Adria Benjamin grew up in Brooklyn and began viola studies through a program offered by the New York City public schools.  She is currently a member of many of New York’s outstanding orchestras, such as the American Symphony Orchestra, the New York Pops, Amici New York and Opera Orchestra of New York.  She is also a member of the Stamford Symphony Orchestra, and performs annually at the OK Mozart Festival, where she is the Artistic Administrator, and the Bard Festival.  She is also a member of the Amici New York String Quartet.Adria was a founding member of the highly acclaimed Eos Orchestra. Adria is a Professor of Professional Practice at Mannes College The New School for Music, where she conducts orchestras in the Preparatory and Extension Divisions, coaches chamber music in both Divisions, and teaches Mannes' wonderful Preparatory viola students.  She also serves on the New School Faculty Senate and is the current Prep String Department Liaison. Adria has been heard on National Public Radio as a recitalist, and has participated in numerous orchestra and chamber music recordings, documentaries, and commercial and film score recordings.  She has performed as a viola soloist at the 92nd Street Y, and performed at a White House National Medal of Arts ceremony. Adriarecently appeared as a soloist at Zankel Hall, with the critically acclaimed Voices of Ascension. She is a former member of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Jerusalem String Ensemble.  Adria is founding member of the New York Viola Society. She has been part of the planning and creative teams, and a performing artist, for many concerts benefiting a wide range of non-profit organizations. She is a frequent string clinician and competition judge in the New York area.

Adria’s teachers include Mary Jane Metcalfe, Francis Tursi, Karen Tuttle and Joey Corpus.  While pursuing a Master’s degree at the Peabody Conservatory, she was the teaching assistant for Karen Tuttle, and was awarded the Peabody Prize for Outstanding Viola Performance. Her conducting studies were with Gustav Meier and Robert DeCormier.  

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Lisa Tipton, violinist and co-founder of the award-winning Meridian String Quartet, has toured internationally and held residencies at Queens College, Bard College, and the Turtle Bay Music School. She has won distinctions from the Evian International Competition, Artists International, and Chamber Music America. As a devoted interpreter of new music, Ms. Tipton established the “Made in America” series at Weill Recital Hall and performed on the “Interpretations” series at Merkin Concert Hall. She performs regularly with Amici New York, Stamford Symphony, Little Orchestra Society and the American Symphony Orchestra. She is a founding member of the NY Chamber Music Co-op. Ms. Tipton’s recording of Ives’ violin sonatas was released in 2006 on Capstone Records. She has performed as a soloist with the Cornell, Barbad, NY Chamber Orchestras, and The Bronx Symphony. Lisa has toured with the Manhattan Piano. She has been heard on WQXR, WNYC and recorded on LRC, Midder, Arizona and Capstone Records. Lisa is the Director of the NY Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program and on the faculty of School for Strings.  She earned a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and has studied with Daniel Phillips, Gerald Beal, Joyce Robbins, Ani Kavafian, Roman Totenberg and The Juilliard Quartet. Lisa is currently D.M.A. doctorale candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center.

 

Critically acclaimed for her virtuosity and versatility, oboist Dr. Lisa Kozenko has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Nova Filarmonia of Portugal, National Orchestra of New York, National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra and the Greenwich Village Orchestra. Concert engagements include performances at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, the Frick Collection in Pittsburgh, Da Camera Society in Houston, and at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Merkin Concert Hall in New York City. She was a prizewinner of the 15th Louise D. McMahon International Music Competition and has recorded on the Digital Concerto, Albany, and Arabesque labels. She has 12 solo oboe and chamber music commissions to her credit. Her solo recording of Doubles by Judith Zaimont was named to Chamber Music America’s Century List of recordings. She was awarded the Chamber Music America Heidi Castleman Award for excellence in chamber music teaching. As a member of the Manhattan Wind Quintet, she was a finalist in the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation Chamber Music Competition and prizewinner of the Coleman, Fischoff, Monterey, Yellow Springs, and Chamber Music Chicago competitions. Lisa Kozenko has served as principal oboist of the New York City Opera National Company and has performed with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Rapids Symphony, and The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. She has served on the faculties of the Bowdoin International Music Festival, Oklahoma State University, Central Michigan University, Moravian College, and Mannes School of Music at the New School College of the Performing Arts. Ms. Kozenko was awarded a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her dissertation, New York Chamber Music Society, 1915-1937: A Contribution to Wind Chamber Music and a Reflection of Concert Life in New York City in the Early 20th Century, was funded in part by the prestigious Baisley Powell Elebash Research Fund.

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Praised in Strad magazine for her “haunting” performance of Morton Subotnick’s Axolotl, Tomoko Fujita has collaborated with esteemed artists such as Itzhak Perlman, members of the Cleveland, Emerson, and Juilliard String Quartets, dancer Wendy Whelan, and the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. As a founding member and the cellist of the Bryant Park Quartet for ten years, she has presented numerous concerts and interactive outreach presentations, nationally and internationally, and released a CD album entitled “BPQ”. Currently, Tomoko is a member of the New York Chamber Music Co-Op, and plays cello and piano repertoire regularly with pianist Luba Poliak. In addition to her performance career, she is the Director of
the Stony Brook University Pre-College Program and a coach at the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program. She was recently appointed to the faculty at Hofstra University. In the summers, Tomoko is in residence at the Kinhaven Music School in Weston,VT. For more information, visit www.tomokofujita.com.

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Pianist Adrienne Kim has performed in New York's Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Bargemusic, Boston's Symphony Hall, Washington D.C.'s Phillips Gallery and Ravinia's Rising Stars series in Chicago.  She has appeared as soloist with the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of Beijing, the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico, the Portland Chamber Orchestra, and the Richmond Orchestra.

Ms. Kim was a member of Chamber Music Society Two, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's two-year residency program for emerging young artists. She is also the pianist of the Alcott Trio and a founding member of the New York Chamber Music Co-Op, a new creative performance collaborative based in New York City. She performs regularly as a member of the Bronx Arts Ensemble and has performed with the New York Chamber Ensemble, Garden City Chamber Music Society, Lighthouse Chamber Players, Salt Bay Chamberfest, Carnegie Chamber Players, the Sherman Chamber Ensemble, the Society for New Music, the Skaneateles Festival, and was the resident pianist of the Seal Bay Festival for American Chamber Music in Maine for 15 years.  With the West End Chamber Ensemble, ensemble-in-residence at the North Carolina School of the Arts, she participated in the National Endowment for the Arts/Chamber Music America Rural Residency. She has recorded the solo and chamber works of Daniel S. Godfrey with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra on the Koch label, the violin and piano sonatas of Charles Ives with Lisa Tipton on Capstone Records and the sonatas of Niels Gade with violinist, Katie Wolfe on the Centaur label.  She and Ms. Tipton also present the “Made in America” series at Weill Hall in Carnegie Hall. A CD with violinist Jorge Avila, featuring the sonatas of Granados, Turina and Rodrigo has also been released on Centaur.

Ms. Kim teaches at Mannes College, The New School, in the Prep and College divisions, and also serves as Coordinator of the Piano Department in the Prep division and the Coordinator of Secondary Piano in the College division.  She is a coach for the New York Youth Symphony's chamber music program and teaches at the Hoff-Barthelson School in Scarsdale. She was Affiliate Artist at Syracuse University and was on the Concert Artist Faculty at Kean University in New Jersey, and taught at the Kinhaven Music School in Vermont for 12 summers. She serves on the Executive Board of the Piano Teachers' Congress of New York City. Ms. Kim studied with Menahem Pressler at Indiana University where she earned her Bachelor's degree and earned her Master's degree from Manhattan School of Music, where she was a student of Leon Fleisher.  

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