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.

Acclaimed for her passionate, powerful performances, beautiful sound, and compelling command of her instrument, violinist Bella Hristova has performed extensively as a soloist with orchestras including the Charlotte, Milwaukee, and Kansas City symphonies as well as orchestras in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and New Zealand. Highlights of the 2023–24 season include performances of Wynton Marsalis’s Violin Concerto with the Charleston Symphony and Eugene Philharmonic, Prokofiev’s Second Concerto with the New York Youth Symphony at Carnegie Hall, and the Barber Concerto with the Orlando Philharmonic. Hristova was the featured soloist for a concerto commissioned by a consortium of eight major orchestras and written for her by her husband, acclaimed composer David Serkin Ludwig, which she continues to perform. A sought-after chamber musician at festivals, she has performed at Australia’s Musica Viva, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Northwest, and Marlboro Music. Following multiple tours of New Zealand with renowned pianist Michael Houstoun, she and Houstoun recorded the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin, and more recently the Brahms Sonatas, both released on Rattle. She received a 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant and first prizes in the Michael Hill International Violin Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and is a Laureate of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Hristova attended the Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with Ida Kavafian, and received her artist diploma with Jaime Laredo at Indiana University. She is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program and plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin.

Dmitri Atapine has been described as a cellist with “brilliant technical chops” (Gramophone), whose playing is “highly impressive throughout” (The Strad). He has appeared on some of the world's foremost stages. An avid chamber musician, he frequently performs with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is an alum of The Bowers Program. He is a frequent guest at leading festivals, including Music@Menlo, La Musica Sarasota, Pacific, Aldeburgh, Aix-en-Provence, and Nevada. His performances have been broadcast nationally in the US, Europe, and Asia. His many awards include first prize at the Carlos Prieto Cello Competition, as well as top honors at the Premio Vittorio Gui and Plowman chamber competitions. He has collaborated with such distinguished musicians as Cho-Liang Lin, Paul Neubauer, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Wu Han, Bruno Giuranna, David Finckel, David Shifrin, and the Emerson Quartet. His many recordings include a critically acclaimed world premiere of Lowell Liebermann’s complete works for cello and piano. He holds a doctorate from the Yale School of Music, where he was a student of Aldo Parisot. Atapine is Professor of Cello at the University of Nevada, Reno, and is Artistic Co-Director of the Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City, Apex Concerts (Reno, Nevada), and the Ribadesella Chamber Music Festival (Spain), as well as the Co-Director of the Young Performers Program at Music@Menlo Chamber Music Institute (California).