About the Performers
Cellist Peter Lorenzo Anderegg plays chamber music a lot, and when he's not playing chamber music, plays in orchestra. In addition to Arcturus, he is a member of what are now called the Pergamon and Atreides Trios but might be in the future be called something else entirely. He also has played chamber music with a variety of artists in many genres, including Joel Krosnick, Lynn Chang, Ya-Fei Chuang, Robert Sims, and Herbie Hancock. Other ensembles he currently or formerly is/was involved with include the Brattle Street Chamber Players (which he managed from 2002-04), the New Juilliard Ensemble, the Anderegg Duo (with Arcturus member Francesca Anderegg), and Axiom, a New York-based ensemble that performs classics of the 20th-century repertoire. He has performed as the principal cellist of the Juilliard Orchestra, Juilliard Symphony, Juilliard Opera Orchestra, and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. After completing his undergraduate work at Harvard in mathematics, he renounced the academy and now performs publicly and privately in New York in addition to studying cello at The Juilliard School with Joel Krosnick and Darrett Adkins. He can often be found by the Lincoln Center fountain, in the second-floor Borders bookstore at the Time Warner Center, at Soundz Lounge in Manhattan Valley or wandering in Central Park (weather permitting).
A native of Townsend, MA, Alice had her debut in 1998 as guest soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra as the winner of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Concerto Competition that year. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School, studying with Ricardo Morales. She has taught clarinet both privately and as a Fellow in Juilliard's Educational Outreach program. Alice enjoys practicing scales and eating vegetables almost as much as practicing Brahms and eating ice cream.
Born in Washington, D.C., Jennifer currently lives in Seattle with her husband, Stephen, and plays regularly with the Seattle Symphony and Opera and Odeon Quartet. She received her B.A. in Music and Slavic Languages and Literatures from Harvard, and Masters degrees from the Royal College of Music (London) and Oxford University. Her teachers have included Grigori Zhislin, Zinaida Gilels, Olga Yanovich, and Elisabeth Adkins. When Jennifer is not playing music, she enjoys reading, exploring Seattle, decorating her house, and occasionally cooking.
Born in Carlisle, Massachussetts. Sarah got her B.A. at Harvard University (studying with James Dunham), and has also attended the Juilliard School (Karen Tuttle). Thanks to grants from the Beebe Foundation, Harvard, and the DAAD, she has spent the last three years in Europe, at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (Nobuko Imai) and the Hochschule fur Musik Freiburg (Wolfram Christ), and is now heading to NEC to get her Master's with Kim Kashkashian. When she's not playing chamber music or catching up on sleep, you are most likely to find her experimenting in the kitchen, reading poetry, taking a martial arts class, exploring the Schwarzwald, or writing a "Happy Birthday" email to another member of Arcturus.
Hazel Dean Davis joined the Virginia Symphony in the fall of 2004. She has a graduate performance diploma from Juilliard and an AB from Harvard College, where she was awarded the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts and the David McCord Prize for Music. Hazel's principal teachers include Jamie Sommerville, Julie Landsman, Kendall Betts, and Caroline Lemen. Summers have been spent at Marlboro, Tanglewood, Pacific Music Festival, and Aspen. When not playing horn, Hazel loves exploring new terrain and immersing herself in unique cultures and environments.
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Ning-chih got her Master's Degree at the Juilliard School (with Dorothy DeLay). Bachelor's Degree and Performer's Certificate at the Eastman School of Music (with Zvi Zeitlin and Oleh Krysa). Ning-chih has participated in the New York String Orchestra, Jupiter Symphony, Sarasota, Brevard music festivals, and the Music Academy of the West. She was the winner of the 1998 concerto competition at the Eastman school and Brevard Festival. During her leisure hours, she enjoys good food, going to naure, and playing soccer. She is currently living in Taipei.
Kasumi Ikoma was born in Hyogo and grew up in Shiga, where the biggest lake in Japan lies. After getting her BA at Kyoto City University of the Arts as a violinist, she went to Boston and changed her instrument from violin to viola (while remaining within the same small body.) She studied viola with Mr. James Buswell IV at New England Conservatory where she received a Master of Music with Academic Honors and a Graduate Diploma. Later, supported by the Frank Huntington Beebe Fund, she explored Europe, living in Luebeck, Germany. She joined the Prussia Cove masterclasses in Cornwall 2002. She currently lives in Japan and is an associate player of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra. She also weaves cloth with self-dyed materials that use natural resources such as bark, leaves and fruit. Kasumi is a cat lover.
Su Jeon was born in Seoul, raised in Frankfurt and Tokyo. Su earned her BM and MM degrees from the Juilliard School as a student of Julian Martin. This upcoming season she will be performing at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C, the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago, and will appear with the Arlington Philharmonic (Chopin 2) and the the Banff Festival Orchestra (Mozart Double). This coming fall she will also enter the Artist Diploma program at the Glenn Gould Professional School in Toronto to continue her studies with Marc Durand. Su likes to practice the blues scales and is a great admirer of the writings by C.S. Lewis and Elisabeth Elliot.
Born in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Sarah is currently pursuing masters degree at The Juilliard School in New York (Robert Mann); previously received B.M. and A.D.(Artist Diploma) from Indiana University (Mauricio Fuks). Former teachers include Mimi Zweig and James Przygocki at the String Academy of Wisconsin (Milwaukee). In her spare time she enjoys reading, studying French, practicing yoga and swimming. Her favorite pasttime: sightreading chamber music!
Abigail Karr received both her Bachelor of Music, Magna cum Laude, and her Master of Music degrees at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, studying violin performance with Sergiu Luca. 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 Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, under the leadership of Robert Mealy, the Rhode Island Philharmonic with Larry Rachleff, and the Boston Ballet. In September 2005 she performed with Ton Koopman at Carnegie Hall as part of that organization's Professional Training Workshop series, and recently joined New Trinity Baroque of Atlanta, led by John Holloway. She enjoys performing with the Arcturus Chamber Music Ensemble and the newly formed Boston Hausmusik, and sharing her thoughts on music with her young violin students.
Andrew Karr recently was principal horn of the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra (formerly the Shanghai Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra), the only non-Chinese employed by that organization. Andrew began his musical studies on piano at the age of 5. Adding horn when he was nine, he quickly gained recognition on both instruments, winning numerous prizes and competitions. He attended the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with Myron Bloom and Barry Tuckwell. Upon graduation in 1998, he joined the New World Symphony, a professional training orchestra, in Miami, Florida. While in the New World Symphony, he studied conducting privately with San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas. He has been heard as a soloist or principal horn in over twenty different countries on four continents, performing with various orchestras in some of the most well-respected venues in the world. He is also recognized as an educator, having served on the faculty at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, as well as maintaining a private studio of horn and piano students. Besides travelling at the drop of a hat and an accompanying passion for studying languages, he also practices kung fu, sings in amateur choruses, and takes advantage of his summers in Colorado to hike and rock climb.
Clara Lee plays the cello. She already knows that "holy s*** man, that thing is bigger than [her]" and no, she does not "wish that [she plays] the piccolo" and sorry, but she is not "going to play a song for [you]" right here on this smelly moving subway car. Clara lives in New York City. She misses her hometown Seattle, but is happy that she can at least look out at lots of trees from her bedroom window. She has degrees from Rice University and Juilliard. She enjoys pretending that she can play Baroque music and the piano. Clara would like to spend the rest of her life playing Bach suites and string quartets, knitting scarves, cooking with tea, and drinking tea.
Josh Packard started playing cello at the age of 4, but found practicing to be far less intriguing than climbing and hanging upside down on the furniture. Needless to say, his teacher promptly refused to continue giving him lessons. Twenty-some years later, Josh has received instruction on cello, piano, chamber music, orchestra, theory, musicology and composition from more teachers than he cares to remember (with a B.A. in music from Harvard along the way). He has also taught himself to play double bass reasonably well and trumpet quite badly. When not playing music, Josh stays busy with a day job at Harvard University and night classes in computer science; he also enjoys bicycling, hiking and, yes, occasionally hanging upside down on furniture.
Born in Durham, England, Stephen has studied with Lesley Hatfield of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Richard Deakin of the Royal Northern College of Music. He received a B.A. in Computer Science at Harvard University while participating in many musical activities. After graduating Stephen took a software design engineer position at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington and is currently co-concertmaster of Orchestra Seattle and concertmaster of the Cascade Symphony Orchestra. When Stephen is not writing code or playing orchestra music, he enjoys spending time with his wife, Jennifer, and often fumbles through relatively obscure chamber music and Bach keyboard music . Occasionally you may find him cooking, and very rarely he may be observed practicing violin.
Benjamin Rous was pronounced a Master of Orchestral Conducting by the University of Michigan in the spring of '04, but that apparently wasn't enough for him, so he to returned there the following fall for continued study toward the Doctoral degree. Last summer, Ben led the Brahms Society Orchestra of Harvard in their sixth concert together. He plays the vioin, viola, and piano, and is a creator of notated and spontaeous musical compositions. He has also performed as a dancer and an actor.
Violist Kathryn Sievers was born in Boston and raised in Sudbury, Massachusetts. She holds degrees from Yale College and The Juilliard School, and has studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Kathryn enjoys orchestral work and has performed in viola sections of the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, New World Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra. Chamber music, too, delights her, and she has appeared with Arcturus twice. In addition to loving music, Kathryn likes to drink Creme de la Earl Grey from Tealuxe, read Middlemarch by George Eliot, hike mountains in New Mexico, look at birds everywhere, and work on the paper model of Chartres Cathedral she has been building for eight years.
Akemi Uchida has spent her formative years in Yokohama, Japan, and Seattle. as a full-scholarship student she attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (Charles Treger). Since 2000 she has been a soloist diploma candidate at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart, Germany (Kolja Lessing). She has appeared in solo and chamber music concerts throughout Europe, Americas, and Japan. During the 2002-03 season, she served as a concertmaster of Kamerata Athens, led by Sir Neville Mariner in Athens, Greece and she performs regularly with Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Her non-classical music activities include working for the Books for Prisoner program and NW film forum in Seattle and collaborating with dancers and butoh artists in non-traditional settings.
