Alison Bjorkedal received her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the USC Thornton School of Music. She also earned her Master’s degree from the Thornton School, where she studied with JoAnn Turovsky and was a teaching assistant for the beginning harp class. Alison received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon (magna cum laude) where she studied harp with Sally Maxwell and Laura Zaerr. She performed the world premiere of William Kraft’s Encounters XII and has recorded that work for Southwest Chamber Music. She performed on the ensemble’s Complete Chamber Music of Carlos Chávez, Volume 4, which was nominated as Best Classical Album in 2007 by Latin Grammy. Alison performed two major harp concertos on tour with Southwest Chamber Music in Hanoi, Vietnam: Les jardins d’autre monde by Ton That Tiêt and Au dessus du vent by Nguyen Thien Dao. In addition, she gave the U.S. premieres of both concertos in Los Angeles for the ensemble’s Ascending Dragon Music Festival.

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Jim Foschia studied with Charles Russo at the Hartt School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. He performed on world tours of Evita, 42nd St. and recording artist Yanni. Currently he performs regularly with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra and has also performed with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Opera Pacific, California Philharmonic, Pasadena Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony and the Mozart Camerata. Jim is on the Faculty of Hamilton High School Academy of Music and Director of Jazz Studies, teaching instrumental music, instrumental jazz and musical theater. He received the National Youth Theater Award for Best Musical Direction in 2006 for Hamilton's production of Chicago, in 2010 for Cabaret, and in 2013 for Once Upon a Mattress. He has received various awards for music education from the Mayor of Pasadena, Altadena Links and the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Foschia first performed with Southwest Chamber Music in 1999, and has recorded works with the group by Elliott Carter, John Cage, Mel Powell, Richard Felciano, Chinary Ung and Carlos Chávez on Cambria Master Recordings. Mr. Foschia performed on Southwest Chamber Music’s Complete Chamber Works of Carlos Chávez, Volumes 1 and 2, which received consecutive 2003 and 2004 GRAMMY Awards.

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Lorenz Gamma is internationally active as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician andteacher. As former co-leader of the Amar Quartet Mr. Gamma performed a full-time concertschedule touring through many of Europe’s most important chamber music venues, including theTonhalle in Zurich, the Victoria Hall in Geneva, the Residence in Munich, the ColognePhilharmonic, as well as in many other cities such as London, Paris, New York, Teheran etc.Prior to his activity with the quartet, Lorenz Gamma served as concertmaster of the NorthwestSinfonietta in Seattle and as principal of the Zurich Opera orchestra.

As a soloist Lorenz Gamma has performed over twenty different concertos by Bach, Beethoven,Berg, Brahms, Bruch, Gubaidulina, Lutoslawski, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Piazzolla, Rubinstein,Schumann, Spohr, Tartini, Vivaldi, and Wieniawski. He also holds an extensive record ofappearances on radio, both in Europe and in the United States. His radio broadcasts and CDrecordings include Schubert’s string quintet and piano trio in E-flat, the “Quartet for the End ofTime”by Messiæn, the complete string quartets as well as all works for violin and piano and thepiano sextet by Carlos Chávez, the Dvorák piano quintet, Mozart clarinet quintet, sonatas andpartitas by Bach, Kodály, Lazarof, Mozart and Ravel, as well as string quartets by Brahms,Debussy, Dvorák, Haydn, Hindemith, Ives, Janácek, Mozart, Ortiz, Ravel, Shostakovich,Ullmann, Verdi and Wadada Smith. Musicians he collaborated with include Heinz Holliger, PaulKatz, Ronald Leonard, Donald McInnes, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and many others.

Mr. Gamma has given master classes in the United States, Europe and Asia and has taught violinfirst as visiting professor at UCLA before joining the faculty at the California Institute of theArts (CalArts) and California State University in Long Beach. He currently teaches violin, violaand chamber music at both institutions. In 2008, Mr. Gamma was invited to teach as visitingprofessor at Indiana University in Bloomington. His private and professional violin students haveregularly won prizes at numerous competitions and have gone on to continue their studies at suchschools as Indiana University, Manhattan and Eastman Schools of Music, Cleveland Institute ofMusic, University of Southern California and many others. Having performed internationally astring quartet repertoire of more than fifty composers, as well as most of the standard chambermusic repertoire of over eighty composers, Lorenz Gamma also dedicates himself with passionto coaching chamber music in addition to teaching violin and viola.

Lorenz Gamma was born in Switzerland, where he received his initial training as a violinist. Hisfurther studies took place in the United States, with Franco Gulli, Steven Staryk and MarkKaplan.

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Ayana Haviv Grammy®-winning singer Ayana Haviv is a versatile and very experienced professional singer, both on stage and in the studio. Classically trained, Ayana is equally proficient in any style of pop, folk, musical theater, ambient/ethereal, and "ethnic"-flavored film music.

Ayana is a member and has been a soloist in Los Angeles Opera Chorus and Los Angeles MasterChorale, where she has sung everything from atonal 21st-century music to Anglican chant. Originally from Israel, she grew up singing Jewish music of all kinds, from klezmer to Middle Eastern. Ayana's voice can be heard on the film and TV soundtracks AVATAR, THE NEXT THREE DAYS, THE NECESSARY DEATH OF CHARLIE COUNTRYMAN, EPIC, SMURFS 2, WRECK-IT RALPH, THE CONJURING, THIS IS THE END, STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS, COWBOYS & ALIENS, ICE AGE 4: CONTINENTAL DRIFT, THE GREEN LANTERN ANIMATED SERIES, JOHN CARTER, THE LORAX, HOP, THE RITE, 2012, CATS & DOGS 2, CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT, THE PHILANTHROPIST, SUPERNATURAL, LEAVE, DOROTHY OF OZ, WEST BANK STORY, ALPHA DOG, and many others.

Ayana has recorded as both a soloist and ensemble singer on film and television soundtracks by Danny Elfman, Michael Giacchino, John Powell, Aaron Zigman, Henry Jackman, James Horner,Stephen Trask, Harald Kloser, Christopher Lennertz, Sharon Farber, Penka Kouneva, Austin Wintory, Harry Gregson-Williams, Frederik Wiedmann, Heitor Pereira, Yuval Ron, and many others, as well as numerous video games and sound recordings. Ayana has been a member of choruses specializing in vocal jazz, South African folk music, college a cappella, Baroque and Renaissance music, and Bulgarian women's folk singing. In 2007 she won a Grammy® as part ofthe chamber chorus Cappella, which recorded a baroque choral album,PADILLA: SUN OF JUSTICE, which won for Best Small Ensemble Performance.

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Peter Jacobson started on the cello at age nine and went on to graduate from the University of Southern California studying under the late Eleonore Schoenfeld. He also studied at CalArts and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Peter has studied North Indian classical music with the late sitar master Rahul Sariputra and at the Ali Akbar College of Music. He won the Jennings Butterfield Young Artist competition, the San Diego Musical Merit competition and numerous local scholarships and competitions. Peter has performed as a soloist and premiered concertos by Jeffery Holmes and Roger Prytzytulsky. He has played locally and internationally with a list of fine classical ensembles, orchestras, rock bands, fusion projects, hip-hop producers and jazz artists. He plays regularly with Southwest Chamber Music, Quartetto Fantastico, the Arohi Ensemble, the Concentr8s, and Quetzal, with whom he won a Grammy in 2013 for Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative album.

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Delaram Kamareh — A true coloratura soprano, Delaram Kamareh is equally comfortable singing classically/operatically as she is in her nativePersian Medieval and Renaissance as well as Middle Eastern and Balkan modes.The diversity of Delaram's vocal technique, range and genres allows her to express that syncretic versatility which is much sought after in the contemporary music world. Delaram studied piano at the conservatory of Tehran with Georgian pianist TamaraDolidze before moving to the United States. Soon after she was awarded a scholarship from the opera department at UCLA to further her studies under thetutelageof Vladimir Chernov. She is currently a student of Reid Bruton and Judith Natalucci. Delaram was Blonde in "Die Eintführung aus dem Serail", the title roles in both "Lakmé" and "Doña Francisquita" and a soloist in "Cancion del Ruisenor" as well as Bach's "St. John's Passion". Delaram sings in excessof a dozen languages. No stranger to performing, at age seven, she was at ease in front of the camera in the conservative world of Iranian National Television continuing her childhood career well into her teens. She last starred in a very popular comedy directed by famous Iranian director, Boroumand.

Delaram currently resides in both Los Angeles and Rome. This summer she will be performing an excerpt of legendary composer, Pauline Oliveros's electronic opera:Nubian Word For Flowers at the Billy Wilder theater of the Hammer museum in addition to debuting her very first appearance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall for a night dedicated to movie soundtracks.

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Larry Kaplan is one of Southern California’s most sought after and versatile flutists, and he has appeared at virtually every major venue in the area. For five seasons he played piccolo with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and has played Principal Flute for the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, Long Beach Symphony, and many other local ensembles. Mr. Kaplan has recorded for dozens of feature film soundtracks and is an avid jazz enthusiast and past recipient of the Outstanding Jazz Soloist at the Chaffee Jazz Festival. He attended California State University at Northridge and continued his studies in France with Jean-Pierre Rampal. He first performed with Southwest Chamber Music in January 2003, and performed on Southwest Chamber Music’s Complete Chamber Music of Carlos Chávez, Volume 2, which received a 2004 GRAMMY Award.

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John Lee Kenenan– currently resides in Los Angeles where he has just received a DMA in Vocal Arts at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, graduating in May of 2013.  Jon is currently in his 6th season with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, with whom he is regularly featured as a soloist.  Recent performances include: Haydn’s Maria Theresa Mass, Bach’s St. Matthew and St John Passions, and Handel’s Messiah -where Jon was called “a tenor to watch” by Mark Swed of the LA Times.  Jon earned 3 undergraduate degrees from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas: in vocal performance, music education, and in jazz studies (as a double bassist).  He earned a MM in Vocal Arts from USC in 2009.  Operatic performances at USC Thornton Opera include the role of ”Monostatos” in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, “Lechmere” in the West Coast premiere of Britten’s Owen Wingrave, and“Male Chorus” in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia.  Other recent engagements include Bach’s Easter Oratorio with the American Bach Soloists in San Francisco and “Don Basilio/Don Curzio” in an updated production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro with the Pacific Opera Project in Los Angeles, and “Normanno” in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor with Opera Saratoga where he was an Apprentice this Summer.

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Timothy Loo — Cellist Timothy Loo joined the Lyris Quartet in 2008. A passionate chamber musician, he founded his first quartet, the Denali Quartet, in 1999 while pursuing his Advanced Studies in Cello with Ronald Leonard at the University of Southern California. As a member of the Denali quartet, he participated in masterclasses with the Julliard, Vermeer, and Takacs Quartets. In 1999, Mr. Loo co-founded Mladi, Los Angeles’ conductorless chamber orchestra. He performed with this group until 2008.

Mr. Loo has performed in the masterclasses for Yo-Yo Ma, Ronald Leonard, David Geringas, Natalia Gutman, Franz Helmerson, and Bernhard Greenhouse. Mr. Loo has won positions in both Philharmonie der Nationen in Hamburg, Germany, Sarasota Opera Orchestra, and the New West Symphony.

He has also performed with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, New West Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, Los Angeles Master Chorale and is currently principal cellist of the Long Beach Opera Orchestra.

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Luke Maurer — Violist Luke Maurer, a native of Santa Barbara, California, began his musical studies on the violin with his father. He received his B.M. and M.M. degrees in viola performance from the USC Thornton School of Music, studying with Donald McInnes and Ralph Fielding.Mr. Maurer participated in master classes with the Juilliard, Ysaye and Takacs Quartets, and attended summer festivals at the Music Academy of the West and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Mr. Maurer is a member of the Pacific Symphony and performs regularly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has also served as guest principal violist with Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan. As a member of the Lyris Quartet, Mr. Maurer performs extensively throughout Southern California, appearing in performances for Jacaranda, the South Bay Chamber Music Society, and LACMA’s Sundays Live, among others.

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Alyssa Park — Alyssa Park established an enviable international reputation at age sixteen for being the youngest prizewinner in the history of the Tchaikovsky International Competition. In addition to being awarded the bronze medal in 1990, she was also honored by the jury for being the most promising talent, most artistic performer, most interesting personality, and for displaying the best mastery of the instrument.

Alyssa Park has made numerous recital and orchestral appearances in this country since her professional debut at age eleven with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. Her New York City debut recital at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall was critically acclaimed by The New York Times for "an unusually strong technique and a youthful sense of music making." Other notable credits include the Ravinia Festival's Rising Star Series, Kennedy Center Recital Series, Oregon Bach Festival, and Rockefeller University in New York City.

Ms. Park performs extensively every season throughout Europe. She made her European debut in 1991 with Sir Colin Davis and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Soon after she made appearances with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and the Czech Philharmonic. Her performance with the Austrian Radio Symphony at Vienna's Musikverein was featured in a live radio and television broadcast throughout Europe. Ms. Park has toured Germany with the Bamberg Symphony orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Barcelona Orchestra, Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Hamburg Philharmonic, and to Spain, Switzerland, and Austria with the Cincinnati Symphony.

Alyssa Park also toured with the Czech Philharmonic on their 17-city tour of the United States which included concerts at Washington, DC's Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. She also appeared as soloist with the orchestras of Sydney, Adelaide, and Tasmania, Australia.

Ms. Park’s recent seasons included performances in Asia with the Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, and the Singapore Symphony. She was also featured with the Berlin Radio Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Lisbon Symphony, Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie, Munich Philharmonic, and the orchestras of Sydney, Adelaide, and Tasmania, Australia. She also made her debut at Italy’s Ravello Festival and Holland’s Royal Concertgebouw.

An avid chamber musician as well, Ms. Park has been a frequent guest at major festivals including Ludwisburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Weilburg, Passau, Frankfurt, Montpellier, France, Brahms festival in Madrid, Beethoven Festival in Bonn, Prague Summer Festival, and Oregon Festival of American Music.

Alyssa Park was a winner of the Aspen Music Festival's concerto competition in 1988, and returned in 1996 to teach. Ms. Park was a student at the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music. Her teachers were Kurt Sassmanshaus and Dorothy DeLay. She now resides in Los Angeles. In addition to an active performance career, Ms. Park was a Visiting Professor of Violin at the University of Oregon.

Ms. Park recently released two new CD’s under the ARS label in Germany. She released a solo album entitled “It’s Me” and an album of Mozart concertos for violin and orchestra with the Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie.

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Andrew Pelletier — is a soloist and Grammy-award winning chamber musician regularly performing across the United States. Of his solo playing, John Henken of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “gleaming, handsome playing. Pelletier is a soloist who seems capable of anything on his instrument.” Fanfare Magazine called him “Phenomenal...undeniably in tune with what he plays” and the American Record Guide has praised his “full sound and playing with authority and imagination.” He is the First Prize winner of the 1997 and 2001 American Horn Competition (America’s only internationally recognized competition for the horn) and has appeared as a soloist at the International Horn Society Annual Symposia in 1997, 2003, 2005 and 2009. He is in regular demand for artistic residencies and clinics at universities and music schools and his solo tours have taken him to 21 US states, Canada, Mexico and England. An active chamber musician, he performs with Southwest Chamber Music (with whom he won the 2005 Grammy award for Best Classical Recording, Small Ensemble) the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, and with Chamber Music at the Scarab Club, Detroit.

As an orchestral performer, he is the principal horn of the Michigan Opera Theatre at the Detroit Opera House and the Ann Arbor Symphony, and has performed as guest principalhorn for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Windsor (Canada) Symphony and is the former principal horn for the Santa Barbara Symphony, Ann Arbor Ballet Theatre, Michigan Symphonietta, Columbus Bach Ensemble, Long Beach Camerata, Maine Chamber Ensemble and Portland (Maine) Ballet. A regular performer with the Detroit and Toledo Symphonies; he has also performed with the New West Symphony, Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra (for six seasons) and is a founding member of the Portland Opera Repertory Theatre.

He spent over seven years as an active free-lance performer in Los Angeles and can be heard on film soundtracks as Battle: Los Angeles, Your Highness, Lethal Weapon 4, The X-Men, Frequency and various television movies for Lifetime TV and the Sci-Fi Channel. He maintains an active presence in the Hollywood recording scene with regular recording projects.

His pedagogical articles have been published by the International Horn Society, the Texas Band Master’s Association and the New York Brass Conference. He holds a B.M. degree from the University of Southern Maine, and an M.M. and the D.M.A. (both granted with Highest Honors) from the University of Southern California. His primary teachers are John Boden, James Decker and trumpeter Roy Poper. He has recorded for MSR Classics, Cambria Master Classics and Delos labels. Pelletier serves as the Associate Professor of Horn at the Bowling Green State University College of Musical Arts, in Bowling Green, Ohio

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Tom Peters is a very active compower and performer. Tom has performed with Southwest Chamber Music since 1998. In addition to his work with Southwest, he has performed as a soloist with Ensemble Oh-Ton, People Inside Electronics, Microfest, and the Schindler House and many others, and has been featured on Nordwest Radio in Hamburg, Germany. His recording of John Cage's 26' 1.1499" for a String Player on the Tiger Barb Records label with KPFK's John Schneider was the the first American recording of ihs seminal work. As a composer, Tom specializes in creating music for silent films, performing original scores through looping electronic soundscapes. In April 2013, he premiered his original score to the 1927 silent classic The Passion of Joan of Arc- his ninth film - at the Toronto Silent Film Festival with Joelle Morton on tenor viol. The score was featured in a radio broadcast over the CBC. He has also written music for the John Pennington Dance Group's Yield of Vision, and Parson's Nose Productions' presentations of Everyman and Cendrillon. Tom is on the faculty of the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at the California State University, Long Beach, and has been a member of the Long Beach Symphony since 1993.

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Ming Tsu has concertized in Europe, Asia, Mexico, Canada and the United States, and her performances have been broadcast on German National Radio as well as on stations throughout the United States. In 2003, she joined Southwest Chamber Music and since then has recorded with the ensemble the complete chamber works for piano and strings by Carlos Chávez as well as chamber music works by Chinary Ung and William Kraft. She has collaborated closely with other composers such as György Kurtág, Morton Subotnick, Henri Lazarof, Joan Huang, Eric Flesher, Lei Liang, Patricio Da Silva and Rob Paterson. Ms. Tsu has served on the piano faculty at Pacific Lutheran University in Seattle and the Pomona College in Claremont and currently teaches at the Herb Alpert School of Music at the California Institute of the Arts. She has given master classes in the U.S. and abroad and also performs and teaches regularly at various festivals, most recently adding the Montecito Summer Music Festival to her schedule, where she is joining the piano faculty this year. Ms. Tsu also serves as the Los Angeles Director of Junior Chamber Music, one of the largest pre-college chamber music programs in the United States. Ms. Tsu has received her degrees in piano performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, Indiana University and University of Washington (Doctor of Musical Arts).

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Lynn Vartan is an active performer and educator who is an advocate for diversity in music. In addition to her position at Southern Utah University, Dr. Vartan is the percussionist for Southwest Chamber Music, the violin/percussion duo 61/4 which she founded with Shalini Vijayan, and the Exacta duo she formed with Tambuco's Miguel Gonzalez. As a new music percussionist, Lynn has worked with Michael Colgrass,Vinny Golia, Arthur Jarvinen, Ursula Oppens, Joan Tower, Glen Velez and Xtet, James Newton, Chinary Ung, the Hilliard Ensemble and the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, and is known for her dynamic athleticism and exciting energy on stage. As a soloist, she has been featured on the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, the Different Trains Series, at Montana State University, with the Sierra Wind Symphony, the Helena Symphony and at the World Trade Expo in Seim Reap, Cambodia. She is regularly presented on the Music at the Court series in Pasadena, California, where she produces her own solo percussion concerts. As a recording artist, Lynn has appeared on the ECM New Series, New World Records, Bridge Records, Albany Records, and was twice Grammy nominated on the Cambria label with Southwest Chamber Music. Lynn is endorsed by the Paiste Corporation, Remo Inc., and Marimba One, whom she travels for as artist and performer.

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Shalini Vijayan deemed “a vibrant violinist” by Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times, is an established performer and collaborator on both coasts. A native of California, Shalini studied in New York as a scholarship student at the Manhattan School of Music where she received her B.M. and M.M. degrees under the tutelage of Ariana Bronne and Lucie Robert. Always an advocate for modern music, Shalini was a founding member and is Principal Second Violin of Kristjan Jarvi’s Absolute Ensemble, having recorded several albums with them including 2001 Grammy nominee, Absolution. As a part of Absolute, she has performed throughout the United States and Europe. A member of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida from 1998-2001, Shalini served as concertmaster for Michael Tilson Thomas, John Adams, Reinbert de Leeuw and Oliver Knussen. She was also concertmaster for the world premiere performances and recording of Steven Mackey's Tuck and Roll for RCA records in 2000. In Los Angeles, Shalini is featured regularly with Grammy Award winning Southwest Chamber Music and can be heard on their Complete Chamber Works of Carlos Chávez, Vol. 3 and the Encounters of William Kraft. She is one half of the duo 61/4, with percussionist Lynn Vartan, with performances throughout California and in Mexico. Shalini is a member of the first violin section of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and served as Principal Second Violin of the Opera Pacific Orchestra from 2003-2008. She has appeared on over a hundred film scores including The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Star Trek, Up and Avatar as well as on every season of the television show Lost. Shalini has been on the faculty of the Sequoia Chamber Music Workshop in Arcata, California since 2003.

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Jeff von der Schmidt is Founding Artistic Director of Southwest Chamber Music. A two-time Grammy Award-winning conductor, he has led numerous performances of standard 20th century composers as well as world and local premieres of new work. Mr. von der Schmidt has received seven Grammy nominations, including consecutive 2003 and 2004 Grammy Awards as conductor for the Complete Chamber Music of Carlos Chávez Volumes 1 and 2. His performance was nominated for Best Classical Album in 2005 for the Complete Chamber Music of Carlos Chávez, Volume 3 by both Grammy and Latin Grammy. Recent projects include leading the six-week 2010 Ascending Dragon Music Festival in Hanoi, Saigon, Pasadena and Los Angeles for the U.S. State Department. Ascending Dragon was the largest cultural exchange in the history of Vietnam and the United States. In 2009 he led Southwest Chamber Music at the Guadalajara FIL Festival alongside the largest Spanish language book festival in the world. Past international exchanges include a complete cycle of the chamber music of Carlos Chávez with Southwest Chamber Music and the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble at the UNAM Center in Mexico City in May 2007. In 2006, Mr. von der Schmidt conducted at the Hanoi Opera House, 2006 World Culture Expo at Angkor Wat, and the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with Aura, a major new composition by Grawemeyer Award-winning composer Chinary Ung. His successful 2003 performance at the Library of Congress, with soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson in Richard Felciano’s An American Decameron, was greeted with a standing ovation. He has led cycles of the Los Angeles works of Arnold Schoenberg at Cooper Union in New York City and at the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna, where Southwest Chamber Music was the first American ensemble to perform at the Center since its relocation from the University of Southern California. Mr. von der Schmidt received the Henri M. Kohn Award as the outstanding student at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 1980 from Gunther Schuller and Seiji Ozawa, and studied French horn with Roland Berger of the Vienna Philharmonic, holding a certificate in German from the University of Vienna. He has lectured on music at the Getty Center, Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, Arizona State University, University of Colorado, Ohio State University, Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the Vietnam National Academy of Music, and the Hochschule für Musik in Lübeck, Germany.

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