Violin

Grace Park

Grace Park is a violinist celebrated for her artistry, passion, and virtuosity. Praised by the San Francisco Chronicle as “fresh, different and exhilarating” and by Strings Magazine for her “intensely wrought and burnished” sound, she captivates audiences worldwide. A winner of the Naumburg International Violin Competition, Ms. Park is recognized both as a dynamic soloist and a devoted chamber musician.

Ms. Park’s most recent solo debuts include the Colorado Music Festival, Bard Festival under the baton of Leon Botstein, Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Symphony, The Rudolfinum/ Dvorak Hall in Prague with Prague Philharmonia, and recital debuts at Krannert Center, Beethoven Minnesota Festival and Merkin Hall.

Future collaborations include her solo debuts at Seoul Arts Center with Les Musiciens du Louvre with Marc Minkowski, Sarasota Orchestra with Peter Oundjian, Orlando Philharmonic with Eric Jacobsen, along with chamber music debuts at the Savannah Music Festival and Camerata Pacifica.

Ms. Park recorded her debut solo album with the Prague Philharmonia and their music director, Emmanuel Villaume, which will include concertos and solo works of Mozart and Dvorak. It is set to be released in the spring of 2025.

A devoted and passionate educator, Ms. Park is an alumnus of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and has taught masterclasses and coached at Conservatorio de Musica de Cartagena, Mannes School of Music, University of North Carolina, University of Mississippi, Washington and Lee University, North Dakota State University, Skidmore College, among others. She currently teaches as adjunct professor at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University.

As a native to Los Angeles, California, Ms. Park began violin at the age of 5 where she trained at the Colburn School of Music. She continued her studies at Colburn Conservatory and New England Conservatory for her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. Principal teachers are Donald Weilerstein, Miriam Fried, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Robert Lipsett. She now resides in New York City.

She performs on a 1717 Giuseppe Filius Andrea Guarneri on loan from an anonymous sponsor.

Cello

Sebastian Stöger

Native New Yorker and cellist, Sebastian Stöger, is a virtuosically passionate soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician who has performed  at prestigious concerts, festivals, competitions throughout the world. Sebastian enjoys being an avid player of violin classical repertoire, jazz music, and a wide range of contemporary music. As one who grew up with intense musical training, he is committed to be an advocate for aspiring young artists through his performances and collaborations with educational programs. In April 2025, Sebastian won the Principal Cello position of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.

In May 2022, Sebastian made his solo debut at Seiji Ozawa Hall with the Empire State Youth Symphony, premiering Fabrizio Cassol Concerto for Solo Cello, Electronics, and Orchestra. He has also made a variety of appearances as a soloist, from performing the Dvorak Concerto with conductor Stephen Czarkowsky and the Central Pennsylvania Symphony in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania to playing  for President Biden at The White House as part of the St. Patrick’s Day Luncheon in March 2024.

Supporting young emerging artists Sebastian has been a member of Omega Ensemble, playing sonatas and chamber music works throughout the New York City/Metropolitan area. He is also a Dacamera Young Artist Fellow in Houston, Texas, where he performs a variety of classical and contemporary repertoire, and serves as a teaching artist in the Houston Public Schools.

On the East Coast, Sebastian has performed in David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic, playing works by Mozart. In the summer of 2024, he served as principal cellist of the League of Composers Orchestra in New York City.

In Summer of 2024, Sebastian became a member of the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, collaborating with soloists Alisa Weilerstein and Yunchan Lim, and performing under conductors Sir Simon Rattle, Klaus Makela, Antonio Pappano, and Vasily Petrenko. Other festival credits include the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, where he performed with members of the Vienna Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in Blue Hill, Maine.

Sebastian Stöger grew up in Manhattan, NYC. He began his cello studies starting at the age of 5 at the Special Music School, a public elementary, middle, and high school at the Kaufman Music Center, dedicated to providing young talents with serious musical training. At the age of 9, Sebastian won his first concerto competition. In May 2022, Sebastian was a semifinalist at the 2022 Washington International String Competition. In Spring 2017 he was named a National YoungArts Winner. Sebastian was also featured at the NPR Radio From The Top Show, where he received a Jack Kent Cooke Artist Award.

Sebastian studied with Brinton Smith at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University where he received his master’s degree. He completed his undergraduate studies at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Joel Krosnick and Timothy Eddy.

Sebastian currently plays on a Gaetano Sgarabotto cello, generously loaned to him by Curtis Bryant Fine Cellos.

Bass

Christopher White

A Rhode Island native, Christopher White has been a member of the Virginia Symphony since 1998, and was appointed as the symphony’s principal bassist in 2014.  He attended the University of Rhode Island where he studied with David Cobb, and then went on to major in Orchestral performance at the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Timothy Cobb, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic. In 1993, he was appointed as principal bass of the New Bedford Symphony in Massachusetts, and section bass in the Vermont Symphony. In 1996, Mr. White earned a spot in the prestigious New World Symphony in Miami under Michael Tilson Thomas where he served as co-principal bass until he joined the Virginia Symphony as assistant principal bass. In 2000, Mr. White won the double bass audition for the Grant Park orchestra in Chicago where he continues to perform for 10 weeks each Summer in Millennium Park.

Mr. White also enjoys an active solo and chamber career as well,  most notably as a soloist with the Virginia Symphony, performing Bottesini’s Grand Duo Concertante with violinist Pavel Ilyashov, and more recently Stravinsky’s “A Soldiers Tale” under JoAnn Falletta. Working under the Symphony’s Community Engagement Program, he has enjoyed performing for thousands of children.   He currently teaches double bass at Old Dominion University and the Governor’s School for the Arts as well as teaching privately. He resides in Norfolk with his wife, Joanne Meyer White, second flute of the Virginia Symphony and their 2 children.

Piano

Adam Golka

Polish-American pianist Adam Golka (born 1987) first performed all of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas when he was 18 years-old, and in 2020-2021 Adam Golka performed the complete cycle of Beethoven’s 32 Sonatas at the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park (Florida) and at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (NYC), in socially-distanced and live-stream formats. Adam’s performances of each Sonata were complemented by 32 short films he created, known as 32@32 (available on YouTube), documenting his preparation for climbing the Everest of piano literature and featuring an amalgam of distinguished guests, from an astrophysicist to Alfred Brendel.

Adam Golka’s principal teachers have been José Feghali, with whom he studied at Texas Christian University, and Leon Fleisher, at the Peabody Conservatory. Since finishing his formal studies, Adam has continued to develop his artistry through mentorship from Alfred Brendel, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, Mitsuko Uchida, Evelyne Crochet, Ferenc Rados, Rita Wagner, and Sir András Schiff, who invited Adam to give recitals at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Tonhalle Zürich, for the “Sir András Schiff Selects” concert series. Adam has also given solo recitals in Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Osaka’s Nakanoshima Hall, Amsterdam’s Kleine Zaal in Het Concertgebouw, Paris’ Jardin du Luxembourg, Berlin’s Piano Salon Christophori, and New York’s Alice Tully Hall (presented by the Musicians Emergency Fund), as well as countless other venues around the US and Europe.

As a concerto soloist, he has appeared with the BBC Scottish Symphony, NACO (Ottawa), Warsaw Philharmonic, NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco, Orquesta Sinfónica de Colombia, as well as over fifty orchestras in the US, including such well known ensembles as the San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, New Jersey, and San Diego symphonies. Adam has enjoyed collaborations with conductors such as Joseph Swensen, Donald Runnicles, Pinchas Zukerman, Mark Wigglesworth, JoAnn Falletta, and often with his brother, conductor Tomasz Golka. Adam gave his Carnegie Stern Auditorium début in 2010 with the New York Youth Symphony.

Chamber music is an integral part of Adam Golka’s life, and he has performed repeatedly at the Krzyżowa-Music “Music for Europe” Chamber Music Festival, which has included tour performances at the Penderecki European Music Center in Lusławice (Poland) Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Beethoven Bonn festivals (Germany), as well as Konzerthaus Berlin. He also performed at the Marlboro, Ravinia, Caramoor chamber music festivals in the US. Adam collaborates regularly with the Manhattan Chamber Players and in recital with baritone John Moore, cellist Jonathan Swensen and violinist Itamar Zorman, with whom he is scheduled for a third recital at the The Wigmore Hall in London 2026.

Adam’s professional life began when he was awarded the first prize and audience prize at the 2nd China Shanghai International Piano Competition. In 2008, Adam won the Gilmore Young Artist Award and in 2009, he won the Max I. Allen Fellowship as part of the American Pianists Awards. Adam has recorded works by Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms for London-based First Hand Records, and in 2025 he will release two new albums for First Hand Records: Brahms’ early piano works plus a world premiere recording of a piano work by Brahms biographer Jan Swafford, and also an album named “Chopin Sans Chopin,” a personally curated selection of works inspired by Frédéric Chopin, including a world premiere of an 1894 Mazurka by Natalia Janotha.

As a pedagogue, Adam acted as Artist-in-Residence for six school years at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He has premiered works by Michelle Barzel Ross, Richard Danielpour, Michael Brown, and Jarosław Gołębiowski, and most recently Adam also performed and recorded the world premiere of the Piano Quintet by Andrea Casarrubios. Adam currently serves as Artist-Teacher at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, MA, and is also an Artistic Advisor to the Krzyżowa-Music “Music for Europe” Chamber Music Festival.

When Adam is not making music, he loves to read classic literature, visit art museums, swim, and he is passionate about somatic learning and movement awareness, especially the Feldenkrais Method.

The Pieces

Glossary

Theme and Variations

A musical form consisting of a central theme or melody followed by various permutations or elaborations on the given theme.