This Piano Quintet is an incredibly special piece in my catalog. It is in this piece that I began exploring elements of Hindustani classical music for the first time.

My path to Hindustani classical music was circuitous: at the point I wrote this piece, I had been yearning for years to understand the music of my own culture, but I hadn't quite found my way in. It wasn't until my mid-20s, and (surprisingly) during my Masters program at Yale School of Music, that I truly began to engage in a thorough study of the music from my own culture. The minute I felt my voice make that first little gamak, something opened in me, and I knew I had no other choice but to continue peering intently down that path.

Practically, this is my first attempt at an aalap (unmetered improvisation) section for a Western ensemble. The outer two sections have overlapping melodies that are reminiscent of those found at the beginning of a performance of Hindustani vocal music. And the middle section uses a beautiful bandish (song) called Jhanan Jhanan, in Raag Bihag, about Lord Krishna as a mischievous child stealing butter. I love the intimacy of Bihag, the way it slides between the two Ma-s (sharp and natural 4) with such love and sweetness.

This piece is the first step of what became, from that moment forward, a lifelong journey into the space between these two cultures that define me.

This work was commissioned by the Norfolk Music Festival. It was premiered on August 14, 2010 in Norfolk, CT.

Indian-American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces. 

Esmail’s life and music was profiled on Season 3 of PBS Great Performances series Now Hear This, as well as Frame of Mind, a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Esmail divides her attention evenly between orchestral, chamber and choral work. She has written commissions for ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale,  Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Kronos Quartet, and her music has featured on multiple Grammy-nominated albums, including The Singing Guitar by Conspirare, BRUITS by Imani Winds, and Healing Modes by Brooklyn Rider. Many of her choral works are published by Oxford University Press.

Esmail is the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 2020-2025 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and was Seattle Symphony’s 2020-21 Composer-in-Residence. She has been in residence with Tanglewood Music Center (co-Curator – 2023) and Spoleto Festival (Chamber Music Composer-in-Residence – 2024) inShe also holds awards/fellowships from United States Artists, the S&R Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Kennedy Center.

Esmail holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School (BM’05) and the Yale School of Music (MM’11, MMA’14, DMA’18). Her primary teachers have included Susan Botti, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Christopher Rouse and Samuel Adler. She received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. Her Hindustani music teachers include Srimati Lakshmi Shankar and Gaurav Mazumdar, and she currently studies and collaborates with Saili Oak. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Finding Common Ground: Uniting Practices in Hindustani and Western Art Musicians explores the methods and challenges of the collaborative process between Hindustani musicians and Western composers.

Esmail was Composer-in-Residence for Street Symphony (2016-18) and is currently an Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting music traditions of India and the West.

She currently resides in her hometown of Los Angeles, California.

Thousandth Orange begins with a very simple 4-chord progression. Nothing fancy. Nothing extravagant. Just something quite beautiful and everyday, that is enjoyed and loved and consumed and forgotten. Something you’ve probably heard before, in a pop song or a music theory class. While considering my love of Brahms' piano quartets and my memory of playing them—and more generally how our memories of beloved music evolve over time—I began thinking about the history of still-life paintings. Those bowls of fruit we see framed in museums—sort of lovely and banal, at first glance, but then richer when considered in the long story of humans painting things that they see, over and over and over again. There's a reason that Van Gogh painted those vases of sunflowers again and again, or Caravaggio his fruit. Maybe after the tenth, or the hundredth, or the thousandth time one paints, or looks at, or eats, an orange (or plays a simple cadential figure), it is just as beautiful as the first time. There is still more to see and to hear and to love. More angles reveal themselves—more perspectives and corners and stories, more understanding—more appreciation of something that most would consider unremarkable. Thousandth Orange is about these tiny oblique revelations that time's filter can open up in a musical memory. The title also suggests a thousand different shades of the color orange, or the image of a thousand oranges, or perhaps a thousand ways of looking at an orange. 

Caroline Shaw is a musician who moves among roles, genres, and mediums, trying to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed. She works often in collaboration with others, as producer, composer, violinist, and vocalist. Shaw is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Music, an honorary doctorate from Yale, four Grammys, and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. She has written and produced for iconic artists and ensembles across the musical spectrum, including Rosalía, Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Tiler Peck, Nas, Kanye West, the LA Phil, the NY Phil, and others. Recent tv/film/stage scoring projects include “Leonardo Da Vinci” (Ken Burns/PBS), “Julie Keeps Quiet (Leonardo Van Dijl), “Fleishman is in Trouble” (FX/Hulu), “The Sky Is Everywhere” (Josephine Decker/A24), vocal work with Rosalía (MOTOMAMI), “The Crucible” (Lyndsey Turner/National Theatre), “Partita” (Justin Peck/NYC Ballet), “Moby Dick” (Wu Tsang), and “LIFE” (Gandini Juggling/Merce Cunningham Trust). Current touring projects include shows with Sō Percussion, Ringdown, Attacca Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, Graveyards & Gardens, Gabriel Kahane, and Kamus Quartet. Her favorite color is yellow, and her favorite smell is rosemary.

Tourbillon features a cyclical, repetitive musical idea in which alternating notes are traded between the two instruments. The title literally means “whirlwhind” in French, but can also refer to the rotating mechanism inside a watch. Written in the course of a single day as part of a composition project at the Tanglewood Music Festival, the original version was for two cellos, and highlighted the possibilities of a single line shared by two of the same instrument. In the later version for saxophone and cello (which was arranged by cellist Steven Thomas with my input), the single line is divided between two distinct instruments, eschewing the individual characteristics of the instruments in favor of a combined, multifaceted texture.

Praised as “colorful” and “engaging” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Scott Lee’s music often takes inspiration from popular genres, exploring odd-meter grooves and interlocking hockets while featuring pointillistic orchestration and extended performance techniques. He marries the traditional intricacy of classical form with the more body-centered and visceral language of popular music, crafting compositions that are both “rigorously contemporary and fully accessible” (AllMusic). The Berkshire Edge described the world premiere of his Slack Tide, commissioned by the Tanglewood Music Center, as having “moments both of calm and maximum tension...we’ve never heard anything like it.”

Lee has worked with leading orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, the Bozeman Symphony, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Symphony in C, the Moravian Philharmonic, Raleigh Civic Symphony, the Occasional Symphony, the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, and members of the Winston-Salem Symphony, as well as chamber groups such as the JACK Quartet, yMusic, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Icarus Quartet, Deviant Septet, chatterbird, ShoutHouse, Verdant Vibes, and pop artist Ben Folds. Recent commissioners include the Bozeman Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, Florida State Music Teachers Association, loadbang, and the Raleigh Civic Symphony.

Notable performances include the world premiere of Lee’s Vicious Circles by Symphony in C and a reading and performance of Anadyr by the American Composers Orchestra, conducted by George Manahan, as part of the 27th Annual Underwood New Music Readings In New York City. Three pieces by Lee – Drip Study, Tourbillion, and Car Alarm Strut – were premiered at a Tanglewood Music Center concert led by Michael Gandolfi with coaching by composer Osvaldo Golijov.

Lee currently serves as the Bozeman Symphony’s first-ever Composer-in-Residence, a three-year role that began in 2021. The residency involves three commissions for new orchestral compositions and co-curation of the new Current Commotion contemporary music series with Music Director Norman Huynh. The first commission, a concert-opener inspired by the city of Bozeman entitled The Last Best Place, was premiered on the Bozeman Symphony’s 2021-22 season-opening weekend. The second commission will be in honor of Yellowstone National Park’s 150th anniversary, and will be premiered in February of 2023.

A native Floridian, Lee has often found inspiration in the natural landscape and history of his home state. In November 2020, New Focus Recordings released a recording of Lee’s 45-minute work Through the Mangrove Tunnels to international acclaim, with positive reviews in The Wire, BBC Music Magazine, and AllMusic among others. Performed by the JACK Quartet, pianist Steven Beck, and drummer Russell Lacy, the piece is inspired by the history and Lee's personal memories of Weedon Island, a nature preserve Lee grew up exploring in Florida.

Notable honors include a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, winner of the Symphony In C Young Composer’s Competition, the Grand Prize in the PARMA Student Composer Competition, and the Gustav Klemm Award in Composition from the Peabody Institute. Lee has received fellowships from the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Copland House’s CULTIVATE program, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Aspen Music Festival.

Active as a music educator, Lee is currently Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Florida School of Music, and has previously worked as a Lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an Instructor at Duke University. Lee earned a PhD in Composition at Duke University, and also holds degrees from the Peabody Institute and Vanderbilt University.

The title Tapis – carpet, fabric – refers to the web-like arrangement of soundscapes, which confirm Yun's conception of tone as a "brushstroke," as a band of sound. Thus, Tapis – the work can be performed both solo and with a string orchestra – is woven from small and tiny intervallic cells. On the other hand, the interlinking of these cells leads to far-reaching melodic developments in an almost symphonically dense gesture.

This virtuoso work displays an almost symmetrical tripartite structure with the tempo characteristics fast – slow – fast. Yun divides the five-part texture into the sound groups of the low and high strings, with the viola taking a mediating position and entering into alternating alliances with the violins or basses. The progression of the first nine bars already anticipates the overall form – at least of the fast corner sections: small intervals dominate; Powerfully articulated motivic cells, expanded into bands of sound by trills and glissandi, are driven upwards—toward heaven—until the seventh bar, before plunging relatively abruptly into the depths. The high strings carry the melodic development here, receiving rhythmic support from pizzicato impulses from the lower strings. Yun's principle of "role reversal" determines the structure throughout: In the ninth bar, the low strings take up the melodic gesture of the violins and are given a rhythmic contour by short two-note motifs in the upper voices, etc.

In the contrasting middle section, Yun unfolds the cantabile of a dolce movement. In the concluding third section, he achieves extreme heights and expression with massive clusters of sound, rhythmic and gestural unification, extreme dynamics, and extremely high registers.

Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer (1999)

Isang Yun’s oeuvre rests upon the flexible, vibrant tone of his native country’s traditional music. Yet in the integration of dodecaphony and “developing variation” into his own “main-tone technique”, Yun’s music is also rooted in the European tradition. His composing manner blends eastern and western elements into a unique personal style, into the art of gliding transition in the spirit of Tao.

Isang Yun was born on September 17, 1917 near the southeastern seaport Tongyông, at a time when the Korean peninsula was under Japanese occupation. Yun took part in the resistence against Japan, and in 1943, he was imprisoned and tortured. After receiving the Seoul City Culture Award in 1955, he was able to study in Paris and Berlin from 1956 to 1959. In Berlin he studied with former Schönberg-disciple Josef Rufer, learning how to compose “with twelve tones related only to one another”. From Germany, Yun was able to establish contact with and was a part of the international avant-garde.

His Buddhistic oratorio Om mani padme hum met with broad resonance in 1965; the premiere of the orchestral Réak at the Donaueschingen Festival in 1966 lead to his international breakthrough. In 1967 Yun was abducted form Berlin to Seoul by the Korean secret police, and was tortured and charged with high treason. In a political show trial he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance, but released in 1969 after international protests. In 1971 he became a German citizen.

From 1969 up to and including the summer semester of 1971, Yun held a teaching position in composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover. From 1970 to 1985 Yun taught composition at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin, from 1974 on as honorary professor and since 1977 as full professor. His oeuvre includes more than a hundred works, among them four operas and a number of instrumental concertos. In the 1980s he composed a series of five major, interrelated symphonies; during that period Yun also developed a new tone in his chamber works, which are characterised by the striving for harmony and peace. At the same time, reconciliation on the Korean peninsula was his political goal.

Isang Yun died on November 3, 1995 in Berlin, and was interred in a grave of honour provided by the City Senate (Landschaftsfriedhof Gatow). His grave was moved to Tongyeong in spring 2018 at the request of the composer’s family.
Yun was a member of the Academies of Arts in Hamburg and Berlin, honorary member of the International Society for New Music, held an honorary doctorate from the University of Tübingen, and was awarded the Goethe Medal of the Goethe Institute and the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Education is something that is very near and dear to my heart. When I studied music and science education at the University of Georgia, my master’s thesis was titled Scaffolding in the Classroom and dealt with the application of inquiry-based learning inspired by the Socratic method. Education has the ability to open up doors for everyone. Before the integration of schools some of my forefathers opened up Cooper’s Academy in Kingstree, SC which was built from 1905-1906. My ancestors knew the importance of providing opportunities for the African American children in their community even in a segregated world. Education has played an important role in my family with both of my parents and one of my grandmothers working as educators.  Education is not always linear, it may lead to college, it may lead to trade school, it may lead to learning something new, but openness to learning and growing in wisdom and knowledge is always important

Lauren is a composer and educator from Atlanta, Georgia. She studies music technology at the Georgia Institute of Technolog and is an alumni of the Vermont College of Fine Arts where she studied music composition. Lauren is an active music educator developing curriculum for the websites EarSketch and TunePad through her graduate research assistantship at Georgia Tech.

Lauren has had compositions performed around North America and in Europe. This includes her piece for piano, Shake the Earth, which was performed in Morehead, Kentucky at Morehead State University’s Contemporary Piano Festival, along with being performed in Eugene, Oregon at the Oregon Bach Festival Composers’ Symposium. Her arrangement of the spiritual I’m Troubled was performed in Lakeland, Florida at Florida Southern College for the Grady Rayam Prize in Sacred Music, and her graphic score composition The Fish Wife was performed in Montreal, Canada by the ensemble Amis Orgue Montreal. Along with composing Lauren also enjoys playing classical music and jazz on the clarinet and piano, spending time with family and friends, and traveling.

Laura Usiskin (she/her) is dedicated to enriching the world through music performance, education, and innovation. Praised for her "electrifying" (EarRelevant) and "thoughtful, attentive" playing (Alabama Entertainment), performances have taken her throughout the United States and Europe, including the Kennedy Center, Palazzo Chigi Saracini (Siena, Italy), Symphony Hall (Boston), and New York venues including Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall, Zankel Hall, Merkin Hall, Miller Theatre, Barge Music, Steinway Hall, Klavierhaus, and more. She has been honored to receive the Prix d’Instrument from the Écoles d'art Americaines (France) and the Aldo Parisot Prize at Yale University.

Usiskin is a devoted chamber musician and has performed with such renowned artists as Emanuel Ax, Richard Stoltzman, and Ani Kavafian. As a founding and current member of the Bayberry String Quartet, Usiskin has performed at Carnegie Hall, Chautauqua Institute, and has released the album Only Mozarts in the Building featuring the six Mozart Milanese string quartets. Usiskin is also a co-founder of the Atlanta-based nonprofit ensemble vim, a new music collective whose initiatives include composer commissions, interdisciplinary projects, and educational outreach. In addition, Usiskin tours throughout the country as the cellist of the Astralis Ensemble.

Solo performances include the complete J.S. Bach solo suites as well as concertos of Dvořák and Shostakovich with the Montgomery Symphony and Orchestra Iowa respectively, with an upcoming solo performance with the Georgia Philharmonic in Fall 2024.

While completing the Artist-In-Residency program with the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, Usiskin founded and served as the inaugural Executive Director the Montgomery Music Project, an El Sistema strings program for school students of all income levels in Montgomery, Alabama. Now more than ten years old, the program has given intensive string instruction to more than a thousand children across three counties.

A committed educator, Usiskin has served on the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, through which she founded the chamber concert series Chamber Music @ AEIVA, as well as Birmingham-Southern College, Alabama School of Fine Arts, and STEP Birmingham. She currently maintains a private studio of cello students at her home in Atlanta.

Usiskin's cello studies began at age five with Gilda Barston of the Music Institute of Chicago and continued with Richard Hirschl of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She graduated from Columbia University cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience and Behavior, The Juilliard School with a Master of Music, and Yale University with a Doctor of Musical Arts.

Emily Koh is a Singaporean composer-bassist based in Atlanta whose music aims to elevate the ordinary by sonically expounding everyday human experiences. Her music usually consists of multiple layers of details that are intricately weaved together, and can be self-described as other-worldly with raw and intense grit. She is a multi-faceted creator who learns, reflects and works best by working collaboratively with other artists.

Described as “the future of composing” (The Straits Times, Singapore), Emily is the recipient of awards such as the Copland House Residency Award, Young Artist Award (National Arts Council, Singapore), Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize (Asian Composers League), ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Prix D’Ete (Peabody), and the Macagnoni Prize for Innovative Research (University of Georgia). Her work is supported with commissions, grants and fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, National Arts Council (Singapore), Opera America, New Music USA, MacDowell, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, American Composers’ Orchestra, Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy, the Paul Abisheganaden Grant for Artistic Excellence (National University of Singapore) and others. Described as “beautifully eerie” (New York Times), and “subtley spicy” (Baltimore Sun), Emily’s music has been performed around the world in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Israel, Croatia, Greece, Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, by acclaimed ensembles such as Guerilla Opera, Alarm Will Sound, PRISM Quartet, New Thread Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, Talea Ensemble, Transient Canvas, New York New Music Ensemble, New York Virtuoso Singers, Departure Duo (US/DE), Strings and Hammers (US/FI), Orquesta Sinfónica de Aguascalientes (Mexico), Trio Accanto (DE), Avanti! (FI), orkest de ereprijs (NL), Tacet(i) (Thailand), Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Next Mushroom Project (JP), TACETi (Thailand), National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Chai Found Music Workshop (TW), Ding Yi Music Company (Singapore), Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Chinese Orchestra, Noa Even (saxophone), Clare Longendyke (piano), Lilit Hartunian (violin) and others. Her music is published by Babel Scores (Europe) and Poco Piu Publishing (worldwide), and can be heard on the Innova, XAS, New Focus and Ravello labels.

Emily is currently Associate Professor of Music Composition at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, University of Georgia (UGA), USA. She also taught at the Alba Music Festival Composition Program (Italy), International Composition Institute of Thailand, Asia-Pacific Saxophone Academy (Thailand) and the Etchings Festival (USA). Prior to UGA, she taught at Brandeis and Harvard Universities, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Longy School of Music (Bard College) and Walnut Hill School for the Arts. She graduated from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore (BM Music Composition), the Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University (MM Music Composition and Music Theory Pedagogy), and Brandeis University (Ph.D. graduate in Music Composition and Theory), where she studied with Ho Chee Kong, Kevin Puts, David Rakowski, Eric Chasalow and Yu-Hui Chang. She has attended academies such as Composers Conference, June in Buffalo, Mizzou International Composers Festival, Red Note New Music Festival, Young Composers Meeting (NL), Savellyspaja (FI), Delian Academy (GR), and Takefu International Music Festival (JP).

Emily is on the leadership team of ensemble vim, a new music collective in Atlanta. She is also the National Treasurer of the Society of Composers Inc., and serves on the advisory boards of Composers Conference, Indictus Project, Atlanta Contemporary Music Collective, and Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble. She had also held artistic and administrative positions at the Boston New Music Initiative (Director of Concert Series, 2012-2016), Lunar Ensemble (composer-in-residence, 2012-2014) and Composers Society of Singapore (CSS) (honorary ex-co member, 2014-2020), and is a member of ASCAP, SCI, and CSS.

Besides music, Emily is a foodie, an amateur artist, and a wannabe gardener. She enjoys a good cup of tea, horror movies and strategy board games.

Pianist Choo Choo Hu has been recognized as a musician of inordinate versatility. Praised by The Bethlehem Morning Call as “one of the finest musicians I’ve ever heard…her technique was as solid and smooth as could be wished…in addition, she managed to bring out the richness of Schubert’s music with impeccable phrasing and tempi.”

Choo Choo has performed across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia as a soloist, chamber musician, and collaborative pianist. Always striving for versatility and new challenges, she has shared the stage with everyone from the Imani Winds to John Legend. Recent solo engagements include appearances with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Spokane Symphony. As an orchestral musician, she has played with the Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Prince George’s Philharmonic, and York Symphony. Her solo and chamber music performances have been broadcast on NPR’s Performance Today, WYPR in Baltimore, and WABE in Atlanta. As a repetiteur, she has worked with the Atlanta Opera, as well as with the Prague Summer Nights Opera Festival in such venues as the Mozarteum in Salzburg and various palaces throughout the Czech Republic.

An avid proponent of contemporary music, Choo Choo is a founding member of the Atlanta-based new music collective ensemble vim, now entering its sixth season. She has played for the contemporary opera workshop NANOworks, was a core member of the SONAR New Music Ensemble, and has performed alongside members of Alarm Will Sound and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Her guest artist residencies include the Levine School of Music, McDaniel College, Washington University, and East Central College, as well as the Prague Summer Nights Festival, the Bethlehem Music Festival, the Heifetz International Music Institute, and the Wintergreen Performing Arts Festival. Never one to shy away from a crossover opportunity, she is also a founding member of the Disney rock band Godmother.

Born in China and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Choo Choo began taking lessons at the age of five with pianist John Sun. She made her concerto debut at age twelve with the Washington University Symphony Orchestra. By the time she was sixteen she had already accumulated top prizes at competitions throughout the United States such as the Missouri Southern International Piano Competition, the Biennial Lee Competition, the Washington University Young Artists Concerto Competition, and the St. Louis Symphony Youth Concerto Competition. At age seventeen she enrolled at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, studying with renowned musicians Leon Fleisher and Brian Ganz. While at Peabody, Choo Choo was the recipient of the Albert and Rosa Silverman Memorial Scholarship, the Yale Gordon Chamber Music Fellowship, and the Grace Clagett Ranney Prize in Chamber Music.

Choo Choo currently resides in Atlanta with her husband, where they live their best DINKWAD lives (Dual Income No Kids With A Dog.) She loves nothing more than to host wine and music reading parties, and dreams of one day opening a chamber music festival/farming co-op somewhere in the mountains.

Jessica is a member of the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and regularly performs with the Atlanta Symphony and Ballet Orchestras. She has performed extensively throughout the United States and Europe, with performances in New York City, Los Angeles, Italy, and Switzerland. In 2019, Jessica made her solo debut with the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra performing Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major and has also appeared as a featured recitalist at Music at St. Luke’s.

Jessica currently serves as Acting Principal Second Violin in the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and regularly performs with the Atlanta Symphony and Ballet Orchestras. She frequently appears as Concertmaster of the Carroll Symphony Orchestra. Jessica recently made her debut at the legendary Apollo Theater in New York City with jazz composer and trumpeter Russell Gunn and his orchestra.

A passionate and active chamber musician, Jessica is a founding member of Mosaic Quartet and a member of Ensemble ATL. She has made appearances with the Laridae Quintet, Edgewood String Quartet, and Ensemble VIM. She recently made her concert debut with pianist Portia Hawkins featuring a thoughtfully curated program of works for violin and piano by black composers. One of her many performances as a member of the University of South Carolina String Quartet was lauded for its “classical style and technical competence” by The New York Times, adding that groups of such caliber “are not the exclusive property of big cities and international arts centers”.

Jessica currently serves on the violin faculty at the Georgia State University School of Music and maintains a private home teaching studio. Her students are members of the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, Emory Youth Symphony Orchestra, and the Georgia All-State Orchestras. She has conducted masterclasses and workshops for institutions such as the University of South Carolina, the Atlanta Music Project, and Atlanta Public Schools.

Jessica is a graduate of Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston, Texas, having received a Master’s degree in Violin Performance with Mr. Kenneth Goldsmith. She has also studied with Dr. William Terwilliger at the University of South Carolina and David Kim, Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Jessica currently resides in her birthplace of Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband McKinley and son James.

Atlanta native Tramaine Jones has had a calling for music from the day she was born. As the only child of jazz performing song writers, she was deeply immersed in music from a very young age. Once she discovered the violin at the age of 9, she knew that she had finally found where she belonged in the musical world. Her violin studies eventually took her to Northwestern University, where she earned a bachelors degree in Violin Performance and masters degree in Music Education.

Today Tramaine is recognized for her passionate performances and beautiful tone where she takes center stage in Atlanta’s thriving music scene. Her remarkable talent graces a variety of musical settings, from the intimate ambiance of chamber and solo music to the classical realm of symphony, theatre, and opera orchestras.

Tramaine is a founding member of the Mosaic Quartet where she enjoys sharing music with audiences in recitals and youth outreach. In addition, she has performed with the Augusta Symphony, Tulsa Symphony, Tuscaloosa Symphony, Macon Symphony, Atlanta Lyric Orchestra, City Springs Theatre Orchestra, Clayton State Opera Orchestra, LaGrange Symphony where she also serves as the Music Librarian, as a founding member and Concertmaster of the Southern Strings Sinfonia, and many more. She was honored to join The Atlanta Opera as a sub violinist for their 2024 production Die Walkure and will join them again for their Spring 2025 production Siegfried. Tramaine also enjoys playing pop music, particularly Bollywood events. She has collaborated in concert and recording sessions with artists John Legend, Kenny Lattimore, Maxwell, Common, Yolanda Adams, LeAnn Rimes, and Lionel Richie amongst many more.

Her notable teachers include world renown solo violinist Gerardo Ribiero, Justin Bruns Associate Concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony, and her dear childhood teachers April Pettus, Bruno Paige, and Felix Farrar.

When she is not performing, Tramaine loves spending time with her family and homeschooling her young daughters.

Shadwa Mussad (violinist/violist) has distinguished herself as a versatile chamber musician, orchestral player, and educator. As a member of the West Eastern Divan Orchestra, an orchestra for Arab and Israeli musicians founded by Daniel Barenboim and the late Edward Said, she has performed for three consecutive seasons in the world’s most celebrated venues including Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Waldbuhne, La Scala, Tchaikovsky Conservatory Hall and the Salzburg Festspielhaus. 

She is a member of the Atlanta Ballet and Atlanta Pops Orchestras and plays with a variety of ensembles across the Southeast. Additionally, Shadwa has performed in the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the Juventas New Music Ensemble, the Lexington, Springfield and Augusta Symphonies, the Lyra Vivace and ARCO chamber orchestras and the Orchestra of Indian Hill under notable conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Pierre Boulez, Gil Rose, and Levon Ambartsumian. Her music festival appearances have included the BBC Proms, Salzburg, Lucerne, Ravello, Piccolo Spoleto, Masterworks, and Monadnock music festivals.

In addition to her orchestral pursuits, Shadwa is an active chamber musician and a founding member and violist of the Mosaic Quartet. She is equally adept as a teacher and educator and is passionate about enriching the lives of others through music. Shadwa has taught as a Lecturer at the Ohio State University and as a resident teaching artist at the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Boston, MA. She also served as Director of Orchestras at Campbell High School in the Cobb County School District, GA. She currently teaches at the Westminster Schools in Atlanta.

Shadwa holds a dual Masters Degree (MM/MA) in Violin Performance and String Pedagogy from the Ohio State University, a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Longy School of Music of Bard College, and a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Georgia. Her principal teachers have included Yura Lee, Jesse Mills, Kia-Hui Tan, Levon Ambartsumian, Shakhida Azhimkhodjaeva, Catharine Carroll, and Robert Gillespie (string pedagogy).

Alana Bennett-Garcia, an Atlanta-based cellist and dedicated music educator, has solidified her presence as a versatile and emotive performer. A graduate of New York University and Indiana University, Alana has had a varied career where she has been a recording artist, collaborator, and performer for film, dance and theatre. Currently serving as a founding member and cellist for the Mosaic String Quartet, she also holds the position of principal cellist with the DeKalb Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to being an active chamber and orchestral musician, Alana maintains an active private studio and is passionate about sharing the joys of music with all generations and with her community. Beyond the realm of music, Alana finds joy in fitness, immersing herself in compelling books, indulging in guilty pleasures of bad TV, and cherishing moments with her family, including her beloved furry companions, Albus and Daisy.