Artists

• Sarah Kirkland Snider

  Curator

  Sarah Kirkland Snider’s compositions have been commissioned and performed by the New York Philharmonic (which presented her trio Thread and Fray on its new-music series in 2018) as well as the Residentie Orkest Den Haag, American Composers Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the San Francisco, National, Detroit, Indianapolis, and North Carolina symphony orchestras; percussionist Colin Currie, violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, and vocalist Shara Nova; and eighth blackbird, The Knights, Ensemble Signal, yMusic, and Roomful of Teeth, among many others. 

  
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• Nadia Sirota

  Host

  Nadia Sirota is a violist, conductor, and Peabody Award–winning producer and broadcaster. In all branches of her artistic life, she aims to introduce classical music to a broader audience.

  
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• Edwin Outwater

  Conductor

  Conductor, curator, and producer Edwin Outwater regularly works with the world’s top orchestras, institutions, and artists to reinvent the concert experience. His effortless ability to cross genres has led to collaborations with a wide range of artists, ranging from Metallica to Wynton Marsalis and Yo-Yo Ma. His mentor Michael Tilson Thomas has described Outwater as “one of the most innovative conductors on the scene today.”

  
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• Shara Nova

  Vocalist

  Shara Nova, a classically trained vocalist and self-taught multi-instrumentalist who records as My Brightest Diamond, explores her curiosity for the ways music animates our daily lives and communal spaces. Her compositions are often collaborative projects outside the concert hall bringing together songwriting and social conversations through various media of film, dance, collective music making, and western classical traditions. Nova has composed works for the Cincinnati Symphony, yMusic, The Crossing, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Brooklyn Rider, Nadia Sirota, and Roomful of Teeth, among others. Many composers, songwriters, and filmmakers have sought out Nova’s voice, including David Lang, David Byrne, The Decemberists, Bryce Dessner, Steve Mackey, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Sufjan Stevens, and Matthew Barney. Her orchestrations have been performed by the Aarhus Symfoni, North Carolina Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, and the BBC Concert Orchestra. Nova is a Kresge fellow, a Carolina Performing Arts Creative Futures fellow, a Knights Grant recipient, and a United States Artists fellow.

  
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• Adam Tendler

  Piano

  A recipient of the Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists, Adam Tendler is an internationally recognized interpreter of living, modern, and classical composers. A pioneer of DIY culture in classical music who has commissioned major works by Christian Wolff and Devonté Hynes alike, at age 23 Tendler performed solo recitals in all 50 states as part of a grassroots tour he called America 88x50, detailed in his memoir, 88x50, a Kirkus Indie Book of the Month and Lambda Literary Award nominee. He has gone on to become one of classical and contemporary music's most recognized and celebrated artists, active as a soloist, recording artist, composer, speaker, and educator. Tendler recently released an album of Liszt's Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses on the Steinway Label, Robert Palmer: Piano Music on New World Records, and published his second book, tidepools. In 2022 he premiered 16 commissioned works by composers including Laurie Anderson, Nico Muhly, Missy Mazzoli, Christopher Cerrone, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Timo Andres, and Pamela Z as part of his project Inheritances. Adam Tendler is a Yamaha Artist.

  
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• Ayane Kozasa

  Viola

  Winner of the 2011 Primrose International Viola Competition, Ayane Kozasa is a sought-after chamber musician, collaborator, and educator. She is a founding member of the Aizuri Quartet, who were the 2018 quartet-in-residence at The Metropolitan Museum, Grand Prize winners of both the Osaka International String Quartet Competition and MPrize Chamber Arts Competition, and recipient of the 2022 Cleveland Quartet Award. The Aizuri Quartet’s debut album, Blueprinting, was nominated for a Grammy Award and named one of NPR’s top ten classical albums of 2018. In 2020 the quartet launched AizuriKids, an interactive web series for children that explores relationships between music and themes ranging from astrophysics to cooking. Kozasa’s most recent passion project, Owls, is a quartet-collective in which she is joined by violinist Alexi Kenney and cellists Gabriel Cabezas and Paul Wiancko. Owls share an uncommonly fierce creative spirit, weaving together new compositions with original arrangements of music ranging from the 1600s to the present. Beginning in the fall of 2022, Ayane Kozasa will be on the viola faculty at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

  
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• Paul Wiancko

  Cello

  Paul Wiancko is a composer, cellist, and frequent collaborator. One of The Washington Post’s “22 for ’22,” Wiancko has worked closely with artists ranging from Max Richter, Chick Corea, and Norah Jones to members of the Emerson, Guarneri, JACK, and Kronos quartets as well as bands such as Arcade Fire, Dirty Projectors, and The National. Chosen as one of Kronos Quartet’s “50 for the Future,” alongside composers including Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson, Paul Wiancko’s own music was recently celebrated in The New York Times’s “5 Minutes That Will Make You Love String Quartets” and is featured on numerous albums, including the Aizuri Quartet’s Grammy-nominated Blueprinting. Wiancko has been composer-in-residence at Spoleto Festival USA, Music from Angel Fire, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, Twickenham, and the Portland, Piedmont, Newburyport, and Methow Valley chamber music festivals. He has composed works for the St. Lawrence, Kronos, Aizuri, Parker, Calder, and Attacca quartets, as well as yMusic, Alexi Kenney, Tessa Lark, and many others. Wiancko currently writes and performs as a member of the viola and cello duo Ayane & Paul and the quartet-collective Owls.

  
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• Kuan Cheng Lu

  Violin

  Violinist Kuan Cheng Lu joined the New York Philharmonic at the start of the 2004–05 season — the first Taiwanese classical musician to earn a seat in the Philharmonic in its 170-year history. Lu has received numerous awards and scholarships that include the top prize in the Taiwan National Violin Competition, first prize in the ASTA string competition, the Raphael Bronstein Award, and the Taiwan Chi-Mei Corporation’s Outstanding Young Artist award. He received his bachelor’s in music degree from Oberlin College, his master’s in music from the Manhattan School of Music, and his doctor of musical arts from the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). He is an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West, now a partner in the New York Philharmonic Global Academy, and has studied with former New York Philharmonic Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, Lisa Kim, Associate Principal, Second Violin Group, and Yoko Takebe. Other teachers have included Roland and Almita Vamos, Daniel Phillips, Julia Bushkova, as well as his father, Chung Chih Lu.

  
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• Anna Rabinova

  Violin

  Violinist Anna Rabinova performs nationally and internationally as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, and recording artist. She joined the New York Philharmonic in 1994, two years after arriving in the United States from her native Russia; in the 2008–09 season she was a soloist with the Orchestra in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, led by Lorin Maazel.

  
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• Na Sun

  Violin

  Violinist Na Sun joined the New York Philharmonic in 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 the highest honor, studying with Yaoji Lin. She was concertmaster of the China Youth Symphony Orchestra, and was soloist in Brahms’s Violin Concerto with the Xiamen Symphony Orchestra. Sun, who has performed in numerous recital and chamber music concerts since arriving in the United States in 2003, received her artist diploma from Boston University in 2005, studying with Roman Totenberg. She was the grand-prize winner of the Bach Competition, attended Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and served as concertmaster of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, led by James Levine. A frequent soloist with major orchestras in China, Sun recently performed with the China National Theater Orchestra and with the Qingdao, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou symphony orchestras, conducted by Yu Long and Tan Dun.

  
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• Andi Zhang

  Violin

  Violinist Andi Zhang joined the New York Philharmonic in January 2019 while studying at the Manhattan School of Music with Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec. She has appeared as soloist with the Beijing, Qingdao, Harbin, and Hong Kong symphony orchestras; Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra; and Munich Radio Orchestra. She has performed in recital in the US, Canada, Germany, and Austria; recorded for film and television, CDs, and the China Central Television program Music Tells You; and led master classes.

  
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• Leah Ferguson

  Viola

  Violist Leah Ferguson joined the New York Philharmonic in October 2018, having previously been a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 2016. Originally from Chicago, she began playing the violin at age five and switched to the viola at age twelve, studying with Roland Vamos.

  
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• Vivek Kamath

  Viola

  Violist Vivek Kamath has been a member of the New York Philharmonic since 1997. Growing up in Rochester, New York, he was a student of Lynn Blakeslee in the preparatory department of the Eastman School of Music.

  
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• Sumire Kudo

  Cello

  Sumire Kudo joined the Philharmonic as a cellist in June 2006. Previously she taught at Indiana University–South Bend and was the cellist of the Avalon String Quartet. Born in Tokyo, Japan, Kudo began cello studies at age four with her father, cellist Akiyoshi Kudo. She came to the United States in 2000, after establishing herself in her native country through solo performances and recordings. Her honors include the Hideo Saito Memorial Fund Award, which she received from the Sony Music Foundation after being chosen by Seiji Ozawa and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi as the most promising cellist in 2005, and prizes at the Sapporo Junior Cello Competition and 62nd Japan Music Competition. Kudo is a graduate of Tokyo’s Toho School and The Juilliard School. She has participated in the Nagano-Aspen Music, Aspen Music, Santa Fe, and Marlboro Music festivals. Record Geijutsu, Japan’s leading classical music magazine, named her second solo CD, Love of Beauty, Best Recording.

  
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• Qiang Tu

  Cello

  Chinese-born cellist Qiang Tu enjoys a multi-faceted career as a performer, teacher, and advocate for classical music. Now in his third decade as a member of the New York Philharmonic, he has also concertized as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician in Australia, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. In the United States he has performed at major venues in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Honolulu, and Princeton. He has shared the stage with numerous distinguished artists including pianists Garrick Ohlsson, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Lukas Foss; former New York Philharmonic Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow; and former Principal Clarinet Stanley Drucker. As a recording artist, Tu has released multiple solo albums on the China Record Corporation label and chamber music recordings on the Bridge Records, Cala Records, and EMI labels. A dedicated teacher, he is a member of the orchestral performance faculty at the Manhattan School of Music; early in his career he taught at the Beijing Central Conservatory.

  
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• Satoshi Okamoto

  Bass

  Satoshi Okamoto was an assistant principal double bassist in the San Antonio Symphony for eight years and a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra for a year before joining the New York Philharmonic in September 2003. He received his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, and a bachelor’s degree from Tokyo University of Fine Arts. An eight-time Aspen Music Festival participant, he won the festival’s bass competition twice, in 1993 and 1997. He also became a finalist of the International Society of Bassist Solo Competition in 1997, and the Izuminomori International Double Bass Competition in 2001. As a chamber musician, he is a member of Bateira trio and La Stella Quattro di Bassi. His teachers include former Philharmonic Principal Bass Eugene Levinson, Paul Ellison, Yoshio Nagashima, and Osamu Yamamoto.

  
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• Sara Griffin

  Librarian

  Sara Griffin joined the New York Philharmonic as Assistant Principal Librarian in September 2009. A native of Springfield, Missouri, Griffin earned a bachelor of music and a doctor of musical arts degree in oboe from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and a master in music degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

  
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