Michael Hersch
His work described by The New York Times as "viscerally gripping and emotionally transformative music ... claustrophobic and exhilarating at once, with moments of sublime beauty nestled inside thickets of dark virtuosity,” composer Michael Hersch is widely regarded as among today's most gifted artists. Recent and upcoming premieres include his Violin Concerto, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Avanti Festival in Helsinki, and the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland; the New York City premiere of Zwischen Leben und Tod, at the newly established National Sawdust, and new productions in Chicago (Ensemble Dal Niente) and Salt Lake City (NOVA Chamber Music Series) of his monodrama, On the Threshold of Winter. The two-act work premiered in 2014 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Of the premiere The New York Times noted: “Death casts a long shadow over the recent work of Mr. Hersch … But in On the Threshold of Winter Mr. Hersch has given himself the space to burrow past anger and incomprehension in search of an art fired by empathy and compassion." The Baltimore Sun called the piece "a work of great originality, daring, and disturbing power." Over the past several years, Hersch has also written new works for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Klang, the Alban Berg Ensemble Wien, and the Library of Congress. Other notable recent events include European performances by the Kreutzer Quartet of Images From a Closed Ward in the U.K. and Sweden, a recording of the work by the acclaimed FLUX Quartet, and the premiere of Of Sorrow Born: Seven Elegies, a work for solo violin commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, premiered at the orchestra’s Biennial. Current projects include a major co-commission by the Ojai Music Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival, Cal Performances Berkeley, and PNReview, and an upcoming residency with the Camerata Bern in Switzerland in 2019/20. In recent years, Hersch has worked closely with Patricia Kopatchinskaja, the violinist commissioning both his Violin Concerto, which premiered in 2015, and his chamber work ... das Rückgrat berstend, which premiered at the Park Avenue Armory in 2017. Hersch's solo and chamber works have appeared on programs around the globe - from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in the U.S. to Germany’s Schloss Neuhardenberg Festival in Brandenberg and the Philharmonie in Berlin; from the U.K.’s Dartington New Music Festival and British Museum, Italy’s Romaeuropa and Nuova Consonanza Festivals, as well as performances in Japan and Singapore. Notable past performances include Night Pieces, commissioned and premiered by the Cleveland Orchestra, and a song cycle for baritone and piano, Domicilium, premiered by Thomas Hampson and Wolfgang Rieger on San Francisco Performances (commissioned by Mr. Hampson and the ASCAP Kingsford Commissions for Art Song). Hersch’s second piano concerto, along the ravines, was given performances with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra with pianist Shai Wosner, and as part of the George Enescu International Festival in Romania (Timisoara and Bucharest) with pianist Matei Varga. Mr. Hersch's Symphony No. 3 was premiered by Marin Alsop and the Cabrillo Contemporary Music Festival Orchestra, a festival commission, and his A Forest of Attics, commissioned for the Network for New Music's 25th anniversary season, was selected as one of the year’s most important classical music events by The Philadelphia Inquirer. The paper said of the work, “A Forest of Attics threw a Molotov cocktail into the concert: Everything before it paled in comparison … Hersch has written some towering works in recent years; this is yet another.” Michael Hersch came to international attention at age twenty-five, when he was awarded First Prize in the Concordia American Composers Awards. The award resulted in a performance of his Elegy, conducted by Marin Alsop in New York's Alice Tully Hall. Later that year he became one of the youngest recipients ever of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition. Mr. Hersch has also been the recipient of the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship and Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and the President's Frontier Award from the Johns Hopkins University, among other honors.

Also a gifted pianist, Mr. Hersch has appeared around the world including appearances at the Festival Dag in de Branding in the Netherlands, the Warhol Museum, the Romaeuropa Festival, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., Cleveland's Reinberger Chamber Hall, the Festival of Contemporary Music Nuova Consonanza, the Network for New Music Concert Series, the Left Bank Concert Society, Festa Europea della Musica, St. Louis' Sheldon Concert Hall, and in New York City at Merkin Concert Hall, the 92nd St. Y - Tisch Center for the Performing Arts, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, among others. Mr. Hersch currently serves as chair of the composition faculty at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, MD.

Patricia Kopatchinskaja
Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s versatility shows itself in her diverse repertoire, ranging from baroque and classical often played on gut strings, to new commissions and re-interpretations of modern masterworks. Kopatchinskaja’s 2017/18 season commences with the world premiere of her new project Dies Irae at the Lucerne Festival where she will be ‘artiste étoile’. Dies Irae is her second staged programme following the success of Bye Bye Beethoven with Mahler Chamber Orchestra in 2016, and uses the theme from the Latin Requiem Mass as a starting point for her new concept featuring music from Gregorian Chant and Early Baroque to Giacinto Scelsi and Galina Ustwolskaja. The North American premiere will take place at the Ojai Festival in June 2018 where Ms. Kopatchinskaja will be Music Director. György Ligeti’s Violin Concerto is again a feature of Kopatchinskaja’s season – she will perform it with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest under Rafael Payare, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, and Aurora Orchestra under Nicholas Collon as part of the Southbank Centre’s Ligeti weekend where she will also perform the Horn Trio with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Marie-Luise Neunecker. The Stravinsky Violin Concerto will also be a prominent work which she will perform with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Alain Altinoglu in London, on tour around Europe, with Teodor Currentzis and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and with Gustavo Gimeno and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

Last season’s highlights included Kopatchinskaja as Artist in Residence at four major European venues and festivals: at the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Lucerne Festival, London’s Wigmore Hall and the Kissinger Sommer Festival. She also embarked on two major European tours; with Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg under Gustavo Gimeno and with Wiener Symphoniker and Musica Aeterna both under the baton of Teodor Currentzis. She performed the Ligeti Violin Concerto with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker, Filharmonica della Scala under Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Jukka-Pekka Saraste. She also made her debut with the Gothenburg Symphony and Peter Eötvös performing his Violin Concerto DoReMi. Continuing her regular collaboration with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, she appeared with them in London and New York under Vladimir Jurowski.

Chamber music is immensely important to Kopatchinskaja and she performs regularly with artists such as Markus Hinterhäuser, Polina Leschenko, Anthony Romaniuk and Jay Campbell appearing at such leading venues as the Berlin Konzerthaus, London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus and Concertgebouw Amsterdam. She is also an Artistic Partner with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and performs with the ensemble regularly, both in Saint Paul and internationally. They undertook a major European tour together in November 2016, to coincide with the release of a new CD recording of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. In 2017/18 she will partner with cellist Jay Campbell in an eclectic programme at New York City’s Armory in October, and for a series of recitals around Europe with pianist Polina Leschenko including London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Boulez Saal and the Vienna Konzerthaus.

A prolific recording artist, the last few seasons have seen a number of major releases; an album of Kancheli’s music with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica, a disc of duos entitled TAKE TWO on Alpha Classics, a recording of Schumann’s Violin Concerto and Fantasy with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln under Heinz Holliger for Audite, and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with Teodor Currentzis and Musica Aeterna on the Sony label. Kopatchinskaja’s release for Naïve Classique featuring concerti by Bartók, Ligeti and Peter Eötvös won Gramophone’s Recording of the Year Award in 2013, an ECHO Klassik Award and a 2014 Grammy nomination. Her latest release Death and the Maiden, for Alpha with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra has received great critical acclaim.

Jay Campbell
Armed with a diverse spectrum of repertoire and eclectic musical interests, cellist Jay Campbell has been recognized for approaching both old and new works with the same probing curiosity and emotional commitment. His performances have been called “electrifying” by The New York Times; “gentle, poignant, and deeply moving” by The Washington Post; and on WQXR by Krzysztof Penderecki for “the greatest performance yet of Capriccio per Sigfried Palm”. A 2016 recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Jay made his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2013 and worked with Alan Gilbert in 2016 as the artistic-director for Ligeti Forward, a series featured on the New York Philharmonic Biennale at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2017, he was be Artist-in-Residence at the Lucerne Festival with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, where he gave the Swiss premiere of Michael Van der Aa's multimedia cello concerto Up-Close, and the world premiere of a new concerto by Luca Francesconi, conducted by Matthias Pintscher in Lucerne's KKL Auditorium and the Cologne Philharmonie.

Dedicated to introducing audiences to the music of our time, Mr. Campbell has worked closely with some of the most creative musicians of our time including Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Matthias Pintscher, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, and countless others from his own generation. His close association with John Zorn resulted in the 2015 release of Hen to Pan (Tzadik) featuring all works written for Campbell, and was listed in The New York Times year-end Best Recordings of 2015. Forthcoming discs include George Perle's Cello Concerto with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot (Bridge), a disc of Beethoven, Debussy, Stravinsky and Pintscher (Victor Elmaleh Collection), and a collection of works commissioned for Campbell by David Fulmer (Tzadik). Equally enthusiastic as a chamber musician and teacher, Mr. Campbell is a member of the JACK Quartet, a piano trio with violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Conrad Tao, has served on faculty at Vassar College and has been a guest at the Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Moab, Heidelberger-Fruhling, DITTO, and Lincoln Center festivals.

Miranda Cuckson
Violinist Miranda Cuckson has combined a deep background in the classical repertoire with an adventurous and probing spirit to become an acclaimed, in-demand performer of music new and old. She performs worldwide as soloist and chamber musician, at venues including the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Teatro Colón, Suntory Hall, Library of Congress, 92nd Street Y, Guggenheim Museum, Monday Evening Concerts in LA, and the Marlboro, Bard, Lincoln Center, West Cork, Bridgehampton, Music Mountain, Portland and Bodensee festivals.

She made her Carnegie Hall debut playing Piston’s concerto with the American Symphony Orchestra. Her recent performances include premiering a violin concerto written for her by Georg Friedrich Haas, in Tokyo, Stuttgart and Porto, the New York premiere of Michael Hersch’s concerto, and recent recitals at the Metropolitan Museum, Miller Theatre, Strathmore and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music.

Her discography includes, most recently, violin music of Wolpe, Carter and Ferneyhough (Urlicht), and Bartók, Schnittke and Lutoslawski (ECM Records). The New York Times named her recording of Nono’s La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura a Best Classical Recording of 2012. Her eleven lauded albums also feature the Korngold and Ponce concertos and music by Finney, Shapey, Martino, Sessions, Eckardt, Hersch, Xenakis, Glass, Mumford, Fujikura and more.

She is director of the non-profit Nunc, a member of collectives AMOC and counter)induction, and a performer and advisory council member at National Sawdust. She studied at The Juilliard School, where she received her doctorate and the Presser Award, and she teaches at Mannes College.