Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival Fellows perform a concert to benefit Feeding Chittendon!
Kaleigh Acord
Violinist Kaleigh Acord completed a Doctor of Musical Arts at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music in December 2020. At UW, she was a student of Soh-Hyun Park Altino and a recipient of the esteemed Paul Collins Fellowship. She also holds a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, as well as a Masters of Music and an Undergraduate Diploma from the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, MA. Her previous teachers include Violaine Melancon and Laura Bossert. Kaleigh received Peabody’s 2016-17 Valerie Slingluff Violin Scholarship and debuted on WQXR’s McGraw Hill Financial Young Artist Showcase in March 2014, playing Schoenfeld's Souvenirs for Violin and Piano. Notable chamber music collaborations include those with the Hausmann Quartet, cellist Michael Kannen, and Tchaikovsky International Gold Medalist Sergey Antonov. Her debut album of unaccompanied violin works, Twenty-First Century American Storytellers, is available to stream through Spotify. As a teacher, Kaleigh aims to help her students cultivate trust in their own ability to tackle challenges, musical and otherwise. She has taught violin and viola privately for over a decade, and since 2021 is a faculty member at Madison Conservatory and Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras' Music Makers. Both programs seek to address financial and social barriers that inhibit access to youth music education. Kaleigh coached chamber music for WYSO during 2021, led violin sectionals for UW’s Symphony Orchestra from 2017-19, acted as teaching assistant for Laura Bossert's violin and viola studios at Longy School of Music from 2012-15, mentored through El-Sistema-inspired string projects in the Boston area during 2013-15, and served on the Young Artist Faculty at Lyricafest Chamber Music Festival in Lincoln, MA from 2013-15.
Jordan Bartel
Described as playing with “delirious ecstasy” by Seen and Heard International, violinist Jordan Bartel is currently pursuing his Specialist in Violin Performance at the University of Michigan under the tutelage of Aaron Berofsky. An avid chamber musician, Jordan is a founding member of Trio Amabile, who have been dedicated to applying their rich sense of lyricism and musicality to a wide range of repertoire. The Trio have enjoyed performing across the Greater Detroit Metropolitan Area, giving full recitals at the East Bloomfield Public Library’s Chamber Series and the Scarab Club. They placed second in both the 2022 and 2023 Briggs Chamber music competition and a semi finalist in the 2023 Plowman Competition. They have received coachings from Amy I-Lin Cheng, Martin Katz, Amir Eldan, Richard Aaron, Gregory Lee, and the Pacifica Quartet. Jordan has also been a part of the Lyrica Chamber Orchestra Citizen’s Artist Orchestra since 2016 under the mentorship of celebrated musicians Laura Bossert and Terry King, performing across the country. Achievements with the LCO have included an NPR debut at WQXR’s McGraw Hill Financial Young Artist Showcase with Robert Sherman, and collaboration/coaching with Invoke Quartet, Steven Ansell, Hausmann Quartet. He has recently participated in master classes and seminars with Ani Kavafian, Ryan Meehan, Sean Lee, Kirsten Doctor, and the Verona quartet. In the summer, he serves as Young Artist Faculty at ArtsAhimsa Chamber Music Festival, and in 2022 was named one of Garth Newel Music Center’s Emerging Artist Fellows, and in 2023 one of Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival’s esteemed fellows. Jordan holds Master’s degrees in both Violin Performance and Chamber Music from the University of Michigan. He completed his Undergraduate Degree in Music Industry from Syracuse University, where he served as concertmaster and won the 2020 Concerto Competition.
Katherine Cheng
Katherine (Kit Ying) Cheng is a New York-based violinist and grand prize winner at the New York Artists International Competition. She has appeared on stage at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and David Geffen Hall, and has performed as a soloist with the Binghamton Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Bravura Philharmonic Orchestra, the 92Y School of Music Orchestra, and the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra. Katherine was a semi-finalist in the Cooper International Competition and Stradivarius International Violin Competition and was the first prize winner of the Southern Tier Music Teachers Association Competition, 92Y Concerto Competition, Juilliard Pre-College Violin Concerto Competition, Bravura Young Artists Concerto Competition, and International Ming Classics International Online Music Competition. She has performed in many orchestras, including the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of Hong Kong, Binghamton Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Bravura Philharmonic Orchestra. She attended the Tanglewood Music Festival in 2019 and the Taipei Music Academy and Festival in 2022. She has been selected as a fellow of the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival this summer. Katherine began her violin studies under her father’s tutelage at age three. Before immigrating to the U.S. in 2010, she earned an associate and licentiate diploma from Trinity College London, as well as certificates from the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Katherine attended the Juilliard Pre-College Division in 2012, where she studied with Elizabeth Chang. She was also a recipient of a Jerome L. Greene Fellowship at the Juilliard School, where she received her Bachelor of Music degree studying with Frank Huang. Later, she pursued her Master of Music degree at the Yale School of Music, studying with Tai Murray. She will begin her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Eastman School of Music starting in September with Robin Scott.
Devin Cowan
DevinCowan is an artist and performer currently living in Western Massachusetts. He holds degrees in Viola Performance from Oberlin Conservatory, The Juilliard School, and University of Massachusetts Amherst. Devin has spent recent years as a performer, private teacher and chamber coach in Amherst and the surrounding areas as well as being a Co-Principle Viola in the New England Repertory Orchestra and Visiting Faculty at Clark University in Worcester, MA. Devin has been an orchestra mentor at the Juilliard Pre-College Program and Manhattan School of Music Pre-College and was a guest chamber music coach with the Stony Brook Young Artists Summer Institute as well as the Chamber Music Center of NYC. Some of Devin's most important mentors have been Jinjoo Cho, Kirsten Docter, Carol Rodland, Tomoko Fujita, and the Cavani String Quartet. He loves playing chamber music with friends and is pursuing a performance career as a quartet musician. Starting next Fall, Devin will begin working on his Doctorate of Musical Arts as a Teaching Assistant at University of Colorado Boulder. In his free time Devin loves riding his bike, hiking around New England, and is an avid NY Mets fan.
Alexander Fowler
Boston-based cellist, teacher, arranger Alex Fowler graduated from the New England Conservatory after earning a Masters of Music (2019) and a Graduate Diploma (2020) under the tutelage of Yeesun Kim. Alex has appeared frequently on the Boston Symphony Orchestra concert series, What I Hear, performing solo and chamber works by Bermel, Currier, Saariaho, Widmann, and Dzenitis. He received New England Conservatory’s 2019 John Cage Award for Contemporary Performance. In 2020 he won Entrepreneurial Musicianship’s Spark Award for his work as a musical storyteller through the Community Performances & Partnerships program, curating original programs combining stories and cello repertoire for young audiences around Boston. Alex currently performs with the Cape Ann Symphony, the New Bedford Symphony, Eureka Ensemble, Phoenix, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Mass Opera, Fermata Chamber Soloists, and is the principal cellist of the DuBois Orchestra. He also teaches at the Brookline Music School, the Community Music Center of Boston, Dedham Music School, Medfield Public Schools, and Fitchburg State University in addition to running his own studio. 2022-23 season highlights included solo cello works by Bruch & Pärt with the Fermata Chamber Ensemble and serving as an artist fellow for Music for Food, a musician-led initiative to fight hunger in communities nationwide. As a music for food fellow, alongside duo partner soprano Theodora Nestorova, Alex has presented concerts in schools and communities to raise awareness of overshadowed socio-cultural issues by elevating marginalized repertoire, especially underrepresented Eastern world music.
Yeajin Go
Cellist Yeajin Go is from Seoul, South Korea. She began playing cello at the age of 11 through a local church program. As her passion for cello grew, she went onto study cello at Ewha Womans University in South Korea with Ilhwan Bae. During her time at Ewha, she won the concerto competition in 2015, performing the Elgar Concerto with the Ewha Womans University Symphony Orchestra. To broaden her musical perspectives, Go came to the US and completed her Masters studying with Eric Kim at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. As a chamber musician she formed a string quartet and gave several recitals during 2021-2023. She has worked with various artists including Pacifica Quartet, Balourdet Quartet, Mark Kaplan, and Evelyn Brencart. Go has also been actively serving as an orchestral musician. She was the former principal of Ewha Womans University Symphony Orchestra from 2016-2018 and also for the Conductor’s Orchestra at Indiana University. She has worked with various conductors including Osmo Vänskä, Ken-David Masur, David Neely, Michael Christie, and Andrew Altenbach. She is currently playing with the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, Evansville Symphony Orchestra, and Owensboro Symphony. In the summers, Go has attended the Atlantic Music Festival, Masterworks Music Festival as a recipient of the Tavani Fellowship, and this past year, attended Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. She has performed with renowned artists like violinist Jehye Lee and pianist Stanislav Khristenko. Go has played in masterclasses for Hee Young Lim, Ludwig Quandt, Alan Harrell, Matthew Zalkind and Alice Yoo. Go is currently pursuing a Doctor of Music degree at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying with Peter Stumpf.
Sofiya Levchenko
Growing up in Uzbekistan, Sofiya advocates for classical music in her homeland and abroad by performing solo and ensemble repertoire in orchestral settings on international stages, including renowned concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall, and Detroit Symphony Hall. She made her public solo debut at the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan at the age of fourteen. Since then, she has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras both in her home country and abroad, performing works by composers such as Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Paganini, Wieniawski, Sarasate, Vieuxtemps, and Vivaldi. She has also performed at the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, the Ensemble Academy Freiburg, the Hellerau Festival, and the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival, where Sofyia had the opportunity to work with famous musicians including Valery Gergiev, Marin Alsop, Christoph Eschenbach, and Leonidas Kavakos, among others. Sofiya believes that contemporary classical music should be an essential part of the repertoire. In 2011, she was invited to become a member of the Omnibus Ensemble, the leading ensemble for contemporary music in Central Asia. As a member, she collaborated with artists from ensembles such as Bang on a Can, Ensemble Connect, MusikFabrik, Ensemble Recherche, and Nieuw Ensemble. Sofiya also managed several projects, including "the Online Laboratorium Peabody – Tashkent," which focused on integrating Uzbek music into Western classical music. By organizing an online laboratory between Uzbek and American musicians, she advocated for and drew attention to Uzbekistan's unique musical heritage. Currently, Sofiya serves as the Concertmaster of the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra and is a Teaching Assistant at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She completed her master's degree and Performance Diploma at MSU under the tutelage of Dmitri Berlinsky, and she is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University with Professors Hagai Shaham, Arnaud Sussman, Jennifer Frautschi, and The Emerson Quartet.
Samuel Sun
Sam Sun, a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, is a violist and violinist pursuing a Master of Music in Viola Performance at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music on the Eckstein Scholarship, studying under Helen Callus. He graduated summa cum laude with a double degree in Applied Music and Music Education from Pepperdine University. At Pepperdine, he was a Chloe Ross Scholar, a winner of the Thomas Osborne Concerto Competition, and received the Oustanding Graduate and Service Award in Music. He has served as concertmaster, principal violist, and assistant student conductor of the Pepperdine Orchestra. Sam has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, as well as in Austria, Canada, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Taiwan. He has worked with notable artists such as Midori Gotō, Alexander Treger, and Phillip Ying, as well as the Rolston Quartet, the Ariel Quartet, and the Eroica Trio.