Described as “a pianist with power, precision, and tremendous glee” (Gramophone Magazine) and praised for her “very sensitive” (Washington Post) and “highly nuanced” (Lucid Culture) playing, Hyeyeon Park has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician on major concert stages throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Japan and her native Korea.

Since making her debut at the age of 10 performing Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with Seoul Symphony Orchestra, Park soloed with Seoul Philharmonic, Seoul Symphony, KNUA Chamber Orchestra, Gangnam Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Arts Center Festival Orchestra and Incheon Philharmonic, to name but a few. Her recent concerts have been presented at the Dame Myra Hess Recital Series in Chicago, the Trinity Wall Street Series in New York City, Philips Collection in Washington, D.C., as well as such distinguished venues as Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Recital Hall, Kennedy Center and Seoul Art Center, among others.

A Seoul Arts Center “Artist of the Year 2012,” Park is prizewinner of numerous international competitions, including Oberlin International Piano Competition (U.S.), Ettlingen International Piano Competition (Germany), Hugo Kauder International Piano Competition (U.S.), Maria Canals International Piano Competition (Spain), Prix Amadeo International Piano Competition (Germany) and Corpus Christi International Music Competition (U.S.). Her performances have been broadcast on KBS and EBS television in Korea, RAI3 (Italy), WQXR (New York), WFMT (Chicago), WBJC (Baltimore), WETA (Washington, D.C.), radio and channel LOOP in the States.

An avid chamber musician, Park has collaborated with such musicians as David Shifrin, Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian, Paul Neubauer and many others appearing frequently at Yellow Barn Festival (Vermont), Santander Music Festival (Spain), Great Mountains Festival (Korea), Music@Menlo Festival (California), Chamber Music Northwest (Oregon) and Nevada Chamber Music Festival. She is the founding member of Atapine-Park duo and Atria Ensemble, groups that respectively won the prizes at Premio Vittorio Gui International Chamber Music Competition (Italy) and Plowman Chamber Music Competition (Missouri). Her duo recordings for cello and piano with cellist Dmitri Atapine were distributed by Naxos to a great critical acclaim. The duo’s recent world-premiere recording of Lowell Liebermann’s complete works for cello and piano was reviewed as “a valuable disc for the collector” by American Record Guide. Her solo CD “Klavier 1853” was released in 2017 under Blue Griffin label. An advocate for new music as a passionate musician who pursued career as a composer as well, Park enjoys working closely with contemporary composers.

Park holds a Bachelor of Music degree at Korea National University with Professor Daejin Kim, Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma from Yale School of Music with Professor Peter Frankl, where she was a post-graduate artist associate following her graduation. She holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Peabody Conservatory with Professor Yong Hi Moon. Currently, Park is the Artistic Co-Director of Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City, Co-Director of Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival Young Performers Program and Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she also is the Artistic Co-Director of the Apex Concerts.

Russian-American pianist Alexandre Moutouzkine has toured as a soloist with over 60 orchestras across Europe, North and South America, and Asia. Highlights of those performances include appearances with Cleveland Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, Israel Philharmonic and Israel Camerata, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Philharmonic Orchestras of Moscow and Kiev and Radiotelevision Orchestra of Spain.

As a recitalist and chamber musician, Alexandre has performed at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium and Zankel Hall, The Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, The Kimmel Center, Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, Royal Hall in London, The Great Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic, Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, National Centers of Toronto and Montreal, Yokohama Minato Mirai Hall in Japan.

Alexandre’s recital at Wigmore Hall was described by International Piano magazine as “grandly organic, with many personal and pertinent insights, offering a thoughtful balance between rhetoric and fantasy…technically dazzling.” Alexandre’s recital of Frédéric Chopin’s Études at the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory was recorded live and released on the Classical Music Archives label in Russia.

Alexandre has claimed top prizes at more than 20 international competitions, including Naumburg, Cleveland, Montreal, New Orleans, Shanghai, Iturbi in Valencia, Maria Canals in Barcelona, and Arthur Rubinstein in Tel Aviv. At age 19, he won the Special Award for Artistic Potential for his performance of Brahms’ Op. 117 Intermezzi. A Dallas Morning News critic described it as being played “more beautifully, more movingly, than I’ve ever heard them. At once sad, tender and noble, this was playing of heart-stopping intimacy and elegance.”

Other career highlights include a performance of Rachmaninoff’s complete works in a six-part recital series with the Carnegie Concert Series in Nyack and the reception of the “Artist of the Season” award from Chamber Music International in Dallas.
His record of Cuban piano music released through Steinway & Sons was recognized by WRTI as one of the top 10 classical music recordings picks for 2017. It also won the Cubadisco award for the best classical music recording in Cuba. Alexandre most recently released a Steinway and Sons recording, “Ravel & Stravinsky” with violinist Chloé Kiffer. This album features his solo piano transcription of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, which debuted at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center and New York’s 92Y.
Alexandre has served as an adjudicator for the Concours International Genève Musicale, Bartok Competition in Budapest, Maria Canals in Barcelona, Santa Cecilia in Porto, Panama International Piano Competition, New Orleans International Piano Competition, and Vladimir Krainev Competition in Moscow.

Alexandre is co-head of the piano department at Manhattan School of Music. His students have won top prizes in numerous competitions throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. He is a sought-after teacher and guest artist at music festivals around the world including Beijing International Piano Festival, Paris International Music Academy and MusicAlp Festival in France, Music Fest Perugia, Forum Musicae in Madrid, and the International Piano Festival Genève Musicale.

Andrew Staupe has emerged as one of the most distinctive voices in a new generation of pianists. With a Piano Concerto repertoire spanning over 70 works, including three world premieres, Andrew has appeared as soloist with many of the top orchestras throughout North America, Europe, and South America, including the Baltimore Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Houston Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, the George Enescu Philharmonic in Romania, the Orquestra Filarmónica de Bogotá in Colombia, and many others. Andrew has performed recitals across the United States and extensively in Europe, appearing at Carnegie Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Rachmaninov Hall in Moscow, the Schumann Haus in Leipzig, and the Salle Cortot in Paris. His debut recording on Naxos of the complete works for piano and violin of Carl Nielsen was released to critical acclaim in October 2020. Other notable performances include concerts at Steinway Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

Deeply committed to teaching, Andrew is an Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Houston, and formerly taught at the University of Utah. He is Artistic Director of the Young Artist World Piano Festival in Minnesota, and gives frequent master classes and lectures around the United States. A native of Saint Paul, Minnesota, he earned his Doctorate at Rice University with Jon Kimura Parker, and studied at the University of Minnesota with Lydia Artymiw. When not performing, Andrew enjoys spending time with his sweet pet rats at home, reading and collecting comic books, graphic novels, and any books on ancient history or science, playing far too many hours on his PlayStation 5, and is a co-founder of the “Rat Pack Paranormal” investigative research team with his wife Mary.

A native of Montana, pianist Elinor Freer has built a versatile career as an pianist, educator and creative musician. Praised for her “utmost sensitivity” (Harrisburg Patriot News) and “profound commitment and understanding” (General-Anzeiger, Bonn) Ms. Freer has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, and China, including appearances at The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, The Valery Gergiev Festival in Rotterdam, the Gnessin Institute in Moscow, the Akademie múzických in Prague, and more. Her performances have aired on “Performance Today,” National Public Radio, and she has recorded for Cedille Records. Recently she performed and served as a member of the jury at the Macao International Piano Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

Ms. Freer has been the recipient of numerous prizes, awards, and fellowships including those from the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition, American Pianists Association Auditions, the Steans Institute of the Ravinia Festival, and the Tanglewood Music Center. She holds degrees with honors from the Cleveland Institute of Music, the University of Southern California, and, as a Frank Huntington Beebe scholar, a Performer’s Diploma from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht in The Netherlands. She feels a immense debt of gratitude towards her former teachers and coaches, including Paul Schenly, John Perry, Kyoko Hashimoto, Peter Serkin and Gilbert Kalish.

Passionate about finding ways to use her musical skills to make a difference, she founded and directed residencies in rural Kansas and Montana, bringing live music onto street corners and into schools, psychiatric hospitals, banks, and even grocery stores. In 2024 she founded ROC City Concerts at the Eastman School of Music, a series of live concerts for underserved populations in Rochester, NY, which includes student and faculty performances at a local prison, juvenile detention center, substance abuse treatment facility, veteran’s home, and more. In addition, she has been partnering with researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center to develop a piano training intervention for older adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Early results show promising data on the effects of piano lessons on cognitive health. Ms. Freer currently serves as Associate Professor of Piano and Chamber Music at the Eastman School of Music where she received the 2025 Eisenhart Award for Excellence in Teaching.

James Giles regularly performs in important musical centers in America, Europe, and Asia as a recitalist and chamber musician. He is coordinator of the piano program and director of music performance graduate studies at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where his class of students has featured many prize-winning young artists.

In an eclectic repertoire encompassing the solo and chamber music literatures, Giles is equally at home in the standard repertoire as in the music of our time. He has commissioned and premiered works by William Bolcom, C. Curtis-Smith, Stephen Hough, Lowell Liebermann, Ned Rorem, Augusta Read Thomas, Earl Wild, and James Wintle. Most of these new works are featured on Giles’s Albany Records release entitled “American Virtuoso.” His recording of solo works by Schumann and Prokofiev is available on England’s Master Musicians label. He recorded John Harbison’s Horn Trio with the Chicago Chamber Musicians and Timothy Dunne’s Piano Concerto with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic in Russia.

His Paris recital at the Salle Cortot in was hailed as “a true revelation, due equally to the pianist’s artistry as to his choice of program.” After a recital at the Sibelius Academy, the critic for Helsinki’s main newspaper wrote that “Giles is a technically polished, elegant pianist.” And a London critic called his Wigmore Hall recital “one of the most sheerly inspired piano recitals I can remember hearing for some time” and added that “with a riveting intelligence given to everything he played, it was the kind of recital you never really forget.”
He has performed with New York’s Jupiter Symphony (Alkan and Czerny); the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra in Queen Elizabeth Hall (Mozart and Beethoven); the Kharkiv Philharmonic in Ukraine (Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff); and with the Opera Orchestra of New York in Alice Tully Hall (Chopin). After his Tully Hall solo recital debut, critic Harris Goldsmith wrote: “Giles has a truly distinctive interpretive persona. This was beautiful pianism – direct and unmannered.” Other tours have included concerts in the Shanghai International Piano Festival; St. Petersburg’s White Nights New Music Festival, Warsaw’s Chopin Academy of Music; Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess Series, Salt Lake City’s Assembly Hall Concert Series, and in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Musikhalle in Hamburg, and the Purcell Room at London’s South Bank Centre. He has given live recitals over the public radio stations of New York, Boston, Chicago, and Indianapolis. As a chamber musician he has collaborated with members of the National and Chicago Symphonies and with members of the Escher, Pacifica, Cassatt, Chicago, Ying, Chester, St. Lawrence, Essex, Lincoln, and Miami Quartets, as well as singers Aprile Millo and Anthony Dean Griffey.

A native of North Carolina, Dr. Giles studied with Byron Janis at the Manhattan School of Music, Jerome Lowenthal at the Juilliard School, Nelita True at the Eastman School of Music, and Robert Shannon at Oberlin College. He received early career assistance from the Clarisse B. Kampel Foundation and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Italy with the legendary pianist Lazar Berman.

The pianist was the recipient of a fellowship grant and the Christel Award from the American Pianists Association. He won first prizes at the New Orleans International Piano Competition, the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition, and the Music Teachers National Association Competition. As a student he was awarded the prestigious William Petschek Scholarship at the Juilliard School and the Arthur Dann Award at the Oberlin College Conservatory. He wrote for Piano and Keyboard magazine and has presented lecture-recitals at the national conventions of the Music Teachers National Association, the College Music Society, and Pi Kappa Lambda. He regularly serves on competition jury panels and has been conference artist for many state music teachers associations.

He gives master classes and lectures at schools nationwide, including Juilliard, Manhattan, Eastman, Oberlin, Indiana, Yale, and New England. During the summers he is director of the Amalfi Coast Music Festival and has taught at the Gijon Piano Festival, Obidos Master Classes, Artcial Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, Bowdoin, Brevard, Art of the Piano, Colburn, Interlochen, ARIA, Pianofest in the Hamptons, and the Schlern Festival in Italy. His classes internationally have occurred throughout China as well as at Seoul National University, Hanyang University (Seoul), Ewha Woman’s University (Seoul), the Royal Danish Academy of Music (Copenhagen), the Sibelius Academy (Helsinki), the Chopin Academy (Warsaw), the Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester) and the Royal College of Music (London).

Korean pianist Sohee Kwon is one of today’s dynamic and versatile classical pianists, recognized for her exquisite sound, profound artistry, and transcendental technique. Her deep commitment to artistic exploration has led to a multifaceted career as a performer, educator, curator, and arranger.

She has been recognized with top prizes at major competitions, including First Prize at the 2020 MTNA Chamber Music Competition and Second Prize at the 2020 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Her performances have taken her to leading venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Beethoven-Haus Kammermusiksaal in Bonn, Germany, as well as to esteemed series including the Chamber Music Society of Logan, Chamber Music International, Sarasota Music Festival, Mid-America Performing Alliance, Austin Chamber Music Center, and ATX Chamber Music and Jazz. In high demand as a collaborator, she has worked with distinguished artists and ensembles such as JP Jofre, the Kodak Quartet, Invoke String Quartet, Artisan String Quartet, OSMOSIS String Quartet (Leipzig), members of major orchestras, and faculty from major universities worldwide.

Her artistic scope extends beyond performance to include music arrangement and concert curation. Her adaptation of Piazzolla’s Three Preludes for piano trio—originally written for solo piano—was premiered by her group Trío En at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2024, she founded Chamber on the Move, a salon concert series based in Austin that brings high-quality chamber music into intimate spaces and fosters meaningful connections between artists and audiences.

An active educator and passionate advocate for chamber music, Kwon serves on the faculty of the Austin Chamber Music Center and the International Summer Music Institute at the University of North Texas. She is frequently invited to present masterclasses, lectures, and performances at institutions including Rutgers University, the University of Kansas, the University of North Texas, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Kwon holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied under Dr. Andrew Brownell. She earned her Master’s degree from Rice University under Jon Kimura Parker and completed undergraduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music and Rutgers University with Daniel Epstein and Dr. Min Kwon. She graduated with the Elizabeth Wyckoff Durham Award for Excellence in Keyboard Performance and was supported by full and presidential scholarships throughout her studies.