Kristin Lee is a violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique who enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, and artistic director. “Her technique is flawless, and she has a sense of melodic shaping that reflects an artistic maturity,” writes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Strad reports, “She seems entirely comfortable with stylistic diversity, which is one criterion that separates the run-of-the-mill instrumentalists from true artists.”

As a soloist, Lee has appeared with leading orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Hawai’i Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Ural Philharmonic of Russia, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra of China, and Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Dominican Republic. She has performed on the world’s finest concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ravinia Festival, the Louvre Museum, the Phillips Collection, and Korea’s Kumho Art Gallery. An accomplished chamber musician, Kristin Lee became a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center after winning The Bowers Program audition and completing the program's three-year residency. In addition to her prolific performance career, Lee is  a devoted educator. She is on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as an Assistant Professor of Violin. Lee is also the founding artistic director of Emerald City Music (ECM), a chamber music series that presents authentically unique concert experiences and bridges the divide between the highest caliber classical music and the many diverse communities of the Puget Sound region of Washington State.

Kristin Lee’s honors include an Avery Fisher Career Grant, top prizes in the Walter W. Naumburg Competition and the Astral Artists National Auditions, and awards from the Trondheim Chamber Music Competition, Trio di Trieste Premio International Competition, the SYLFF Fellowship, Dorothy DeLay Scholarship, the Aspen Music Festival’s Violin Competition, the New Jersey Young Artists’ Competition, and the Salon de Virtuosi Scholarship Foundation.

Born in Seoul, Lee moved to the United States and studied under prestigious teachers including Sonja Foster, Catherine Cho, Dorothy DeLay, Donald Weilerstein, and Itzhak Perlman. Lee holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School. Lee’s violin was crafted in Naples, Italy in 1759 by Gennaro Gagliano and is generously loaned to her by Paul & Linda Gridley.

Tara Helen O’Connor is a charismatic performer noted for her artistic depth, brilliant technique, and colorful tone spanning every musical era. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a two-time Grammy nominee, she was the first wind player to participate in the CMS Two program. A Wm. S. Haynes flute artist, she is a regular participant in the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, the Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, Mainly Mozart, Spoleto USA, Chamber Music Northwest, Music from Angel Fire, the Banff Centre, Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival, and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.

She is a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning New Millennium Ensemble, a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape and the Bach Aria Group. She has appeared on A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts and Live from Lincoln Center. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, and Bridge Records. Dr. O'Connor is the Area Head of the Wind Department at Purchase College School of the Arts Conservatory of Music and is the Chair of Classical Music Studies. Additionally she is on the faculty of Bard College Conservatory and the contemporary program at Manhattan School of Music. Her yearly summer flute master class at the Banff Centre in Canada is legendary.

Violist Paul Neubauer's exceptional musicality and effortless playing led the New York Times to call him “a master musician. Mr. Neubauer exults in his instrument’s dark, rich, sumptuous tone.”

He recently made his Chicago Symphony subscription debut with conductor Riccardo Muti as well as his Mariinsky Orchestra debut at the White Nights Festival. He also gave the U.S. Premiere of the newly discovered Impromptu for viola and piano by Shostakovich with pianist Wu Han.

Appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at age 21, he has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras including the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki philharmonics. He has premiered viola concertos by Bartók (revised version of the Viola Concerto), Friedman, Glière, Jacob, Kernis, Lazarof, Müller-Siemens, Ott, Penderecki, Picker, Suter, and Tower and has been featured on CBS's Sunday Morning, A Prairie Home Companion, and in Strad, Strings, and People magazines. A two-time GRAMMY nominee, he has recorded on numerous labels including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Red Seal, and Sony Classical. Mr. Neubauer is the artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey and is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Mannes College. 

“The Yo-Yo Ma of the harp.” —Vogue Magazine

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Extraordinary Bridget Kibbey is known for her great musical instincts that transcend the harp.

She interprets the masters—Bach, Debussy, Ravel, Bartók—bringing “a fresh face to the familiar music,” while being a bold advocate of genre-crossing storytelling and newly commissioned works (Seattle City Arts Magazine). Through it all, her virtuosic and soulful ability to communicate draws in the audience. In short, “she made it seem as though her instrument had been waiting all its life to explode with the gorgeous colors and energetic figures she was getting from it” (The New York Times).

Bridget has appeared as soloist with the Badisch Staatskapelle Karlsruhe, State Orchestra of Brazil (Pelotas), The Juilliard Symphony, Israel Youth Philharmonic; the orchestras of Orlando, Modesto, Illinois, Alabama, Richmond, Skaneateles Festival, and Princeton; and the Madison and San José Chamber Orchestras, Metropolis Ensemble, among others.

She has been featured as soloist in North America’s top halls—from Carnegie Hall and the Met Opera Main Stage to Koerner Hall, the Ordway, and 92nd Street Y, from the Gardner Museum and the Phillips Collection to the Menil Collection and beyond. Internationally, she has appeared at Schloss Elmau, Festival St. Denis, ANAM, Festival des Harpes (Arles, France), Festival de Música de Morelia, Pelotas Festival, and the Lucerne Music Festival.

Bridget has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, SONY Records, and Pentatone, to great critical acclaim. Her debut album was named one of the Top Ten Releases by Time Out New York. Her next solo release with Pentatone Records is slated for 2026—a set of surprising keyboard transcriptions.

She is the recipient of a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, a Salon de Virtuosi SONY Recording Grant, and premiere prix at the Journées de les Harpes Competition in Arles, France, and she won a place in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program. Her solo performances have been broadcast on NPR’s Performance Today, New York’s WQXR, WNYC’s Soundcheck, WETA’s Front Row Washington, WRTI’s Crossover, and A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts.

Bridget has commissioned concerti from Vivian Fung and Brazilian composer Joao Luiz, exploring the sounds of Carnaval on the harp; and she brings two newly commissioned concerti to the stage starting in 2027.

Known for her curatorial strengths, Bridget builds touring projects that merge her own solo transcriptions alongside powerful collaborations: The Sacred and the Profane, exploring French Masterworks of the Belle Époque alongside the Calidore String Quartet; and Bach keyboard concerti and sonatas with the Dover Quartet. Her exploration of world cultures has resulted in Bach to Brazil —a celebration of Nuevo Latino Voices alongside Latin Grammy-Winning percussionist/composer Samuel Torres—and Persia to Iberia, a program tracking music of the Islamic Golden Era alongside Iranian Singer Mahsa Vahdat and percussionist John Hadfield.

She has performed in duo with vocalists Kathleen Battle and Dawn Upshaw, mandolinist Avi Avital, the Dover Quartet, violinist Alexi Kenney, the Boy Choir of St. Thomas Church, Latin-Grammy winning percussionist Samuel Torres, Percussionist John Hadfield, Persian singer Mahsa Vahdat, and kora-player Yacouba Sissoko, among others.

Recent performance highlights include appearances as soloist at Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Dumbarton Oaks, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, Festival Napa Valley, the VIVO Festival, Saratoga PAC, and Alice Tully Hall with Artists of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as well as for 40,000 attendees at “Madison’s Concerts at the Capitol” where she premiered her own transcription of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. Bridget appears frequently as soloist and chamber musician at festivals and series across the United States: Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart, La Jolla Music Society, International Festival l’Avesnois, Aspen, Bravo!Vail, Santa Fe, Spoleto, Big Ears Knoxville, Chamber Music Northwest, Portland Ovations, Bridgehampton, Savannah Music Festival, The Phillips Collection, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, The Cliburn, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Columbus, Calgary Pro Musicis, and Chattanooga’s String Theory, among others.

Bridget was the 2022–2023 Artist in Focus at the Schubert Club in Minneapolis, Minnesota, bringing three programs of her own creation to the city, to great critical acclaim.

From 2022 to 2024, Bridget was the Artistic Director of MOSA Concerts, elevating a local concert series to a notable world-class, cross-genre performing arts series. She showcased the rich diversity of musicians who call Uptown Manhattan home, refocusing the series on presenting talent that live North of Harlem—crossing Classical, Baroque, Latin Jazz, and Global music idioms. Bridget MC’d each event, tracking the history and stories behind the music.