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.

Violin

Elizabeth Vonderhide

Elizabeth Coulter Vonderheide, originally from Lynchburg, VA, began violin studies at age 5. She received a Bachelor of Music degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying with the late Franco Gulli, Distinguished Professor of Violin. She received the Master of Music degree from the prestigious Orchestral Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Glenn Dicterow, then Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. While in New York she served as Concertmaster of the MSM orchestras, and had the opportunity to play under renowned conductors Kurt Masur, David Robertson, Pierre Boulez, and Julius Rudel. She also appeared as soloist both with the Claremont Ensemble, and in a live broadcast on Soundcheck with John Schaeffer on 93.9 WNYC FM.

Elizabeth joined the Virginia Symphony as Assistant Principal Second Violin in 2003, and was appointed Principal Second Violin in 2022. Since 2008 she has been a substitute with the Saint Louis Symphony, joining them frequently, including their 7-week Opera Season, Carnegie Hall tours, and a domestic tour with American Ballet Theater. Beginning in the 2022-23 season, Elizabeth has been a regular substitute with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Additionally, she is often called on as a substitute musician by the Atlanta, Baltimore, and North Carolina Symphonies, and the Florida and Sarasota Orchestras.

Elizabeth has soloed four times with the Virginia Symphony, as well as with the Lynchburg Symphony, the National Repertory Orchestra, and the Wintergreen Music Festival orchestra. She has performed as a guest member of the National Symphony of the Dominican Republic, and with the orchestras of the Spoleto, Italy Festival, the American Institute of Musical Study (Graz, Austria), the Crested Butte Music Festival, The Colorado Music Festival, and the Conducting Institute at Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. Since 2015 she has held a summer position with Wintergreen Music. Elizabeth has also twice toured Japan with the Hollywood Concert Orchestra.

An enthusiastic chamber musician, Elizabeth is a founding member of both the Hampton Roads-based New Commonwealth Quartet, and the Surf and Sounds Chamber Music Festival in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. With NCQ, she has performed with Feldman Chamber Music, on the Virginia Wesleyan recital series, for Christ and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church “Sacred Music in a Sacred Space”, for the Graif Foundation, and in a chamber music series the quartet created in East Beach, Norfolk. They also recorded a recital for WHRO public media that was live-streamed during the pandemic. The quartet has twice been a featured ensemble at Bruce Hornsby’s Funhouse Fest, and can also be heard on Mr. Hornsby’s album Absolute Zero, on the track “White Noise”. As a solo recitalist, Elizabeth has appeared as a guest artist at Old Dominion University, Randolph College, and Madison (Indiana) Performing Arts.

Elizabeth is on the Instrumental Faculty at the Governor’s School for the Arts and The Academy of Music, and is a regular coach with the Bay Youth Orchestras of Virginia, and the Heart Strings Program. She maintains a private teaching studio in Portsmouth, where she lives with her husband, VSO Principal Trumpet David Vonderheide, and their Border Collie Indy.

Violia

Celia Daggy

Hailed as “glittering, beautiful and memorable”, Celia Daggy joined the VSO as Principal

Viola in 2022 at the age of 24, making her one of the youngest principal violists in an American orchestra.

Raised in a musical family in sunny Santa Monica, California, she studied piano and violin, eventually picking up the viola as a teenager. In high school, Ms. Daggy performed for John Williams with conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the American Youth Symphony, competed in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and toured China with the National Youth Orchestra of the USA.

She completed her undergraduate in 2020 summa cum laude from Boston University, where she studied with Boston Symphony principal Steven Ansell. She was a Tanglewood Music Center fellow for three years, during which she won their annual mock-audition, and was a guest of the Boston Symphony in the Leonard Bernstein Centennial Gala Concert. She also attended the New York String Orchestra Seminar and Spoleto Festival USA. Throughout her college years, she was a guest of numerous New England chamber music societies, performing from Rhode Island up to Maine. In 2018, she gave the world premiere of Stephen Baillargeon’s viola concerto, written for her, as a benefit for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Frequently traveling around the United States, Ms. Daggy has performed with the Boston, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and North Carolina Symphonies. She has toured New England with the Boston Pops, and also joined the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in Los Angeles for a PBS broadcasted event celebrating Henri Mancini’s 100th Birthday. She can be heard around Hampton Roads in the internationally-renowned Candlelight quartet series. In the summer, she is the Assistant Principal Violist of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival Orchestra, and participates in the Wintergreen Music Festival in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Prior to joining the Virginia Symphony, she was an acting member of the North Carolina Symphony during the ‘21-’22 season. She was also a principal fellow of The Orchestra Now at Bard College, where she can be heard on an album released by Bridge Records playing extensive solos in George Bristow’s Symphony No. 4 “Arcadian”.

She plays on a 2016 viola made by Andranik Gaybaryan in Northampton, Massachusetts. Outside of the musical world she enjoys running, learning about fine wines, and is an avid Los Angeles Dodgers fan. She currently lives in Chesapeake.

cello

Jan Vogler

Jan Vogler’s distinguished career has brought him together with renowned conductors and internationally acclaimed orchestras around the world, such as New York Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and London Philharmonic Orchestra. His great ability allowed him to explore the sound boundaries of the cello and to establish an intensive dialogue with contemporary composers and artists. This includes regular world premieres, including works by Tigran Mansurian (with WDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Semyon Bychkov), John Harbison (with Mira Wang and the Boston Symphony Orchestra), Udo Zimmermann (Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra), Wolfgang Rihm (Double Concerto with Mira Wang), Jörg Widman (Cello Concerto Dunkle Saiten, dedicated to Jan Vogler himself), Nico Muhly, Sven Helbig and Zhou-Long (Drei Kontinente – Konzert für Cello und Orchester, composed for Jan Vogler) and Sean Shepherd (On a Clear Day based on a cycle of poems by Ulla Hahn, for cello, choirs and orchestra, which was premiered in 2023 with the Philharmonic State Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano). The New York Times praises his “soulful, richly hued playing” and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung grants him the ability “to make his cello speak like a singing voice”.

Highlights of Jan Vogler’s career as a soloist are concerts with the New York Philharmonic – both in New York and Dresden at the occasion of the reopening of the rebuilt Dresdner Frauenkirche under the direction of Lorin Maazel in 2005 –, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh and Montréal Symphony Orchestras, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra dell’ Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic as well as with The Knights.  He collaborates with conductors such as Andris Nelsons, Fabio Luisi, Sir Antonio Pappano, Valery Gergiev, Thomas Hengelbrock, Manfred Honeck and Kent Nagano.

In 2006, he received the European Award for Culture and in 2011 the Erich-Kästner Award for tolerance, humanity and international understanding. In June 2018 he received the European Award for Culture TAURUS as Director of the Dresden Music Festival. 2021 Jan Vogler was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Jan Vogler plays the Stradivari ‘Ex Castelbarco/Fau’ 1707 cello.

cello

Eric Jacobsen

Already well-established as one of classical music’s most exciting and innovative young conductors, Eric Jacobsen combines fresh interpretations of the traditional canon with cutting-edge collaborations across musical genres. Hailed by the New York Times as “an interpretive dynamo,” Eric, as both a conductor and a cellist, has built a reputation for engaging audiences with innovative and collaborative programming.

Eric joined the Virginia Symphony Orchestra as Music Director in 2021, being named the twelfth music director in the orchestra’s 100+ year history. Current and recent projects include recording projects of Dvorak and Coleridge-Taylor with Gil Shaham and Rhapsody in Blue (on banjo!) with Bela Fleck.

Eric is entering his tenth season as Music Director of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, as he continues to pioneer the orchestra’s programming and community engagement in new and exciting directions. The 24-25 season looks forward to concerts including An Evening with Jamie Bernstein and the World Premiere of Gabe Kahane’s clarinet concerto for Anthony McGill.

Eric is also artistic director and co-founder of The Knights, the uniquely adventurous NYC-based chamber orchestra. The ensemble, founded with his brother, violinist Colin Jacobsen, grew out of late-night music reading parties with friends, good food and drink, and conversation. Current endeavors include a multi-year Rhapsody project as well as a residency at Carnegie Hall. Under Jacobsen’s baton, The Knights have developed an extensive recording collection, including albums with longtime collaborators Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, Aaron Diehl, Gabe Kahane, and Anna Clyne.

Eric’s musical life started from a very young age surrounded by a musical family, where he discovered his love of pulling a bow across a string as a cellist. He and his brother founded the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and also performed regularly with Yo-Yo Ma as a member of Silk Road, touring around the world. This collaborative spirit and sense of music is something that Eric strives to bring to every concert and project.

A frequent guest conductor, Eric has established continuing relationships with the Colorado Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Oregon Bach Festival, and the Dresden Musikfestspiele. Upcoming engagements also include concerts with Classical Tahoe and Grant Park Music Festival, and special performances with Yo-Yo Ma and the Atlanta Symphony and Utah Symphony.

Eric brings joy, storytelling, and a touch of humor to what he describes as “musical conversations” that delight audiences around the world, including those who do not traditionally attend classical music concerts. Jacobsen is married to Grammy-Winner singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan and together they have a daughter.

The Piece