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Ik-Hwan Bae, Violinist 
Ik-Hwan Bae was born in Seoul, Korea and made his professional debut with the Seoul Philharmonic at the age of twelve. He studied with Ivan Galamian at the Juilliard School of Music, and his performances in recitals and concerto concerts have taken him to most of the major cities in Europe, Asia and United States. In 1984 he was a prize winner at the Munich International Violin Competition, in 1985 he received the gold medal at the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition in Brussels, and in 1986 he was a recipient of the Solo Recitalist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
As an enthusiastic participant in many of the world’s best chamber music festivals, Mr. Bae has been seen from Seoul to Alaska. For thirteen years, he was an artistic director of the Bargemusic Ltd., one of the leading presenters of chamber music in New York City. Recently, as leader of the Hwaum Chamber Orchestra in Korea, a conductor-less string orchestra, he has traveled to Poland, China and Japan.
Much sought after as a teacher, Mr. Bae has taught at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore, the Manhattan School of Music in New York City and the Korean National Institutes for the Arts in Seoul. Every year he gives master classes worldwide.
Currently Mr. Bae is a professor at the Indiana University, Bloomington, where he teaches violin and chamber music. He has been a jury member of the Munich ARD competition in Germany, the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition in Denmark.
Mr. Bae has recorded for RCA, ECM, Delos and Koch labels.
James Dunham, Violist
James Dunham is an internationally known soloist, chamber musician and teacher. Formerly violist of the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Quartet, he has collaborated with such renowned artists as Emmanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Richard Goode, Lynne Harrell, Cho-Liang Lin, Sabine Meyer, Bernard Greenhouse and members of the American, Guarneri, Juilliard, Takacs and Tokyo Quartets. He has also worked with such composers as Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Paul Chihara, John Corigliano, Osvaldo Golijov, Libby Larsen, Stephen Paulus, Mel Powell, Bernard Rands, Christopher Rouse, Gunther Schuller and Joan Tower. Ms. Larsen has written a sonata for Mr. Dunham (2001) which he premiered at the Aspen Music Festival in July 2001 and has recorded for an upcoming Naxos CD release.
Mr. Dunham is a frequent guest artist with groups such as Houston Friends of Music, Da Camera of Houston, Musicians from Marlboro, the Boston Chamber Music Society and the Borromeo, Cassatt, Cavani, Colorado, Fine Arts, Mendelssohn, Miami, Pacifica and Ying Quartets. In addition to his chamber music activities, Mr. Dunham has given concerto and recital performances throughout the U.S. and served as guest principal viola with the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa and the Dallas Symphony under Andrew Litton in their home cities as well as at Carnegie Hall.
Currently Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, Mr. Dunham directs their Advanced Quartet Studies Program. He formerly taught at the New England Conservatory where he also Chaired the String Department. A devoted teacher, he frequently presents viola and chamber music master classes at leading schools and universities including Tokyo’s Toho School, Freiburg’s Hochschule für Musik, Beijing’s Central Conservatory, Boston and Northwestern Universities, USC, UCLA and the Royal Conservatory in Toronto.
Mr. Dunham was violist of the renowned Cleveland Quartet from 1987 through its final recordings and concerts in December 1995. The Quartet won the 1996 Grammy for “Best Chamber Music Performance” for their Telarc recording of John Corigliano’s String Quartet, written for their final tour. As a member of the Cleveland Quartet he also served as Professor of Viola at the prestigious Eastman School of Music. An Honors graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy, Mr. Dunham studied liberal arts at Carleton College before receiving his Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees from California Institute of the Arts. While at Cal-Arts, he was a founding member of the Sequoia Quartet, winners of the 1978 Naumburg International Chamber Music Award, and in 1991 he received the Cal-Arts Music School’s first Distinguished Alumni Award.
Mr. Dunham is much sought after as a jurist for events such as the Fischoff, Coleman and William Primrose Competitions, and has also been a featured soloist at the International Viola Congress. His summer activities include teaching and performing at many festivals, including those of Marlboro, Domaine Forget, Aspen, Sarasota, Amelia Island (FL), Yale at Norfolk and Musicorda. He served as principal violist of the San Diego Mainly Mozart Festival for ten seasons, and is a regular participant in the Festival der Zukunft in Ernen, Switzerland.
Mr. Dunham is featured on an album of recent music for viola and winds on the Crystal Records label, and has recorded with the Sequoia Quartet for Nonesuch and Delos, and with the Cleveland Quartet exclusively for Telarc.
Theodore Arm, Violinist
Audiences throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan have responded with warmth and excitement to the artistry of violinist Theodore Arm. He has appeared as soloist, recitalist and has been guest artist with such well known organizations as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Group for Contemporary Music and Bargemusic Ltd. Mr. Arm has been a member of the highly acclaimed chamber group TASHI since 1976 and has performed with Lukas Foss, Chick Corea and Gary Burton among others. He has had works written for him, most recently a violin concerto by Allan Leichtling and a suite for violin and piano by David Schiff.
Mr. Arm, who performs on an Andreas Guarneri violin dated 1652, is a favorite of summer chamber music festival audiences. This past season, he performed with Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon, Music from Angel Fire in New Mexico, the "Bravo" Festival in Vail, Colorado, and taught and performed at the renowned Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School of Blue Hill, Maine.
In 1992 he returned to Japan to take part in performances and chamber music coaching at the Moon Beach Festival in Okinawa and Tokyo with artists from Europe and Asia. Mr. Arm has recorded for RCA, Delos, Musical Heritage Society and EMC. He can be heard on the University of Connecticut recording project in a work by Sidney Hodkinson with Paul Phillips conducting the UConn Orchestra. He is a professor of violin at the University of Connecticut. Mr. Arm holds a doctorate in performance from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Christine Dethier and Joseph Fuchs.
Neal Larrabee, Pianist
Neal Larrabee has concertized extensively in the United States and Europe. He has performed in major music centers including New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Berlin, Warsaw and Moscow, including appearances as concerto soloist with many important orchestras such as the Great Radio Orchestra of Berlin, the Polish National Radio and Television Orchestra and the Krakow Philharmonic.
Nominated by the United States Information Service for performing under the auspices of the American Embassies, Mr. Larrabee has toured Germany, the Soviet Union, Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia. In Poland, he became a well-known favorite of the concert-going public; there, his highly-regarded interpretations of Chopin led to recordings, national broadcasts on television and radio, and engagements in virtually every major concert hall.
Awarded a Fulbright grant for study at the Moscow Conservatory under Stanislav Neuhaus, Mr. Larrabee became the first American pianist to study in the Soviet Union under official government sponsorship. He also studied with Eugene List at the Eastman School of Music and with Rosina Lhevinne at the Juilliard School where he was awarded the Josef Lhevinne Scholarship. He earned his doctorate from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Mr. Larrabee won honors at the Fifth International Tchaikowsky Competition in Moscow and the Ninth International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. He is currently a member of the music performance faculty at the University of Connecticut and continues to give performances and master classes widely.
Kangho Lee, Cellist
Kangho Lee has been a sought-after soloist and chamber musician worldwide since his orchestral debut with the Seoul Philharmonic at the age of twelve. He has performed in Korea, the United States and Europe with leading orchestras such as the KBS (Korean Broadcast Service) Symphony, the Korean Symphony, the Seoul Academy Symphony, the Suwon Philharmonic, the Euro-Asia Symphony, Yale Philharmonia, the Haddonfield Symphony, the Round Top Festival Orchestra, the Sofia National Academy Orchestra and the Halle Philharmonic. In 2001, he was a featured soloist for the New Year’s Eve Gala Concert with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. He has given solo recitals in New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, New Haven and Seoul. In 2004, Mr. Lee was invited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Korea to be its cultural representative and gave recitals in Paris, Milan, Rome, Lyon and for the United Nations in Geneva.
An active chamber musician, Mr. Lee has collaborated with world-renowned musicians including Joan Panetti, Ian Swensen, Syoko Aki, Lorand Fenyves, Steven Dann, Eric Rosenblith and also frequently with the members of the St. Louis Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony. In 2001, he formed the Tonus Piano Trio with Kowoon Yang, a prizewinner in the Paganini International Violin Competition, and Jonghwa Park, a prizewinner in the Queen Elizabeth Piano Competition. The trio has been performing actively and has toured extensively in Korea. He has performed at the Music Academy of the West, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Orford Arts Centre, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival and the International Musical Arts Institute.
Mr. Lee’s artistry and career as a performer have generated much attention. He has appeared on television networks in Korea, the United States and South Africa, as well as radio stations WGBH in Boston and Vermont Public Radio. His performances with the KBS Symphony and Suwon Philharmonic, and his recent solo recital at Kumho Arts Hall in Seoul, were broadcast live on national radio. His interviews have been featured in magazines and journals such as Vogue-Korea, Asiana Airline’s in flight magazine, Music Journal and Strad-Korea.
As a highly respected pedagogue, Mr. Lee has presented master classes at the University of Texas – Austin, the University of Iowa, Philadelphia Biblical University, the University of Delaware, the University of New Mexico, the University of Missouri - Kansas City, the University of Ulsan, the Summer Music Academy in Muju and Kyong-Hee University in Korea. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Swarthmore College, Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from New England Conservatory. Prior to his appointment at the University of Connecticut, Mr. Lee was Associate Professor of Cello and Theory at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville where he taught from 1998 to 2005.
Curt Blood, Clarinetist
Curt Blood has been a lecturer at the University of Connecticut since 1990, and has been an active teacher and performer in the Northeast since 1982. He has held the Principal Clarinet chair in the Hartford Symphony since that time, and has performed with many of the area’s finest ensembles, including the Springfield Symphony, Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic, The Connecticut Orchestra at Harkness Park, and Worcester Symphony. Mr. Blood has toured internationally, performing at the International Music Festival at Santander, Spain. Each summer he serves as principal clarinetist with the Buzzard’s Bay Musicfest, in Marion Mass.
Mr. Blood has served on the faculties of several universities and colleges in Connecticut, including Wesleyan University and Trinity College. His students have performed with ensembles around the country, including the United States Coast Guard Band, the Albany Symphony, Glimmerglass Opera, and the Minnesota Orchestra.
Mr. Blood earned the Bachelor of Music in clarinet performance with distinction from New England Conservatory of Music. He studied clarinet with William Wrzesien. |
