SEASON 2

"Jennifer Grim must be one of the finest flutists of our time."
-Jon Sobel, BlogCritics

"Jennifer Grim is a treasure, and Michael Sheppard makes an ideal musical partner for her seemingly boundless talent."
-Jon Sobel, BlogCritics

Hailed as "a deft, smooth flute soloist" by the New York Times, flutist Jennifer Grim has given solo and chamber performances throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. For over twenty years, she was the flutist of the award-winning Zéphyros Winds and the New York Chamber Soloists. She is a frequent guest artist with the Boston Chamber Music Society, Alpenglow Chamber Music Festival, Ensemble Flageolet, and has performed with such renowned ensembles such as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, American String Quartet, and with members of the Takacs Quartet and St. Lawrence Quartet.
Jennifer's recently released album, titled "Through Broken Time" (New Focus Recordings, September 2022), received wide acclaim and featured works by David Sanford, Julia Wolfe, Tania Léon, Alvin Singleton, Allison Loggins-Hull, and Valerie Coleman. Take Effect (February 2023) stated: "A multi-dimensional effort that is quite meticulous and diverse, there just isn't a second here that's not exciting and memorable." The New York Times listed the album in an article titled "5 Albums You Can Listen to Right Now" for its "sharply executed program." (December 2022).
Jennifer has performed as a soloist with the Frost Symphony Orchestra, Frost Wind Ensemble, Lviv Philharmonic, Boca Raton Symphonia, UNLV Symphony Orchestra, Henderson Symphony Orchestra, the Vermont Summer Music Festival, among others. With Zéphyros Winds, Jennifer has been in residence at universities across the country, including the Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music, Stanford University, Yale School of Music, and many others. She also has performed as Principal Flute of the Mozart Orchestra of New York, Santo Domingo Festival Orchestra, Boca Symphonia, and the Festival Orchestra Napa.
Jennifer is currently Associate Professor at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. She previously served on the faculty of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for twelve years and in 2017 was honored with the Teacher of the Year Award from the UNLV College of Fine Arts.  A native of Berkeley, California, Jennifer holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from Yale University. Jennifer is currently the Artistic Administrator for the Frost School at Festival Napa Valley, while also serving as President of the Board of Directors of Chamber Music America and Vice President of the National Flute Association.

Zachary Good is a multifaceted clarinetist, chamber musician, and composer based in Chicago. 

Zachary is the clarinetist of the sextet Eighth Blackbird (2019–present), a member of Ensemble Dal Niente, and a founding Co-Artistic Director and member of the eccentric performance collective Mocrep. He has frequently performed with International Contemporary Ensemble, Music of the Baroque Chicago, and the puppet company Manual Cinema. He has been a featured solo artist with the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s All Access Chamber Series, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, the University of Louisville’s New Music Festival, DePaul University's Ensemble 20+, and at The Phillips Collection. With Eighth Blackbird, Zachary has appeared as a soloist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the US Navy Band, and the Pacific Symphony. As an improviser, he performs and records with the trio ZRL (with Lia Kohl and Ryan Packard) and the amplified acoustic and synthetic quintet Honestly Same (with Lia Kohl, Zach Moore, Sam Scranton, and Mabel Kwan), as well as regularly appearing on improvised music series throughout Chicago. His discography includes releases on Moon Glyph Records, American Dreams Records, Carrier Records, No Index, Homeroom, Parlour Tapes+, ears&eyes, and more. 
As a composer, Zachary explores contrapuntal possibilities on the soprano clarinet with small–interval multiphonics (“close dyads”), creating the illusion of multiple clarinetists playing simultaneously. His music is quietly virtuosic, inspired by the intricacies of the clarinet and a love for Baroque nuance and form. Zachary’s compositions and intersecting multiphonic research were the focus of his dissertation, “Add Dye: Dyadic Perspectives on Close Dyad Multiphonics for the Soprano Clarinet.” A companion to this document is Zachary’s most substantial composition to date, Lake Heritage (2019–2022): a 45-minute piece that incorporates 65 unique multiphonics across four soprano clarinets in Bb. As an arranger, Zachary’s Style Brisé project (2017–present) is an ongoing series of French Baroque harpsichord preludes arranged for bass clarinet, including preludes by Élisabeth de La Guerre, Louis and François Couperin, and Gaspard Le Roux. 
Zachary is a graduate of Northwestern University (DMA), Oberlin Conservatory, and DePaul University. He is the recipient of the 2021 Luminarts Classical Winds Fellowship. Zachary has participated in fellowships with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and the Aspen Contemporary Music program. Zachary is a D’Addario Woodwinds Artist.

Cellist MaryGrace Bender is a performer, teacher, and believer in the beauty of music and the important impact it has on how we see the world. As a Suzuki teacher, she leads a full studio of cellists in the Nashville area, as well as a studio in Huntsville. MaryGrace founded the Nashville Chamber Music Society, which is a 501(c)(3) organization and performs on a regular basis with NashvilleCMS in a variety of spaces for a variety of audiences. This past summer, MaryGrace taught at Stringtime in DC, a festival for young musicians, and previously served as a faculty member and performer for Lincoln Center’s Restart Stages series for BridgeMusik in NYC. She regularly records in Nashville for scoring companies such as Sony, Bungee, Hulu, and Netflix, and enjoys coaching NashvilleCMS program chamber groups. She performed with the McDue Center for Strings in Carnegie Hall, as Young Artist for The Rome Chamber Music Festival in Italy, and recorded orchestrally under Philip Glass’s Orange Mountain Music label which The Wall Street Journal reviewed as, “impeccably polished.”
MaryGrace’s studies include a master's degree from The Cleveland Institute of Music in Cello Performance and Suzuki Pedagogy, and an undergraduate degree from The Robert McDue Center for Strings at Mercer University. She spent summers at The National Repertory Orchestra, Meadowmount School of Music, Brevard Music Festival, Chautauqua Summer Institute, and the Aspen Music Festival and School as a New Horizon's fellow. Past influential teachers include Dr. Melissa Kraut, Hans Jørgen Jensen, Julie Albers, Dr. Felix Wang, and Anne Hall Williams. MaryGrace lives in Huntsville with her husband Blake and their dog, Cooper. They all love the outdoors and she attempts to keep up with Blake via hiking, biking, skiing, or running.

With inherent virtuosity and the singular ability to communicate their ideas effortlessly to audiences, Kebra is poised to be a leader of their generation. After winning first prize in the 2022 Sphinx Competition, Kebra-Seyoun Charles has quickly made a name for themself by soloing in front of orchestras such as the New World Symphony, Sphinx Virtuosi, Indianapolis Symphony, and the Willmington Symphony. Originally from Miami, Florida, Kebra received their Bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. Then, in 2022, graduated from the Juilliard School with a Master’s degree, at the beginning of which they were awarded tenure as principal bass. Kebra simultaneously received the prestigious Jerome L. Greene fellowship. In recognition of their talent and commitment to furthering their vision as a soloist, Kebra received Juilliard’s Benzaquen Career Grant.
Growing up the child of an African drummer and dancer, Kebra-Seyoun was exposed to music at a very early age. Having been steeped in jazz, gospel, and traditional African music, Kebra developed an interest in a multiplicity of genres. They honed their craft at the New World School of the Arts, in Miami, Fl, even performing at Jazz at Lincoln Center. In their early years, Kebra-Seyoun was invited to perform at the Kagoshima Jazz Festival as well as the Aspen Music Festival and School.
In line with their upbringing, Kebra-Seyoun is able to give prominence to the dance qualities in all forms of music. Exhibiting their versatility, Kebra-Seyoun has collaborated with esteemed improvisers and composers such as Jon Batiste, at Carnegie Hall, and Tyshawn Sorey, at the New England Conservatory. Kebra-Seyoun was also featured in “Slugs’ Saloon” at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, an interactive installation created by famed jazz musician and composer Jason Moran.
Currently, in addition to their solo career, Kebra-Seyoun Charles is a passionate chamber musician. Playing with groups like East Coast Chamber Orchestra, A Far Cry, Palaver Strings, and the Sphinx Virtuosi afford Kebra the opportunity to showcase their musicianship while still playing within an ensemble. A prime example of this was their tenure on the 2019 Emmy award-winning Broadway production “Hadestown”.
In 2016 and 2019 Kebra-Seyoun Charles was the winner of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra’s concerto competition. Kebra was also the winner of the NAACP’s 2016 ACT-SO concerto competition, the 2021 Southern Illinois Young Artist Competition, and the 2021 International Music Organization competition. They have also been featured by the National Sawdust, National Arts Club, Performance Today, YoungArts, From the Top, Bass Players for Black Composers, the American Music Talent Competition, and the National Library of Congress.
From 2016-2020, they were the principal of the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra’s double bass section. This included performances in Boston’s Symphony Hall, Harvard’s Sanders Theatre, Vienna’s Mozarteum, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. Kebra-Seyoun has thrice played as a fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra.

Guitarist Daniel Lippel, called an “exciting soloist” (New York Times) has a multi-faceted career as a soloist, chamber musician, collaborator, and recording artist. Recent recital highlights include Cleveland International Guitar Festival, Le Poisson Rouge (NYC), Sinus Ton Festival (Germany), the National University of Colombia in Bogota, and the Triangle and New York Classical Guitar Societies. As a contemporary chamber musician, he has been a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble since 2005 and counter)induction since 2019, and played as a guest with many other ensembles, including St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New York City Ballet, New York New Music Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, and Ensemble Dal Niente, performing at such venues as the Dutch National Opera, Ultima Festival at the Oslo Opera House (Norway), Guitar Foundation of America Convention (Manhattan School of Music), Macau Festival (China), and Kunst Universitaet Graz (Austria), Mostly Mozart Festival, Ojai Festival, and Ottawa Chamber Festival (Canada). He has worked closely with many composers including Mario Davidovsky, Nils Vigeland, Charles Wuorinen, Ken Ueno, Dai Fujikura, Tyshawn Sorey, Wang Lu, Reiko Fueting, Du Yun, Douglas Boyce, Kyle Bartlett, Mikel Kuehn, and John Link. Lippel has also been active in various creative improvised contexts in performance and on recording, including on projects with Cory Smythe, Will Mason’s Happy Place, Alejandro Florez, Dan Bruce, and Aidan Plank. As longtime guitarist with eclectic indie group Mice Parade he performed on several international tours and albums. He is the co-founder, owner, and director of New Focus Recordings, performing and producing on several of its albums, as well as appearing on recordings on other labels including Kairos, Sony Classical Japan, Bridge, Tzadik, Wergo, and New World. Australia’s Limelight magazine called his recent recording of Bach works on a re-fretted Well-Tempered guitar “a watershed in Lippel’s ability to bring together novel musicological and philosophical strands in the service of pure pleasure." Lippel has given presentations and masterclasses to guitar and composition departments at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule (Berlin), Curtis Institute, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Peabody Institute of Music, and San Francisco Conservatory, among others. He completed his DMA at the Manhattan School of Music, with earlier studies at Cleveland Institute of Music and Oberlin Conservatory.

A versatile pianist, Wesley Ducote regularly performs works dating from the Renaissance to the current decade as well as the standards in between. As an enthusiastic contemporary musician Mr. Ducote has performed many of the pillars of 20th/21st century repertoire from Wuorinen’s New York Notes to the Ligeti Piano Concerto. He is often seen collaborating with some of today’s brightest stars including composer/vocalist Kate Soper, Vietnamese folk musician Van Anh Vo, percussionist Steven Schick, soprano Ana Maria Martinez, clarinetist Evan Ziporyn, and many others. Recent premieres include a piano concerto by Max Vinetz, Wuorinen's Percussion Symphony No. 2, and several commissions of new piano music. He has been a guest artist with the Great Falls Symphony, MIT, Rice University REMLABS, Rossini Club of Nantucket, and the Conductor's Retreat at Medomak. Ducote holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in music from Rice University, where he studied with Brian Connelly, as well as an undergraduate degree in mathematics.  Having recently completed a fellowship with the New World Symphony, Wesley currently resides in St. Petersburg, Florida as a freelance musician.

Dr. Trevor Barroero, percussionist, has been the gold medalist of 13 concerto competitions, resulting in opportunities to perform as a marimba soloist in Canada, as guest timpanist of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra in Russia, and as a soloist with The United States Army Band "Pershing's Own.” He currently serves as the Principal Percussionist of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and as the Second Percussionist of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra. Prior to this, he was the Principal Percussionist of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and the Adjunct Director of Percussion at Anderson University. Dr. Barroero has performed with many professional ensembles across the United States including the Atlanta Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Charlotte Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, West Virginia Symphony, and more.
Dr. Barroero has shared the stage multiple times with Andrea and Matteo Bocelli, performing on their concert tour of Orlando and Miami in 2019 and appearing alongside them on two separate ABC Primetime Specials recorded on the Magic Kingdom Stage at Disney World. Dr. Barroero also performed alongside Christina Aguilera and Halle Bailey for the 50th Anniversary of Walt Disney World which first aired on ABC, Hulu, and Disney Plus. Dr. Barroero has also performed as a soloist with other world-renowned soloists and celebrities including Rhiannon Giddens, Colin Mochrie, and Pink Martini.
A founding member of the percussion trio, Lineage Percussion, Trevor Barroero made history in May of 2016 as his ensemble won the bronze medal at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, becoming the first percussionist, in the 43-year history of the competition, to be selected as a senior-division finalist. Lineage Percussion has performed regularly around the United States and was recently invited to perform and teach in South Africa at the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival.
Dedicated to using music as a tool by which to empower and inspire others, Dr. Barroero has organized benefit concerts to raise over $15,000 for the Alzheimer's Association. And, as an endorsed artist with Pearl/Adams, Dragonfly Percussion, Remo Drumheads, Black Swamp Percussion, Vic Firth Drumsticks, Balter Mallets, and Zildjian Cymbals, Dr. Barroero has presented masterclasses for tens of thousands of students across the United States and regularly instructs an in-person and virtual studio of over 40 private percussion students ranging from toddlers to adults.
Born and raised in Tucson, Trevor Barroero was selected as one of 22 Flinn Scholars in the state of Arizona in 2012. He received his Bachelor of Music in Percussion Performance with Honors from The University of Arizona, graduating Summa Cum Laude as the elected Outstanding Senior of the entire UA College of Fine Arts. He received his Master of Music degree, via full graduate assistantship, from the University of Georgia in 2017. Dr. Barroero completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at UGA in 2022, serving as the instructor of Percussion Methods and as the Director of the UGA Steel Band. Dr. Barroero was a student of Timothy K. Adams Jr., Kimberly Toscano Adams, Dr. Norman Weinberg, and Dr. Morris Palter. Additionally, Dr. Barroero studied privately with Paul Yancich and Mark Yancich for two summers at the Aspen Music Festival.