Elizabeth Oakes, violist, is a devoted chamber musician and pedagogue. Currently Ms. Oakes serves as the director of the String Quartet Residency Program and also runs the Chamber Music Residency Program at the University of Iowa. 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.

Ms. Oakes programming and interdisciplinary interests have led her to direct 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. During her tenure at the University of Iowa, Ms. Oakes has coordinated several large events, including Scandinavian/NordicFest—a month-long interdisciplinary chamber music festival that included film, theater, dance, lectures, recitals and outreach. At the University of Iowa, Ms. Oakes has received repeated recognition for her work including the Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer Award and the President & Provost Award for Teaching Excellence. In 2022, she was awarded the Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer award in the College of Liberal Arts upon her promotion to full professor. Ms. Oakes also currently serves at the Program Director for the Green Lake Festival of Music Chamber Music Institute in Wisconsin.

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.

Mira Wang has built a remarkable bridge from her time as a child prodigy in Beijing, China to an acclaimed soloist on the world stage today. She has appeared as a soloist with many prestigious orchestras all over the world, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Saarbrücken Radio Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic and NDR Philharmonic Hannover.

An avid chamber musician, Mira’s partners include Hélène Grimaud, Olli Mustonen, Alice Sara Ott, Lise de la Salle, Louis Lortie, Jeremy Denk, Pamela Frank, Daniel Müller-Schott, Gautier Capucon, Jan Vogler, Lawrence Power and Lars AndersTomter.

She is an enthusiastic exponent of contemporary music, premiering the violin concerto Spring in Dresden by Chinese-American composer Chen Yi with the Staatskapelle Dresden, conducted by Ivan Fischer and John Harbison’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Carlos Kalmar. In 2015 she premiered the double concerto by Wolfgang Rihm, with Jan Vogler and the Orpheus Chamber orchestra at Carnegie Hall. In 2018, She premiered a triple concerto “Alisma” by Swiss composer William Blank with Jan Vogler, Daniel Ottensamer and the Philharmonische Staatsorchester Hamburg, conducted by Kent Nagano at the Elbephilharmonie in Hamburg.

Mira has recorded extensively for many labels including Sony Classical and Edel Classics. Her discography includes violin concerto No. 2 by Prokofieff with the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony, the violin concerto No. 3 by Saint-Saens with NDR Philharmonic Hannover, a duo album with cellist Jan Vogler and several chamber music recordings with Artists of the Moritzburg Festival.

Mira has been Artistic Director of the Model Room Musicales concert series in New York City since 2005 and in 2013, she became Director of the Moritzburg Festival Academy in Germany, a training program for young musicians that is part of the annual Moritzburg Chamber Music Festival.

Born in China, Ms. Wang studied at the Central Conservatory in Beijing. She was sponsored by the renowned violin teacher Roman Totenberg to further her studies at Boston University, where she graduated summa cum laude and received the prestigious Kahn Award given to outstanding performers. She has won 1st prizes in several international violin competitions, including the Geneva Competition.

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); 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.

Volkan Orhon was a finalist and prizewinner in the Concert Artists Guild Solo Competition in New York City, and was the co-first place winner of the International Society of Bassists Solo Competition. Additionally, he distinguished himself as the first double-bass player ever to win the grand prize overall and first prize for double bass at the American String Teacher’s Association Solo Competition.

Orhon has performed with internationally recognized musicians including Gary Karr, Fazil Say, and the JACK, Emerson, and Tokyo String Quartets, and he has played solos with orchestras and recitals around the world. He was one of the performers for the international consortium of Pulitzer-Prize winning composer John Harbison’s Concerto for Bass Viol and Orchestra. Most recently he recorded the Double Bass Concerto with the with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, a work written for him by David Gompper. Mr. Orhon has been an invited clinician to workshops across the U.S. and abroad, including Berlin World Bass Festival, Ouro Branco Festivalin Brazil, World Bass Festival in Paris, and BASS2016 Prague, as well the International Society of Bassists.

He is currently professor of double bass at the University of Iowa.