Curtis on Tour in Burlingame, CA

Internationally acclaimed as a violist as well as a violinist, the versatile Ida Kavafian is an artist-member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and former violinist of the Beaux Arts Trio. For 34 years she has been artistic director of Music from Angel Fire in New Mexico, where some 200 Curtis students have participated in the Young Artist Program to date. She was a founder of the Bravo! Colorado festival, serving as its artistic director for ten years; and co-founded the chamber ensembles Opus One, Tashi, and Trio Valtorna. She also performs as a soloist and in recital with her sister, violinist Ani Kavafian.

Ms. Kavafian has premiered numerous works, including concertos by Toru Takemitsu and Michael Daugherty, whose Fire and Blood she recorded with the Detroit Symphony. She has toured and recorded with jazz artists Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis, and with fiddler/composer Mark O’Connor.

Born in Istanbul of Armenian parentage, Ms. Kavafian is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where she studied with Oscar Shumsky. She made her debut through Young Concert Artists with the pianist Peter Serkin, and also received the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant. She resides with her husband, violist Steven Tenenbom, in Philadelphia and Connecticut, where they breed and train prizewinning Hungarian vizsla show dogs.

Since 1998 Ms. Kavafian has served on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she received the 2013 Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching. She also teaches at the Juilliard School and the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Danny Yehun Jin, from Seoul, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2013 and studies violin with Ida Kavafian and Erin Keefe. All students at Curtis receive merit-based, full-tuition scholarships, and Mr. Jin is the Sandra G. and David G. Marshall Fellow.

Mr. Jin has performed as a soloist with the Seoul Philharmonic, Suwon Philharmonic, and Mokpo-City Philharmonic. He has also been featured on the Korean Broadcasting System television. Mr. Jin has participated in several competitions, including the Menuhin International Violin Competition, where he received fifth prize. He has also participated in the Orchestra of the Korean National School for the Gifted in Arts, as well as the International Great Mountains Music Festival.

Mr. Jin began violin lessons at age two and previously studied with Jinseung Kim. His nonmusical interests include sports such as soccer and basketball. Mr. Jin began his Curtis experience alongside his younger sister, Yeyeong.

Armenian-American violist Cara Pogossian is a recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she received her Bachelor of Music degree under the tutelage of Hsin-Yun Huang and Misha Amory. She served as co-principal viola of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra during the 2019–20 season, which included a U.S. tour in early 2020. Prior to her studies at Curtis, Ms. Pogossian attended the Colburn Music Academy, where she studied with Paul Coletti and Che-Yen (Brian) Chen. As an Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) Scholarship recipient, she has performed at several high-profile concerts, including a joint recital with her brother, Edvard, at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Ms. Pogossian is an alumna of NPR’s “From the Top” radio show, and her quartet was the Junior Bronze Medal winner of the 2017 Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition. An avid chamber musician, she has attended numerous summer festivals, including the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Taos School of Music, Perlman Music Program, and Yellow Barn Young Artists Program. Committed to musical outreach, Ms. Pogossian has frequently performed at schools, retirement centers, and hospitals in the greater Los Angeles and Philadelphia areas, and is also an organizer of several Music for Food performances, raising funds for local food banks.

Ms. Pogossian is lucky enough to have an entire family of musicians, with whom she frequently performs. During the pandemic, the Pogossian/Manouelian Clarinet Quintet collaborated with composers Timo Andres, Ian Krouse, Artashes Kartalyan, and Aida Shirazi, premiering each of their works in a series of online concerts. She is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree at the New England Conservatory with Kim Kashkashian.

Peter Wiley, a 1974 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, has played at leading festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival, for which he also tours and records. As a recitalist he has appeared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. A member of the Beaux Arts Trio from 1987 to 1998, Mr. Wiley also succeeded his teacher, David Soyer, as cellist of the Guarneri String Quartet from 2001 to 2009. He is a member of the piano quartet Opus One, with Curtis faculty members Ida Kavafian and Steven Tenenbom and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott.

Mr. Wiley entered Curtis at age thirteen. At twenty he was named principal cello of the Cincinnati Symphony, after one year with the Pittsburgh Symphony. He made his concerto debut at Carnegie Hall in 1986 with the New York String Orchestra conducted by Alexander Schneider.

A past recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, Mr. Wiley joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1996. He also teaches at the University of Maryland and Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Born into a family of string players, Francis Carr, from Oxford, England, started playing the cello at age four. Early career highlights include a radio broadcast in the Netherlands, concerto appearances with the Oxfordshire Youth Orchestra and the Abingdon Symphony Orchestra, and chamber and solo appearances in Munich, Warsaw, Montpellier, New York, and throughout the United Kingdom.

Mr. Carr has given recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall, Milton Court in Surrey, the Berlin Konzerthaus, Brussels Bozar, and Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw. He has attended the Greenwood Music Camp, Four Seasons Winter Workshop, and Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School and Festival. Additional festival appearances throughout the United States and Europe have included Loon Lake Live Summer Concert Series, Stichting Kamermuziek Amsterdam, Young Pianists Foundation Piano Concours Amsterdam, Gstaad Menuhin Festival & Academy, and Music from Angel Fire.

Mr. Carr has studied with Melissa Phelps, Thomas Carroll, Darrett Adkins, Carter Brey, Peter Wiley, and his father, the cellist Colin Carr. He has worked closely with Johannes Goritzki, Joel Krosnick, Gary Hoffman, and the Chiara, Emerson, and Juilliard string quartets and has attended the Juilliard and Yehudi Menuhin Schools and the Curtis Institute of Music. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking, kayaking, reading, and bird watching.