Julia Clancy

Violist/USA

As a member of the elite ensemble, Aldeburgh Strings, Julia performs concerts regularly in London and Snape England, with a most recent recording released on Signum Classics. Julia has served as principal violist in numerous international orchestras and has performed frequently in Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall with The New York String Orchestra Seminar, the Yale Philharmonia among other groups. As a soloist, Julia has performed with the Cleveland Institute of Music orchestra as a winner of the concerto competition, and other ensembles. In 2014, Julia held solo viola chair of Krzysztof Penderecki’s festival orchestra, working closely with the composer/conductor and toured Germany and Poland. Other engagements as principal violist have included the Britten-Pears Orchestra, Yale Philharmonia, Sarasota Festival Orchestra, Citymusic Cleveland, Moritzburg Festival orchestra, and Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Orchestra. Julia began playing viola in her hometown, Shoreham NY, and continued at Juilliard Pre-College with Heidi Castleman. Equally committed to academics, Julia pursued a B.A. in Medical Anthropology from Case Western Reserve University, graduating Magna Cum Laude, while simultaneously working toward B.M. at the Cleveland Institute of Music where she studied with Jeffrey Irvine and Robert Vernon. Currently, she is a graduate fellowship student of Ettore Causa at Yale University. Her 2015 engagements included the Perlman Music Program, the Britten-Pears Orchestra once again as principal violist, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Menuhin Academy in Gstaad Switzerland, and in the Aldeburgh Classical-Contemporary Connections Chamber Music Festival. She will be performing in the New York Philharmonic’s 2016 Biennial of New Music in May.

Duo Gurfinkel

Clarinetists/Israel

The twin brothers Daniel and Alexander Gurfinkel, duo clarinetists, have established themselves among today's important artists in their country. Born in 1992, they began their musical education in the year 2000 and by age 12, they were invited by Zubin Mehta to appear as soloists in the annual concert for young musicians with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In recent seasons, Duo Gurfinkel were re-engaged with Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, and performed abroad with the Zagreb Philharmonic, Belgrade Philharmonic, Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, with Yuri Bashmet and the Moscow Soloists at the Tchaikovsky Hall, with Capella Istopolitana, Berliner Camerata, as well as on tour in France with the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire. In March 2013, the duo won the 3rd prize at the 18th International Chamber Music Competition in Illzach, France, and during that year the duo performed at Gewandhaus with Leipziger Symphony Orchester, Grand Hall in Moscow with Heilbronn Chamber Orchestra, in Rome and Vatikan. The DUO have appeared in USA (Detroit, New York, Chicago), in Hong Kong, Slovenia, Italy, Russia, Germany, Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Croatia, Austria, and South Africa with performances across Europe in international music festivals. Daniel and Alexander Gurfinkel preserve a rich family tradition of three generations. Their grandfather Arkady Gurfinkel was a well-known clarinet player, teacher, and arranger, while their father, Michael Gurfinkel, is among the leading clarinet players in Israel as principal of the Israel Symphony Orchestra and Israeli Opera, as well as in chamber music both in Israel and abroad. Among forthcoming engagements of Duo Gurfinkel there are a series of concerts in Germany with Brandenburger Symphoniker Orchestra, concerts across Russia with La Primavera String Orchestra and Voronezh Academic Symphonic Orchestra, and in Estonia with Glasperlenspiel Sinfonietta.

Jacopo Giacopuzzi

Pianist/Italy