Sophia Stoyanovich, Aaron Wolff, Derek Wang
Biography Sophia Stoyanovich, Aaron Wolff, Derek Wang
Sophia Stoyanovich
Hailed as “spectacular” (Bernard Jacobson, Seattle Times), American violinist Sophia Stoyanovich has captivated audiences since her debut with the Seattle Symphony at age fourteen and performs internationally today in solo, collaborative, and orchestral roles.
As recitalist, Ms. Stoyanovich has appeared in concerts across the country. Winner of the 2022 New York International Artists Association First Prize, she made her recital debut in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in January 2023. She has been featured on the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago; Great Music LA, the Crocker Art Museum Classical Concerts, and Encinitas Music by the Sea in California; the University of Washington Women’s Society Recital Series in Seattle; and Project: Music Heals Us, New York University’s Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò Series, Music in Midtown, and the Sonora Collective in New York. She was selected to perform in the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin at the closing concert of the Barenboim-Said Akademie Masterclass Series in 2019. In June of 2023, she performed Bartók’s First Rhapsody in the Konzerthaus in Vienna with the Wiener Opernball Orchestra.
Ms. Stoyanovich has distinguished herself with her leadership and sensitivity as a chamber musician. In 2022, she was selected as a Fellowship Artist at La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest, collaborating in weekly performances with artists including Carter Brey, James Ehnes, Alexi Kenney, Anthony McGill, Tessa Lark, Cynthia Phelps, and Masumi Per Rostad. She performed as a guest artist of the Rome Chamber Music Festival in Italy in 2023 and 2022 at the Teatro Argentina and with members of the Berlin Philharmonic in 2021 at the Zermatt Music Festival in Switzerland. Additional chamber music appearances include performances at the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival, Olympic Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival and Aspen Music Festival.
As an active orchestral musician, Ms. Stoyanovich has performed under the batons of John Adams, Thomas Adès, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Alan Gilbert, Vladimir Jurowski, Susanna Mälkki, Kurt Masur, David Robertson, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In the summer of 2024, she will perform on tour with the Gstaad Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark. Previously Ms. Stoyanovich has toured with the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestra in Germany, the Versoi Ensemble in Finland, the Juilliard Orchestra in Finland and Sweden, and the National Youth Orchestra of the United States in the U.S., U.K., and Russia.
A dynamic performer of the music of our time, Ms. Stoyanovich was Principal Second of the Lucerne Music Festival Contemporary Orchestra in 2023, performing works including Mathias Spahlinger’s passage/paysage (1990), Tania León’s Indígena (1991), and Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson's Jim is Still Crowing (2022). As violinist of the Finnish-American Versoi Ensemble (praised for their “excellence” by The New York Times), Ms. Stoyanovich spearheaded the 2020-2022 commissioning project Juurilla, selecting and collaborating with seven emerging composers to create works inspired by their nationalities. Her 2021-2022 recital tour of the West Coast with pianist Derek Wang featured a program devoted to American composers of today, including John Adams, Billy Childs, Jennifer Higdon, Patrick Stoyanovich, Christopher Theofanidis, and Augusta Read Thomas. In the fall of 2023, she joined the Kaleidoscope Ensemble for the Festival of New American Music, performing, adjudicating and giving masterclasses at Sacramento State University.
In the spring of 2024, Ms. Stoyanovich will release her debut album with Bridge Records, “Rue Paradis”, featuring the compositions of Pacific Northwest-based composer, Patrick Stoyanovich. Pianist Derek Wang and cellist Aaron Wolff join her for performances of Stoyanovich’s “Duo” for violin and cello, as well his Romance, Sonata No.1, and No. 2 “Romantic Warrior” for violin and piano. In 2020, she partnered with pianist Derek Wang for the first time to launch American Stories, a podcast that examines and celebrates American identity through music in performance, illuminated by personal histories and reflections from featured guests of all walks of life. American Stories was awarded an Ensemble Forward grant from Chamber Music America.
Born to a family of artists, Ms. Stoyanovich grew up on Bainbridge Island, WA and now lives in New York City. She received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School as a recipient of the Irene Diamond Graduate Fellowship and the Dr. & Kassie Biros Neuman Scholarship. Her principal teachers have included Mark Steinberg, Sylvia Rosenberg, Li Lin, and Ronald Patterson. Ms. Stoyanovich is currently a doctoral candidate in violin performance at The Graduate Center, CUNY, as a fellowship recipient. She performs on a 1930 Karl August Berger violin made in New York City.
Aaron Wolff
Described by the Chicago Tribune as “a musician of quicksilver brilliance,” Aaron Wolff is a New York City-based cellist and performer active in solo, collaborative, and cross-disciplinary capacities. Aaron gave his Carnegie Hall debut in Weill Recital Hall as the winner of the 2023 Leo B. Ruiz Memorial recital. Other recent performances include Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in A Major at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, Schumann’s Funf Stücke im Volkston at IMS Prussia Cove Concerts, Debussy’s Cello Sonata on CNN’s Quest Means Business, and Marc Migo’s La Dona d’Aigua with the Juilliard Orchestra.
As a high school student of Natasha Brofsky, Aaron won First Prize in the Boston Symphony Concerto Competition, and as a college student of Darrett Adkins was winner of the Oberlin Concerto Competition. He has also been a prizewinner at the Schadt String Competition, Lillian and Maurice Barbash Bach Competition and Cleveland Cello Society Competition. He was a finalist in the 2021 Young Concert Artist International Auditions, and was one of four American candidates at the 2021 Geneva International Cello Competition.
Equally at home in chamber music, he has collaborated with the eighth blackbird, A Far Cry, The Argus Quartet and the Boston Trio, and has spent return summers at Yellow Barn, the Perlman Music Program, and Lucerne Festival Academy. He currently plays with numerous groups including New York Classical Players, Contemporaneous, Metropolis Ensemble, Argento New Music Project and Princeton Symphony.
Aaron has appeared at the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, Bargemusic, The City Reliquary, MASS MoCA, Nasher Sculpture Center and The Cleveland Art Museum as well as traditional venues like Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Symphony Center Chicago, Prague’s Rudolfinum, Vienna’s Musikverein, Köln’s Philharmonie, and KKL Luzern.
Aaron has also found creative outlets in acting – most notably in a lead role in the Coen brothers’ film A Serious Man – and in arranging and writing about music: he has provided string arrangements for Comedy Central’s Broad City and covered New York’s new music scene for the online journal I Care If You Listen.
Aaron received a B.A. in comparative literature and B.M. in cello performance from Oberlin College & Conservatory. He then completed Master’s degree at Juilliard, where he was a Kovner Fellow under Joel Krosnick, and an Artist Diploma under Tim Eddy and Fred Sherry. He is now pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts at CUNY: The Graduate Center, studying with violinist Mark Steinberg of the Brentano Quartet. Aaron plays an 1813 Thomas Kennedy cello made in London.
Derek Wang
With the “pure poetry” of his playing (Seen and Heard International), pianist Derek Wang is drawing increasing acclaim from audiences and critics alike in wide-ranging appearances as soloist, collaborator, and communicator.
An eloquent proponent of the original works and virtuosic transcriptions of Franz Liszt, Derek was awarded second prize at the 12th International Liszt Competition (Liszt Utrecht) in 2022. His final round performance with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic conducted by Christian Reif was hailed as “spectacular” by de Volkskrant. The prize, which includes three years of concert engagements, follows on the heels of first prize at the inaugural New York International Liszt Competition in 2021, for which he was awarded an all-Liszt debut recital in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Recent performances as recitalist nclude a five-concert tour of the Netherlands; debuts for the Fazioli Concert Hall series in Italy, the Nohant Festival Chopin in France, the American Liszt Society in New York, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, and the Florida Keys Concert Association; and return engagements at the Rome Chamber Music Festival in Italy, the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, and the Moab Music Festival in Utah. Orchestral collaborations include concertos with the Yale Philharmonia, the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río in Mexico, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Southbank Sinfonia, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the latter as prizewinner of the 2024 Hastings International Piano Competition.
Deeply experienced in contemporary music, Derek held a three-summer-long fellowship position as pianist of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble at the Aspen Music Festival under conductors Donald Crockett and Timothy Weiss, performing a total of over fifty works of the 20th and 21st centuries, including premieres of works by the festival’s composition fellows. Derek’s membership in the ensemble was capped with a performance as soloist in Unsuk Chin’s Double Concerto for Piano and Percussion alongside Colin McCall, percussion, and under the baton of Maurice Cohn. He has also appeared as soloist with the AXIOM Ensemble at The Juilliard School, conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky, in works of John Adams (Grand Pianola Music) and Elliott Carter (Double Concerto for Piano and Harpsichord), both times alongside pianist Tengku Irfan.
Derek is widely praised for his ability to speak about music to audiences of all kinds, and in formats ranging from traditional pre-concert talks to podcasts and other digital media. In 2023, he produced a series of episodes of WQXR’s long-running Young Artists Showcase as guest host. Previously, Derek appeared on National Public Radio’s Tiny Desk video series as emcee and accompanist for From the Top, America’s leading showcase for young musicians.
In a multimedia collaboration between animation and music, Derek has performed the études of Chopin live as a synchronized soundtrack to the short film collection Magic Piano and The Chopin Shorts, produced by Academy Award winner Hugh Welchman. He has brought the family-friendly immersive concert experience to the Film Society of Lincoln Center for its 2012 premiere, to the Dallas Opera House, and on two tours of China that spanned nine cities. He has also performed and discussed the films’ impact on young audiences as a guest speaker at the EG conference in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California and at the La Ciudad de Las Ideas conference in Puebla, Mexico.
Derek holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Juilliard, where he received a Kovner Fellowship and the Joseph W. Polisi Prize for exemplifying the school’s values of the artist as citizen. His principal teachers at Juilliard were Stephen Hough, Yoheved Kaplinsky, and Matti Raekallio. He continues studies at the Yale School of Music as an Artist Diploma candidate in the studio of Boris Slutsky.
