2023 Performers
Ensemble-in-Residence:
Hub New Music
Called “contemporary chamber trailblazers” by the Boston Globe, Hub New Music–composed of flute, clarinet, violin, and cello–is forging new pathways in 21st-century repertoire.
The ensemble’s ambitious commissioning projects and “appealing programs” (New Yorker) celebrate the rich diversity of today’s classical music landscape. Its performances have been described as “gobsmacking” (Cleveland Classical), “innovative” (WBUR), and “the cutting edge of new classical music” (Taos News).
Hub’s 2021-22 highlights include concerts presented by the Morgan Library and Museum, Celebrity Series of Boston, Seattle Symphony, Soka Performing Arts Center, and Williams Center for the Performing Arts. Season residencies include visits to Baylor, Portland State, Illinois State, and Georgetown universities. The coming season brings premieres of new works by Nathalie Joachim, Laura Kaminsky, and Nina C. Young. In fall 2021, the Library of Congress presented the “virtual premiere” of Hub’s collaboration with composer Carlos Simon, Requiem for the Enslaved, which will tour in 2022-23. Simon’s large-scale work honors the lives of 272 slaves sold by Georgetown University (where Simon serves on the faculty) in 1838, and features spoken-word artist Marco Pavé, trumpeter Jared Bailey, and Simon on piano.
Hub’s debut album, Soul House, released on New Amsterdam Records in 2020 was called “ingenious and unequivocally gorgeous” by the Boston Globe. The ensemble’s upcoming recording with Silkroad’s Kojiro Umezaki (shakuhachi) and Asia-America New Music Institute (AANMI) will be released on Tōrō Records in 2022. Other upcoming recording projects include Carlos Simon’s Requiem for the Enslaved, and Michael Ippolito’s abstract-expressionist inspired work, Capriccio. The group will also be featured on Eric Nathan’s portrait album, Missing Words, to be released on New Focus Recordings.
Hub New Music is a group of passionate educators whose approach to teaching melds the artistic and entrepreneurial facets of modern musicianship. The ensemble was recently in residence with the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship program, working with 10 outstanding high school aged composers. Other residency activities include those at New England Conservatory, Princeton, Harvard, University of Michigan, University of Texas-Austin, UC Irvine, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In 2021/22 the ensemble continues its K-12 program, HubLab, that uses graphic scores and improvisation to create group compositions with students of all levels.
Hub New Music owes thanks to its supporters including Chamber Music America, the Cricket Foundation, Boston Cultural Council, the Florence & Joseph Mandel Family Foundation, Johnstone Fund for New Music, Amphion Foundation, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, and Alice M. Ditson Fund for Contemporary Music at Columbia University. The ensemble’s name is inspired by its founding city of Boston’s reputation as a hub of innovation. Hub New Music is exclusively represented by Unfinished Side.
Domenic Salerni,
Violin
Grammy Award-winning violinist Domenic Salerni is a member of the New York-based Attacca Quartet.
He is also a frequent guest of the Chiarina Chamber Players, based in Washington, DC, and is active as a chamber musician, clinician, composer, and arranger.
Attacca Quartet has released four new albums in the past two years. “Evergreen,” on Nonesuch, features the music of Caroline Shaw. “Real Life,” an electronica album, and “Of All Joys,” an exploration of minimalist and Renaissance music, can be found on Sony Classical. “Becca Stevens | Attacca Quartet,” featuring originals and arrangements by singer-songwriter Becca Stevens, can be found on GroundUp Music. Attacca looks forward to the release on Better Company Records of the music of Ellis Ludwig-Leone this fall. Attacca has resumed their touring schedule, having visited Europe, South America, and Japan this past year, and are looking forward to their Paris debut at the Theatre de la Ville this April.
As a member of the Chiarina Chamber Players, Domenic was a recipient of a 2020 Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant and will perform a new work by composer Carlos Simon with Peabody Conservatory bass faculty Carl DuPont in April 2022.
In 2020, as part of his response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Domenic helped set up the Philadelphia Musicians Relief Fund as part of AFM Local 77’s efforts to provide for its community of musicians in times of need. The Fund has since raised over $100,000, is now fiscally sponsored by CultureWorks of Greater Philadelphia, and continues to support Philadelphia area musicians.
In 2019, Domenic performed his original film accompaniment to Giuseppe de Liguoro’s “Dante’s Inferno” as part of a consortium between the Film Studies, French and Italian Department, and the Center for Creativity and the Arts at Emory University. In summer of 2021 a one-movement string quartet, “Trilobites,” after a short story by Breece D. J. Pancake, was premiered at the first inaugural Appalachian Chamber Music Festival in Harpers Ferry, WV. Domenic looks forward to the premiere this season of a suite of protest songs from the first Civil Rights Era by the Palaver Strings and tenor Nicholas Phan.
Domenic was the first violinist of the Dalí Quartet, quartet-in-residence at West Chester University of Pennsylvania from 2016-2020, and was the recipient of the Atlanta Symphony Talent Development Program’s Aspire Award in 2019. He holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Yale University School of Music. Past awards include ArtsATL’s “30 Under 30” Award, the Yale Chamber Music Society Award, the Phyllis Curtin Career Entry Award, Finalist of the Sion-Valais International Violin Competition, and Finalist of the M Prize as a member of the band Foundry.
Jessica Xylina Osborne,
Piano
Jessica Xylina Osborne has been hailed as "a superb pianist" by the Washington Post. A native of San Antonio, Texas, Jessica has enjoyed an illustrious and diverse career in music.
She pursues ambitious projects that reflect creativity in programming with the goal of bringing awareness to social justice issues. She enjoys presenting programs that pair well-known audience favorites with music being written today, in addition to performing works written by composers who have historically been overlooked within the classical music canon, including women, transgendered individuals, and composers of color.
Jessica has regularly performed with some of the classical music world’s biggest stars, including violinists Hilary Hahn and Ani Kavafian, and cellist Timothy Eddy, among many others. In addition to performing at some of the world’s top concert halls including Carnegie Hall, the Seoul Arts Center, and the Kennedy Center, she has had the opportunity to perform at many of the world’s most unique and interesting venues: some of her favorites include the Walton Gardens in Ischia, Italy; the Louvre Museum in Paris; and the Folly Theater in Kansas City.
Jessica received her bachelor of music degree in piano performance from the Juilliard School and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music; her master of music degree from Rice University; and her Doctorate of Musical Arts from Yale University. Her teachers and mentors include her mother Patricia Osborne, Dr. Marjorie Lee, Seymour Lipkin, Emile Naoumoff, Jon Kimura Parker, and Claude Frank.
Jessica is an experienced and enthusiastic pedagogue. She has been teaching piano for over 20 years, privately as well as within an academic setting. She regularly offers guest masterclasses and recitals at colleges and universities nationwide. She was Visiting Assistant Professor of Piano at the Sam Houston State University School of Music during the 2019- 2020 school year. She is currently on the piano faculty at the Lindeblad School of Music and Third Street Music School Settlement, as well as building her studio both in person and online in New York City. In her spare time, Jessica loves reading, yoga, playing with her two very energetic cats, and studying foreign languages.
Konstantin Soukhovetski,
Piano
“Konstantin Soukhovetski is rapidly earning a reputation as a “young pianist who captivates” with his “distinctive lyricism”, “immaculate technique” and “vigor...refinement... and drama”
The New York Times
2019 Innovation Award Winner from Music Academy Of The West, pianist, composer, librettist, and actor Konstantin Soukhovetski is an artist of singular vision bringing theater and music together while bridging classical and popular genres.
This season, Konstantin premiered SPARKS, a composition created for him by award-winning composer, Polina Nazaykinskaya, and has appeared with Musimelange and the musicians of the New World Symphony in Miami, FL. Konstantin also gave world the premiere and recorded a new ballet by Ms. Nazaykinskaya, “Nostalgia,” choreographed by Pascal Rioult of Rioult Dance at the Joyce Theater in New York City.
Konstantin has appeared as an actor on both theater stage and film and is currently producing reality-webisodes The Real Pianists Of The Hamptons at Pianofest in The Hamptons where he has been Artist-in-Residence since 2011.
Konstantin is a recipient of over 15 awards and is an alumnus of The Juilliard School where he has earned his BM, MM, and AD degrees under the tutelage of Jerome Lowenthal. In 2020 Konstantin joined the adjunct faculty of his alma mater. In 2022 Konstantin was named Director of Pedagogy and Narrative Musicianship at Bronx School For Music. Born in Moscow to a family of artists he studied at the Moscow Central Special Music School, under the auspices of the Moscow State Conservatory, with Anatoly Ryabov.
Tasha Koontz,
Soprano
Native Hawaiian soprano Tasha Hokuao Koontz has lent her “accurate, powerful voice” (Broadway World) to a gallery of leading operatic ladies and has been recognized by Parterre Box for her “sumptuous, gleaming lyric instrument” and by Opera Wire for her “secure silvery high notes.”
In 2023 she returned to San Diego Opera to perform the roles of Nella in Gianni Schicchi and Suor Genovieffa in Suor Angelica. A company favorite, Koontz debuted with San Diego Opera as Annina in La Traviata in 2017, and subsequently performed the roles of Edith in Pirates of Penzance, Frasquita in Carmen and High Priestess in Aïda, and covered the role of Mimì in La Bohème sung by Ana Maria Martinez. She also sang the role of Catrina in a 2019 workshop performance of El último sueño de Frida y Diego, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz and Latin GRAMMY® Award-winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank. Ms. Koontz subsequently originated the role of Frida Image 1 in the world premiere performances of Frank’s opera in 2022. In San Diego Opera’s 2021 concert entitled, “One Amazing Night,” Koontz “wowed with a knockout performance” (San Diego Union Tribune). Other 2023 performances include a debut with the Camarada Chamber Ensemble singing Brahms Op.91 Zwei Gesänge and Bach Cantata BWV 209, the Brahms Requiem with the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus, the Rachmaninov Vocalise and Poulenc Gloria with the Helena Symphony, and the world premiere of a two person chamber opera written by composer Polina Nazaykinskaya and librettist Konstanin Soukhovetski with the prestigious Garth Newel Piano Quartet at the Garth Newel Summer Festival.
Ms.Koontz returned to San Diego Symphony in 2022 to sing selections from Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt under Conductor Laureate Jahja Ling as well as to cover the soprano solos in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Ms. Koontz also had the honor of being invited to participate in a master class led by esteemed conductor Riccardo Muti of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra singing selections from Un Ballo in Maschera. Other 2022 performance highlights include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Glacier Symphony Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the San Diego Festival chorus & Orchestra as well as the Mainly Mozart Youth Orchestra, Mozart’s Requiem with the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Schubert’s Mass in G with the San Diego Festival Chorus & Orchestra, and a concert performance of Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Fortissima Collective.
In 2019, Koontz made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to great acclaim, bringing her “fulsome, penetrating soprano voice” and “unflappable poise” (Chicago Sun Times) to the role of High Priestess in Verdi’s Aïda under the baton of Maestro Riccardo Muti. Koontz returned to the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus in 2023 in performances of Brahms’ Requiem in 2023. There, she has previously been seen as a soloist in Bach’s Cantata No. 106, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.
Additional roles and houses on Koontz’s résumé include Violetta in La Traviata and Mimì in La Bohème with Opera on the Avalon, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with Bay View Music Festival, Erste Dame in Die Zauberflöte with Central City Opera, Alice Ford in Falstaff with Indiana University Opera Theater and with /kor/ Productions in Chicago, Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro with Northwestern University, and Woman 1 in Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath with Sugar Creek Opera. She also performed the role of Violetta in La Traviata in a production with the Fortissima Collective, an organization Koontz co-founded in 2021 to create performance opportunities for women and artists from underrepresented communities in Southern California.