Violinist Na Sun joined the New York Philharmonic in June 2006. A native of China, she began playing the violin at age seven, and at nine, was accepted into the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. After attending the conservatory’s elementary, middle, and high schools, she received her bachelor of arts degree there with highest honors, studying with Yao-ji Lin, and was the winner of the conservatory violin competition. She received her artist diploma from Boston University’s College of Fine Arts in 2005, studying with Roman Totenberg, and was the grand prize winner of the university’s Bach competition.

Ms. Sun, who has performed in numerous recital and chamber music concerts since arriving in the U.S. in 2003, was a fellow with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in 2005, and served as concertmaster in a program led by James Levine. She attended the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in Blue Hill, Maine, and the National Orchestra Institute in Maryland, both on full scholarship.

Ms. Sun has performed with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra and was a member of the Icelandic National Opera Orchestra. Previously, she was concertmaster of the China Youth Symphony Orchestra; principal of the second violin section at the Central Conservatory Chamber Orchestra; and was the soloist in Brahms’s Violin Concerto with the Xiamen Symphony Orchestra in China, conducted by Michael Feldman.

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Peter Kenote was born in Seattle, Washington. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Washington, and his master’s and doctorate degrees in music performances from The Juilliard School. Since 1983, he has been a member of the New York Philharmonic viola section. His interests include spending time with family, hiking, running, and Bible study.

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Lisa Kim joined the Philharmonic violin section in 1994 and was named Associate Principal, Second Violin Group (In Memory of Laura Mitchell), in 2003. She teaches in South Korea and the United States, and has performed with the Seoul National Philharmonic Orchestra and the SooWon, North Carolina, Winston-Salem, and Durham symphony orchestras. Ms. Kim’s chamber music activities have included the Philharmonic Ensembles series, Hofstra Chamber Ensemble series, Mostly Chamber Festival, Lyric Chamber Music Society, and Brooklyn’s Bargemusic; collaborations with the late Lukas Foss, Lynn Harrell, Ani Kavafian, Yo-Yo Ma, and Garrick Ohlsson; European performances under the International Music Program; and Jordan’s Jurash Festival at the invitation of King Hussein. Lisa Kim began violin studies at age seven, attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School. She has won prizes in the Arts Recognition and Talent Search, Bryan Young Artists String Competition, Winston-Salem Young Talent Search, and Durham Symphony Young Artists Competition. She joined the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music in 1999.

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Violinist Minyoung Chang joined the New York Philharmonic in September 2006, having served as a substitute with the Orchestra since 2003. A native of Seoul, South Korea, Ms. Chang came to the U.S. at the age of six, beginning her violin studies at San Francisco Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division with Zaven Melikian. She continued her training at the Juilliard Pre-College Division, where she later received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She studied with Dorothy DeLay, New York Philharmonic Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, and Lisa Kim, Associate Principal, Second Violin Group.

Ms. Chang has appeared as soloist with the New Jersey Symphony, Salzburg Chamber Orchestra, Music Academy of the West, Aspen Festival Young Artist Orchestra, and other ensembles. Her numerous awards include first prize in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra competition; a winner at the Music Academy of the West Concerto Competition; and grand prize and first-prize winner at the American String Teachers Association. An avid chamber musician, she has participated in the Taos Chamber Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, and the Sarasota and Aspen Music Festivals.

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Violist Vivek Kamath joined the New York Philharmonic in January 1998. Mr. Kamath earned his bachelor's degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with Donald Weilerstein. He has appeared as soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra. An avid chamber musician, he has performed at the Marlboro, Ravinia, Sarasota, Blossom, and Bowdoin festivals. In 1997 Mr. Kamath was a prize-winner in the Washington International String Competition and in the Irving Klein International String Competition. In his spare time he enjoys playing tennis, studying wildlife, and dining out.

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Cellist Ru-Pei Yeh, who joined the New York Philharmonic in September 2006, has performed regularly as a recitalist in her native Taiwan and in the U.S. A founding member of the Formosa Quartet, formed in 2003, she has served as acting principal cello of the San Diego Symphony and the San Diego Opera, in addition to performing with a string quartet of principal players from the San Diego Symphony. She has made solo appearances with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, National Taiwan Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina School of the Arts’s International Music Program Orchestra, and Kuan-Jen School Orchestra, and is the winner of numerous competitions.

Ms. Yeh, who has been performing professionally since the age of 10, moved to the U.S. at 13 to study with Orlando Cole at the Temple Preparatory School. She received her bachelor of music degree from the New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Laurence Lesser, and her master’s degree from The Juilliard School in 2004, studying with Joel Krosnick. She received her artist diploma from Juilliard in 2006.

Lisa GiHae Kim joined the New York Philharmonic’s violin section in February, 2003. As a soloist, Ms. Kim has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. John’s Smith Square (under the direction of Lord Yehudi Menuhin), Santa Cruz Symphony Orchestra, San Angelo Symphony, Flint Symphony Orchestra, and other ensembles.

An active chamber musician, Ms. Kim has participated in the Taos Chamber Music Festival, and the Aspen and Sarasota music festivals, and has toured with the American Chamber Players and the International Sejong Soloists.

Ms. Kim was awarded the top prize in the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, the Irving M. Klein International String Competition, and the Kingsville International Young Performer’s Competition. As a Presidential Scholar, Ms. Kim performed in recital at the Kennedy Center.

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Violist Rebecca Young joined the Philharmonic in 1986 as its youngest member and in 1991 was named the Orchestra’s Associate Principal Viola. After serving as principal of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1992–93, she resumed her Philharmonic Associate Principal position in 1994. She has performed chamber music with groups such as the Boston Chamber Music Society, Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has recorded Schubert’s Trout Quintet with Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Pamela Frank, and Edgar Meyer (on Sony Classical). In 1999 Ms. Young performed the world premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Two Paths, a work commissioned by the Philharmonic and underwritten by then-Music Director Kurt Masur’s wife, Tomoko, for Ms. Young and Philharmonic Principal Viola Cynthia Phelps. The two reprised the work with the Philharmonic on several of the Orchestra’s tours. She made her most recent Philharmonic solo appearances in December 2008. Ms. Young is a graduate of The Juilliard School.

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Before joining the New York Philharmonic in 1997, cellist Eric Bartlett had already established himself as an artist of formidable talent and artistic integrity. He has appeared frequently as a member soloist with the world famous Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and is featured on several of their Deutsche Grammophon recordings. In addition to Orpheus, his solo appearances include the Cabrillo Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the Anchorage Symphony, the Hartford Chamber Orchestra, the Aspen and Juilliard Orchestras, and the New York Philharmonic’s “Horizons ‘84” series. Mr. Bartlett is the recipient of a Solo Recitalist’s Award from the National Endowment for the Arts and a special Performance Award as a finalist of the 1987 New England Conservatory/Piatigorsky Award. Recent solo appearances include the Cabrillo Music Festival, and the Brattleboro Music Center in Vermont.

Recognized as a leading performer of contemporary music, Mr. Bartlett has participated in more than 90 premieres with ensembles such as Speculum Musicae, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Group for Contemporary Music, and the Columbia String Quartet, and he has commissioned new works for the cello from American composers. During the summer of 2000, Mr. Bartlett was invited by Marin Alsop to be a featured soloist in the North American premiere of James McMillan’s Triduum, the middle third of which is a cello concerto. He has served as either Artist-President or Vice-President of Speculum Musicae since 1990. Mr. Bartlett has performed at the Mostly Mozart, Marlboro, Aspen, Adirondack, Grand Teton, and Waterloo music festivals, and has been a regular participant at the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival since 1996. Mr. Bartlett served as the principal cellist of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and co-principal of Orpheus from 1984 until 1997.

A native of Marlboro, Vermont, Mr. Bartlett’s early teachers included George Finckel and Blanche Honegger Moyse. From 1973 to 1975 he was a student of Leopold Teraspulsky at the University of Massachusetts. He was awarded full scholarships to both the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School and received both his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Juilliard, where he was a student of Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins.

Mr. Bartlett recorded the cello music of Larry Bell for North-South Records on a CD entitled River of Ponds (which includes a collaboration with narrator Robert J. Lurtsema) and has also recorded for CRI, Opus One, Bridge, Delos, and Deutsche Grammophon. He has served on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts and is currently an adjunct professor at The Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music. He lives in Bergen County, New Jersey, with his wife, Orpheus violist Sarah Clarke, and their son, Cory.

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Bassist David J. Grossman began playing with the New York Philharmonic as its youngest member in December 1999 before graduating from The Juilliard School in May 2000. Born and educated in New York City, Mr. Grossman has performed as double bassist and pianist in orchestral, chamber, and jazz venues worldwide. He is a member of the double bass faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School.

An active chamber musician, Mr. Grossman performs in both the New York Philharmonic’s chamber concerts in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y, with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles Concerts at Merkin Concert Hall, and has performed with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Most recently, he was a featured artist in the 2007 Portland (Maine) Chamber Music Festival as well as the Mt. Desert Festival.

As a composer, Mr. Grossman wrote Mood Swings for trombone and double bass for New York Philharmonic Principal Trombone Joseph Alessi, and composed Fantasy on “Shall We Gather at the River?” for New York Philharmonic English Horn Thomas Stacy’s recording, Plaintive Melody. Two earlier compositions, Swing Quartet and String Quintet No. 1, were written for The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

In the realm of jazz, Mr. Grossman was a member of the Marcus Roberts Trio whose 1996 Columbia recording, Time and Circumstance, was listed in the “best top ten jazz CDs of the year" in both Time and The New York Times. He has also performed with Wynton Marsalis, Lew Tabackin, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Richard Stoltzman, and has recorded with David Morgan and Loston Harris. Bringing together both his classical and jazz interests, Mr. Grossman performed in an impromptu jazz ensemble during a week of joint concerts with the New York Philharmonic and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, culminating in a Live From Lincoln Center telecast and radio broadcast. Mr. Grossman has released two CDs (one classical and one jazz) entitled The Bass of Both Worlds, available at www.davidjgrossman.com.

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Violinist Elizabeth Zeltser joined the New York Philharmonic at the start of the 2003–04 season. Born in New York City into a family of Russian musicians, Ms. Zeltser began her violin studies at age three, and made her New York debut at age five with the Mannes College of Music Orchestra, performing Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto under the baton of Felix Kruglikov. At five, she also appeared on Israeli television with her father, Mark Zeltser, a renowned concert pianist.

Ms. Zeltser studied at The Juilliard School with Dorothy DeLay. While a student, she won the prestigious Juilliard Concerto Competition, and later continued her studies at the Moscow Conservatory, where she earned her master’s degree in music performance. Upon her return to the U.S., she enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music, where her studies were supervised by New York Philharmonic Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, and by Orchestra violinist Yoko Takebe.

Elizabeth Zeltser has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras in the U.S., Canada, Italy, France, Russia, and South America. Her most recent performances included a European tour in Austria and Hungary with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Zeltser speaks French, Italian, Russian, and English, and is an accomplished swimmer.

A former Naumburg Scholarship winner and graduate of The Juilliard School, Irene Breslaw joined the viola section of the New York Philharmonic in August 1976. She was named Assistant Principal Viola in 1989. Prior to joining the Orchestra, Ms. Breslaw was a member of both the St. Louis Symphony Ochestra and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In May 2001 Ms. Breslaw celebrated 25 years as a member of the New York Philharmonic.

An active chamber musician, Ms. Breslaw appears regularly with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles. In the summers of 1993 and 1995, she traveled to Finland to perform chamber music with several of her Philharmonic colleagues and to coach members of the VIVO Youth Orchestra, an experience she found extremely rewarding. She has also recorded the Mozart Clarinet Trio, "Kegelstatt," with Principal Clarinet Stanley Drucker and pianist Lukas Foss for Elysium Records. Since 1998 Ms. Breslaw has been on the orchestral performance faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, and is an adjunct at Queens College.

Ms. Breslaw is married to Dr. Daniel Grapel and is the mother of a son and daughter.

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