Aeolus Quartet
Nicholas Tavani, Rachel Kitagawa Shapiro, Gregory Luce, Alan Richardson

Praised by Strad Magazine for their "high-octane" performance, the Aeolus Quartet is among the finest young string quartets performing today. Violinists Nicholas Tavani and Rachel Shapiro, violist Gregory Luce, and cellist Alan Richardson formed the Aeolus Quartet in 2008 at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Since its inception, the all-American quartet has been awarded prizes at nearly every major competition in the United States, and performed across the globe to great acclaim. Luke Quinton of the Austin-American Statesman writes, "The Aeolus Quartet is a powerful and thoughtful group of young musicians who are plotting an ascending course...this vibrant group shows great promise."

The Aeolus Quartet are Grand Prize winners of the 2011 Plowman Chamber Music Competition and 2011 Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition. They were also awarded First Prize at the 2009 Coleman International Chamber Music Competition, a Silver Medal at the 2011 Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition, and a Bronze Medal at the 2010 International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition in New England. The 16th Annual Austin Critics' Table also named the Aeolus Quartet their 2010-2011 "Best Ensemble." The Quartet's 2010-2011 season highlights include a two-week tour of China, a summer residency at the Austin Chamber Music Center, and concerts featuring the music of American composers across the United States made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Quartet has collaborated on stage with such artists as Eugenia Zukerman, Brian Lewis, DaXun Zhang, Zuill Bailey, Peter Salaff, and the Miro Quartet.

In the summer of 2010, the Aeolus Quartet was the Young Quartet-in-Residence at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival in Vail, CO. Summer 2010 also included performances at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, the Perlman Music Program, the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, and the Sunflower Music Festival. The Quartet has participated in the Aspen Music Festival's Center for Advanced Quartet Studies, the Young Quartet-in-Residence Program at the Pine Mountain Music Festival, and the Jeunesses Musicales International Chamber Course in Weikersheim, Germany.

Dedicated to bringing music into the community, the Aeolus Quartet designed and performed a program for elementary students in the Cleveland Public School system in an April 2009 project made possible by the Frances E. Sykora Outreach Performance Fund. The significant impact of this program has led to its becoming an ongoing project in the Cleveland Public School system. Working in collaboration with the University of Texas through the Rural Chamber Music Outreach Initiative, the Quartet has presented educational programs and performances in communities throughout the state of Texas.

The Aeolus Quartet has studied extensively with the Miro, Juilliard, Takacs, Artemis, and Cavani Quartets. The Quartet's other mentors include artists such as Peter Salaff, William Preucil, Donald Weilerstein, James Dunham, Roger Tapping, Heime Muller, and Itzhak Perlman. The members of the Quartet hold degrees from the Peabody Conservatory, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the University of Texas at Austin, where they served as the first Graduate String Quartet in Residence. The Aeolus Quartet is currently the Graduate Fellowship String Quartet at the University of Maryland, where they are pursuing Doctoral degrees.

The Quartet is named for the Greek god Aeolus, the keeper of the four winds. He is known for welcoming Odysseus and his crew with music during their journey back to Ithaca in Homer's Odyssey.

Rieko Aizawa, piano
Japanese pianist Rieko Aizawa is known for that rare combination of technical mastery and musical sensitivity, which has repeatedly earned the admiration of musicians and critics alike.

In 1988, Ms. Aizawa was brought to the attention of Alexander Schneider by the recommendation of pianist Mitsuko Uchida. Schneider engaged her as soloist with his Brandenburg Ensemble at the opening concerts of Tokyo's Casals Hall; later that year, Schneider presented 14-year-old Ms. Aizawa in her U.S. debut concerts at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, performing Mozart's Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414, with his New York String Orchestra. The Washington Post celebrated her performance: "She played with a beautiful, limpid tone and a sense of characterization and cohesiveness that is unusual."To complete her triumphant season of U.S. debuts, during January of 1989 Ms. Aizawa stepped in as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, guestconducted by Schneider.

Since then Ms. Aizawa has performed in solo and orchestral engagements throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, including Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall and Chicago's Orchestra Hall. Highlights of recent seasons have included acclaimed performances with the New Japan Philharmonic under Seiji Ozawa, the English Chamber Orchestra under Heinz Holliger, the Festival Strings Lucerne in Switzerland under Rudolf Baumgartner, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under Hugh Wolff, the Curtis Institute Orchestra with Peter Oundjian, the St. Louis Symphony under David Loebel and, most recently, a wonderfully received performance with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Aizawa also has a great interest in exploring unusual repertoire. In October 2007, the St. Paul Pioneer Press described her performance with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hans Graf "the Salieri Piano Concerto in C was played so splendidly by Rieko Aizawa. Hers was a graceful reading. .... Aizawa's performance lent the work a respect it rarely receives."

As a recitalist, Ms. Aizawa has been heard in many North American cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, St. Louis, Seattle, Boulder, Los Angeles, Houston, and Toronto; at the Caramoor International Festival; at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival; Ravinia Festival, Gilmore Keyboard Festival. Following a recent all-Beethoven recital in Dresden, Germany, a reviewer wrote: "Her listeners followed her playing -full of details and delicate contrasts- breathlessly." Ms. Aizawa recently has started her "Prism" series in Japan, with tributes to Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann, and specially commissioned works for each program. She also will continue her exploration of Beethoven's music with a Beethoven cycle at Rutgers University in New Jersey. In 2006, Ms. Aizawa will be collaborating with WFMT-Chicago and Fazioli to present the complete Mozart's piano sonatas.

An avid chamber musician, Ms. Aizawa has performed as a guest with string quartets including the Guarneri Quartet and the Orion Quartet, and she has participated in numerous festivals, such as the Marlboro Music Festival, U.S.A.; the Kammermusik Festival Moritzburg, Germany; and the Evian Festival, France. She has been a guest artist of Boston's, Philadelphia's and Seattle's Chamber Music Society. Ms. Aizawa is also a founding member of Duo Prism with a violinist Jesse Mills, which earned the 1st Prize at the Zinetti International Competition in Italy in 2006.

Ms. Aizawa received her Masters Degree from the Juilliard School, where she worked with Peter Serkin. She is also a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was awarded the prestigious Rachmaninoff Prize and studied with Seymour Lipkin, Peter Serkin, and Mieczyslaw Horszowski as his last pupil. March 2005 marked the release of Ms. Aizawa's first solo recording on the Japanese label Altus Music - a tour-de-force CD of Shostakovich's and Scriabin's "24 Preludes." She will be recording Faure's and Messiaens' preludes in 2008.

Ms. Aizawa is a Steinway Artist.

Mary Boodell, flute and traverso flute
Mary Boodell joined the Richmond Symphony in 1990 to play Principal Flute. Previously, she was the Principal Flutist with the Knoxville Symphony in Tennessee and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. A frequent soloist, she won the Civic Orchestra's prestigious concerto competition, performing Carl Nielsen's Flute Concerto in Chicago's Orchestra Hall and has been featured numerous times with the Richmond Symphony. Ms. Boodell has been heard in international programs: in Germany, England, France, and at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. In the US, she has participated in numerous music festivals including the Philharmonic Institute of Los Angeles, the Sarasota Music Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Bellingham Festival of Music, and as a faculty member at the Eastern Music Festival. As an active chamber musician, she founded the Quadrivium Players (in residence at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 1999-2001), has performed with the Shanghai String Quartet, the Currents New Music Ensemble, the Alexander Paley Music Festival, the Richmond Chamber Players and the Richmond Festival of Music. This past summer she was a featured performer at the Staunton Music Festival playing the alto, baroque and modern flutes. Her interests span the flute literature, from contemporary electronic music to Baroque. Newly involved in the early music movement, she performs on the one-keyed Baroque traverso.

Born in Chicago, Ms. Boodell has studied with some of the country's most respected flutists: having received her Bachelor of Music under Robert Willoughby at the Oberlin Conservatory and her Master of Music under Walfrid Kujala at Northwestern University (both with Pi Kappa Lambda Honors) she has also worked with Keith Underwood, Tom Nyfenger, Julius Baker and Alexander Murray. Formerly on the faculty at the University of Richmond, Ms. Boodell has taught every level of playing from Suzuki to college to Master classes. She coached the young flutists in the Chicago Symphony's production with James Galway of Corigliano's Pied Piper Fantasy, maintains her own teaching studio, and appears frequently in Virginia schools with the Richmond Symphony Wind Quintet.

Krista Bennion Feeney, Baroque violin
Krista Bennion Feeney has served as a concertmaster of New York City's Orchestra of St. Luke's and a member of the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble since 1983, and performed in the first violin section of the Vienna Philharmonic. She is a founding member of the DNA Quintet (the Loma Mar Quartet with the addition of her bassist husband John Feeney) whose latest CD in the series "Dragonetti's New Academy" caused Strad magazine to gush "This is an important disc of historically interesting material... I recommend it with enthusiasm!" Sir Paul McCartney wrote two works for the Loma Mar Quartet which can be heard on his CD "Working Classical" featuring the Loma Mar Quartet and the London Symphony. Her concerto collaborations have included such orchestras as the San Francisco, St. Louis and Elgin Symphonies, the New York String Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra of which she was the concertmaster from 2003-2011. From 1999-2006 Ms. Feeney was the concertmaster and music director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra and in 1992 and 1996, guest leader of the London Classical Players under the musical direction of Roger Norrington, and recording for EMI.

Krista Bennion Feeney grew up in Menlo Park California studying violin until age 13 with Anthony Doheny. As a collegiate and preparatory student at the San Francisco Conservatory, where she studied violin with Isadore Tinkleman & Stuart Canin, she was frequently performing around the Bay Area with various groups. These included the Ridge Quartet, of which she was the founding first violinist, & as soloist with many local orchestras (including the Mendelssohn concerto at 15 with S. F. Symphony). At the Curtis Institute she worked with Jamie Laredo, Felix Galimer and Mischa Schneider, and the Ridge Quartet reformed with two other Curtis students. They took off as a professional quartet with guidance and support from some of the Marlboro faculty and mentor Alexander Schneider, eventually concertizing on four continents and winning the Diapason d'Or and a Grammy nomination for their RCA recording of Dvorak's piano quintets with pianist Rudolf Firkusny. Her recordings also include both Bach concerti and a DVD of Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, in addition to many others.

Terry Riley has written a gorgeous concerto for Ms. Feeney and guitarists Gyan Riley and David Tanenbaum titled "SolTierraLuna" which was given its world premiere by Krista, Riley, Tanenbaum and the Phildelphia Chamber Orchestra in 2008. Ms. Feeney is also the violinist of the Four Nations Ensemble, who specialize in music of the 17th and 18th century. Highlights of the 2011-2012 season include Lou Harrison's "Suite for Violin and American Gamelan" at Bard College, Haydn's rarely performed G Major violin concerto with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, & Bottesini's "Grand Duo Concertante" with John Feeney bassist and the Hershey Pennsylvania Symphony.

Krista enjoys enriching the cultural life of her local community in the beautiful Hudson Valley where she lives with her family. With a special focus on Viennese music written in the late 18th and early 19th centuries her Serenade Quartet (two violins, viola and bass/Viennese violone) and Serenade Orchestra (adding two virtuoso natural horn players) give many concerts at nontraditional venues such as sculpture gardens, museums and spas. Summer 2012 finds Krista in residence at Kneisel Hall in Maine, performing, teaching and coaching exceptionally talented up-and-coming chamber musicians.

Fiona Hughes, Baroque violin
Originally from Charlottesville, VA, Fiona received her undergraduate degree in violin performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Steven Rose of the Cleveland Orchestra. She recently finished a Masters degree at Oberlin Conservatory as a baroque violin student of Marilyn McDonald. Fiona has been involved in music festivals across the country, including ENCORE, Kinhaven, Brevard Music Center, and the National Repertory Orchestra. She traveled to Japan in the summer of 2007 as a participant of Pacific Music Festival, where she concertized in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya with maestro Riccardo Muti. In 2008 she attended the Banff Centre’s Masterclass Program in Canada, working with violinists Ian Swensen and Monica Huggett. Currently a member of the Akron Symphony, she has performed in masterclasses given by Lynn Harrell, Roberto Díaz, Anner Bylsma, and Jordi Savall. As a baroque violinist, Fiona has given concerts in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. She has performed with Apollo’s Fire in Cleveland, as well as Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society under Harry Christophers and Sir Roger Norrington.

Sivan Magen, harp
Praised by the press as a "great musician who happens to be a harpist", Sivan Magen is the first Israeli to have ever won the first prize of the International Harp Contest in Israel (2006), and is a recent winner of the Pro Musicis International Award in New York.

Recent engagements include recital and concerto performances in the USA, Taiwan, Colombia, Israel and Europe, including the world premiere of Haim Permont's "Aviv" concerto with the Israel Philharmonic, Serebrier's "Colores Magicos" with the Northwestern Sinfonietta, debut recitals in NY (Merkin hall, Carnegie's Weill Hall), London (Wigmore Hall), and the opening concerts of the 10th World Harp Congress in Amsterdam (2008) and the First International Harp Festival of the Netherlands (2010). The Victor Salvi Foundation, sponsor of the Wigmore Hall debut, will also sponsor his debut solo CD recording for the Egan label which will be released in the fall. This past season has also seen the appearance on Koch International of the premiere recording of Compline by Christopher Rouse, in which he collaborated with the Calder Quartet. Aside from his growing activity as a soloist, Mr. Magen is an avid chamber musician and as such was featured on Israeli Radio and Television, APM's "Performance Today", New York's WQXR and the French television channel Mezzo. He toured with "Musicians from Marlboro", performed at Le Trianon and Salle Gaveau in Paris and participated in chamber-music festivals in Marlboro (USA), Kuhmo (Finland), Giverny (France), Kfar-Blum (Israel) and the International Chamber Music Festival in Jerusalem, collaborating with artists such as Nobuko Imai, Shmuel Ashkenazi, Gary Hoffman, Michel Letiec, Charles Neidich, Carol Wincenc, Emmanuel Pahud and members of the Guarneri Quartet. The 2011-12 season will be the first of his new trio "Dalrymple" with flutist Marina Piccinini and violist Kim Kashkashian.

Since January 2007 Mr Magen is a founding member of the Israeli Chamber Project, a group which performs in both outreach venues and major concert halls in Israel and the US, including Enav Center in Tel Aviv, the Embassy Series in Washington D.C. and Symphony Space, the Morgan Library and Bargemusic in New York City. The group's debut CD on Azica Label will be released in fall 2011. Mr. Magen is also gaining a reputation as a sought-after teacher, presenting masterclasses in the US (The Juilliard School, Duquesne University, University of Texas), Colombia, Taiwan and Israel, the Utrecht Conservatory, London's Guildhall School and Trinity College, the Kuhmo Festival Academy in Finland, and the Jerusalem Music Academy's International "Music in the Valley" seminar for strings. In addition, he has been invited to serve as member of the jury of the first Netherlands International Harp Competition, the Lyon & Healy Awards, and served as Head of the Jury of the 2007 National Harp Contest in Taiwan.

Born in Jerusalem, Sivan Magen studied the piano with Benjamin Oren and Talma Cohen and the harp with Irena Kaganovsky-Kessler at the Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance. After completing his military service as an "Outstanding Musician" in 2001, he continued his studies with Germaine Lorenzini in France and then joined Isabelle Moretti's harp class at the Paris Conservatory (CNSMDP) from which he graduated with a "Premier Prix". He has then completed a Master of Music degree as a student of Nancy Allen at the Juilliard School.

Max Mandel, violin
Canadian violist Max Mandel is one of the most acclaimed and active chamber musicians of his generation. Comfortable in many styles and genres, Mr. Mandel's current group affiliations include the FLUX Quartet, The Caramoor Virtuosi, The Silk Road Ensemble, The Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, The Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, The Kirby String Quartet, The Smithsonian Chamber Players, Class Notes, The Knights, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, and I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble. Early formative experiences included founding the Metro String Quartet, which helped forge his dedication to chamber music through collaboration with his colleagues and teachers such as Lorand Fenyves at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and especially the Banff Center for the Arts. Private studies at the University of Toronto and the Juilliard School were with Steven Dann and Samuel Rhodes.

Mandel is a fan of all kinds of music from Mozart to Feldman to Ghostface and considers himself very fortunate to have collaborated with great artists in many genres from Vera Beths to Ornette Coleman to Kirk Hammett of Metallica. Mr. Mandel plays on a 1973 Giovanni Battista Morassi generously loaned to him by Lesley Robertson of the St. Lawrence Quartet. He resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Diane Pascal, violin
Violinist, Diane Pascal has been a member of the Lark and Rosamunde String Quartets and has appeared as Concertmaster with the Camerata Salzburg ,the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and with the Zagreb Chamber Orchestra as Artistic Director. She has made numerous recordings for the Arabesque and ECM labels, including a recording of Amy Beach's Sonata for Violin and Piano with the pianist, Joanne Polk. Ms. Pascal performs as soloist and chamber musician at many renowned music festivals. She has held teaching positions at Bennington College and the University of Oklahoma. Her own studies were at the Curtis Institute of Music and the "Mozarteum" in Salzburg with Ivan Galamian and Sandor Vegh. Ms. Pascal resides in Vienna, Austria.

Theresa Salomon, Baroque violin
Violinist Theresa Salomon, a native of Germany, is making her third appearance with CMSCVA this season. Her festival credits include Festival Presence in Paris, Gulbenkian Festival in Lisbon, the Prague Spring Festival, Ostfriesland Festival in Germany, the Connecticut Early Music Festival, the Staunton Music Festival, and Ostrava Days for New Music in the Czech Republic. She performs with ensembles such as the Orchestra of St Luke's, Rebel Baroque Orchestra, Trinity Baroque Orchestra and SEM Ensemble. She directs a chamber music series at Music under Construction, and plays for the dance branch of the Organization, Dance under Construction. Ms. Salomon also teaches classes in historic performance practice at the Cali School of Music, Montclair University. She lives in New York City.

Carsten Schmidt, piano and harpsichord
Carsten Schmidt made his professional debut with the Essen Philharmonic in Germany in 1984, and has performed extensively throughout Europe, North America, and Japan. Active both as a pianist and harpsichordist, his repertoire ranges from the early seventeenth century to contemporary works, of which he has premiered more than one hundred. He has appeared at such venues as the German Mozart Festival, Ravinia Festival in Chicago, Schubert Festival in Amsterdam, Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Merkin and Weill Recital Halls in NYC, the Moscow Conservatory, and the Kuhmo Festival in Finland. Since 2003 he has also been increasingly active as a conductor, leading productions of operas by Handel and Purcell, and orchestral repertoire ranging from Marais to Mahler. Carsten Schmidt graduated with distinction from the Folkwang Institute in Germany, and subsequently received an Artist Diploma from Indiana University and a doctorate from Yale. He joined the faculty at Sarah Lawrence College in 1998, and is artistic director of the Staunton Music Festival in Virginia.

David Walker, lute
Lutenist and guitarist David Walker has performed extensively throughout the United States earning praise for his "surety of technique and expressive elegance," (Columbus Dispatch) as well as his "tremendous dexterity and careful control" (Bloomington Herald Times). David has appeared with such early music groups as Chatham Baroque, Clarion Music Society, Early Music New York, the Newberry Consort, and Tempesta di Mare. He has performed in numerous baroque opera productions, including engagements with the Wolf Trap Opera Company, Glimmerglass Opera, and Chicago Opera Theater. Festival highlights include chamber music at the Savannah Music Festival and solo recitals for the Bloomington Early Music Festival and the University of Louisville Guitar Festival. David is a member of the chamber ensemble Ostraka, whose 2010 debut release Division has been called "an utter aural and intellectual delight" (Examiner San Francisco). Other recording credits include the Grammy-nominated The Vanishing Nordic Chorale with Musika Ekklesia for Dorian/Sono Luminus Records. An avid educator, he serves as director of classical guitar studies at Bellarmine University, and was previously on the faculty of the University of Louisville. David holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Louisville, and has studied lute and guitar with Patrick O'Brien and Nigel North.

James Wilson, cello
For the past twenty years, cellist James Wilson has consistently performed to the delight of audiences throughout the world, from small towns to the world's most illustrious venues. Acclaimed for his singing tone, and intelligent and soulful approach to music, the Los Angeles Times described Wilson as a musician "with something to say and a commanding way of saying it."

As recitalist and chamber musician, he has appeared in many of the world's most illustrious venues, including America's Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center, Casal's Hall in Tokyo, the Sydney Opera House, the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Montreal, the Philharmonie in Köln and the Musikverein in Vienna. He has performed at music festivals around the world such as the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the City of London Festival, the Deutches Mozartfest in Bavaria, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland, the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York, the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, and the Ysbreker in Amsterdam. In demand as a player of Baroque and modern cello, Wilson has collaborated with such diverse artists as violinist Joshua Bell, flutist Eugenia Zukerman, guitarist Eliot Fisk, actress Claire Bloom, the Tokyo String Quartet and the Mark Morris Dance Group. A former member of the Shanghai and Chester String Quartets, he recorded and toured extensively world-wide with both groups. Mr. Wilson's performances have been broadcast on West German Radio and Bavarian Radio in Germany, CBC radio in Canada, CBS television and National Public Radio's Performance Today and Saint Paul Sunday. He has also recorded for the Delos and Music Masters labels.

A devoted advocate for the arts and arts education, Mr. Wilson is currently the Artistic Director of the Richmond–based Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia, and teaches cello and chamber music at Columbia University in New York.