FACULTY


Bongshin Ko

Hailed by critics for her “most perfect playing” (Internet Cello Society) with “great warmth and beauty” (The STRAD), cellist Bongshin Ko has appeared worldwide as a soloist with such groups as Television and Radio Symphony of Moscow, Munich Chamber Players, the KBS Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Zagreb Philharmonic, and Central Broadcasting Symphony of China to name a few. Ms. Ko was the first Korean artist to be invited to perform in China after the historic resumption of diplomatic relations between South Korea and China, and has since been invited back annually.

Ms. Ko has collaborated with some of the world’s greatest artists including Mstislav Rostropovich, Bernard Greenhouse, Sir Georg Solti, Leonard Stein, Gunther Schuller, Semyon Bychkov and Valery Gergiev. She appeared at Seoul International Music Festival to give the Asian premiere of Bernard Rands’ Cello Concerto, dedicated to and world premiered by Mstislav Rostropovich in celebration of his 70th birthday. Other international music events and festivals welcomed her to Schleswig-Holstein festival, Kronberg Cello festival, Hoertnagel Konzertdirekzion, Berlin Wall 10th anniversary concert, Rostropovich & Friends Concert (Germany), American Cello Congresses, Kumho Guest Artist Recital, plus numerous others in France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Luxembourg, Poland, Russia, Monaco, Croatia, USA, Korea, China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Indonesia.

She has performed to critical acclaims on NDR and Bayerischer Rundfunk (Germany), Fuji TV (Japan), TV New Zealand, TV China, Korean Broadcasting Systems and NBC. As a member of the European-based Tritton Cello Quartet she can be heard on the Musica Columna label. Her live performances of Brahms and Barber sonatas are often broadcast on the Arte TV in Korea and over the transpacific in-flight classical station on Asiana Airlines. Ms. Ko’s Haydn and Saint-Saens concerti, recorded with Munich Chamber Players in Germany, can also be heard on the SONY Classical label.

As a recipient of over 30 international prizes and awards, including the highest performance award in her native Korea and the Crossroad Award in the US for her “superior teaching,” she is on popular demand as a teacher as well as a performer around the globe. Prestigious schools where she taught special guest master classes include The Juilliard School, Mannheim Musikhochschule, Korean National University of Arts, Nürnberg School for Music, and Bejing Central Conservatory. Serving as Professor of Cello and Vice Director at Cal State University Fullerton School of Music she is also active in supporting young talents and promoting cello art through   Greenhouse Foundation & Festival, which she founded together with the late legendary cellist Bernard Greenhouse in 2008. As a leading member of The New York Soloists and New York Public Library Concert Series Ms. Ko performs frequently at major venues and concert halls throughout five continents.

Wendy Warner

Cellist Wendy Warner soared to international acclaim, winning the international Rostropovich Cello Competition top prize at age eighteen. Her career took off with concerts conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich and debuts in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Köln, Düsseldorf, Berlin and New York at Carnegie Hall. Strings magazine hailed her “youthful, surging playing, natural stage presence and almost frightening technique.”

From a musical Chicago family, Warner studied with Rostropovich at the Curtis Institute of Music from which she graduated. Collaborators have included conductors Vladimir Spivakov, Christoph Eschenbach, Andre Previn, Jesús López Cobos and Michael Tilson Thomas. She has appeared with leading U.S. orchestras and internationally—from Paris and London to Serbia and Russia.

Recent season highlights include appearances with the Wichita, Columbus (Georgia), Wyoming and Alabama Symphonies and return engagements with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional (Peru) and the Xiamen Philharmonic (China). This season she will be featured with the Hartford and Santa Fe Symphony Orchestras and, joining violinist Vadim Gluzman in the Brahms Double Concerto , the Austin Symphony Orchestra. In 2020 she will return to the prestigious Piatigorsky International Cello Festival.

Wendy Warner's Cedille CDs include Haydn & Myslivecek ; Russian Music for Cello & Piano ; Popper & Piatigorsky ; The Beethoven Project Trio ; Double Play with Rachel Barton Pine; and Eclipse . On other labels she has recorded Hindemith's chamber works ; Barber's Cello Concerto ; and compositions by Dalit Warshaw. A CD of Edgar Valcárcel’s Cello Concerto with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional (Peru) will be released soon. An Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, Warner holds the Leah D. Ha

Warner played the 2009 world premiere of a newly discovered Beethoven piano trio. With pianist Irina Nuzova she performed the complete Beethoven Cello Sonatas on tour and by invitation at the U.S. Supreme Court. Other collaborators have included Anne Sophie Mutter, Gidon Kremer, the Fine Arts Quartet and Chicago Chamber Musicians. She has given recitals in Milan and Tokyo and is a frequent guest on WFMT in Chicago.

(5/16-5/17 for Early Bird masterclasses)

 

Seth Parker Woods

Professor of Cello, USC
(6/14-6/15 & 7/24)

Hailed by The Guardian as “a cellist of power and grace” who possesses “mature artistry and willingness to go to the brink,” two-time Grammy-nominated cellist Seth Parker Woods has established his reputation as a versatile artist and innovator across multiple genres. Woods’ projects delve deep into our cultural fabric, reimagining traditional works and commissioning new ones to propel classical music into the future. As The New York Times wrote, “Woods is an artist rooted in classical music, but whose cello is a vehicle that takes him, and his concertgoers, on wide-ranging journeys.” Also at the forefront of fashion, Woods has topped the “Best Dressed” lists in Variety , Texas Monthly and OC Register, among others. He is an honoree of the 2023 Seattle Symphony’s 25th Anniversary Silver Gala and recipient of the 2022 Chamber Music America Michael Jaffee Visionary Award. Woods has served on the faculty of the USC Thornton School of Music since 2022, and he was appointed to the Robert Mann Chair in Strings and Chamber Music in 2024.

Among the highlights of his 2024-2025 season, Woods performs in the world premiere of Nathalie Joachim’s new cello concerto, Had to Be , at Spoleto Festival USA. He later performs the same piece in its New York premiere as he makes his debut with the New York Philharmonic. Among his other upcoming engagements, Woods performs the East Coast premiere of Rebecca Saunders’ cello concerto Ire as 2024 guest artist with The Next Festival of Emerging Artists. He later makes his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut in the world premiere of a new cello concerto by Julia Adolphe. A core member of the music collective Wild Up, Woods is also a featured soloist in the fourth release of Wild Up’s Grammy-nominated Eastman Project: Eastman Vol. 4: The Holy Presence, an exploration of composer Julius Eastman’s works on religious themes released June 21, 2024 on New Amsterdam Records. In a second new release out this season on New Focus Recordings, Woods is featured alongside flutist Claire Chase on a recording of music by Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

During the 2023-2024 season, Woods brought his Grammy-nominated, autobiographical tour-de-force Difficult Grace— described as “dazzlingly inventive” ( Gramophone Magazine ) and “a feast for the ears, eyes and mind” ( The New York Times )—to San Diego and Philadelphia. Difficult Grace premiered at 92NY in the 2022-2023 season with choreographer Roderick George , followed by performances at UCLA and Chicago’s Harris Theater. It was released as an album on Cedille Records in 2023 and nominated for the 2024 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. Woods performed the Boston premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s “UBIQUE” at Harvard University and featured in a pair of performances with Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn at Konzerthaus Dortmund in Germany. With American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), Woods toured a new version of John Adams’ El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered with libretto by Peter Sellars, concept by AMOC member Julia Bullock . He appeared in two performances of Fallen Petals, a program commissioned by Chamber Music Detroit that was inspired by stories of juvenile offenders serving life in prison.

In addition to his post at the University of Southern California, Woods serves on the artist faculty of the Music Academy of the West each summer and has previously served on the faculties of the University at Buffalo, University of Chicago, Dartmouth College and Chicago Academy of the Arts, and as Artist-in-Residence at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and Northwestern University – Center for New Music. He holds degrees from Brooklyn College, Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel and a PhD from the University of Huddersfield. In the 2020-21 season, he was an Artist-in-Residence with the Kaufman Music Center, and from 2018-2020 he served as Artist-in-Residence with Seattle Symphony and Creative Consultant for the interactive concert hall, Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center.

 

 

Alexander Suleiman Director, Neuburg Academy in Germany

Alexander Suleiman studied with Eldar Issakadze, Daniil Shafran, and Natalia Gutman and has won numerous competitions not only with his main instrument but also as a pianist in Germany, Spain, the USA, and Korea.

His solo and chamber music CDs include world premiere recordings and have been released on numerous labels, including Deutsche Grammophon, Naxos, MDG, TYXArt, GuildMusic, and Starsing Classic. The CD “Out of the Blue“ has been nominated for the “Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik“, the CD “Impressions of China” includes own compositions and has been awarded the "Huawei Hi-Classical Music Award” , and the world premier recording of the piano trios by An-lun Huang together with violinist Bin Huang and pianist Yubo Zhou has won the “OPUS KLASSIK” Award.

As a soloist Mr. Suleiman follows invitations to play as a soloist with orchestras in Germany, the USA, Russia, China, Korea, Austria, Israel, and South Africa and has performed at the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the National Performing Arts Center Beijing, the Beijing Concert Hall, the Mahler City Hall in Cape Town.

Prof. Suleiman is currently holding the position as Distinguished Professor of Cello at the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing and is a frequent member of jury panels in international music competitions in Hong Kong, Jerusalem, Beijing, Finland, and the USA. He frequently performs chamber music with his colleagues at international music festivals in Germany, China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Finland, Italy, France, and the USA.