festivals with very good success. Several of his most gifted students have gone on to music conservatories and college music programs. In addition to the many young students, he also enjoys working with adults, some who have come back to music after successful careers in other areas.

Cellist Carlynn Savot teaches and performs extensively in the greater Hartford area.  Emphasizing chamber music, she has a special interest in performing new music and working closely with composers, including recording projects with composers Kyle Gann and Dan Romàn and the commissioned work Built on Gravel by Ruby Fulton (supported by the Zachs Endowment Fund).  In the summer of 2011, she was a Goldberg Fellow at the International Musical Arts Institute in Fryeburg, Maine. 
As a member of the West End String Quartet, Ms. Savot has given concerts throughout the northeast ranging from Maine to Baltimore.  The quartet has presented a number of contemporary works in collaboration with their composers, including a recent tour, Criminal Intent, with the chamber opera company Rhymes With Opera.  In past summer seasons, WESQ has participated in the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival as well as the Soundfest Chamber Music Festival, serving both in performing and teaching capacities.
Along with performing, Ms. Savot is an active lecturer in the area.  Lectures and workshops have included sessions for both students and teachers on a variety of topics ranging from technical aspects of playing to motivation in practice.  She has a particular academic interest in women composers.  She has participated in the Hartford Women Composer’s Series, including a lecture performance focusing on Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio.  Her dissertation on Clarke’s Viola Sonata explores gender perspectives and their effect on musical analysis.