Pierrot Unmasked: Artist Bios

December 9th: David Yezzi (Poet and speaker) 

David Yezzi is an American poet, editor, actor, and professor. He currently teaches poetry in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. His latest books are Late Romance: Anthony Hecht—A Poet’s Life (St. Martin’s Press) and More Things in Heaven: New and Selected Poems (Measure Press). He is the editor of The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, foreword by J. D. McClatchy. As an actor, he recently performed the roles of King Lear (Baltimore Shakespeare Factory) and Hamlet’s Ghost/Player King (Chesapeake Shakespeare). His verse play Schnauzer (2018), produced by The Baltimore Poets Theater, was published by Exot Books. His libretto for David Conte’s opera Firebird Motel has been widely performed and is available on CD from Arsis. A former director of the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92^nd Street Y in New York, he was a 2022 short-term visiting fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. 

Mr. Yezzi earned a bachelor’s degree in theater from Carnegie Mellon University and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Columbia University School of the Arts.

December 10th: Jim Iorio (Staging Director)

Jim Iorio has been a nationally recognized actor and director for several decades. His New York credits include: Broadway in the Tony Award-nominated A View from the Bridge (with Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schreiber), Off-Broadway in A Stone Carver (opposite Dan Lauria), and Kaos at the New York Theatre Workshop, directed by MacArthur Award-winner Martha Clarke. His regional work includes leading roles at major theatres nationwide including the Guthrie Theatre, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Arizona Theatre, San Jose Rep, Missouri Rep, Portland Center Stage, Geva Theatre, Asolo Theatre and many more. He’s directed at the New York International Fringe Festival and received the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Directing Award. Iorio’s television and film work includes principal roles on Grimm, Leverage, multiple episodes of Law & Order, Queens Supreme, The Street, Another World, One Life to Live, Loving, Going the Distance and Petty Crimes. His playwriting work includes a new translation of Carlo Gozzi’s The Raven and powerful 90-minute adaptations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Julius Caesar and As You Like It . Upcoming work includes a recurring role on the audio drama: Mission: Rejected, now in its fifth season. 

Mr. Iorio is a professor of theatre, faculty trustee and Co-chair of the Interdisciplinary Conservatory at the Chicago College of Performing Arts/Roosevelt University, holds an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program and a certificate from the Moscow Art Theatre.

Lynsy Folckomer (Assistant Director) 

Lynsy Folckomer (she/hers) is thrilled to join Pierrot Unmasked: Pierrot the Actor as Assistant Director. You may find her working in the Chicagoland area as a director, actor, sound artist, or whatever trade she decides to pick up next. Currently, you can also find her onstage at The Raven Theatre in 13 Suits: A Mother’s Monologues. Lynsy would like to thank Jim Iorio for this wonderful opportunity to collaborate, and her loved ones, especially her family, for their constant support and faith in her!

Logan New (Actor)

Logan is very honored and excited to be a part of this special performance. Although he has
never been a part of something quite like this, he’s been dancing and performing for almost ten
years in choirs, dance companies, musicals, and plays. Now, he is studying at Chicago College
of Performing Arts to earn his BFA in Musical Theater with a Dance Concentration. You can find
Logan on Instagram under Logan_0ld. He is greatly looking forward to the performance!

Kristina Bachrach (soprano)

Soprano Kristina Bachrach is an artist confident in an extensive range of styles and languages. The previous season saw Ms. Bachrach’s debut in Hong Kong, performing a staged rendition of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire at the Intimacy of Creativity festival. That same season Kristina participated in a Musicians from Marlboro tour, performing Shulamit Ran’s Moon Songs in six different cities and at Carnegie Hall. She returned to San Antonio College to give a recital and masterclass, and had return performances with Lyric Fest, Brooklyn Art Song Society, and the Marlboro Festival in Vermont. She also had the honor of premiering several new pieces with the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition.

Equally adventurous as an operatic artist, Ms. Bachrach has appeared in new and rarely-performed repertoire with Thompson Street Opera Company (Louisville, KY and Chicago, IL), Gotham Chamber Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Opera Naples, and New York’s Bare Opera, in whose inaugural production of L’enfant et les sortilèges she made her role debuts as the Princess and Shepherdess. Ms. Bachrach has fulfilled residencies with Nashville Opera, where she appeared as Clorinda in La Cenerentola and Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, and Lyric Opera of Virginia, where she returned to perform Musetta in La bohème.

Ms. Bachrach holds degrees from Mannes College and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (summa cum laude). She is an award winner with the Artists Presentation Society of St. Louis, Ziering-Conlon Art Song Competition, American Prize Competition, the Philharmonic Society of Arlington’s Young Artist Competition, the Metrowest Opera Competition, and the Schuyler Foundation for Career Bridges.

Alexander Hersh (cello)

Cellist Alexander Hersh has quickly established himself as one of the most exciting and creative talents of his generation. Alexander is a top prize winner of the: Walter W. Naumburg International Cello Competition (2024), Pro Musicis International Award (2022), Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant (2020), Astral Artists National Auditions (2019), National Federation of Music Clubs Biennial Young Artist Competition (2019), New York International Artists Association Competition (2017), Schadt String Competition (2016), Hellam Young Artists Competition (2015), and the Luminarts Classical Music Fellowship (2016). Recent and upcoming concerto engagements include the Houston Symphony, Boston Pops, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Rockford Symphony Orchestra, Allentown Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra, Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra, Jefferson Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Parnassus, Saint Paul Civic Symphony, and the Dupage Symphony Orchestra. 

Recital and chamber music engagements, past and present, include Carnegie Weill Hall, Marlboro Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Ravinia, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, Tri-County Concerts, Perlman Music Program, Lucerne Festival Academy, I-M-S Prussia Cove, Amsterdam Cello Biennale, Kneisel Hall, and Domaine Forget.

Brian Hong (violin/viola)

Korean-American violist and violinist Brian Hong has forged a notable career as a chamber musician and educator. Known for his commanding stage presence, Mr. Hong joined the Grammy-nominated Aizuri String Quartet as their violist in 2023. He has performed concertos with such orchestras as the Juilliard Orchestra, New York Classical Players, Fairfax Symphony, American Youth Philharmonic, Chesapeake Orchestra, U.S. Army Orchestra, National Philharmonic, and the Springfield Symphony. A dedicated chamber musician, Mr. Hong has served on the faculty of the Manchester Music Festival and as a guest artist at the Sebago-Long Lake Music Festival and Kneisel Hall. Other festival credits include Marlboro, Yellow Barn, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, the Taos School of Music, and the Perlman Music Program.

Mr. Hong is the Programming Director of Project: Music Heals Us, a nonprofit dedicated to providing musical education, access, and healing to marginalized populations. He is also a Co-Artistic Director of NEXUS Chamber Music Chicago.

Mr. Hong is a graduate of Juilliard’s Artist Diploma program and a former Fellow of Carnegie Hall’s ‘Ensemble Connect.’ Mr. Hong also holds a Master’s degree from the Juilliard School.

Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson (flute) 

Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson is the principal flutist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as a distinguished international soloist and chamber musician.  He was appointed to the post in 2015 by Music Director Riccardo Muti.  Prior to joining the CSO, he served as principal flute of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 2008-2015.

Mr. Höskuldsson has performed widely throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan under the skilled direction of James Levine, Fabio Luisi, Valery Gergiev, Daniel Barenboim, Seiji Ozawa, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Riccardo Muti. He regularly performs at Carnegie Hall with the Met Orchestra and Chamber Ensemble and in 2009 he was featured as a soloist in Pierre Boulez’s Mémoriale-Explosant Fixe. Stefán has collaborated on performances and recordings with such artists as renowned pianists Evgeni Kissin, Alfred Brendel and Yefim Brofman, violinist Gil Shaham, and sopranos Diana Damrau and Anna Netrebko. As a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Mr. Hoskuldsson has received two Grammy Awards in the category of best opera recording for Wagner´s Ring Cycle and Thomas Ades’ The Tempest.

Stefán currently teaches at DePaul University in Chicago and has been a faculty member with the Pacific Music Festival in Japan since 2010. He has given master classes at The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Royal Academy of Music.

Mr. Höskuldsson attended the Reykjavik School of Music in his native Iceland where he studied with Bernhard Wilkinson. Following his graduation, Stefán attended the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, where he studied with Peter Lloyd and Wissam Boustany.

Graeme Steele Johnson (clarinet)

Clarinetist, arranger and “musical detective” (New York Classical Review) Graeme Steele Johnson recently garnered widespread attention for his rediscovery and reconstruction of a 125-year-old Octet by Charles Martin Loeffler, profiled in a full-page spread by The Washington Post.

Johnson’s recent and upcoming performances include appearances at the Library of Congress, Chamber Music Northwest, Ravinia, Emerald City Music, Morgan Library, Harvard Musical Association, and the Bridgehampton, Rockport, Orcas Island and Phoenix Chamber Music Festivals, as well as solo recitals at The Kennedy Center and Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess series. He also appears annually as a core artist at the Annapolis Chamber Music Festival, Archipelago Collective Chamber Music Festival and Caroga Lake Music Festival. As a concerto soloist, he has performed with the Vienna International Orchestra, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Caroga Arts Ensemble, Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra and the CME Chamber Orchestra.

Johnson is the winner of the Hellam Young Artists’ Competition and the Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition; other recent accolades include CUNY’s Elebash Dissertation Award, Saint Botolph Club Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award and the inaugural Lee Memorial Scholarship from the Center for Musical Excellence. 

Mr. Johnson completed undergraduate study at The University of Texas at Austin under the tutelage of Nathan Williams. He earned graduate degrees from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with David Shifrin and Ricardo Morales and was twice awarded the school’s Alumni Association Prize, followed by doctoral study with Charles Neidich and Kofi Agawu at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Daniel Pesca (piano)

Daniel Pesca leads a rich, varied career as composer and pianist. He has been hailed as “the perfect composer-virtuoso pianist” (All about the Arts) and “equally talented as pianist, composer and advocate of his peers’ works” (Fanfare). The common theme in Daniel’s myriad activities is his passion for collaboration. His longstanding partnerships with a variety of ensembles, individual musicians, and fellow composers has cultivated a prolific body of work.

Daniel’s recent chamber works include Walk with me, my Joy (2022), a twenty-minute quartet composed for Constellations Chamber Concerts, premiered in Washington, DC alongside flutist Sarah Frisof, cellist Christine Lamprea, and percussionist Ian Rosenbaum. His sextet for the American Wild Ensemble, From Noon to Noon (2016), was performed over a dozen times at national parks across the country and is recorded on the ensemble’s debut album. His violin and piano sonata A Line for a Walk (2019) was composed for Hanna Hurwitz, and premiered at Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival of New Music in October 2021. FirstMuse Chamber Music in Rochester, NY commissioned three chamber works from Daniel, including his large Piano Trio (2017), which has since frequently been performed by the Zohn Collective.

Originally from Huntsville, Alabama, Mr. Pesca began composing at age 8 and had composed over 100 works by the time he began his undergraduate studies at age 16. Daniel holds degrees from Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Composition at Eastman.