Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano has garnered critical acclaim for committed performances of both new and standard repertoire. With more than 100 performances at the Metropolitan Opera, her most recent roles have included Nicklausse, Emilia, Hansel, and Meg Page. She has undertaken numerous projects with the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst in both the US and Europe, and appeared with Cleveland in Verdi’s Otello in 21-22. Other highlights that season included performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin in a premiere of Kevin Puts’s The Hours, performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Chicago Symphony, and Riccardo Muti and the San Francisco Symphony. Following summer festival premieres, she performed the New York premiere of a new chamber opera by Marc Neikrug, A Song By Mahler, at the Chamber Music Society. She performed Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites (Mother Marie) with the Houston Grand Opera; the world premiere of Gregory Spear’s Castor and Patience (Celeste) with the Cincinnati Opera; Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle (Judith) with the Roanoke Opera; and workshops of Gregg Kallor’s new opera, Frankenstein, with the Arizona Opera. Cano is a native of St. Louis and earned degrees from Webster University and Rice University. Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition, she has also received First Prize in the Young Concert Artist International Auditions, a Sara Tucker Study Grant, a Richard Tucker Career Grant, and George London Award.

Cellist Keith Robinson is a founding member of the Miami String Quartet and has been active as a chamber musician, recitalist, and soloist since his graduation from the Curtis Institute of Music. He has had numerous solo appearances with orchestras including the New World Symphony, the American Sinfonietta, and the Miami Chamber Symphony, and in 1989 won the P.A.C.E. “Classical Artist of the Year” Award. His most recent recording released on Blue Griffin Records features the complete works of Mendelssohn for cello and piano with his colleague Donna Lee. In 1992 the Miami String Quartet became the first string quartet in a decade to win First Prize of the Concert Artists Guild New York Competition. The quartet has also received the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award, has won the Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, and was a member of CMS’s Bowers Program. He regularly attends festivals across the United States, including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Kent Blossom Music, Bravo! Vail, Savannah Music Festival, and the Virginia Arts Festival. Highlights of recent seasons include international appearances in Bern, Cologne, Istanbul, Lausanne, Montreal, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Paris. He also teaches chamber music at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Robinson hails from a musical family and his siblings include Sharon Robinson of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, and Hal Robinson, principal bass of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He plays a cello made by Carlo Tononi in Venice in 1725.

Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Chien has a diverse musical life as a performer, concert presenter, and educator. She made her orchestral debut at the age of 16 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard, and performed again with the BSO under Keith Lockhart. Recently she has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician at Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Phillips Collection, the Kissingen Sommer festival, the Dresden Chamber Music Festival, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. A former member of The Bowers Program, she performs frequently with CMS. In 2009 she launched String Theory, a chamber music series at the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, which has become one of Tennessee’s premier classical music presenters. The following year she was appointed Director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo by Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han, a position she held for the next decade. In 2017, she joined her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, as Co-Artistic Director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. The duo became Artistic Directors at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, OR, in 2020, and were named the recipients of the 2021 Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music from CMS, recognizing their efforts during the pandemic. Ms. Chien received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from New England Conservatory of Music as a student of Russell Sherman and Wha-Kyung Byun. She is an artist-in-residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, and is a Steinway Artist.