Violist Hannah Levinson is an in-demand performer of contemporary and classical music. She has recently been featured as a soloist and chamber musician at Carnegie Hall, The Stone, 92Y, Miller Theater, Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival, June in Buffalo, and the Andy Warhol Museum, and at international festivals including the Kroch Festival (Stockholm), Musikprotokol Festival (Graz), Projektgruppe Neue Musik (Bremen), and Festival Musica (Strasbourg). Dedicated to working with living composers, Hannah has commissioned and premiered over 40 chamber and solo works and is currently editing the solo viola works of Lucia Ronchetti.
 
Hannah is a founding member and Executive Director of the violin/viola duo andPlay, described by I Care If You Listen as “enthusiastic champions for new music and collaboration.” andPlay’s debut album, playlist (New Focus Recordings) was recorded as part of a residency at Renssaelaer Polytechnical Institute’s Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) and was included on “The Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classical: October 2019” list.
 
Committed to both contemporary and classical repertoire, Hannah is also a member of the Talea Ensemble (“a crucial part of the New York cultural ecosphere” New York Times), Fair Trade Trio, and the Albany Symphony Orchestra, and a former member of the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra. She frequently performs with NYC ensembles including the International Contemporary Ensemble, either/or, counter)induction, Heartbeat Opera, Cantata Profana, Contemporaneous, and The Rhythm Method Quartet.

A strong believer in sharing her artistic practice with her local community, Hannah is committed to audience engagement events through “andPlay (in) conversation,” a free series in Upper Manhattan that provides opportunities for audiences to look inside the collaborative process of creating music, and through performances with organizations including “Music for Autism.”
 
Before her appointment as Assistant Professor of viola, Hannah was Music Artist Faculty at NYU Steinhardt and at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege. She earned her degrees at Oberlin College and Conservatory (BM in Viola Performance, BA in Russian East European Studies), Manhattan School of Music (MM in Contemporary Performance), and NYU Steinhardt (PhD in Performance). Her primary teachers include Karen Ritscher, Martha Strongin Katz, and Nadia Sirota. Her research explores how interactions between composers and political structures affect the creation of new music.

Yevgeny Yontov has established himself as one of the most promising Israeli pianists of his generation. As finalist in the 2017 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, he received the Prize for Best Performance of Chamber Music, and the Prize for the Best Israeli Pianist. Other international top prizes include gold medals at the Wideman International Piano Competition and Berliner International Music Competition, as well as additional prizes at the Boesendorfer International Piano Competition, the Olga Kern International Piano Competition, and the Pinerolo International Piano Competition, among others.

A founding member of icarus Quartet, an award-winning 2piano/2percussion group, Mr. Yontov holds chamber music close to heart. He has performed chamber music in Israel, Europe, Asia, and North and South America, in venues that include Carnegie Hall and the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington D.C. Chamber colleagues include distinguished artists, such as David Shifrin, Corrado Giufreddi, Roberto Diaz, Fred Sherry, and many others, including members of established string quartets like the Orion, Dover, Aviv, and Miro Quartets. Mr. Yontov has also performed in numerous chamber festivals, most notably returning visits to Chamber Music Northwest.

As a soloist, Mr. Yontov has performed on stages across Israel, the US, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, and many European countries. Orchestral engagements include numerous orchestras in the US, including orchestras in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana and Arkansas, and all major Israeli orchestras. He also performed on Israeli national TV, and recorded for Israeli, US, Portuguese and Spanish radios. Mr. Yontov’s debut CD, “Schubert: Piano Variations,” was released on Naxos Records in 2017, and includes seldom performed piano pieces by Schubert, including his relatively newly discovered Grazer Fantasie.

Mr. Yontov began his musical studies at the age of six with Adela Umansky, and later received his B.Mus degree summa cum laude from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel-Aviv University, where he studied with Prof. Arie Vardi. He then moved to the US to study with Prof. Boris Berman at the Yale School of Music, from which he received his M.M. and D.M.A. degrees.

Mr. Yontov has given masterclasses across the US, Israel, and China. In 2018, he joined the faculty of Bowling Green State University, where he serves as Assistant Professor of Piano.

Katherine Pracht Phares, mezzo-soprano, comes to BGSU with twenty years of professional singing experience in opera, recital, and oratorio performances. She champions contemporary opera and much of her recent professional activity is in this genre. Katy is currently a student in the DMA in Contemporary Music program at BGSU.

The 2022-23 season featured several premieres for the busy mezzo. Pracht performed Madeleine in Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers with Opera on the Avalon, returned to West Edge Opera for her first Cornelia in Giulio Cesare, and workshopped two new operas, Bulrusher, and Laura Kaminsky’s February. She then debuted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Quad-City Symphony, as well as the role of Mary Johnson in Virginia Opera’s production of Fellow Travelers. In October, Pracht creates the role of Helen in Kaminsky’s next world premiere opera February at Opera on the Avalon in St. John's, Newfoundland; and she looks forward to another exciting announcement coming soon! 

2021 engagements included a world premiere and cast recording as Horatio in Joseph Summer’s Hamlet at the Dohodno Zdanie Theater in Ruse, Bulgaria, and a reprisal of the title role in Kevin Puts’ opera, Elizabeth Cree with West Edge Opera. Katy also won outstanding reviews as Miss Jessel in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with IlluminArts in Miami. The 2019 season also had important role debuts: Charlotte in A Little Night Music with Madison Opera, Ottavia in L'incoronazione di Poppea with Florentine Opera, Kate Julian in Britten’s rarely heard Owen Wingrave with Little Opera Theatre of NY, Duruflé’s Requiem with the Washington Chorus, and Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges with Opera Philadelphia.

Other recent credits are Glenda (cover) in We Shall Not Be Moved with Opera Philadelphia;  Philip Glass' Symphony No. 5 for Trinity Wall Street; Lady Wang in Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber in Changsha, Beijing, and Wuhan, China; Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky with York Symphony; and her premiere as Elizabeth Cree with Chicago Opera Theater, where the Chicago Tribune said “Katherine Pracht brought a mezzo of size and quality, and confident dramatic presence, to the complicated title role.” 

Ms. Pracht appeared as Mariam in the AOP-sponsored workshop of Sheila Silver’s opera, A Thousand Splendid Suns, sang A Bernstein Marathon and Arias & Barcarolles with Steven Blier and Michael Barrett (New York Festival of Song) at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City’ Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man and the world premiere of Sing! The Music Was Given at Carnegie Hall, and Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles with The Orchestra NOW at the Bard Festival under the baton of Leon Botstein. She returned to that Bard Festival in Rimsky-Korsakov’s From Homer with the American Symphony Orchestra, and as Dunyasha in The Tsar’s Bride.  Katy performed Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles with Bright Sheng and Michael Barrett for The Intimacy of Creativity 2017 Festival in Hong Kong. Her Kennedy Center debut was as Mezzo soloist in Philip Glass' Symphony No. 5 with the Washington Chorus.

Katy has performed and workshopped many roles in new works: Florence Williams in Susan Kander’s The News From Poems, Hester Prynne in Eric Sawyer's The Scarlet Professor; Eve in Julian Wachner and Cerise Jacobs’ Rev 23 for the Prototype Festival, Sharon Falconer in Elmer Gantry with Florentine Opera and Ariel in the world premiere of Joseph Summer’s The Tempest for The Shakespeare Concerts in Boston recorded by Albany Records. In concert she sang Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the York Symphony, and Lieberson’s Neruda Songs with Grand Rapids Symphony. Pracht made her Carnegie Hall debut as Alto Soloist in Verdi's Requiem, her debut with Opera Philadelphia as Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte, twice sang Der Trommler in Der Kaiser von Atlantis for Central City Opera with the Colorado Symphony and for Chicago’s New Millennium Orchestra, sang Meg in Little Women directed by David Gately for Opera on the James, and two concerts with the Georgia Symphony Orchestra and Chorus singing John Corigliano’s Fern Hill and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky.