Flutist Keren Schweitzer has performed with Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and has toured throughout China, Japan, South America, Canada and the United States. She has appeared on numerous occasions with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and has performed chamber music concerts with its members. Additionally, she has routinely performed as Guest Principal Flute of the Reno Chamber Orchestra. Dr. Schweitzer is currently the Assistant Teaching Professor of Flute at Bowling Green State University. She has also served on faculty at Claremont Graduate University, Mount Saint Mary’s University, Cerritos College, and the Colburn School. Also a published writer, her articles on music have appeared in Symphony Magazine, The Paris New Music Review, and Salon Arts Magazine.

Keren has been the recipient of many awards including the winner of the 2011 Byron Hester Flute Competition, the winner of the 2010 National Flute Association Convention Performer’s Competition, First Prize at the 1997 Flute Talk Competition, and a finalist in the 2000 Concert Artists Guild Competition. While a student, she won the concerto competitions at Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. She has performed at the Tanglewood, Pacific, Spoleto, Caramoor, and Bowdoin Music Festivals and with the Verbier Festival Orchestra. Most recently, she has appeared in recital at the University of Idaho, Pasadena City College, the University of Houston, the 2017 MACCC convention in San Francisco, and at numerous National Flute Association Conventions.

As a flute teacher, her students have recently been accepted to prestigious institutions including the Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Peabody Conservatory, University of Michigan, University of Texas, UCLA, and Cal Arts. She has conducted masterclasses at the University of Idaho, The University of Southern Mississippi, Mexico City/YOLA- LA Philharmonic, and the Instituto Baccarelli. Included among her former flute students are the Principal Flute of the Milwaukee Symphony and a prizewinner in the Munich Competition.

Dr. Schweitzer is a graduate of the University of Michigan with honors, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and the Manhattan School of Music where she received her DMA in flute performance. Her principal teachers include Jeanne Baxtresser, Linda Chesis, and Byron Hester.

Yevgeny Yontov has established himself as one of the leading 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, from 2015 to 2022, 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, Roberto Diaz, Tara Helen O’Connor, 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 playing can be found on a number of commercial CDs, including his own debut CD, “Schubert: Piano Variations,” released on Naxos Records in 2017, “Big Things,” icarus Quartet’s debut album released on Furious Artisans in 2022, “Samuel Adler: A Celebration of Sam @ 95” released on Toccata Classics in 2022, and “Turning into Song” released on Musica Solis in 2023.

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.

Percussionist Dan Piccolo has performed, taught, and studied internationally during his twenty-year professional career. He is currently Associate Professor of Percussion in Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts.

Dan holds both a DMA and BM in Percussion Performance from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and during his master’s studies in U of M’s Jazz Department he focused on improvisation. He has studied concert percussion with Michael Udow, Salvatore Rabbio, Joseph Gramley and Jonathan Ovalle, among others, and his drum set and improvisation teachers have included Michael Gould, Steve Curry, and Ed Sarath. Dan is also skilled in several forms of non-Western percussion, having studied frame drumming with Jamey Haddad and tabla with Pandit Kuber Nath Mishra in multiple visits to Varanasi, India. A grant from the University of Michigan’s International Institute funded the first of these visits, and he returned to Varanasi in the winter of 2015 thanks to an award from the Presser Foundation. An additional award from U of M’s International Institute made it possible for Dan to begin formal studies of West African music in Ghana in the summer of 2014.

Dan’s debut solo recording, Monobot, was released on the Equilibrium Recordings label in December 2020. In October 2019 Dan gave the world premiere of Evan Ziporyn’s concerto for drum set and wind ensemble, Impulse Control, which written was written for Dan and for which he led the commissioning consortium. Dan has also premiered works by composers including Aaron Kernis, Christopher Dietz, Emma O’Halloran, and Adam Silverman, as well as his own compositions, and he continues to work actively with composers to commission new solo and ensemble works for percussion.

Dan has appeared as a soloist with groups including the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and the University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble, and as a guest artist at colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. As a chamber musician he has enjoyed collaborations with notable artists including Third Coast Percussion, composer/pianist Harold Budd, percussionists Ji Hye Jung and Joseph Gramley, the arx duo, pianist Sonya Belaya, and the Detroit Chamber Winds. Dan also remains active as a jazz drummer, working with musicians such as John Scofield, Regina Carter, Mike Stern, and Stanley Cowell. For six years Dan was the drummer with Nomo, with whom he toured internationally and recorded three albums for Ubiquity Records. Dan has also toured and recorded as a member of Cloud Nine Music, The Ragbirds, His Name is Alive, and others. Dan continues to perform regularly with symphony orchestras, rock bands, Indian classical music ensembles, jazz groups, and in various chamber music configurations. This busy performance schedule has earned him invitations to perform at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention and the annual conference of the International Society for Improvised Music.

In addition to his busy professional schedule, Dan is a dynamic educator, teaching a broad range of percussion instruments in private and classroom settings. He has presented workshops and masterclasses at universities throughout the United States, and has twice been selected as a clinician at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention. Dan spent six years as the coordinator of the percussion program at Ann Arbor’s Pioneer High School, during which time the school was twice named a Grammy Signature School. In 2016 Dan joined the faculty of the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Prior to this appointment Dan was Assistant Director of Percussion at the University of Tennessee at Martin, and he previously served as Head of the Percussion Area at New England Music Camp in Sidney, Maine.

An active member of the Percussive Arts Society, Dan served as a member of the World Percussion Committee from 2014 to 2019, and he currently serves as Associate Editor for Professional Development for the Society’s journal, Percussive Notes. In 2021 he began his first term as President of PAS’s Ohio Chapter.

Dan proudly endorses Cooperman Frame Drums, Zildjian Cymbals, Innovative Percussion sticks and mallets, Pearl/Adams percussion instruments, and Remo drumheads. For more information please visit www.danpiccolo.com.