Violist/violinist Toby Appel has appeared in recital and concerto performances throughout the world. He has been a member of such renowned ensembles as TASHI and the Lenox and Audubon quartets and guest artist with the Vermeer, Manhattan, and Composers quartets, as well as a frequent guest with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society and jazz artists Chick Corea and Gary Burton. Festival performances include Mostly Mozart, Santa Fe, Angel Fire, Bravo! Colorado, and Marlboro as well as festivals in England, France, Korea, Germany Italy and Greece. He is a regular commentator for National Public Radio’s Performance Today. Mr. Appel currently teaches viola and chamber music at the Juilliard School and has held professorships at the State University of New York, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and the University of New Mexico and has served on the faculties of Carnegie Mellon University and the Yale School of Music. He has toured for The United States State Department andperformed at the United Nations and the White House. He can be heard on the Columbia, Delos, Desto, Koch International, Opus 1, and Musical Heritage Society labels.

Now celebrating its 20th season, Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, formed in Moscow, has performed over 1,400 concerts— nearly 600 in Moscow, the rest on tours in 24 countries of Europe, North and South America and the Far East—earning recognition as one of Russia’s leading ensembles. The orchestra has recorded over 30 CDs, receiving widespread international acclaim and awards such as the Diapason d’Or in France, “Critics Choice” in London’s Gramophone and in the New York Times, “Record of the Year” in Hong Kong, and others. Of about 900 compositions in the orchestra’s repertoire, over 20 were written especially for them by composers from Russia, Europe and the U.S. Founded and led by conducor Misha Rachlevsky, the orchestra comprises some of Russia’s finest young string players. “Whether it is the highly-acclaimed CDs or its mesmerizing concerts, Chamber Orchestra Kremlin’s warmth and high energy create addictive performances that stay with listeners long fter the last note has been played.”

Praised by The New Yorker as “a fresh and vital young participant in what is a golden age of American string quartets,” the Daedalus Quartet has performed in many of the world’s leading musical venues; in the United States and Canada these include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center (Great Performers series), the Library of Congress, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and Boston’s Gardner Museum, as well as on major series in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. Abroad the ensemble has been heard in such famed locations as the Musikverein in Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and in leading venues in Japan. The Daedalus Quartet has won plaudits for its adventurous exploration of contemporary music, most notably the compositions of Elliott Carter, George Perle, György Kurtág and György Ligeti. Among the works the ensemble has premiered are David Horne’s Flight from the Labyrinth, commissioned for the Quartet by the Caramoor Festival and Fred Lerdahl’s Third String Quartet, commissioned by Chamber Music America. The Quartet has also collaborated with some of the world’s finest instrumentalists, including pianists Marc-André Hamelin and Simone Dinnerstein; clarinetists David Shifrin and Alexander Fiterstein; and violinist Donald Weilerstein. Lincoln Center appointed the Daedalus Quartet as the “Chamber Music Society Two” quartet for 2005-07. They have been Columbia University’s Quartet-in-Residence since 2005, and have served as Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania since 2006. The award-winning members of the Daedalus Quartet hold degrees from the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute, Cleveland Institute, and Harvard University. Founding members violinist Min-Young Kim and cellist Raman Ramakrishnan grew up in East Patchogue, Long Island; they met violist Jessica Thompson, a Minneapolis native, at the Marlboro Festival. Violinist Ara Gregorian joined the Daedalus Quartet in early March, 2010.

Acclaimed for his versatility in both opera and concert, William Ferguson made his debut with the Santa Fe Opera in 2006 as Caliban in the North American premiere of Thomas Adès’ The Tempest, and in 2005, he appeared in Sydney with Opera Australia singing Truffaldino in a new roduction of The Love for Three Oranges directed by Francesca Zambello and conducted by Richard Hickox (released on compact disc unfer the Chandos label). The same year, Ferguson joined the roster of The Metropolitan Opera where he has performed Beppe in I Pagliacci as well as roles in Le Nozze di Figaro and The Magic Flute (under the baton of James Levine). A regular artist at The New York City Opera, his performances have included the title role in Candide, Nanki-Poo in The Mikado, the Funeral Director in A Quiet Place, and twice as Hérisson de Porc-Épic in L’Étoile. Additional credits include Andres in Wozzeck with Opera Festival of New Jersey, Ferrando in Così fan tutte at the Aspen Music Festival, Carl in Bitter Sweet for the Bard SummerScape Festival, Pang in Turandot with Opera Company of Philadelphia, Frederic in Pirates of Penzance with both Virginia Opera and Opera Omaha, the Sailor in Dido and Aeneas with Gotham Chamber Opera, the title role in Albert Herring at The Music Academy of the West, Gonzalve in L’Heure Espagnole and Fenton in Falstaff at the Tanglewood Music Center (both with Seiji Ozawa), and Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw at Chautauqua. A passionate concert and recital performer, Mr. Ferguson has appeared with the American Symphony Orchestra, BBC Orchestra (London), Boston Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (England), Handel and Haydn Society, Houston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, among others.

His repertoire ranges from that of the baroque masters to the song cycles of Schubert, Schumann, Janácek, and Rorem. Ferguson has performed extensively with The Marilyn Horne Foundation as well as the New York Festival of Song. A native of Richmond, Virginia, he holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Music degree from The Juilliard School.

An internationally known conductor, Misha Rachlevsky specializes in chamber music and the repertoire for chamber orchestra. He began his musical education at the age of five with violin lessons. In 1973, after completing studies at the college of the Moscow Conservatory and the Gnessin Academy of Music, Rachlevsky left the Soviet Union to reside and work on three continents. He settled in the United States in 1976. In 1984, he founded the New American Chamber Orchestra (N.A.C.O.) which toured Europe nine times in a four-year period. Rachlevsky brought N.A.C.O. to Granada, Spain, for a two-year residency in 1989 where he also organized and conducted a new chamber orchestra. Following this project, the Swiss record label Claves invited him to record works by Russian composers, and the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, an ensemble of Russian musicians, was originally assembled for that purpose. Compositions by less frequently encountered composers Nikolai Miaskovsky, Mieczyslaw Vainberg, Tchaikovsky, Kalinnikov, and the Danish Niels Gade are included on the initial disc. Rachlevsky has gone on to record over 30 CDs with the group, presenting annual tours internationally.

Jeffrey Swann won first prize in the Dino Ciani Competition sponsored by La Scala in Milan, a gold medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, and top honors at the Warsaw Chopin, Van Cliburn, Vianna da Motta, and Montreal competitions. His varied repertoire includes more than 60 concertos and solo works ranging from Bach to Boulez. In addition to presenting lecture/ recitals worldwide, Mr. Swann has performed with the symphonies of Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Indiana, Dallas, St. Louis, Phoenix, Houston, Rotterdam, The Hague, Belgian National and Radio, Santa Cecilia, La Scala, Maggio Fiorentino (Florence), RAI Turin and Rome, Südwest Rundfunk, Bayerischer Rundfunk, the Prague Philharmonic, Radio France de Montpellier, and the London Philharmonia, among many others. The conductors with whom he has performed include Zdenek Macal, David Robertson, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marek Janowski, Myung-Whun Chung, Roberto Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti and Leonard Slatkin. In addition, he continues to lecture regularly at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany, and at Wagner Societies in the United States and Italy. Mr. Swann has also served as a judge at many competitions, most recently at the Utrecht International Liszt Competition. A native of Northern Arizona, Jeffrey Swann studied with Alexander Uninsky at Southern Methodist University and with Beveridge Webster and Adele Marcus at The Juilliard School, where he received his B.M., M.M. and D.M.A. Degrees. Since 2007 Jeffrey Swann has been Artistic Director of the Dino Ciani Festival & Academy in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Since 2008 he has been the Adel Artist-in-Residence at Northern Arizona University, and is Professor of Piano at New York University.

Piano trio TROIKA features rising stars making their Berkshire debut as an ensemble. Assaf Sommer, pianist, was born in Jerusalem and graduated from the Rubin Academy of Music. He received a Master’s degree at the Manhattan school of Music, where he studied with pianists Eugene Istomin and James Tooco. As a winner of Artists International he was presented in a solo recital debut in Carnegie Hall in 2006. Recent performances include the Steinway Hall series in New York City and an appearance with the Cincinnati Sinfonietta. An adjunct professor of piano and harpsichord at Ohio Northern University, Mr. Sommer is pursuing both a Doctoral degree and Artist Diploma at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati.

Joshua Ulrich, violinist, is completing a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Won-Bin Yim. He also worked there with notable violin pedagogues Dorothy Delay and Henry Meyer. He has performed chamber music alongside many well-known artists including James Tocco, Sarah Sant’Ambrosio, and Awadagin Pratt and has worked extensively with composers Joan Tower, Leon Kirchner, John Harbison, and John Corigliano.

Carmine Miranda, born in Valencia, Venezuela, began his musical studies at the Carabobo State Music Conservatory, graduated from the Private Institute of Musical Education (IPEM), and studied at the Latin American Academy of Violoncello and the Simon Bolivar Conservatory of Music (the institution that spawned the famous “El Sistema”). He is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where he obtained a Bachelors of Arts in Music and is a candidate for a Master’s degree in the studio of Yehuda Hanani. He has performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, the Aula Magna (one of the most important halls in Latin America), and in performances with several orchestras and ensembles including the Caracas Municipal Symphony under the direction of Rodolfo Saglimbeni.