Christopher Costanza, Daniel Phillips, Jonathan Swartz, Wendy Chen, and Fellowship Young Artists
Christopher Costanza, Daniel Phillips, Jonathan Swartz, Wendy Chen, and Fellowship Young Artists present a performance as a part of the Madeline Island Chamber Music 2025 concert series
For well over thirty years now I have been very fortunate to have had a varied and exciting career as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. Back in 1986, when I was still an undergraduate student at the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) in Boston, I won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York, and a few years later, I was honored to receive a prestigious Solo Recitalists Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. To date, I have played concerts in nearly every state in the U.S. (I’ve set foot in 49 of the fifty; North Dakota, I promise to pay you a visit one of these years!) and in a long list of countries and continents near and far: Canada and throughout Europe, as well as South America, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. During the summers, I’ve enjoyed collaborating with colleagues at such summer festivals as Marlboro, Yellow Barn, Santa Fe, Taos, and Bravo!Vail. While at NEC in the 1980’s, I earned my Bachelor of Music and an Artist Diploma, studying with some of the most inspirational and brilliant musical minds of the century: Laurence Lesser, David Wells, Bernard Greenhouse, Eugene Lehner, Louis Krasner, Leonard Shure, and others.
I do a fair bit of concert touring each season throughout the world (as a soloist, chamber musician, and previously with the St. Lawrence String Quartet), and I regularly pursue recording projects of various sorts. Since 2003 I have been a full-time Artist in Residence at Stanford University, where I teach teach cello and chamber music and perform a wide variety of concerts all around the University, from its concert halls to student residences and lecture halls. I’m fascinated by new and somewhat complex music, admitting that the term “new” is one I use quite loosely, covering great music ranging from complex late romantic works created over 100 years ago to works that are hot off the presses. One of the highlights of my musical life has been the continuing opportunities to work with so many of the world’s most notable composers, including John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, and Pierre Boulez, as well as several of my brilliant Stanford University composer colleagues. Back in 1986, I had the immense honor of studying Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” under the guidance of Messiaen himself, during his brief residency at NEC.
Recording is a rigorous but ultimately enjoyable and necessary activity for a performing artist, and I’ve had terrific opportunities over many years to make a number of chamber music and solo recordings, released on labels such as Nonesuch, EMI/Angel, and Naxos. A Grammy nomination came my way back in 2006, for a recording of chamber works for winds and strings by Mozart, and several St. Lawrence String Quartet recordings on EMI have been nominated for Juno awards. My proudest recording project to date is my 2012 recording of the Six Suites for Solo Cello by J.S. Bach. I initially offered these recordings through a comprehensive and dedicated website, which included commentary, history, web links, and additional Bach-related resources, and I have now made the recording and commentary available for streaming on my current site. My two most recent recordings with the SLSQ feature two of the Op. 76 Haydn string quartets and the Korngold Piano Quintet (with the brilliant pianist Stephen Prutsman), on the Phenotypic label. And just a few years ago, the SLSQ recorded all six of the Op. 20 String Quartets of Haydn, available as CD’s, on-line streaming, and limited-edition vinyl LP’s.
Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as a chamber musician, solo artist, and teacher. A graduate of Juilliard, his major teachers were his father Eugene Phillips, Ivan Galamian, Sally Thomas, Nathan Milstein, Sandor Végh, and George Neikrug. Since winning the 1976 Young Concert Artists Competition, he has performed as a soloist with many orchestras, including the Pittsburgh, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Yakima symphonies. He appears regularly at the Spoleto USA Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Chesapeake Music Festival, the International Musicians Seminar in England, Marlboro Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire, where he is co-artistic director. He has served on the faculty of the Heifetz Institute and the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar at Stanford. He was a member of the renowned Bach Aria Group and has toured and recorded in a string quartet for Sony with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma. A judge in the 2022 Leipzig Bach Competition and 2018 Seoul International Violin Competition, Phillips is a professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music, Bard College Conservatory, and the Juilliard School. He lives with his wife, flutist Tara Helen O’Connor, and their two dachshunds on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Praised by The Strad for his “impeccable playing” and “gorgeously viola-like tone,” violinist Jonathan Swartz enjoys a multi-faceted career. His solo CD, Suite Inspiration (Soundset Recordings), received much critical acclaim. John Terauds of Musical Toronto comments, “Swartz sounds as if his bow were strung with threads of silk rather than horsehair,” and calls his performance of Bach’s Chaconne “something to treasure.”A devoted pedagogue, Swartz serves on the faculties of Arizona State University and Madeline Island Chamber Music. He has previously taught at the University of Texas at El Paso, Domaine Forget Academy, Round Top Festival, Interlochen Arts Camp, Innsbrook Institute, and the Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory. Sought after as a master clinician, and frequent presenter at the American String Teachers Association National Conferences, his approach to bow technique was featured in a STRINGS magazine article in 2006.Swartz is the founder and Artistic Director of the Visiting Quartet Residency Program at Arizona State University, a chamber music program that integrates visiting resident artists with a comprehensive chamber music curriculum. He has also been instrumental in shaping the curriculum for the violin program at the Domaine Forget Academy. He presently serves as Artistic Director for Madeline Island Chamber Music, and as Past President for ASTA-AZ.
Born in California, Wendy Chen debuted with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the age of 15 under conductor André Previn. She won First Prize in the National Chopin Competition, the Young Concert Artists auditions, was the inaugural recipient of the Gilmore Young Artists Award, and was named a Presidential Scholar by the National Foundation for the Arts.
Ms. Chen is an alumna of the predecessor to the Colburn School of Performing Arts, where she studied with Dorothy Hwang. She went on to study with Aube Tzerko and Leon Fleisher. Ms. Chen is one of the most sought after pianists and chamber musicians, performing on many of the world’s most prestigious concert stages. She has appeared in unique programs that also featured musical legends Art Garfunkel and James Taylor; and in a private concert for The Justices at the US Supreme Court presented by The Late Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Highlights have included performances at The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, The Kennedy Center, Zankel Hall, Château Chillon in Montreux, Switzerland, The Rudolfinum in Prague, an all Chopin recital at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw, recording with The London Philharmonic, touring with Spoleto USA, duo recitals with cellists Stephen Kates, Carter Brey, Andrés Diaz, violinists James Ehnes, Anne Akiko Meyers, Elina Vahala, Chee-yun, and Andrés Cárdenes, concert tours throughout
Finland, South America, in The Forbidden City in Beijing, China, and at Festival Week in Tokyo, presented by CHANEL.
Ms. Chen’s performances are regularly heard on NPR’s Performance Today. She gives masterclasses and lectures throughout the world, and served many years as panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.