Current Faculty
Telegraph Quartet, quartet in residence
The Telegraph Quartet, consisting of violinists Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violist Pei-Ling Lin, and cellist Jeremiah Shaw, was formed in 2013 with an equal passion for the standard chamber music repertoire as well as contemporary and non-standard repertoire, alike. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2017 as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was most recently awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award. Past prizes include the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. The Quartet has since gone on to perform in concert halls, music festivals, and academic institutions from Los Angeles and New York to Italy and Taiwan, including Carnegie Hall, San Francisco’s Herbst Recital Hall and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Chamber Masters Series and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. In 2016, the Quartet was invited as one of a handful of emerging professional string quartets from around the world to perform in Paris, France at the Biennale de quatuors à cordes, a showcase for major concert presenters of Europe and Asia taking place at the Philharmonie de Paris.
Catalyst Quartet, quartet in residence - Coming in 2022!
Hailed by The New York Times at its Carnegie Hall debut as “invariably energetic and finely burnished… playing with earthy vigor,” the Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet was founded by the internationally acclaimed Sphinx Organization in 2010. The ensemble (Karla Donehew Perez, violin; Abi Fayette, violin; Paul Laraia, viola; and Karlos Rodriguez, cello) believes in the unity that can be achieved through music and imagine their programs and projects with this in mind, redefining and reimagining the classical music experience.
The Catalyst Quartet, known for “perfect ensemble unity” and “unequaled class of execution” (Lincoln Journal Star), has toured widely throughout the United States and abroad, including sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., at Chicago’s Harris Theater, Miami’s New World Center, and Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall in New York. The quartet has been guest soloists with the Cincinnati Symphony, New Haven Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, and has served as principal players and featured ensemble with the Sphinx Organization’s featured ensemble, the Sphinx Virtuosi, on six national tours. They have been invited to perform at important music festivals such as Mainly Mozart in San Diego, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Sitka Music Festival, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Strings Music Festival, and the Grand Canyon Music Festival, where they appear annually. The Catalyst Quartet was ensemble-in-residence at the Vail Dance Festival in 2016. In 2014, they opened the Festival del Sole in Napa, California with Joshua Bell and participated in England’s Aldeburgh Music Foundation String Quartet Residency with two performances in Jubilee Hall.
David Balakrishnan, Jazz
David Balakrishnan, the Turtle Island Quartet’s founder and ‘resident composer,’ graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in music composition and violin. Moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, he quickly established his reputation as a talented young improvising violinist, making guest appearances with the David Grisman Quartet and jazz violin legend Stephane Grappelli, and earning a Masters Degree in music composition at Antioch University West.
His compositional approach—based on the principle of multi-stylistic integration applied to bowed string instruments—established the TIQ template that, in addition to the two GRAMMY® awards for his group, has earned him two GRAMMY® nominations in the arranging category, and most recently a 2016 GRAMMY® nomination in the composition category for his piece “Confetti Man” on the TIQ recording of the same name.
He is the recipient of numerous grants, from private sources such as conductor Marin Alsop, who commissioned his piece for violin and orchestra, “Little Mouse Jumps,” as well as organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, League of American Orchestras and Meet The Composer. In 2005 he received a MTC/ASOL “Music Alive” residency with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra (largest orchestral composing grant of the year) for which he composed six works. The NCO also commissioned Balakrishnan’s composition “Darkness Dreaming,” which premiered in April 2004 with guitarists Sharon Isbin and John Jorgenson.
His piece “Spider Dreams” (1992) has been widely performed and recorded throughout the world by a diverse array of musical organizations, including a live recording by Turtle Island with the Detroit Symphony conducted by Neeme Järvi on Chandos Records. A 2002 commission awarded by a consortium of presenters headed by the Lied Center of Kansas resulted in a string octet entitled “Mara’s Garden Of False Delights,” which is featured on Turtle Island’s Grammy winning Telarc release, “4+Four.”
Again commissioned by the Lied Center in 2008, Balakrishnan composed a full-length work involving theatre, dance, poetry, video, and TIQ with the KU wind ensemble that is an artistic response to the socio/political issues concerning the various theories of evolution, both scientific and cultural, entitled “The Tree Of Life.” In 2015 he received Chamber Music America’s prestigious Classical Commissioning Program grant, supporting a full-length work “Aeroelasticity: Harmonies Of Impermanence,” recorded on the group’s latest CD, “Bird’s Eye View.”
Michele Zukovsky, Clarinet
Michele Zukovsky is a renowned American clarinetist and longest serving member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, serving from 1961 at the age of 18 until her retirement on December 20, 2015.
Zukovsky states today, "I had a lot to prove." She remained undaunted, however, and built a fantastic career not only as an orchestral player, but also as a solo performer, chamber musician, recording artist, and teacher. Over the years with the Los Angeles Philharmonic she has performed clarinet concertos by Mozart, Weber, Hindemith, Nielsen, and Corigliano, among others. She gave the premiere of two important works: Luciano Berio's orchestration of the Brahms F minor Sonata (1986), and a clarinet concerto by American composer John Williams (1991). Zukovsky has also performed at the Marlboro, Casals, and Mostly Mozart festivals, and at music festivals in Austria and Finland.
As a recording artist, Zukovsky's most recent work has been a disc entitled Simeon Bellison: The Arrangements for Clarinet (Summit Records, 2008), a very interesting recording that includes not only arrangements by the well-known Russian-American clarinetist of the first half of the twentieth century, but also Jewish-themed works by other composers. Zukovsky has also championed the works of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů in two discs. The first of these, Otiose Odalisque (Summit Records, 1998), includes the well-known Sonatine as well as the Revue de Cuisine for a mixed chamber ensemble,Pastorals (Stowe) for the unusual combination of five recorders, two violins, cello and piano, and the Quartet for clarinet, horn, cello, and side drum. The second, Intermezzo, released in 1999, includes a variety of mixed chamber music.
Zukovsky's earlier recordings include the Brahms and Mozart Quintets with the Sequoia String Quartet (Electra/Asylum/Nonesuch, 1985); the Beethoven Duos for clarinet and bassoon (Crystal Records, 1987); and Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat with John Houseman narrating (a live performance by members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the 92nd Street Y in New York City). The clarinetist David Blumberg has also produced recordings of several live performances by Zukovsky, including the Williams Clarinet Concerto mentioned earlier.
Alongside her busy performing schedule, Zukovsky is active as a teacher at several institutions, including the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, and most recently at the Pasadena Conservatory of Music. The latter institution has organized an annual Zukovsky Clarinet Competition, the first of which was given in 2014.
Jeffrey LaDeur, piano
Jeffrey LaDeur is known for his “delicate keyboard touch and rich expressivity” (San Francisco Chronicle) and playing described as “deeply moving, probing, felt entirely in the moment” (Eduard Laurel) Much sought after for his rare blend of insight, spontaneity, and approachable, communicative stage presence, Jeffrey has captured the hearts and minds of audiences from the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall to the Shanghai Conservatory and the Orlando Festival in the Netherlands.
Having inherited a rich tradition of pianism and interpretation from Annie Sherter, student of Vlado Perlemuter and Alfred Cortot, LaDeur has established himself as a compelling exponent of the French masters from Couperin to Ravel in addition to a diverse repertoire of canonical and alternative masterpieces. In March of 2018, LaDeur made his solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall on the centennial of Claude Debussy’s death, performing the composer’s complete Etudes with works by Couperin and Chopin. His acclaimed solo album, The Unbroken Line[MSR Classics) is devoted to music of Rameau and Debussy and has been hailed as “a masterpiece of understatement, simplicity, and ‘old school’ chord-playing where every note sings out with meaning” (Gramophone). In 2017, LaDeur founded the San Francisco International Piano Festival for which he serves as artistic director.
As a pianist, LaDeur integrates solo performance and collaboration, blending the intimacy of chamber music with the brio of concertante works. As founding member and pianist of the Delphi Trio, Jeffrey toured internationally with the ensemble for a decade and premiered William Bolcom’s first Piano Trio, written for the ensemble. With mezzo soprano Kindra Scharich he recently recorded To My Distant Beloved, an album exploring the relationship between Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -Leben and his epic Fantasy in C for solo piano, to be released on MSR Classics spring of 2020. Jeffrey has collaborated with distinguished artists such as Robert Mann, Bonnie Hampton, Ian Swensen, Axel Strauss, Geoff Nuttall, Anne Akiko Meyers, David Requiro, and Scott Pingel.
Dedicated to the principle that solo pianists thrive together, rather than as competitors, Jeffrey founded New Piano Collective, an artistic alliance of pianists, dedicated to uniquely personal artistry, collaboration, and ground-breaking programming. In 2017, LaDeur expanded the Collective and founded the San Francisco International Piano Festival, now in its fourth season, for which he serves as artistic director. The festival has quickly become of the most exciting and engaging music festivals in the country.
An active educator, Jeffrey enjoys giving regular masterclasses as a visiting artist to universities across the United States. LaDeur coaches gifted pre-college piano and string ensembles at Young Chamber Musicians in Burlingame, California.
LaDeur holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and San Francisco Conservatory of Music in piano performance and chamber music, respectively. Jeffrey counts among his teachers Mark Edwards, Douglas Humpherys, Yoshikazu Nagai, and Robert McDonald.
Armen Ksajikian, cello
Admired as much for his artistry and as for his sense of humor, Armen Ksajikian started out his professional career at age 12 with the Abkhazian State Philharmonic in the former Soviet Union. Since 1976, Armen has been very active in LA’s musical life, working with such notables as Heifetz, Rostropovich, Van Cliburn, Pavarotti, Rosza, Giulini, Baryshnikov, Cage, Mancini, Corea, Dudamel, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Randy Newman, Zubin Mehta and James Cameron, and with groups such as the Eagles, Incubus, System Of Down, and with the Duke Ellington, Dancing with the Stars and Academy Awards orchestras.
Armen has appeared as a soloist with the Nacional Orchestre du Brazil, Pacific Symphony, and Hollywood Bowl and Los Angeles Chamber orchestras, and regularly subs with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is a member of several ensembles including The Catgut trio, The Rio Trio, California String Quartet and the award-winning Armadillo String Quartet, with whom he performed Haydn’s complete string quartets in a 34 ½ hour marathon. He made his Carnegie Hall debut premiering a quartet by PDQ Bach in 1999 and has appeared in the Cabrillo, Colorado, Banff, Sitka Summer, Oregon Bach, High Desert, Park City and Venice Film festivals; the Rio International Cello Encounter and Jasper Festival of Music and Wine.
In 1993, Armen made his ‘limousine-driving” debut in James Cameron’s True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. Also a busy recording musician – he has over 1,100 movies to his credit – Armen played his own “death scene” in the movie.
Armen’s performances in “less conventional” venues include 16-day whitewater tours down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, “concerts for grizzlies” inside a clarifier tank of an old pulp in Sitka, Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro and at Neverland Ranch. He is particularly proud to have soloed with the Hiland Mountain Women’s String Orchestra at the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center.
Kindra Scharich, mezzo-soprano
Mezzo Soprano Kindra Scharich has been praised by The San Francisco Chronicle for her “exuberant vitality”, “fearless technical precision”, “deep-rooted pathos” and “irrepressible musical splendor.” As a dedicated recitalist, she has performed over 200 art songs in 12 languages and given solo recitals at the The American Composer’s Forum, La Jolla Athenaeum, The Wagner Society, Lieder Alive and the acclaimed Sala Cecília Meireles in Rio de Janeiro. In 2018 Ms. Scharich sang the U.S. Premiere of new songs of Anno Schreier as a co-collaboration between Deutsche Oper Berlin and Lieder Alive. She also continued her partnership with Brazilian pianist Ricardo Ballestero in performing and recording the non-Portuguese repertoire of the great Brazilian composer Alberto Nepomuceno.
A great proponent of Lieder and Chamber Music, she and Jeffrey LaDeur recently recorded “To my distant beloved”, music of Beethoven and Schumann, also to be released in 2020. She has collaborated extensively with the Alexander String Quartet, and in 2018 “In meinem Himmel: The Complete Mahler Song Cycles”, a recording of new transcriptions by Zakarias Grafilo, was released on the Foghorn label. In the world of opera, Ms. Scharich has sung over 30 roles ranging from Monteverdi to Philip Glass. She has taught and given master classes at the Yehudi Menuhin Seminar and Festival for Chamber Music at San Francisco State, Point Loma University and the University of São Paolo, among others. See kindrascharich.com for more information and upcoming concerts.
More coaches TBD
