Praised for his “fluid virtuosity” and “soulful melodies,” Los Angeles native Brook Speltz has been inspired since childhood by the long tradition of deep musical mastery of artists such as Jascha Heifetz, Pierre Fournier, and the Guarneri String Quartet. As of 2015, he is the new cellist of the internationally renowned Escher String Quartet and a season artist of the Chamber Music Society. He has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist throughout the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. First Prize winner of the prestigious Ima Hogg Competition, he has performed with the Houston Symphony, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, and International Contemporary Ensemble, and is a regular performer at England’s IMS Prussia Cove and on tour with Musicians from Marlboro. Chamber music tours with Itzhak Perlman and Richard Goode caused him to be nominated for the inaugural Warner Music Prize, a newly established prize presented by Warner Music and Carnegie Hall. He has also toured with the cello rock band Break of Reality, whose cover of music from Game of Thrones has received over 19 million views online. The band’s recent US tour raised funds and awareness for music programs in public schools all around the country. After studying with Eleanor Schoenfeld, Mr. Speltz attended the Curtis Institute of Music with Peter Wiley and The Juilliard School with Joel Krosnick. He performs on an 1857 J.B. Vuillaume on loan from his father, a cellist and his first inspiration in a family of professional musicians.

Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, praised as a “superb young soloist” (New Yorker) and for being “impassioned . . . the audience seduced by Mr. Canellakis's rich, alluring tone” (New York Times). A multifaceted artist, Canellakis has forged a unique voice combining his talents as soloist, chamber musician, curator, filmmaker, and composer/arranger. His recent highlights include solo debuts with the Virginia, Albany, Bangor, Stamford, and Delaware symphony orchestras; concerto appearances with the Erie Philharmonic, the New Haven Symphony as artist-in-residence, and the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall; Europe and Asia tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and recitals throughout the United States with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Canellakis is a regular guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals, including Santa Fe, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Bard, Bridgehampton, La Jolla, Hong Kong, Moab, Music in the Vineyards, and Saratoga Springs. He is the Artistic Director of Chamber Music Sedona in Arizona and is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory. Filmmaking and acting are special interests of his; he has produced, directed, and starred in several short films and music videos. Canellakis plays on an outstanding Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume cello, circa 1840.

Michael Stephen Brown has been described as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers” (New York Times). Winner of a 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, he is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. He makes regular appearances with orchestras such as the National Philharmonic and the Seattle, Phoenix, North Carolina, and Albany symphonies, and recently has made European recital debuts at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn and the Chopin Museum in Mallorca. He has received commissions from many organizations and some of today’s leading artists, and recently toured his own Piano Concerto around the US and Poland with several orchestras. He performs regularly with his longtime duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and has appeared at festivals worldwide. A prolific recording artist, he has three albums in the works, including Mendelssohn+, featuring world premieres of music by one of Mendelssohn’s muses, Delphine von Schauroth. He was the composer- and artist-in-residence at the New Haven Symphony, and winner of the Concert Artists Guild and Copland House Awards. He holds degrees in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, and Samuel Adler. Additional mentors include András Schiff and Richard Goode. An Artist Ambassador for Creatives Care, Brown lives in New York City with his two 19th-century Steinway D pianos, Octavia and Daria.

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).