A violinist of great range and energy, Salley Koo has performed internationally as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician. Her recent calendar includes engagements as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, orchestral guest, and faculty in California, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Wisconsin, and Korea. Salley has appeared in concert at the Musikverein in Vienna, Bargemusic, Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, and Central Park in New York, Music from Salem, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the National Cathedral and National Gallery in Washington D.C., Columbia Museum of Art, the Harris Theater in Chicago, the Nasher Series in Dallas, the Peoples Symphony Concerts, the Ojai, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Skaneateles, and Caramoor Festivals, and on tour alongside artists ranging from Bela Fleck to Dawn Upshaw to Gil Shaham. She soloed with the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra and recently returned a third time to Lebanon as artist in residence with the IMAGINE Workshop and Concert Series at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. She is regularly invited as a guest artist with groups such as the Minnesota Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and the Knights. Dr. Koo’s, multicultural project, Dari, aims to build and strengthen bridges between contemporary Korean compositions and the classical Western canon. Dari—meaning “bridge” in Korean—builds vital, overlapping connections among music students, performers, and pedagogues; between new music and the Western canon; and beyond, all while amplifying the voices of Korean composers. Dari accomplishes this connection through its novel paradigm: commissions paired with co-created pedagogical companion violin works.

Despite a performance itinerary that has covered North America, Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, Dr. Koo has established a thriving teaching career. She was thrilled to join old friends and new colleagues at the School of Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as assistant professor of violin in the Fall of 2022. Previously, Dr. Koo served as violin professor at both Adelphi University in NY, Montclair State University in NJ, visiting lecturer at UIUC, and violin professor and coordinator of chamber music at the University of Connecticut, in Storrs, CT; other faculty appointments include the Green Lake Chamber Music Festival in WI (where is newly serving as Associate Program Director in tandem with her faculty position), Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music in New Hampshire, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival in Vermont, Dwight-Englewood String Society in New Jersey, Vermont’s Young Artist Program at Yellow Barn, the Opus 118 We Want Music! program in East Harlem, New York, Elm City ChamberFest, and the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, Connecticut.
www.salleykoo.com

Elizabeth Oakes, violist, is an active chamber musician, chamber music coach and performer. A dedicated teacher, Ms. Oakes currently runs the Chamber Music Residency Program at the University of Iowa and serves as the director of the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program (UISQRP). For twenty-two years, Ms. Oakes was the violist of the Maia Quartet and as a member of the Quartet, she performed throughout the United States, Asia, Canada, and Europe and concertized in major venues including Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, the 92nd Street Y and Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. Collaborations with other artists included Maia Quartet performances with Daniel Avshalomov, Joel Krosnick, Helen Callus, Andre-Michel Schub and Robert Kapilow. Ms. Oakes has taught at numerous summer music festivals including the Interlochen Advanced String Quartet Program, the Great Wall International Music Academy in Beijing, China and the Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She currently directs the Green Lake Festival of Music Chamber Music Institute—a two-week summer chamber music institute located in central Wisconsin.

Ms. Oakes' programming and interdisciplinary interests have led her to coordinate and program many large-scale projects. In 1997, Ms. Oakes co-founded and then subsequently served for nine years as a co-artistic director of the Foothills Music Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In her current role as the director of UISQRP, Ms. Oakes has created multi-dimensional artist-residencies with professional quartets from across the US and abroad. During her tenure at the University of Iowa, Ms. Oakes has coordinated several large events, including Scandinavian/NordicFest—a month-long festival with chamber music at the heart of all events, which included film, theater, dance, lectures, recitals and outreach. Ms. Oakes also teamed up with the University of Iowa Music Therapy department to present Music, Healthcare and Well-Being, programming focused on the relationship between music and health. She has been the recipient of numerous grants from major granting organizations, such as Chamber Music America, the Iowa Arts Council, Humanities Iowa, the University of Iowa’s Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Professorship Program and the John and Anna Hanes Foundation.

Ms. Oakes has received repeated recognition for her work at the University of Iowa. In 2016, she was awarded the Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer award in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and most recently, she was awarded the President & Provost Award for Teaching Excellence for 2020-21. She has given numerous master classes and presentations across the country including Peabody Conservatory of Music, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, Harvard University, Arizona State University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and most recently at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

Ms. Oakes is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory, where she received a Bachelor of Music degree in viola performance as a student of Jeffrey Irvine. She continued with a Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music with Heidi Castleman and a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Conservatory of Music. At the Juilliard School, she served as a teaching assistant to Samuel Rhodes of the Juilliard Quartet. As part of the Maia Quartet, she worked intensively with the Cavani Quartet, the Juilliard Quartet, the Tokyo Quartet and Earl Carlyss.

Praised for his versatility, Gregory Sauer performs in many different musical arenas. He has appeared in recital at the Old First Concert Series in San Francisco, Vanderbilt University, Rice University, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, and the Brightmusic Concert Series in Oklahoma City, among many others throughout the U.S. Mr Sauer has performed concertos with orchestras such as the Houston Symphony, the Quad City Symphony, the Columbus (GA) Symphony, the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, and the Missoula Symphony, among many others. As a member of Trio Solis, he performed in Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall.

Greg has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, MSR Classics and Mark Records. Sauer holds the positions of principal cello of the Tallahassee Symphony and assistant principal of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra. He served nine seasons as principal cellist of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra.

A committed teacher and mentor, Greg was appointed to the music faculty at Florida State University in 2006. He taught eleven years at the University of Oklahoma, and was named Presidential Professor in 2005. Other teaching positions have been a visiting professorship at the University of California at Los Angeles, and at summer programs such as the Texas Music Festival, the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, the Duxbury Music Festival, and the Foulger International Music Festival.

Pianist Thomas Sauer is highly sought after as soloist and chamber musician in a wide range of repertoire. Recent appearances include Carnegie Hall, St. John’s College, Oxford, and the Chamber Music Societies of Lincoln Center, Boston, and Philadelphia. With his long-time duo partner Colin Carr, Mr. Sauer has appeared at the Wigmore Hall (London), the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), and Da Camera (Houston). He has performed with members of the Juilliard String Quartet at the Library of Congress and given numerous concerts with the Brentano String Quartet.

Mr. Sauer’s varied discography includes recordings of Beethoven and Haydn piano sonatas (MSR Classics); solo music by Thomas Adès, Stephen Hartke, and Hans Abramahsen (Azica Records); with Colin Carr, the complete cello and piano works of Mendelssohn (Cello Classics) and Beethoven (MSR Classics); music of Hindemith with violist Misha Amory (Musical Heritage Society); music of Britten and Schnittke with cellist Wilhelmina Smith (Arabesque); music of Ross Lee Finney with violinist Miranda Cuckson (Centaur Records); and music of James Matheson (Yarlung Records).

Mr. Sauer has performed at many of the leading festivals in the United States and abroad, including Marlboro, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Northwest, and Taos, as well as Lake District Summer Music (England), Agassiz (Canada), Festival des Consonances (France), and Esbjerg International Chamber Music Festival (Denmark). A faculty member of Mannes and Vassar Colleges, Mr. Sauer was the founder and director of the Mannes Beethoven Institute, a highly regarded summer program that ran for fifteen seasons.