The recipient of a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2020 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, Alexi Kenney is building a career that defies categorization, following his interests, intuition, and heart. He is equally at home creating experimental programs and commissioning new works, soloing with major orchestras in the USA and abroad, and collaborating with some of the most celebrated musicians of our time.
In the 2021/22 Season, Alexi debuts as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Orchestra de la Suisse Romande, Virginia Symphony, Reno Philharmonic, Eugene Symphony, and New Haven Symphony, returns to the Indianapolis Symphony, California Symphony, and Santa Fe Symphony, and appears at Wigmore Hall, Princeton University Concerts, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He also performs duo concerts with harpist Bridget Kibbey, and as a member of Owls, a new quartet collective with violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Gabe Cabezas, and cellist-composer Paul Wiancko.
In 2021, Alexi released his first recording, Paul Wiancko’s X Suite for Solo Violin, accompanied by a visual album that pairs each of the seven movements of X Suite with seven contemporary sculptures, filmed on location at the Donum Estate in Sonoma, California.
In recent seasons, Alexi has performed as soloist with the Detroit Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sarasota Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and in a play-conduct role as guest leader of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He has played recitals at Wigmore Hall, on Carnegie Hall’s ‘Distinctive Debuts’ series, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Phillips Collection, 92nd Street Y, Mecklenberg-Vorpommern Festival, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild Competition and laureate of the 2012 Menuhin Competition, Alexi has been profiled by Musical America, Strings Magazine, and The New York Times, and has written for The Strad.
Chamber music continues to be a major part of Alexi’s life, performing at festivals including Bridgehampton, Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Chamber Music Northwest, Festival Napa Valley, La Jolla, Ojai, Kronberg, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, and Spoleto, as well as on tour with Musicians from Marlboro and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Born in Palo Alto, California in 1994, Alexi is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he received his Artist Diploma as a student of Miriam Fried and Donald Weilerstein. Previous teachers include Wei He, Jenny Rudin, and Natasha Fong. He plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and a bow by François-Nicolas Voirin.
Outside of music, Alexi enjoys hojicha, bauhaus interiors, baking for friends, and walking for miles on end in whichever city he finds himself, listening to podcasts and Bach on repeat.
Cellist Oliver Herbert is quickly building a reputation as an artist with a distinct voice and individual style, admired by audiences for his communicative and connective performances. The recipient of a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Oliver has been praised by San Francisco Classical Voice for his “expansive tone, virtuosity, and musical instincts.” Recent appearances include debuts with world renowned ensembles including the San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, and Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
Oliver is equally at home playing well-known works as well as exploring uncharted musical territories. The 2021-22 season marks the beginning of several ambitious projects, including performances of the complete Bach Cello Suites at Capital Region Classical and the complete Beethoven Cello Sonatas at Guarneri Hall in Chicago. Oliver will also be premiering a commissioned work by Chelsea Komschlies for multitrack cello and electronics, as well as exploring the music of Venezuelan composer and cellist Paul Desenne. Concerto highlights for the 2021-22 season include performances with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, New World Symphony, and Rhode Island Philharmonic—performing works by Barber, Ibert, Saint-Saens, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky.
In June of 2020, Oliver released his debut album with pianist Xiaohui Yang, Frame of Mind: Fauré and Janáček, featuring the two cello and piano sonatas of Gabriel Fauré as well as Leoš Janáček’s Pohádka (Fairy Tale). Oliver's additional recording highlights include a release of Haydn's D Major Cello Concerto with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. Interested in the intersection of visual art and music, Oliver also enjoys working on mixed media and video projects. Recent collaborations in this area include projects with filmmakers Lone Cricket, Mike Grittani, and Mimi Pfahler.
As a chamber musician, Oliver has participated in leading music festivals including Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Krzyżowa Music, La Jolla Summerfest, Marlboro Music, Music in the Vineyards, Nevada Chamber Music Festival, Ravinia, and Verbier. In the 2021-22 season, Oliver joins violinist Alexi Kenney and pianist Eric Lu for a program of Haydn, Schumann, and Schubert at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.
Born in San Francisco, Oliver is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Colburn School where he studied with Carter Brey, Clive Greensmith, and Peter Wiley. Additional mentors include Pamela Frank and Dr. Ford Lallerstedt at the Curtis Institute. His competition awards include top prizes in the Lutoslawski International Cello Competition, Klein Competition, and Stulberg Competition. Oliver currently plays on a Guadagnini cello that belonged to the great Italian cellist Antonio Janigro, on generous loan from the Janigro family.
Anna Polonsky is widely in demand as a soloist and chamber musician. She has appeared with the Moscow Virtuosi, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Memphis Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, and many others. Ms. Polonsky has collaborated with the Guarneri, Orion, Daedalus, and Shanghai Quartets, and with such musicians as Mitsuko Uchida, Yo-Yo Ma, David Shifrin, Richard Goode, Emanuel Ax, Arnold Steinhardt, Peter Wiley, and Jaime Laredo. She has performed chamber music at festivals such as Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Seattle, Music@Menlo, Cartagena, Bard, and Caramoor, as well as at Bargemusic in New York City. Ms. Polonsky has given concerts in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Alice Tully Hall, and Carnegie Hall’s Stern, Weill, and Zankel Halls, and has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. A frequent guest at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, she was a member of the Chamber Music Society Two during 2002-2004. In 2006 she took a part in the European Broadcasting Union's project to record and broadcast all of Mozart's keyboard sonatas, and in the spring of 2007 she performed a solo recital at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium to inaugurate the Emerson Quartet’s Perspectives Series. She is a recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award.
Anna Polonsky made her solo piano debut at the age of seven at the Special Central Music School in Moscow, Russia. She emigrated to the United States in 1990, and attended high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. She received her Bachelor of Music diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music under the tutelage of the renowned pianist Peter Serkin, and continued her studies with Jerome Lowenthal, earning her Master's Degree from the Juilliard School. In addition to performing, she serves on the piano faculty of Vassar College, and in the summer at the Marlboro and Kneisel Hall chamber music festivals.
Beginning in 2018, Polonsky performs in a trio with clarinetist David Shifrin and cellist Peter Wiley.
Ms. Polonsky is a Steinway Artist.
American baritone Thomas Meglioranza was a winner of the Walter W. Naumburg, Concert Artists Guild, Franz Schubert/Music of Modernity, and Joy In Singing competitions.
Highlights from recent seasons include an all-Hugo Wolf recital at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as role of Lord Henry in Lowell Liebermann's The Picture of Dorian Gray with Odyssey Opera, and Saint John in Louis Karchin's Jane Eyre with the Center for Contemporary Opera. He also sang Handel's Messiah at Saint Thomas Church in New York City, and debuted with Ars Lyrica Houston singing J.C.F. Bach's solo cantata, Pygmalion. Last season, he sang the role of Wreck in Bernstein’s Wonderful Town with the Seattle Symphony, Bach's solo bass cantatas with Lyra Baroque in Minneapolis and performances of Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin with Reiko Uchida and Winterreise with fortepianist David Breitman.
Described in The New Yorker as an “immaculate and inventive recitalist”, his Songs from the WWI Era program was named one of the "Top Ten Best Classical Performances of the Year" in the Philadelphia Inquirer. His discography includes the Schubert cycles and assorted lieder, and French mélodies with pianist Reiko Uchida, songs of Virgil Thomson with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Bach cantatas with the Taverner Consort.
He has been an oratorio and pops soloist with many of America's leading orchestras and has also sung Copland's Old American Songs with the National Symphony, Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, John Harbison's Fifth Symphony with the Boston Symphony, Milton Babbitt's Two Sonnets with the MET Chamber Ensemble, Roberto Sierra's Missa Latina with the Houston Symphony, and Bach cantatas with Les Violons du Roy and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He has also appeared with many period instrument ensembles, including the American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque, Portland Baroque, the New York Collegium, the Waverly Consort, and Apollo's Fire.
His operatic roles include Fritz in Die tote Stadt, Mozart's Don Giovanni and Count Almaviva, as well as Chou Enlai in Nixon in China, Prior Walter in Eötvös Peter's Angels in America, and Oedipus in Ruth Schönthal’s Jocasta. He also regularly performs with the Mark Morris Dance Group, including the role of Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas.
A native New Yorker, Meglioranza graduated from Grinnell College and the Eastman School of Music. His non-musical interests include cooking and fungi.
Hailed by critics for her “tonal bloom” and “hauntingly beautiful performances,” English-American performer and composer Emi Ferguson stretches the boundaries of what is expected of modern-day musicians. Emi’s unique approach to the flute can be heard in performances that alternate between the Silver Flute, Historical Flutes, and Auxilary Flutes, playing repertoire that stretches from the Renaissance to today.
Emi can be heard live in concerts and festivals around the world as a soloist and with groups including AMOC*, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Manhattan Chamber Players. She has spoken and performed at several TEDX events and has been featured on media outlets including The Discovery Channel, Vox's "Explained" series on Netflix, Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Juilliard Digital's TouchPress apps talking about how music relates to our world today. Her debut album, Amour Cruel, an indie-pop song cycle inspired by the music of the 17th century French court was released by Arezzo Music in September 2017, spending 4 weeks on the Classical, Classical Crossover, and World Music Billboard Charts. Her 2019 album Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes, a collaboration with continuo band Ruckus debuted at #1 on the iTunes classical charts and #2 on the Billboard classical charts, and was called “blindingly impressive...a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” by The New York Times. In addition to her solo recordings, Emi has also been featured on recordings for New Focus Records, Old Focus Records, Canteloupe Music, National Sawdust Tracks, Brontosaurus Records, Coro, and MSR Classics.
Emi was a featured performer alongside Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and James Taylor at the 10th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony of 9/11 at Ground Zero, where her performance of Amazing Grace was televised worldwide. Her performance that day is now part of the permanent collection at the 911 Museum.
Emi is passionate about developing new music and has premiered works by many of today's leading composers. Emi has been a featured performer at the Marlboro Music, Lake Champlain, and Lucerne Festivals, Portland Bach Festival, Bach Virtuosi Festival, June in Buffalo, Twickenham Fest, and Chamberfest Dubuque, and has performed and taught with Juilliard Global in Brazil, pianoSonoma in California, Juilliard Baroque in Germany, and Les Arts Florissants in France and has been featured as a soloist and ambassador for Elliott Carter’s music in China and Japan.
As a historical Flutist, in addition to her appointment as Principal Flute of the Handel and Haydn Society, Emi is thrilled to be a frequent guest artist with period ensembles including Tafelmusik,. She can also be heard with period instrument groups including Voices of Music, the American Classical Orchestra, and Trinity Baroque Orchestra. She was the only flutist accepted to Juilliard’s inaugural Historical Performance class, and has performed alongside William Christie and Les Arts Florrisants, and with Christophe Hammer, Massaki Suzuki, Christopher Hogwood, and Nicholas McGegan.
Emi is currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School teaching Ear Training, the Bach Virtuosi Festival, and has taught on the faculty of the University of Buffalo. Emi was the first person to have graduated from Juilliard with Undergraduate and Graduate degrees with Scholastic Distinction in flute performance, as well as a second Graduate degree in Historical Performance as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow.
Her principal teachers have been Carol Wincenc, Sandra Miller, Robert Langevin, and Judy Grant. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York City.
ABOUT - BIO
Hailed by critics for her “tonal bloom” and “hauntingly beautiful performances,” English-American performer and composer Emi Ferguson stretches the boundaries of what is expected of modern-day musicians. Emi’s unique approach to the flute can be heard in performances that alternate between the Silver Flute, Historical Flutes, and Auxilary Flutes, playing repertoire that stretches from the Renaissance to today.
