Dmitri Atapine has been described as a cellist with "brilliant technical chops" (Gramophone),
whose playing is "highly impressive throughout" (The Strad). He has appeared on some of the
world's foremost stages, including Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Zankel and Weill halls at
Carnegie Hall, and the National Auditorium of Spain. An avid chamber musician, he has
previously performed with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and his frequent
festival appearances have included Music@Menlo, La Musica Sarasota, Pacific, Aldeburgh, Aixen-Provence, Nevada, and Cactus Pear, with performances broadcast in Spain, Italy, the US,
Canada, Mexico, and South Korea. His multiple awards include the first prize at the Carlos
Prieto Cello Competition, as well as top honors at the Premio Vittorio Gui and Plowman
chamber competitions. He has collaborated with such distinguished musicians as Cho-Liang Lin,
Paul Neubauer, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Wu Han, Bruno Giuranna, and David Shifrin. His
recordings, among them a critically acclaimed world premiere of Lowell Liebermann’s complete
works for cello and piano, can be found on the Naxos, Albany, MSR, Urtext Digital, BlueGriffin,
and Bridge record labels. Mr. Atapine holds a doctorate from the Yale School of Music, where
he was a student of Aldo Parisot. The artistic director of Ribadesella Chamber Music Festival
and the Argenta Concert Series, he is the cello professor at the University of Nevada, Reno and
a member of Chamber Music Society Two.
Co-artistic director of the Chamber Music Society, cellist David Finckel was named Musical
America’s 2012 Musician of the Year, one of the highest honors granted to musicians from the
music industry in the US. He leads a multifaceted career as a concert performer, recording
artist, educator, administrator, and cultural entrepreneur that places him in the ranks of today’s
most influential classical musicians. He has been hailed as “one of the top ten, if not top five,
cellists in the world today” (Nordwest Zeitung, Germany). As a chamber musician, he appears
extensively with duo partner pianist Wu Han and in a piano trio alongside violinist Philip Setzer.
David Finckel served as cellist of the nine-time Grammy Award-winning Emerson String Quartet
for 34 seasons. In 1997 David Finckel and Wu Han launched ArtistLed, classical music’s first
musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, whose 17-album catalogue has won
widespread critical praise. Along with Wu Han, he is the founder and artistic director of
Music@Menlo, Silicon Valley’s acclaimed chamber music festival and institute, artistic director
for Chamber Music Today in Korea, and in 2013, inaugurated a chamber music workshop at
Aspen Music Festival and School. Under the auspices of the CMS, David Finckel and Wu Han
lead the LG Chamber Music School. The first American student of Rostropovich, David Finckel
serves on the faculty at The Juilliard School and Stony Brook University. Piano Quartets, a 2015
Deutsche Grammophon release recorded live at Alice Tully Hall, features David Finckel, Wu
Han, Daniel Hope, and Paul Neubauer performing the piano quartets of Brahms, Schumann,
and Mahler.
This is violinist Ani Kavafian’s 44th year performing with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln
Center. Touring the United States, Canada, and Europe, she performs with the
Kavafian/Schub/Shifrin Trio, the Da Salo String Trio, her sister Ida Kavafian, and the Triton Horn
Trio. She is the concertmaster and a frequent soloist with the New Haven Symphony and is in
the process of performing the complete Mozart concertos with the orchestra. As president of
the Young Concert Artist Alumni Association, she took part in the organization’s 50th
anniversary concert in 2011. Her solo career has included performances with the New York
Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the Los Angeles
Chamber Orchestra. Her recordings include the Bach sonatas with Kenneth Cooper, Mozart
sonatas with Jorge Federico Osorio, and Justin Dello Joio’s Piano Trio with Carter Brey and
Jeremy Denk. She has performed at numerous festivals, including OK Mozart, Chamber Music
Northwest, Music@Menlo, Bridgehampton, Norfolk, and Music From Angel Fire. Together with
Carter Brey, she continues as artistic director of Mostly Music, the chamber music series in New
Jersey. As a full professor at Yale University, she is enjoying the many successes of her students
as they secure positions with major orchestras and as teachers at universities around the world.
Ms. Kavafian plays a 1736 Stradivarius violin and is married to artist Bernard Mindich.
Concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra, American violinist Erin Keefe has established a
reputation as a compelling artist who combines exhilarating temperament and fierce integrity.
Winner of a 2006 Avery Fisher Career Grant as well as the 2009 Pro Musicis International
Award, she took the Grand Prizes in the Valsesia Music International Violin Competition (Italy),
the Torun International Violin Competition (Poland), the Schadt Competition, and the Corpus
Christi International String Competition. She has been featured on Live From Lincoln Center
three times with CMS, performing works by Brahms, Schoenberg, Bach, and Corelli. Her
recording credits include Schoenberg's Second String Quartet with Ida Kavafian, Paul Neubauer,
Fred Sherry, and Jennifer Welch-Babidge for Robert Craft and the Naxos Label, and recordings
of works by Dvorák with David Finckel and Wu Han for the CMS Studio Recordings label. In
2010, she released her first solo CD, recorded with pianist Anna Polonsky. Her festival
appearances have included the Marlboro Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Music from Angel Fire,
Ravinia, and the Seattle, OK Mozart, Mimir, Bravo! Vail Valley, Music in the Vineyards, and
Bridgehampton Chamber Music festivals. A former member of CMS Two, Ms. Keefe earned a
master’s degree from The Juilliard School and a bachelor’s degree from The Curtis Institute of
Music. Her teachers included Ronald Copes, Ida Kavafian, Arnold Steinhardt, and Philip Setzer.
Violinist/violist Yura Lee is a multi-faceted musician, as soloist and as a chamber musician, and
one of the very few that is equally virtuosic in both violin and viola. She has performed with
major orchestras including those of New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, San Francisco,
and Los Angeles. She has given recitals in London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein,
Salzburg’s Mozarteum, Brussels’ Palais des Beaux-Arts, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
At age 12, she became the youngest artist ever to receive the Debut Artist of the Year prize at
the Performance Today awards given by National Public Radio. She is a recipient of the 2007
Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the first prize winner of the 2013 ARD Competition. She has
received numerous other international prizes, including top prizes in the Mozart, Indianapolis,
Hannover, Kreisler, Bashmet, and Paganini competitions. Her CD Mozart in Paris with Reinhard
Goebel and the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, received the prestigious Diapason d’Or
Award. As a chamber musician, she regularly takes part in the festivals of Marlboro, Salzburg,
Verbier, and Caramoor. Her main teachers included Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Miriam Fried,
Paul Biss, Thomas Riebl, Ana Chumachenko, and Nobuko Imai. Ms. Lee is professor of violin at
the Hochschule für Musik in Dresden, Germany. She divides her time between New York City
and Berlin. Ms. Lee is a former member of Chamber Music Society Two, as both violinist and
violist.
The recipient of a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, American violist Matthew Lipman has been
hailed by the New York Times for his "rich tone and elegant phrasing” and by the Chicago
Tribune for his "splendid technique and musical sensitivity." His debut recording of Mozart’s
Sinfonia Concertante with violinist Rachel Barton Pine and the Academy of St. Martin in the
Fields with Sir Neville Marriner was recently released on the Avie label. He has performed with
the Juilliard, Minnesota, Grand Rapids Symphony, Wisconsin Chamber, Ars Viva Symphony, and
Montgomery Symphony orchestras. The only violist featured on WFMT Chicago’s recent list of
“30 Under 30” top classical musicians, he has been profiled by The Strad and BBC Music
magazines and recently performed Penderecki’s Cadenza for solo viola live on WQXR with the
composer in attendance. A member of CMS Two, Mr. Lipman has performed with the Chamber
Music Society at Alice Tully Hall, Wigmore Hall, and at the Kissinger Sommer Festival in
Germany, and under the auspices of the Marlboro, Ravinia, Perlman Music Program, and the
Music@Menlo festivals. A top prizewinner of the Tertis, Primrose, Washington, Stulberg, and
Johansen International competitions, Mr. Lipman is the recipient of a Kovner Fellowship at The
Juilliard School, where he serves as a teaching assistant to Heidi Castleman. He has also studied
with Steven Tenenbom, Misha Amory, and Roland Vamos, and performs on a 1700 Matteo
Goffriller viola from the REB foundation.