Sounds of the Cold War Artist Bios

Steven Beck

Pianist Steven Beck continues to gather acclaim for his performances and recordings. Recent career highlights include performances of Beethoven’s variations and bagatelles at Bargemusic, where he first performed the Beethoven sonata cycle.

Steven Beck is an experienced performer of new music, having worked with Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, Charles Wuorinen, George Crumb, George Perle, and Fred Lerdahl, and performed with ensembles such as Speculum Musicae and the New York New Music Ensemble. He is a member of the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Knights, and the Talea Ensemble. He is also a member of Quattro Mani, a piano duo specializing in contemporary music.

As an orchestral musician, Mr. Beck has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Mariinsky Orchestra, and many others.

Mr. Beck’s discography includes Peter Lieberson’s third piano concerto (for Bridge Records) and a recording of Elliott Carter’s “Double Concerto” on Albany Records. He is a Steinway Artist.

Tyler Duncan

Baritone Tyler Duncan has performed to great acclaim worldwide in opera and concert repertoire, including with the Metropolitan Opera as Prince Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, Huntsman in Rusalka, Fiorello in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Moralès and Le Dancaïre in Carmen, Herald in Verdi’s Otello, Millhand in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the Journalist in Lulu. At the Spoleto Festival U.S.A., he debuted as Mr. Friendly in the 18th-century ballad opera Flora, returning the following season as Sprecher in Die Zauberflöte. 

Mr. Duncan has performed in concert with the San Francisco Symphony,  the New York Philharmonic and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra,  the Minnesota Orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, and in Schubert Lieder at the Wigmore Hall, London.  

Mr. Duncan has received prizes from the Naumburg, London’s Wigmore Hall, and Munich’s A.R.D. competitions, and won the Joy in Singing competition, New York Oratorio Society’s Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition, Prix International Pro Musicis Award, and Bernard Diamant Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Ari Evan

Born and raised in New York, cellist Ari Evan recently completed his Artist Diploma at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapelle in Belgium under the tutelage of Gary Hoffman. During his time in Europe, Ari’s varied and active performing career included appearances with the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia and the Vienna Concert Orchestra and as guest cellist of the Quatuor MONA, performing in the Paris Philharmonie, and the acclaimed Rolston String Quartet on tours through Europe, Canada, and the U.S. He also served as guest principal cellist with Belgium’s Ataneres Ensemble.

A versatile chamber musician, Mr. Evan has performed with many of the world’s pre-eminent artists, including Itzhak Perlman, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Corina Belcea, Colin Carr, Miriam Fried, Gary Hoffman, Hsin-Yun Huang, Ani Kavafian, Robert McDonald, as well as former members of the Cleveland and Artemis Quartets. He often performs music of living composers–having world-premiered works by Augusta Reed Thomas, Philip Lasser, and Pieter Schuermans—and worked with Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Zorn, Eric Montalbetti, Kinan Azmeh, George Lewis, Thierry Escaich on their own compositions.

Mr. Evan has recorded on the Alpha Classics, DUX, M.S.R. Classics, and Sono Luminus labels. 

Elizabeth Fayette

Violinist Elizabeth Fayette has been praised by The New York Times for her “alluring, lustrous sound and seasoned virtuosity.” Ms. Fayette regularly concertizes across North America and Europe as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader. An in-demand chamber musician, Ms. Fayette is a member of several dynamic musical collectives, including the Manhattan Chamber Players, the New York Classical Players, and the Marinus Ensemble.

In past seasons, Ms. Fayette has appeared as a soloist with the Houston Symphony as a prizewinner in the Ima Hogg Competition. She was the Second Prize winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and was awarded a Career Grant from the 2014 Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia and the 2015 Juilliard/Tel Aviv Museum of Art Sanders Prize.

Ms. Fayette has appeared at the Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Ms. Fayette was a participant at the Marlboro Music Festival and School from 2014 – 2016 and again in 2021. 

Alexander Hersh

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.

Stefan Hersh

Violinist Stefan Hersh has a diverse background, having served as Principal Second Violin of the Minnesota Orchestra, as Associate Concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony, and as a member of the Callisto Ensemble, the Chicago String Quartet, and the Chicago Chamber Musicians. He maintains an active career as a featured guest artist, soloist, and pedagogue across North and South America, Europe, and Asia at festivals such as the Colorado College Summer Music Festival, the Ashburton Music Festival in Devon UK, and the Campos de Jordao Festival, Brazil. Hersh was Associate Professor at De Paul University before joining the faculty of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in 2003.

Stefan Hersh is the founder and Artistic Director of Guarneri Hall NFP, and is also an expert appraiser of rare violins and bows and evaluates rare antique string instruments and bows all over the world as a partner at Darnton & Hersh Fine Violins in Chicago.

Brian Hong

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.

Maria Ioudenitch

Born in Russia, violinist Maria Ioudenitch immigrated with her musical family to the U.S. at the age of two and grew up in Kansas City, where she began studying the violin at the age of three. In 2021 she received first prizes in the Ysaÿe International Music Competition, the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition and the Joseph Joachim International Competition. Recognized for her innovative programmes, her first album on Warner Classics – Songbird with pianist Kenny Broberg, released in March 2023 – spans from Franz Schubert, Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann to Nikolai Medtner, Richard Strauss and Nadia Boulanger.

Maria Ioudenitch has performed with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and Münchner Symphoniker and with the Kansas City Symphony. Other recent engagements have taken her to the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Lithuania Chamber Orchestra, and the Utah Symphony.

Ms. Ioudenitch is also an active chamber musician and has taken part in multiple chamber music tours with Ravinia Steans Music Institute and Marlboro Music Festival.

Ms. Ioudenitch earned her Bachelor’s degree at the Curtis Institute of Music. She completed her Master’s degree and Artist Diploma at the New England Conservatory.

Katherine Jimoh

Katherine Jimoh, clarinetist, vocalist, pianist, singer-songwriter, and goldsmith, lives in Chicago and works as a freelance musician and jeweler. She is a member of Ensemble Dal Niente, University of Chicago’s Grossman Ensemble and Chicago Wind Project. Working side-by-side with living composers while surrounded by colleagues who specialize in new music provides constant inspiration and creativity.

Katherine earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Indiana University, where she won the Indiana University clarinet concerto competition and was awarded a Performer’s Certificate. She was a participant at the 2006 Henry Mancini Institute in Los Angeles. In 2008, Katherine spent a year abroad in Japan, where she was the principal clarinetist of the Kakogawa Philharmonic Orchestra. Katherine received an Essentially Ellington jazz soloist award for the clarinet. Katherine earned her Master of Music degree from McGill University and was awarded a full Schulich School of Music scholarship. 

Katherine leads her four-piece band, Katet, as singer-songwriter and pianist. When tonality is achieved in an utterly unpredictable way, Katherine feels satisfied with her songwriting. Complex harmonies matched with mixed meters, drones and repetitive vocal lines equal Katet.

Nicolee Kuester

NYC-based horn player, writer, and performance artist Nicolee Kuester divides her time between experimental music and the older stuff, recently performing with the International Contemporary Ensemble, The Knights, and Wet Ink Ensemble in N.Y.C.; Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris; Alarm Will Sound in St Louis; and Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra in L.A. She is co-founder of MEANINGLESS WORK, a performance series that happily meanders between sounds, performance art, text, and movement theater.

Nicolee holds undergraduate degrees in horn performance and creative writing from Oberlin College & Conservatory and graduate degrees in contemporary music performance from U.C. San Diego. In addition to mucking about with experimental sounds and chamber music, she continues to work with high school students in Ridgewood, Queens, as an alumna of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect fellowship. She also freaks out teens during the summer as the brass faculty at North Carolina’s Governor’s School West, where students learn microtonal improv and how to stare into each other’s eyes without getting really squirmy.

Tanner Menees

Born in Orange, California, in 1993, violist Tanner Menees is forging an enviable career as a chamber musician. Mr. Menees has collaborated with many notable artists, including Martin Beaver, Denis Bouriakov, Miriam Fried, Clive Greensmith, Lynn Harrell, Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Marcy Rosen, and Peter Stumpf.  

Tanner Menees has performed internationally at festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, Chamberfest Cleveland, Menuhin Festival String Academy, Edinburgh Music Festival, Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, and McGill International String Quartet Academy and with NEXUS Chamber Music Chicago. Menees has performed as a soloist with the Symphony New Hampshire and the Colburn Orchestra under maestro Thierry Fischer. Mr. Menees is featured in Mike Grittani’s video, Dreaming of Boccherini, shot in Guarneri Hall as part of the NEXUS Chamber Music Festival in 2019.

Mr. Menees received his Bachelor of Music degree and Artist Diploma from the Colburn School as a student of Paul Colletti, and studied with Kim Kashkashian at the New England Conservatory, where he earned a Master of Music degree, and subsequently with Nobuko Imai at the Reina Sofía School of Music’s Fundación BBVA, on a scholarship from Fundación Albéniz.

Laura Strickling 

Soprano Laura Strickling is a two-time Grammy award nominee for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album, recognized by The New York Times for her “flexible voice, crystalline diction, and warm presence.” She has been featured twice in Classical Singer Magazine for commissioning and recording new music and curated The New Music Shelf Anthology of Contemporary Art Songs for Soprano.

Ms. Strickling has appeared in concert with the Knoxville Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, and regional orchestras across the United States. Ms. Strickling’s art song repertoire includes over 450 songs and vocal chamber works in 14 languages, which she has performed extensively worldwide.

Ms. Strickling’s operatic roles also include Countess Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Cleopatra (Julius Caesar), Mimi (La Boheme), Dinorah (Dinorah), Elvira (L’Italiana in Algeri), Josephine (H.M.S. Pinafore), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), and Micaëla (Carmen). She created the role of Muriel in the world premiere of Thomas Benjamin’s The Alien Corn with the Peabody Opera Theater. 

Originally from Chicago, Ms. Strickling recently relocated from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Wisconsin, where she is learning to appreciate cheese, beer, and being cold. 

Erika Switzer

Pianist Erika Switzer collaborates regularly in major concert settings around the world, including at New York’s Weill Hall, Geffen Hall, Frick Collection, and Bargemusic, at the Kennedy Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the Spoleto Festival . Her performances have been called “precise and lucid” by the New York Times.

Switzer has long been a leader in envisioning and promoting the future of art song performance. In 2009, in collaboration with soprano Martha Guth, she founded the organization Sparks & Wiry Cries, which curates opportunities for song creators and performers, commissions new works, presents the songSLAM festival in New York City, and publishes The Art Song Magazine. Switzer is also devoted to new music and has recently premiered new compositions in the 5 Boroughs Music Festival Songbook II, at the Brooklyn Art Song Society, and at Vancouver’s Music on Main. 

Switzer is a frequent collaborator with baritone Tyler Duncan,  and as a duo, Switzer and Duncan have performed in major concert halls and music festivals worldwide. She is also an active teacher, serving on the music faculty at Bard College and the Bard Conservatory of Music. Switzer holds a doctorate from The Juilliard School, and lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Constance Volk

Constance Volk is a musician, a painter, and an illustrator. She is a founding member of Ensemble Dal Niente, with whom she performs regularly. Constance has collaborated with Ensemble Adapter, Alarm Will Sound, Chicago Wind Project, Distractfold, and Lookingglass Theatre. Ms. Volk has exhibited paintings at Zhou B Art Center, Miller Beach Arts and Creative District, ArtPrize, the Oak Park Art League, and Rendezvous Arts. Her illustrations are featured with ‘Density Seeds’, an offshoot of Claire Chase’s ‘Density 2036’ project. Ms. Volk is the creator of ‘Connie’s Characters’, a series of mix-and-match coloring books.

Ben Roidl-Ward

Recently named one of 23 artists who are “changing the sound of classical music” by the Washington Post, Ben Roidl-Ward is the Assistant Professor of Bassoon at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also holds positions as Principal Bassoonist of the Chicago Sinfonietta, Co-Principal Bassoonist of Sinfonia Da Camera, and Second Bassoonist of the Illinois Symphony. A leading performer of contemporary music, Ben is Solo Bassoonist of Chicago’s Ensemble Dal Niente and serves as a Contemporary Leader for the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland.

Mr. Roidl-Ward has performed with leading ensembles around the country, including the Chicago Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Grossman Ensemble, and the Oregon, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Hawai’i, and Richmond Symphonies. As a soloist, he has performed concertos with ensembles such as the Seattle Symphony, the Oberlin Contemporary Ensemble, and the Northwestern University Contemporary Ensemble. 

Mr. Roidl-Ward currently serves as a Mentor for the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative, a program that prepares students from underrepresented backgrounds for admission to top music schools. 

Last year, Mr. Roidl-Ward released his debut solo album, Axis Mundi, as well as “Moonhead,” an interdisciplinary album of original solo works developed in collaboration with visual artist Ben Llewellyn.

Adé Williams

Praised by the New York Times as “stunning,” violinist Adé Williams is an award-winning concert violinist known for her vibrance and special connection to audiences. A 2023 Stradivari Society recipient, she is a highly sought-after soloist and collaborator in the US and abroad.

Ms. Williams has performed with the some of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras; the Detroit, Pittsburgh, New World, Indianapolis, Hartford, and Nashville Symphonies; and the Buffalo and KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) Philharmonics. 

Ms. Williams is also a passionate chamber musician who performs with ensembles of all forms. Most recently, she has collaborated with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Parlando Chamber Orchestra, and Sphinx Virtuosi.

Ms. Williams advocates for living composers through the presentation of new works. In 2017, she premiered Guardian of the Horizon: Concerto Grosso for Violin, Cello, and Stringsby Jimmy Lopez, a work commissioned by Carnegie Hall and New World Symphony.In 2012, Ms. Williams produced her first Adé & Friends benefit concert in support of a new school on Chicago’s south side, where she was born and raised.