MYCO faculty are high-caliber professional musicians with a passion for chamber music. Faculty are committed to fostering a kind, collaborative, and supportive environment in which students can learn and grow.
Mimi Solomon
Co-Artistic Director, piano
American pianist Mimi Solomon brings warmth, sensitivity and curiosity to her multifaceted career as a chamber musician, soloist, teacher, and artistic director. She has performed throughout the United States, China, Japan and Europe, has appeared as soloist with orchestras including Shanghai Symphony, Philharmonia Virtuosi, and Yale Symphony Orchestra, and has been featured on numerous radio and television broadcasts including the McGraw-Hill Young Artist’s Showcase, France 3, France Inter, and National Public Radio.
An avid chamber musician, she has appeared at music festivals on both sides of the Atlantic such as Santander, IMS Prussia Cove, Lockenhaus, Rencontres de Bel-Air, Ravinia, Taos, Norfolk, Yellow Barn, Charlottesville, and La Loingtaine.
She regularly performs and records with her husband, violinist Nicholas DiEugenio. Their award-winning duo project, “Unraveling Beethoven” includes a full cycle of Beethoven violin sonatas alongside newly commissioned response works by Allen Anderson, D.K. Garner, Robert Honstein, Jesse Jones and Tonia Ko. Their first recording, released on New Focus, was praised as a “touching, committed tribute” (I Care If You Listen) to the late Steven Stucky.
Mimi is also an enthusiastic and dedicated pedagogue: she is co-artistic director of MYCO Chamber Players and she is currently on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has taught at Kinhaven as well as at Cornell University, East Carolina University, and Ithaca College. Her students have been accepted to schools including Juilliard, Colburn, New England Conservatory, Peabody and Yale.
Mimi lived in Paris for several years, during which, in addition to being active as a chamber musician and soloist, she gained an assiduous understanding of where to find all the best French delicacies! She also fell in love with historic keyboard instruments during her time in Paris. She graduated from Yale and Juilliard and has worked with Peter Frankl, Robert McDonald, Ferenc Rados and fortepianist Patrick Cohen. She lives in Chapel Hill, NC with her husband, violinist Nicholas DiEugenio and their Plott hound Tengo.
Nicholas DiEugenio
Co-Artistic Director, violin
Violinist Nicholas DiEugenio has been heralded for his “excellent...evocative” playing (The New York Times), full of “rapturous poetry” (American Record Guide). Nicholas is in-demand as a soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble leader, creating powerful shared experiences in music ranging from early baroque to contemporary commissions.
A core member of the Sebastians, a period group hailed as “topnotch” by the New Yorker and “sharp-edged and engaging” by the New York Times, Nicholas also performs and records with pianist and wife Mimi Solomon. Their award-winning duo project “Unraveling Beethoven” comprises a full cycle of the Beethoven violin sonatas along with response works from composers Tonia Ko, Robert Honstein, Jesse Jones, Allen Anderson, and D.K. Garner.
His Musica Omnia recording of the complete Schumann violin sonatas with Chi-Chen Wu on fortepiano was named one of the Top 10 albums of 2015 by The Big City. His August 2017 release on the New Focus label with Mimi Solomon, critically lauded as “a touching, committed tribute” (I Care If You Listen), is an homage to the late Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Stucky. The disc features Stucky’s Sonata for violin and piano, two new works by Stucky’s students Jesse Jones and Tonia Ko, and the previously unrecorded Violin Sonata of Robert Palmer.
A two-time prize-winner at the prestigious Fischoff competition, Nicholas is passionately committed to collaboration, and has performed chamber music with Laurie Smukler, Joel Krosnick, Joseph Lin, Peter Salaff, and Ani Kavafian, as well as members of the Meta4 Quartet. As a baroque and classical violinist, he has performed with violinists Ingrid Matthews and Aislinn Nosky, as well as members of Tafelmusik, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He has also performed as guest Principal Second Violinist of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He is an alumnus of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, where he was deeply influenced by the musicianship of pianist Seymour Lipkin. At the same time, Nicholas also strives to incorporate musical elements from some of his favorite rock icons such as Jimi Hendrix, Anthony Kiedis, and Thom Yorke.
Rooted in a deeply compassionate approach to teaching, Nicholas is currently Associate Professor of Violin at UNC Chapel Hill, and is co-artistic director of MYCO, a non-profit chamber music organization for middle and high school students. Formerly Assistant Professor of Violin at the Ithaca College School of Music, Nicholas continues as a faculty member of the Kinhaven Music School in Vermont during the summers. Nicholas holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music (B.M, M.M) and the Yale School of Music (D.M.A., A.D.), and he performs on a baroque violin made by Karl Dennis in 2011, and also on an 1835 violin made by J.B. Vuillaume.
Caroline Polito
MYCO Registrar
Caroline has always had a passion for music, and she enjoys being involved in the musical community at MYCO in her role as Registrar. She took piano, violin, and organ lessons in middle and high school before deciding to pursue the organ at Oberlin Conservatory. Caroline graduated from UNC Chapel Hill and was a dedicated continuo player in the UNC Baroque Ensemble. She joined MYCO in 2022 and enjoys getting to know students and their families as well as assisting with registration, scheduling, and more!
Contact: myco.registrar@gmail.com | 919-924-2707
Faculty
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Jonathan Bagg has performed hundreds of concerts in the U.S. and around the world as violist with the Ciompi String Quartet, with whom has made many recordings. He is co-Artistic Director of Electric Earth Concerts in New Hampshire and has also directed the Monadnock Music festival. Festival appearances include the Great Lakes and Portland Chamber Music Festivals, the Eastern, Sebago Long-Lake, Highlands-Cashiers, Mohawk Trail, and Castle Hill festivals. Currently principal viola with the CityMusic Cleveland, he has appeared with many notable ensembles, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Bagg has recorded solo vi0la music on the Bridge, Albany, Centaur and Gasparo labels. His latest project is due out in 2025 on the New Focus label, of music for viola and piano ty Marion Bauer, Ulysses Kay, and Margaret Bonds. Bagg is a Professor at Duke University, where he was Department Chair from 2019-2023.
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Bassist Leonid Finkelshteyn is Principal Bassist of the North Carolina Symphony and the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra, and a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, and the Eastern Music Festival. He has performed as a soloist with various orchestras, including the North Carolina Symphony, Punta Gorda Symphony, and East Carolina University Orchestra, and has premiered works by composers like Gareth Glyn and J. Mark Scearce. Mr. Finkelshteyn has toured with major orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Cleveland Orchestra, and has performed with renowned conductors including Daniel Barenboim and Riccardo Muti. An avid chamber musician, he has collaborated with artists like Julia Fischer and Awadagin Pratt. As a dedicated educator, he gives master classes at institutions such as Yale and the Manhattan School of Music and is involved with local youth orchestras. Originally from Leningrad, Mr. Finkelshteyn joined the Leningrad Philharmonic at 19 and went on to study at the Leningrad Conservatory, where he earned his M.M. with honors.
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A native of Raleigh, North Carolina, Robie began studying piano and violin at the age of 6. By age 13, he had already made solo appearances with the Winston-Salem and Raleigh Symphonies, garnering praise for precocious readings of Mozart and Tchaikovsky
Described as “a poet at the piano” (New York Sun) and praised for his “striking pianism” (Cleveland Plain Dealer), pianist Teddy Robie has performed extensively both as soloist and chamber musician in Canada, Taiwan, Italy, and across the United States.
Robie has performed in many prestigious venues, including the Rising Stars series at Ravinia, the Performances series in San Francisco, the Peggy Rockefeller series in New York, Alice Tully Hall, and at Cleveland’s Mixon Hall master’s series. He has also appeared live numerous times on WQXR (New York) and WCLV (Cleveland), and has been a frequent guest performer on WFMT (Chicago). Robie has won prizes in numerous competitions, including Juilliard’s Gina Bachauer Scholarship competition, the Fischoff National Chamber Music competition, and the SUNY Stony Brook concerto competition.
An avid chamber musician as well as soloist, Robie has collaborated with many renowned artists, including Roger Tapping, Donald Weilerstein, Catherine Cho, Bonnie Hampton, Joan Kwuon, Joel Smirnoff, Violaine Melancon, and Jean-Michel Fonteneau. Festival appearances include Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival, Taos Chamber Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, and Pianofest in the Hamptons, and faculty at the Heifetz Institute and Luzerne Music Center. Robie is a regular guest at many chamber festivals across the country, including The Bronx Arts Ensemble, Chatter (New Mexico), and The Taos Music Ensemble.
Robie's teachers have included Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, Veda Kaplinsky, Randall Hodgkinson, and John Ruggero. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, and is now a doctoral candidate at SUNY Stony Brook, where he studies with Christina Dahl. Robie recently returned to the Triangle, where he maintains a private teaching studio in Cary and continues to perform.
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Clara Yang has appeared in numerous solo, chamber music, and orchestral performances at major venues and festivals across the United States and internationally . Clara began her cello studies at age 10, and made her concerto debut at age 12 with the Dong-A University Orchestra in South Korea under the baton of her grandfather Jong-Gu Bae. Since then, she has appeared as a soloist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Concord Orchestra, and the Brockton Symphony, among others. She gave her New York solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in 2008 and has given other performances in venues such as Lincoln Center’s Avery Fischer Hall and Alice Tully Hall, and Kaufman Center’s Merkin Hall.. As a dedicated teacher, Clara became a certified Suzuki cello instructor in 2005, and since then served as a cello faculty at a number of music schools. Her past positions include cello faculty at the Colburn School’s Community School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles, the Lucy Moses School at Kaufman Center, the Preparatory Studies in Music at Queens College in New York, as well as Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School and Providence College in Rhode Island. Clara holds a doctorate degree in Cello Performance from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School. While at Juilliard, she was a recipient of the Victor Herbert Prize, the Leonard Rose Scholarship, and the Grunin Prize in Cello.
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Yoram Youngerman, violist and violinist, is the director of Israel Camerata Jerusalem. He served on the faculty at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, East Carolina University, the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, Duke University, and the Jerusalem Music Academy.
Yoram has performed in major venues worldwide including the Lincoln Center, New York; Barbican Center, London; and other venues in Washington, Toronto, Amsterdam, Zurich, San Francisco, and Berlin. As a member of the internationally award winning Amernet String Quartet he performed extensively in North America and performed the Martinu quartet concerto with the Cincinnati orchestra and Alan Gilbert conducting.
In 2005, Mr. Youngerman founded MYCO @ UNC Youth Chamber Music program, a project for advanced studies in chamber music for talented pre-college musicians. Yoram continues to serve as Co-Artistic Director of the program and its summer chamber music workshop at UNC.
Mr. Youngerman was a regular participant at the Summit Music Festival in New York, where he also conducted the Festival Orchestra for over a decade. In 2012 he moved back to Israel where was appointed the director of the Israel Music Institute (IMI).
Guest Faculty
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The Balourdet Quartet is acclaimed for their vibrant energy and masterful blend of technical precision and emotional depth that brings a fresh perspective to both beloved classics and modern compositions. Its unique closeness and willingness to take creative risks earned it the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award. With more than 70 concerts per season, recent highlights include the Balourdet’s debuts at Carnegie and Wigmore Halls, and new string quartets by composers Karim Al-Zand, Paul Novak, and Nicky Sohn through grants from Chamber Music America (2021) and the Barlow Foundation (2023). They are currently the Graduate Quartet in Residence at the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and are recent graduates of the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Program.
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From 2002 until 2024, Jonathan Brown was the violist of the Cuarteto Casals, with whom
he has performed in all of the major concert halls in Europe, North America and Asia as
well as making numerous recordings on the Harmonia Mundi label including repertoire
ranging from Bach through Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven to Bartók, Ligeti and
Shostakovich. As a guest violist, Jonathan has performed with the Tokyo, Jerusalem,
Kuss, Marmen, Miro, Zemlinsky, Quiroga and Armida quartets and has been on the jury of
international quartet competitions in London, Salzburg, Prague and Katowice. Jonathan
has also been an artistic director of the Da Camara chamber orchestra, the contemporary
ensemble FUNKTION and Musethica Spain.
Jonathan is currently Professor of Chamber Music at the Colburn School in Los Angeles and
previously taught viola and chamber music at ESMUC in Barcelona and Escuela Reina
Sofía in Madrid. He has given masterclasses in Köln, London, Aix-en-Provence, Den
Haag, Weikersheim, Fiesole, Linz, Lübeck, Essen, Rotterdam, Cleveland and Chicago
among many other cities. Originally from Chicago, Jonathan’s principal viola teachers were
Martha Strongin Katz, Karen Tuttle, Heidi Castleman, Thomas Riebl and Veronika Hagen
and he was deeply influenced by Ferenc Rados and György Kurtág.
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The Balourdet Quartet is acclaimed for their vibrant energy and masterful blend of technical precision and emotional depth that brings a fresh perspective to both beloved classics and modern compositions. Its unique closeness and willingness to take creative risks earned it the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award. With more than 70 concerts per season, recent highlights include the Balourdet’s debuts at Carnegie and Wigmore Halls, and new string quartets by composers Karim Al-Zand, Paul Novak, and Nicky Sohn through grants from Chamber Music America (2021) and the Barlow Foundation (2023). They are currently the Graduate Quartet in Residence at the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and are recent graduates of the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Program.
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The Balourdet Quartet is acclaimed for their vibrant energy and masterful blend of technical precision and emotional depth that brings a fresh perspective to both beloved classics and modern compositions. Its unique closeness and willingness to take creative risks earned it the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award. With more than 70 concerts per season, recent highlights include the Balourdet’s debuts at Carnegie and Wigmore Halls, and new string quartets by composers Karim Al-Zand, Paul Novak, and Nicky Sohn through grants from Chamber Music America (2021) and the Barlow Foundation (2023). They are currently the Graduate Quartet in Residence at the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and are recent graduates of the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Program.
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Violinist Sarah Kim began her musical studies at the age of three and has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. As a resident artist at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music from 2008 2013, Sarah performed internationally with the Apple Hill String Quartet, directed summer chamber music sessions, and taught master classes in universities such as UCLA, Colby College, Boston Conservatory, University of New Mexico, and the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Through Apple Hill's innovative Playing for Peace program, Sarah performed and taught chamber music workshops in major conflict areas of the world, including Israel/Palestine, Cyprus, and Ireland. From 2017-2023, Sarah was a Resident Musician with Community MusicWorks, a nationally recognized community-based music performance and education program. In addition to her work at CMW, Sarah taught violin at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, and from 2021-2023, Sarah taught violin and chamber music as a Teaching Associate at Brown University. Currently, Sarah resides in Chicago and teaches violin, viola, and chamber music at Loyola University Chicago.
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Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan enjoys performing chamber music, old and new, around the world. For two decades, as a founding member of the Horszowski Trio and the Daedalus Quartet, he toured extensively through North and South America, Europe, and Asia, and recorded for Bridge Records and Avie Records. Mr. Ramakrishnan is currently a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, and is on the faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. In the summers, he has performed at the Marlboro, Vail, Portland, and Kingston Chamber Music festivals, and served on the faculties of the Kneisel Hall and Norfolk Chamber Music Festivals.
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Pianist Keiko Sekino has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, at such venues as Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Steinway Hall, Bennett-Gordon Hall at Ravinia Park, Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria, and Meguro Persimmon Hall, and at festivals including Ravinia, Norfolk, and Yellow Barn in the United States and Kuhmo, Encuentro de Música y Academia de Santander, and Pontino in Europe.
A frequent chamber musician, Keiko Sekino has collaborated with violinists Ana Chumachenko and MinJung Kang, soprano Awet Andemicael, and with members of Boston Symphony Orchestra, Enso Quartet, and Daedalus Quartet. As a duo with Awet Andemicael, she participated in the Carnegie Hall Professional Workshop on German Lieder with baritone Thomas Quasthoff and was presented in a recital at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Recent projects include performances of Schubert Winterreise with bass-baritone Marc Callahan, interdisciplinary collaborations with Callahan and Japanese classical dance master Umekawa Ichinosuke, and a world premiere performance of the piano concerto Meloscuro (2018) by Matthew Ricketts. She has recorded for Delos label with cellist Emanuel Gruber and has an album of songs by Gerald Finzi forthcoming on Albany label with baritone Marc Callahan.
Keiko Sekino completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University and holds additional degrees from Yale University in economics and music. Among her teachers are Peter Frankl and Robert McDonald. She has also worked closely with Elisso Virsaladze, Claude Frank, Boris Berman, and Margo Garrett. Sekino currently serves as Associate Professor of Piano and Chair of Keyboard Studies at the East Carolina University School of Music and as Artistic Director of the East Carolina Piano Festival. In 2021, she was nominated and inducted to the Steinway Teacher Hall of Fame.
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Erica Wise’s love for chamber music developed early, first at places such as the Kinhaven Music School, and later at festivals such as Tanglewood, Kneisel Hall and Yellow Barn. A founding member of the Dalia Quartet, her numerous chamber music collaborations have always been a hugely influential part of her life as a cellist.
As winner of the Nakamichi Cello Competition, she performed the Dvorak Concerto with maestro Michael Stern. Other solo performances have included the Walton Concerto with the NEC Symphony Orchestra in Jordan Hall and with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic under maestro Keith Lockhart.
Erica Wise has served as principal cellist for conductors such as Michael Tilson Thomas and Seiji Ozawa among others, and has toured with the New World Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She is an artistic advisor for Da Camera and co-artistic director for Musethica España. Actively engaged with the contemporary music of our time, she has given numerous world and Spanish premieres both as soloist and as a founding member of FUNKTION, a contemporary chamber ensemble based in Barcelona.
At the age of twenty-six, Wise stepped away from music and began pursuing a career in medicine. She was accepted to the MD/PhD program at Washington University of Saint Louis, where she began medical school and did research in immunology. After four years away from professional musical pursuits, she realized that her true passion lay in music, and returned with a renewed sense of dedication to playing the cello.
Wise received a Bachelor Degree from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and a Masters Degree at the New England Conservatory. As a recipient of the Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship from the Fondation des Etats-Unis, Ms. Wise studied baroque cello with David Simpson at the Conservatoire National de Région de Paris.
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The Balourdet Quartet is acclaimed for their vibrant energy and masterful blend of technical precision and emotional depth that brings a fresh perspective to both beloved classics and modern compositions. Its unique closeness and willingness to take creative risks earned it the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award. With more than 70 concerts per season, recent highlights include the Balourdet’s debuts at Carnegie and Wigmore Halls, and new string quartets by composers Karim Al-Zand, Paul Novak, and Nicky Sohn through grants from Chamber Music America (2021) and the Barlow Foundation (2023). They are currently the Graduate Quartet in Residence at the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and are recent graduates of the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Program.
Board of Directors
Scott Lindroth, President
Mike Bate, Treasurer
Eileen Chow
Tara Eppinger
Kim Hagan Doug Henderson Mathangi Kalyanasundaram
Aaron Shackelford
Artistic Advisory Board
Teddy Robie, pianist
