Jessica Chang, Viola
Taiwanese-American violist Jessica T. Chang is dedicated to sharing her love for music through expanding educational opportunities in the arts, and by presenting chamber music in accessible ways. As the founder and director of Chamber Music by the Bay, Jessica brings educational chamber music programs to public schools, libraries, and hospitals throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Her commitment to sharing chamber music extends to audiences of all ages across the United States, from reaching 800 youth and community members in the San Francisco Bay Area in CMB’s 2012 season, to educational concerts with Project 440 in Savannah, Georgia, and serving as a teaching artist with Opportunity Music Project. Jessica is a founding member and violist of ensemble39, a Philadelphia-based chamber group specializing in performances of repertoire ranging from the classical to contemporary in non-traditional concert spaces.
Recent performance highlights include a European concert tour with Curtis on Tour alongside Roberto Díaz, Pamela Frank, and members of the Berlin Philharmonic; collaborations at Music from Angel Fire with Peter Wiley, Daniel Philips, and Toby Appel; and performances with Itzhak Perlman, Joseph Silverstein, Soovin Kim, and Anthony McGill. Her festival appearances include Music from Angel Fire; Tanglewood Music Center; the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove; the Perlman Chamber Music Workshop; and the festivals at Taos, Verbier, Aspen, and California.
Aside from her musical endeavors, Jessica has maintained commitments toward improving youth access to quality arts education through the School District of Philadelphia’s ArtsRising initiative. Also a writer and an artist, she has been published by art and literary magazines at the North Central Review, CRED Magazine, Yale, and the American Literacy Council. A native of northern California, Jessica is a graduate of Yale College, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree with honors and distinction, and was also the recipient of a Louis B. Sudler Fund Award and the Yale Friends of Music Chamber Music Award. She also holds an Artist Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was the recipient of the William A. Loeb Fellowship. Jessica is currently pursuing graduate studies at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Heidi Castleman and Steven Tenenbom, with gracious support from the Satterthwaite Scholarship Fund and the Irene Diamond Graduate Fellowship. www.jessicatchang.com
Karen Cueva, Violin
Violinist Karen Cueva is in her third year of training at The Juilliard School where she studies with Stephen Clapp and Lewis Kaplan. She is a graduate of the Walnut Hill School for the Arts where she attended on full scholarship. During her time at Walnut Hill, Ms. Cueva also studied at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School.
Ms. Cueva began her violin studies at the age of four and has won various competitions and awards, including a Certificate of Commendation from the US Marine Corps for her musical service to the veterans of the Armed Forces. She was the 2009 recipient of The Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award, one of the largest and most competitive scholarship programs in the nation. An advocate for arts education in public schools, Ms. Cueva was a founding performer of Boston Crew, an outreach program from NPR’s From The Top radio show, where she brought classical music to children in inner-city schools. She continues her outreach work by collaborating with Young Artists New Jersey. Ms. Cueva has taught in the Juilliard Pre-College Division program CLIMB (Combining Literacy Instruction with Musical Beginnings), as well as at the Harlem School of the Arts as a recipient of the 2010 Goldman Fellowship. She is currently on faculty at Opportunity Music Project. Ms. Cueva performs on a 2008 Douglas Cox violin.
Tegen Davidge, Viola
Tegen Davidge is a violist whose objective both on and off the stage is to exhibit passion and dedication. Most recently, she attended the Yellowbarn Festival, where she performed with renowned artists Maria Lambros, Michael Kannen, Seth Knopp, and Anthony Marwood.
Tegen has performed solo and chamber music around the United States, Canada, and China. As a winner of the concerto competition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, she has performed as soloist with the CIM Orchestra, in addition to performances with the Medicine Hat College Academy Orchestra, the Shanghai Opera Orchestra, and the Youth Orchestra of the Americas. She was recognized as the best viola performer both at the 2006 Kingsville and 2010 Corpus Christi Competitions, as well as the winner the String Category Prize at the 2008 Canadian National Music Festival. In 2007, Tegen was recorded for The Nature of Things with David Susuki, a television documentary on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) network.
A native of British Columbia, Tegen grew up in rural areas, resulting in a passion for bringing live classical music to those that would not experience it otherwise due to their location. She performs frequently in hospitals and long-term care facilities, as well as presenting interactive performances in schools and rural communities.
Tegen began studying the violin at the age of seven, before taking up the viola at age 14, and studied with Michael van der Sloot in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Having obtained her Bachelor of Music degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying under Jeffrey Irvine, she is currently a first year graduate student with Heidi Castleman and Hsin-Yun Huang at the Juilliard School.
Jessica Garand, Viola
A versatile performer and music advocate, Jessica Garand is passionate about engaging society through music. She is the founder and executive director of Opportunity Music Project (OMP), a non-profit organization providing free private lessons, instruments, and mentoring to motivated children from low-income families in New York City. She also performs interactive chamber music concerts in inner-city classrooms. Jessica Garand enjoys being an active volunteer in the Montreal and New York City scenes, performing at benefit galas, retirement residences, hospitals, and homeless shelters and has been featured in the Globe and Mail’s column “Action Figure” and awarded the Canadian Millennium Scholarship in recognition of her ongoing passion to serve the community through music.
Jessica Garand has performed throughout both North and South America and Europe. Jessica began playing the viola at the Montreal Music Conservatory and has since completed her studies at the Juilliard School in New York City. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal under the tutelage of André Roy, and received a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School. She studied with Samuel Rhodes of the Juilliard String Quartet.
A prizewinner at the Montreal Classical Music Festival, Jessica Garand has been a finalist at the Canadian Music Competition, and won First Prize at the Lakeshore Chamber Music Competition.
In 2011, Jessica Garand had the opportunity to serve as principal violist of the New York String Orchestra Seminar with performances in Carnegie Hall under the direction of Jaime Laredo. Jessica Garand has also been a member of the New York City Symphony, and the New Juilliard Ensemble, performing in venues including the United Nations, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She was a member of the Juilliard Symphony and in this capacity has worked with the distinguished conductors Alan Gilbert, Bernard Haitink, Kent Nagano, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Jessica Garand is dedicated to the promotion of new music, an interest that has brought her to Carnegie Hall’s Japan NYC Festival, the Focus! Festival, and Summergarden with the New Juilliard Ensemble.
Jessica Garand is grateful for the support she has received from many generous patrons and foundations including the C. & B. Cohen Scholarship, the A.H. Kuhn Memorial Scholarship, and the Irene Diamond Fellowship.
Patrick McGuire, Cello
New York-based cellist Patrick McGuire is an active performer, teacher, and cultural activist. He has worked with composers Tan Dun, Magnus Lindberg, and Steve Reich and performed new music in Paine Hall, the Freer Gallery, and the Kennedy Center. He performs regularly with Axiom and the New Juilliard Ensemble, and has performed Baroque cello with Juilliard 415 in Carnegie Hall. He is a Teaching Fellow in cello and music theory at Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program and has led arts empowerment and cultural diplomacy workshops in Tanzania, New Orleans, and Tunisia. Patrick is chair of the Music and Medicine Initiative at Juilliard and will lead workshops on using music for post-traumatic stress disorder at Weill Cornell Medical College in the fall semester. In 2012 he received both the Joseph W. Polisi Prize for exemplifying The Juilliard School’s values of the ‘artist as citizen’ and the McGraw Hill Robert Sherman Prize for education and community outreach. Patrick graduated from The Juilliard School in 2012 with Scholastic Distinction and is pursuing a Master of Music degree at Juilliard under Joel Krosnick.
Megan Griffin, Viola
A recipient of The Juilliard School’s Peter Mennin Award for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music, Megan Griffin is establishing herself as an international performer and educator. Born and raised in Englewood, Colorado, Megan received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School studying with Heidi Castleman, Samuel Rhodes, Misha Amory, and Hsin-Yun Huang. While at Juilliard, Megan was twice runner-up in the concerto competition, and sat principal violist regularly, including on the orchestra’s tour to China. After graduating, Megan played with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida. She is currently a member of The Academy/Ensemble ACJW, and regularly performs around the world as a part of chamber and orchestral groups.
As a chamber musician, Megan has performed at Marlboro Music Festival, Kneisel Hall, and participated in Juilliard’s Chamberfest and Wednesday at One series in Alice Tully Hall. She has performed chamber concerts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Princeton, and Virginia Beach with the Perlman Music Program, premiering contemporary works, as well as collaborating with Itzhak Perlman. She also participated in the Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SYLFF) chamber music exchange program, performing in the Bi-centennial Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria, and the Hotel Invalides in Paris, France.
After winning the Colorado Symphony Orchestra’s Jeff Bradley Young Musician Award, Megan appeared as a guest soloist with the CSO for the 2007 New Year’s celebration concert. She was on the roster of Colorado Young Musicians Foundation for four years and was a two-time winner of the Top Performer prize. Megan also participated in the 2006 Johansen International String Competition, traveling to Washington, D.C. and claiming second prize.
Megan is an alumna of the Perlman Music Program and has participated in their Summer Music Program, Sarasota Winter Residency, Chamber Music Workshop, and Israel Residency. She performed in Turkey, Spain, Germany and Austria as a part of the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, and was a participant at Spoleto Festival USA.
Megan’s involvement in outreach began during her first year at Juilliard when she volunteered in New Orleans, with the intent to bring music and the arts to those who do not have access. After teaching at a performing arts day camp for local youth, Megan began working towards building a similar program of her own design. This resulted in a successful outreach trip to Arusha, Tanzania in May 2009 called Arusha Arts Initiative. Through grants and fundraising, Megan and five other Juilliard students from all divisions traveled to Tanzania and taught a two week arts camp at Umoja Youth Empowerment Center, which gives free vocational training to poverty-stricken youths ages 14-29. In addition to this Megan has taught string technique classes in public schools in Florida and traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil to teach master classes and give interactive performances at community music centers. Locally, Megan frequently performed in New York City hospitals and nursing homes as a Gluck Community Service Fellow, and she has served on the faculty of the Music Advancement Program (MAP) at The Juilliard School and the Opportunity Music Project, programs that offers music training to underrepresented students. Megan also taught beginning viola in New York City elementary schools as an Instrumental Music Program Fellow, and traveled to Aiken, South Carolina as a performer and educator through the festival Juilliard in Aiken.
Charlotte Steiner, Viola
Violist Charlotte Steiner made her solo debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at age 16 as winner of their Young Soloist Competition. A Maryland Distinguished Scholar in the Arts, Charlotte has also performed as soloist with the Landon Symphonette (MD) and Greater Baltimore Youth Orchestra. She has received honors in competitions held by the Music Teachers National Association, Asian American Music Society, and the U.S. Army Orchestra, and has attended Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, Greenwood Music Camp, and Aspen Music Festival and School, where she was a fellowship recipient. Charlotte has studied viola with Karin Brown, Steven Tenenbom, Victoria Chiang, and Jeffrey Irvine, and is currently pursuing her undergraduate degree as a student of Heidi Castleman at The Juilliard School.
Charlotte currently maintains a studio of violin and viola students at Musipire Professional Music Education in Queens, NY, and teaches viola lessons in a New York City Public School as a fellow of Juilliard’s Instrumental Music Program. Committed to outreach, she most recently performed with Hope for New York at Bailey-Holt House, New York’s oldest HIV/AIDS residence. In 2012, she was a team member of Juilliard ARTreach’s New Orleans Project, through which she taught disadvantaged youth at a YMCA and led master classes at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. Charlotte is passionate about celebrating and connecting diverse cultures through music, and strives to help empower students in underserved urban communities.
Opportunity Music Project
