Curtis on Tour in Athens, Greece

Violinist Audrey Goodner is in her third year of study at the Curtis Institute of Music. She has recently garnered numerous accolades, including concertmaster of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, appearances as soloist with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Second Prize at the 38th Irving M. Klein International String Competition, Fourth Prize at the 2022 Thomas & Evon Cooper International Violin Competition, and concerto competition winner for both the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra and the United States Army Band Young Artist Competitions. In August of 2025 and 2026, Audrey was invited to give a solo recital at the Bar Harbor Music Festival with pianist Ann Sears and Erika Nickrenz.

As concertmaster of the Langley High School Orchestra and the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, Audrey has been a featured soloist at Carnegie Hall and in venues throughout the Washington, D.C. area. Her participation in the National Symphony Orchestra’s Youth Fellowship Program has further provided numerous solo and chamber music performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Italian Embassy, and throughout the District of Columbia Public Schools. Additionally, she has toured throughout the United States with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra as concertmaster.

Audrey studies with Benjamin Beilman at the Curtis Institute of Music. Her previous teachers include Ryan Meehan of the Calidore String Quartet and Jing Qiao of the National Symphony Orchestra. She spent six summers studying with Danielle Belen at the University of Michigan’s Center Stage Strings and has also participated in summer studies with Sibbi Bernhardsson at the Harpa International Music Academy in Reykjavík, Iceland. Additional summer studies include three summers at Music@Menlo’s Young Performers Program, Toronto Summer Music, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.

Violist Ed Gazouleas has emerged as one of the finest teachers of his generation and his students now populate the viola sections of many orchestras, including the Boston, St. Louis, and Indianapolis symphony orchestras; and many others in the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America.

Mr. Gazouleas was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 24 years, where he held the Lois and Harlan Anderson Viola Chair and led the viola section on many occasions, notably with conductors such as Colin Davis, Kurt Masur, and André Previn. While in Boston, he was active in orchestra governance, chairing the orchestra’s artistic advisory committee and serving on the search committee that selected Andris Nelsons to be the orchestra’s music director. He has had a long association with the Tanglewood Music Center in leadership capacities.

As a chamber music performer, Mr. Gazouleas has appeared with members of the Fine Arts, Pacifica, Muir, Lydian, and Johannes string quartets, among others. A prize-winner at the Eighth International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France, he has also collaborated with such artists as Christian Tetzlaff, Stephanie Blythe, Roberto Díaz, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and the principal string players of the Cleveland Orchestra.

Mr. Gazouleas works to expand and promote new works for the viola, and has collaborated with such composers as Sir Michael Tippett, John Harbison, and Osvaldo Golijov. In 2019 he performed the North American premiere of Letters from Warsaw by English composer Joseph Phibbs.

Mr. Gazouleas has also served on the faculties of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music as a tenured professor, Boston University College of Fine Arts, Boston Conservatory, Wellesley College, and New England Conservatory. He is also in demand as an orchestral clinician around the country.

Mr. Gazouleas is a 1984 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied viola with Michael Tree and Karen Tuttle. He joined the Curtis faculty in 2017 and was named the Gie and Lisa Liem Artistic Director in 2021 and Provost in 2022.

Elliot Sloss began his cello studies at the age of four, and in eighteen years since, his artistry has taken him to stages and institutions around the world. Currently a student at the Curtis Institute of Music, Elliot benefits from the mentorship of a distinguished faculty, including Peter Wiley, Gary Hoffman, Nick Canellakis, Yumi Kendall, and Christine Lee. His foundational training was shaped at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy in Toronto, where he studied under Paul Widner and Joe Johnson.

A prizewinner at the 2026 Classic Cello International Competition in London, Elliot had the distinction of performing with The Philharmonia Orchestra under conductor Tomàs Grau. He was also a finalist at the 2025 Shean Strings Competition in Edmonton and recently represented Canada on the international stage at the 2025 Isang-Yun Competition in South Korea.
Elliot is a three-time first-place winner in the national strings division of the Canadian Music Competition. He is also a three-time concerto competition winner of the North York Music Festival Competition, performing with the Etobicoke Philharmonic Orchestra; the Taylor Academy Chamber Orchestra Concerto Competition; and the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition.

Elliot performs on a 1706 Giuseppe Guarneri ‘filius Andreae’ cello crafted in Cremona, paired with a 1925 Victor Fétique bow made in Paris.

Xuanyan “Jessie” Gong is a pianist from Shanghai, China, currently in her second year at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studies piano with Robert McDonald.

Jessie’s musical journey began in an instrument shop on the streets of Shanghai, where, as a young child, she was mesmerized by a grand piano that she described as a “huge toy.” That moment sparked a lifelong passion that has continued to shape her life ever since.

She is the first prize winner of the Yamaha Senior Division of the 11th Bösendorfer and Yamaha USASU International Piano Competition (2025), the Kaufman Music Center International Piano Competition, and the Metropolitan International Piano Competition. Jessie has also been featured on NPR’s From the Top and participated in the Valissima Institute, a prestigious program for exceptional young female instrumentalists interested in conducting.

Before Curtis, Jessie graduated from Juilliard Pre-College in 2025, where she studied with Ernest Barretta.
Her love for collaboration shines through her work as one of the founding members of the Happy Feat Trio, which has won several international chamber music competitions.

Jessie believes deeply in the power of music to uplift and unite. As she beautifully expresses:

“I believe that music is a universal language of peace; it has the power to heal, to connect hearts through shared emotions, and to shape the world into something far more compassionate and beautiful than it might otherwise be.”