Arcturus Chamber Ensemble

Violinist Ji-Woon Jung, a native of Busan, South Korea, made her debut with the Busan Philharmonic at the age of 10. She has given numerous concerto performances and recitals, and has performed in festivals in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Switzerland, and the U.S.A.

As an enthusiastic chamber musician, Ji-Woon is a founding member and former leader of the string chamber group Joy of Strings in Korea. She premiered Dae-Woong Paeck's Shin-kwandongbyulgok for string quartet and kayakum (a Korean traditional instrument), and the recording was released under the auspices of the KBS (Korean Broadcasting System). As a member of the Duo Jung-Carballo, she won the Premio Manuel M. Ponce in Aguascalientes, and the duo gave master classes and a concert tour including a recital sponsored by the Mexican government.

In Korea, Ji-Woon won prizes in the Busan Music Educators, National Music, and Philharmonic competitions as well as the Chosun, Dong-A, Jeunesses Musicales de Corree, and Seoul Artist. In the States, she won the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale, Society of American Musicians competitions, and also the Hatfield-Jacobi award of the National Society of Arts and Letters.

Ji-Woon earned the diploma with a merit distinction from Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. Her teachers include Salvatore Accardo, Boris Belkin, and Giuliano Carmignola. She also attended the Korean National University of Arts and New England Conservatory. She is a doctoral candidate under the tutelage of Federico Agostini at Indiana University, where she also serves as a faculty member.

Abigail Karr received both Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, studying violin performance with Sergiu Luca. During summers, she participated in the Tanglewood Music Center, the Taos School of Music, the Colorado Music Festival, and the International Baroque Institute at Longy. Since completing her studies at Rice in 2003, she has performed with ensembles in and around her native Boston, including the Handel and Haydn Society, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and the Boston Ballet. Her interest in historical violin has led to performances under Ton Koopman at Carnegie Hall, with Sergiu Luca as a guest of Houston's CONTEXT Chamber Ensemble, and with John Holloway in Atlanta's New Trinity Baroque. An active chamber musician, she is a founding member of Boston Hausmusik and the Rosetta Trio, appearing at such venues as the Boston Early Music Festival, the Connecticut Early Music Festival, and the Toronto Music Garden.

Raised in Portland, OR, Megumi Stohs grew up with the dream of studying agricultural science. The summer she turned sixteen, she attended the Olympic Music Festival, held on a beautiful farm in Washington State, and realized that chamber music and the countryside were a perfect combination. She immediately went home and started a quartet, and ever since, chamber music has been the avenue for her most euphoric musical experiences.

Megumi has soloed with orchestras throughout the US and Japan, and has toured with ensembles to Australia, New Zealand and Europe. In the New England area she is a co-founder of A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra, has been a guest with the Radius Ensemble, the Andover Chamber Music Series, and the North Country Chamber Players and regularly plays with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Opera Boston, the Rhode Island Philharmonic and has served as concertmaster for the National Lyric Opera. Starting in 2008, Megumi picked up the baroque violin and quickly fell for the gut strings and a variety of period bows. She also loves to fiddle and play rock and regularly tours with Britain's Jethro Tull.

During the summers, Megumi is able to satisfy her longing for the country in many beautiful places, including the Olympic, Yellowbarn, Kneisel Hall, Taos, Marrowstone, and Aspen Festivals. She hikes, swims, and spends time outdoors as often as possible during the year. Listening to vinyl, cooking for friends and reading also give great pleasure.

Megumi received her musical training at the San Francisco and New England Conservatories studying with Camilla Wicks, Ian Swensen, and Lucy Chapman.

Sarah Darling, violist and baroque violinist, enjoys a diverse musical career that spans many centuries and styles. Sarah studied at Harvard, Juilliard, Amsterdam, and Freiburg (as a recipient of the Beebe, Paine, and DAAD grants) and is currently in the doctoral program at NEC with Kim Kashkashian. She is the the director of the Arcturus Chamber Ensemble, concertmaster and assistant director of the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra (winner of last year's Bodky prize), and a member of the Rosetta Trio, the Sanssouci Quartet, Musicians of the Old Post Road, and the unconducted chamber orchestra A Far Cry. She also performs regularly with the BSO, Boston Baroque, Cambridge Concentus, La Donna Musicale, Les Bostonades, the Callithumpian Consort, Sarasa, Radius, and the Portland and Rhode Island Symphonies. Sarah has participated in the Carmel, Ravinia, Lucerne, Norfolk, Sarasota, and Yellow Barn festivals, and has collaborated with members of the Juilliard, Takacs, Borromeo, Ying, Orion, and Cleveland quartets. She is the winner of the NEC, Harvard Bach Society, Arlington, Marlboro, and Freiburg concerto competitions. A passionate advocate of new music, she has been involved in the premiere of more than 100 works, and just released a critically acclaimed solo recording featuring American composer Leland Smith on the Naxos label.

Cellist Clara Lee enjoys a varied life as a chamber musician, freelance artist, educator, and tea drinker. She holds degrees in cello performance from Rice University and The Juilliard School. Clara has spent many happy summers at Kneisel Hall, Yellow Barn, Sarasota, and Domaine Forget. She was a top prizewinner in the 2004 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition as a member of the Rothko Quartet. She has collaborated with such artists as Itzhak Perlman and Savion Glover, and members of the Cleveland and Mendelssohn quartets. Clara currently resides in Phoenix, Arizona, where she performs regularly with the Phoenix Symphony and her chamber ensemble, Flexible Tiger, which plays generally boisterous classical music in downtown Phoenix bars. In her spare time, Clara tends to her prized vegetable garden.

Josh Packard decided to be a cellist at the age of four, upon hearing a performance of "Turkey in the Straw" at his pre-school. A few years later (his musical tastes having already matured substantially), he heard a performance of Brahms B major trio, and a lifelong passion for chamber music was ignited. Josh received his BA in music from Harvard University, where his activities included composing double fugues, improvising continuo realizations, and analyzing the modal structure of classical Arabic music, in addition to performances with a plethora of campus ensembles. Major musical mentors have included Bill Rounds, Michael Reynolds, Robert Levin, Daniel Stepner, Robert Merfeld, Robert Mealy, and John Stewart. Josh currently resides in Cambridge, MA, where he enjoys performing music ranging from Renaissance consort suites to newly composed works. When not playing music, he stays busy with a day job in IT support at the Harvard Alumni Association, and enjoys cooking, hiking, photography, and web design.

Hannah Shields has performed widely throughout the US both as a soloist and a chamber musician. She has appeared as a soloist in the Bach concerto for four keyboards at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Itzhak Perlman, and she has performed in major venues throughout the country, including Alice Tully Hall, Boston's Jordan Hall, the Metropolitan Museum, the Seattle Opera House, and Carnegie's Weill and Zankel Halls. She holds a Bachelor's degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, a Master's degree from Yale School of Music, and a Graduate Diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music. Her primary teachers have been Daniel Shapiro, Claude Frank, and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein; her chamber music coaches include Paul Katz, Lawrence Lesser, Pamela Frank, Kim Kashkashian, Donald Weilerstein, Lucy Chapman, Joel Krosnick, and Robert Mann. She is a prizewinner of the Kosciuszko Chopin Competition, and has attended numerous music festivals, among them the Yellow Barn Music Festival, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Banff Chamber Music Festival, and the Taos School of Music. Ms. Shields has collaborated with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Barbara Stein Mallow, Andre Emelianoff, and Myung-Wha Chung, among others, and is a founding member of the "Musique a la Mode" chamber music series in New York City. In her free time, she enjoys photography and South Indian cooking. She is excited about her first chance to play piano quartets since 2001.

Carson Cooman is an American composer with a catalogue of works in many forms: ranging from solo instrumental pieces to operas, and from orchestral works to hymn tunes. He is in continual demand for new commissions, and his music has been performed on all six inhabited continents. His work is published primarily by Musik Fabrik, Lauren Keiser Music Publishing, and Wayne Leupold Editions, Inc. Cooman's music appears on over twenty-five recordings, including ten complete CDs on the Naxos, Albany, Artek, and Zimbel labels. Cooman's primary composition studies have been with Bernard Rands, Judith Weir, Alan Fletcher, and James Willey. As an active concert organist, Cooman specializes exclusively in the performance of new music. Over 130 new works have been composed for him by composers from around the world, and his performances of the work of contemporary composers can be heard on a number of CD recordings. Cooman is also a writer on musical subjects, producing articles and reviews frequently for a number of international publications. He serves as an active consultant on music business matters to composers and performing organizations. For more information, visit www.carsoncooman.com.