CPMF Festival Artists 2025
Full Biographies


JEFFREY SYKES, Artistic Director, Piano   Click here for full bio


ALOYSIA FRIEDMANN, VIOLA  Aloysia Friedmann is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival in Washington State, now in its 28th Season. Ms. Friedmann continues to reinvent the role of a modern performer in the music world. Chamber Music America recognized Aloysia’s artistic leadership with its 2008 CMAcclaim Award and invited her to their national Board in 2016. In December of 2018, she was given the special honor of being named a Musical America Top Professional of the Year.  While living in New York City, Ms. Friedmann performed with New York’s most prestigious musical ensembles, including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and American Symphony Orchestra, and was concertmaster of The Fairfield Orchestra. She gave her Carnegie Recital Hall debut and was praised by the New York Times for her “fiery spirit.” Her many Broadway credits include a special onstage role alongside Dustin Hoffman in the Merchant of Venice, as well as hundreds of performances of Crazy for You, Candide, A Christmas Carol, and appearances in many other shows, including Metallica at Madison Square Garden. A versatile artist, Ms. Friedmann also appeared on several Live from Lincoln Center productions, including a memorable one with Jessye Norman, and on a Saturday Night Live episode with Luciano Pavarotti. In Houston, Ms. Friedmann is Associate Concertmaster of ROCO. She also served on the Advisory Council for Chamber Music Houston. Highlights of concerts in Houston include her solo viola performance of Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel in the chapel itself. A former member of the Houston Grand Opera orchestra, she now plays frequently with the Houston Symphony for their main concert series programs. She has taught as an Affiliate Artist of Viola and Violin at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston and has coached at Rice University. Ms. Friedmann was also a guest artist at the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas in Austin, giving masterclasses, speaking, and performing with the Miró Quartet. In 2022, she played for “The Who Hits Back!” tour in Houston and performed with the Olmos Ensemble in San Antonio. Aloysia played on The Eagles “Hotel California” 2023 tour in San Diego, where she is also a founding member of the Mainly Mozart Festival and a regular guest in the San Diego Symphony. She has toured the Pacific Northwest, Vietnam, and France with pianist Jon Kimura Parker. They also appeared on KING-FM Rhine and Danube River Cruises with Earthbound Expeditions. Ms. Friedmann was the guest soloist in a Benaroya Hall performance of the Handel-Casadesus Viola Concerto conducted by Adam Stern, and she also appeared with Frederica von Stade in the 25th Anniversary Gala of the Noe Valley Chamber Music Series, giving the world première of Meditation by Jake Heggie. This past season she gave concerts on another Earthbound Expeditions cruise on the Seine River from Paris to Normandy, spoke at the Chamber Music America conference, and appeared on the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta. Ms. Friedmann has performed at the Seattle Chamber Music Society and festivals in Hong Kong, Ottawa, Portland, Napa Valley, Reno, Maui, San Antonio, Sarasota, and Santa Fe. Her chamber music colleagues have included the Montrose Trio, the New Orford Quartet, Peter Schickele, Gary Hoffman, Jeffrey Kahane, the Miró Quartet, Cho-Liang Lin, Chee-Yun, Alisa Weilerstein, Gabriel Kahane, and Lynn Harrell. Versatile offstage as well, Ms. Friedmann has produced recordings for artists including Viktor Valkov, Lachezar Kostov, Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and Jon Kimura Parker.  Ms. Friedmann studied with Emanuel Zetlin at the University of Washington and with Margaret Pardee and Ivan Galamian at The Juilliard School. She plays on a Grancino violin and the ex-Rebecca Clarke Grancino viola, both made in Milan in the late 1600s.  Ms. Friedmann is married to concert pianist Jon “Jackie” Kimura Parker, and their daughter, Sophie is a graduate from Rice University. She enjoys eating great meals with her family, especially sushi, loves traveling, and walking their dog, Ricky. For additional information, please visit aloysiafriedmann.com.

AURELIEN FORT PEDERZOLI, VIOLA  French-born violist Aurelién Fort Pederzoli has quickly risen to be known as one of Chicago’s most creative and sought-after collaborators. Aurélien is a graduate of the Paris Conservatory, where he studied with world-renowned teacher Jean Lenert. He then attended the Bern Hochschule, Switzerland, where he was in the master class of Professor Monika Urbaniak and received guidance from Professor Igor Ozim. His primary teacher was Veda Reynolds, professor at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. In 2008, Aurelién founded the Anaphora Ensemble which appeared frequently on national radio and performed in eclectic places, from the Green Mill to Symphony Hall. From 2008 to 2012, Mr. Pederzoli was first violinist of the Corky Siegel Chamber Blues band and toured nationally and internationally with them. Other collaborations include Rachel kolly, Christian Chamorel, Daniel Baremboim, Kent Nagano, the Ysaye quartet, H.J Lim, members of Eighth Blackbird, Shmuel Ashkenasi, the Lincoln Trio, and Mathieu Dufour, to name a few. From 2009 until 2014, Aurelién was one of the violinists and founding member of the Grammy-nominated Spektral Quartet, ensemble-in-residence at the University of Chicago. In 2015, Mr. Pederzoli founded (alongside Desirée Ruhstrat and David Cunliffe) the Black Oak Ensemble, a string trio, and has been performing with them ever since. 2024 marks the release of their third album on the Cedile label “dance of the night sky”. Aurelien has performed with the lyric opera of chicago, the chicago symphony, the MET opera, the orchestra of st Luke, classical Tahoe, and is a regular substitute with the Orpheus chamber orchestra. Aurelién is one of the founders of the music festival cordes en Gascogne , based in the southwest of France.

STEPHANIE JUTT,  FLUTE  Stephanie Jutt's elegant artistry and passionate intellect have inspired musicians and audiences around the world. Her groundbreaking performances of new music, transcriptions, and traditional repertoire have made her a model for adventurous flutists everywhere. Her recordings are available on Centaur, GM, and University of Wisconsin Press. Her recent recording, “Latin American and Spanish Masterpieces for flute and piano” has recently been released on Albany Records, and is a result of extensive travels in South America. As described in the Boston Globe, “With an infallibly lovely tone and a strong, inquisitive musical personality, Jutt gave it all of her considerable all.”  •  Ms. Jutt received first prize at the Concert Artist Guild and Pro Musicis International Soloist competitions, and was a finalist in the International Walter W. Naumburg Competition. She has performed in recital throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. She received Bachelor and Master’s degrees at the New England Conservatory of Music, where her teachers were James Pappoutsakis and Paula Robison. She completed an additional year of study with the legendary Marcel Moyse. New editions of three Brahms sonatas, the Reineke Sonata and the Karg-Elert Caprices, edited by Stephanie Jutt, are published by International Music Publishing. An anthology of the Latin American pieces on her recent recording is in process.   •  Ms. Jutt has served as a board member and Program Chair for the National Flute Association, and is currently a member of the Career and Artistic Guidance committee as well as the New Music Advisory committee. A dedicated teacher, Ms. Jutt is on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she performs with the Wingra Wind Quintet, and she is principal flutist of the Madison Symphony. A lifelong entrepreneur, she is the creator of UW-Madison Arts Enterprise, which provides career guidance, viable life strategies and support for emerging artists.   •   Stephanie Jutt is co-founder and artistic director, with pianist Jeffrey Sykes, of the critically acclaimed three-week chamber music festival, the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society: www.bachdancinganddynamite.org. The festival presented its twenty-fifth season in June, 2016.

JONAH KIM, CELLO  Jonah Kim is an artist of great charisma and originality. His beauty of tone is immediately distinguishable by its signature sweetness. Kim invites the listener in with “the cosy warmth of a well-loved cashmere sweater," (Gramophone) then “dives into the music with courage underpinned by formidable technical prowess, with which he achieves a dazzling performance.” (All About the Arts) Kim made his solo debut with Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Philadelphia Orchestra at 12 years of age, and has since captured the hearts of audiences around the world. Beyond the stage, his recent recording of the monumental Kodaly Sonata for Solo Cello is praised for “[capturing] the very elusiveness that gives the music its substance” (Gramophone) and “flawless delivery of its Herculean technical demands… the sense of exhilaration in this performance has us on the edge of our seats.” (The Strad). Named artistic director of Festival San Miguel de Allende in 2023, Kim is known for his unique programming, in which creativity and wide-ranging taste are guided by beauty. The presentations have been compared to “the masques of Henry Purcell or the Gesamtkunstwerk operas of Richard Wagner” (San Luis Obispo Review). In recent years, Kim has been artist-in-residence for a variety of prestigious and popular arts organizations including the iconic St. Ignatius Parish in San Francisco, the Fromme Institute at the University of San Francisco, designer Ken Fulk’s Saint Joseph’s Art Society, and violinist Scott Yoo’s highly regarded Festival Mozaic. Kim has frequently appeared on Yoo’s docu-series “Now Hear This” on PBS. Kim is also cellist of Trio Barclay, ensemble-in-residence at The Barclay Theater in Irvine, California; the group commission and premiere a new work for every concert they perform on their home stage. The Trio also tours worldwide. This Veteran’s Day, the Trio appeared at the Kennedy Center in a live performance of “Our America: Defining Courage” alongside ABC-7 LA News anchor David Ono. This powerful documentary also aired nationally on ABC that day and can now be streamed on Hulu. Born in Seoul, South Korea, Kim taught himself cello watching VHS tapes of Pablo Casals. He was awarded full scholarship to The Juilliard School at seven. That year, Kim became pen pals with the famed Janos Starker who invited him to Bloomington. He would continue to travel to Indiana to study with Starker throughout his career at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he enrolled at eleven. He was the first Fellow to train with all of the instructors: Orlando Cole, David Soyer, Peter Wiley and Lynn Harrell. Kim defines a truly American school of cello by reconciling the Italian, German, Russian, Franco-Spanish and Hungarian lineages. “One of the very finest American cellists, he brings out things that you possibly never realized were in [the music]. He has that indefinable “it”. (Art Music Lounge) Kim makes his home in San Francisco with his wife, the respected and beloved American ballerina, Julia Rowe. (David Brin, Naxos Music 2020)

SO JIN KIM, VIOLIN  Korean-American violinist So Jin Kim has been praised by critics and audiences alike for her “powerful interpretation…[and] flawless sound” (Cuxhavener Nachrichten) and “creating tones of poetry” (The Strad). Following her successful solo debut with the Juilliard Orchestra in Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in 2006, she has appeared as a soloist throughout North America, Europe, and Asia with ensembles such as the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra, I Musici de Montreal, Seoul Chamber Ensemble, and the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. Her debut CD recorded in Leipzig Gewandhaus was released worldwide in 2018 under Genuin Classics with raving reviews from publications including Klassik Radio Austria, Klassik Heute, and Das Orchester. Her second album of Mozart Violin Concertos with Kurpfälzisches Kammerorchester Mannheim under Ars Produktion was nominated for the 2020 OPUS KLASSIK award. An experienced orchestral musician, she was appointed as a concertmaster of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland at the age of 24, a post she held until 2013, and currently serves as the associate concertmaster of Munich Radio Orchestra. From 2014-2020 she served on the faculty of Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover in Germany. Since 2016, she has served as the artistic director of Yeosu International Music Festival & Ensemble in South Korea, of which she is the founder. She currently resides in Southern California and serves on the faculty at The Colburn School. She received both her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, and her Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from Rice University. She studied with Cho-Liang Lin, Naoko Tanaka, Hyo Kang, and Donald Weilerstein. She also studied with Krzysztof Wegrzyn at Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover as part of the prestigious Solo Klasse program.

AMY LEVINE-TSANG, CELLO  Cellist Amy Levine-Tsang enjoys a career as both chamber musician and teacher. She has collaborated with the Colorado, Brentano, Cassatt and Meridian String Quartets, the New Jersey Chamber Music Society, the Austin Chamber Music Center and Austin Camerata. She is a former member of the Richardson Chamber Players and the award-winning Laurel Trio. Ms. Levine-Tsang has performed at numerous festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival, the Gerhart Chamber Music Festival, the Portland Chamber Music Festival, Music in the Vineyards, and the Laurel Festival of the Arts. Ms. Levine-Tsang formerly taught cello at Princeton University, and now teaches out of her home studio in Austin, TX. Her most dedicated students have gone on to pursue cello performance at Cleveland Institute, Boston Conservatory, Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, TCU, UNT, and UT Austin.

STEPHANIE SANT'AMBROGIO, VIOLIN & CPMF ARTISTIC DIRECTOR EMERITA  Described by Gramophone Magazine as a “violinist who most often takes your breath away” and praised as an “expressive and passionate chamber musician” by the San Antonio Express-News, Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio enjoys a varied performing and recording career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader. Professor Emerita at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) and former member of the Argenta Trio, she is also Founder and Artistic Director Emerita of Cactus Pear Music Festival, which she created in 1997 while serving as Concertmaster of the San Antonio Symphony. Previously First Assistant Principal Second Violin of The Cleveland Orchestra, under Christoph von Dohnányi, she toured and recorded internationally with this ensemble for eight seasons. Ms. Sant’Ambrogio has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the U.S. as well as in Mexico, Canada, Estonia, Sweden, Ghana, Italy, Peru and Chile. In 2010, she was appointed Concertmaster of the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra with whom she performs frequently as a soloist. That same year she was awarded UNR’s prestigious Alan Bible Teaching Excellence Award. In addition to her active performing career, Stephanie is devoted to teaching serious young violinists, many of whom have won positions in America’s symphonies and universities.  Ms. Sant’Ambrogio has a discography of over seventy-five orchestral and chamber music CDs. Fanfare Magazine wrote about her Soaring Solo: Unaccompanied Works for Violin & Viola, II release, “she play[s] with immaculate technique, impeccable intonation, lustrous tone, and emotional warmth.” And Audiophile Review described her Johannes Brahms: The Violin Sonatas as “fine readings of great finesse, rich coloring and complete understanding.” Her other releases include Late Dates with Mozart; Going Solo: Unaccompanied Works for Violin & Viola on the MSR Classics label; Argenta Trio: The Piano Trios of Felix Mendelssohn on Bridge Records; and Love Comes in at the Eye: Songs & Instrumental Works on Albany Records. Ms. Sant’Ambrogio frequently performs and teaches at various summer music festivals and chamber music societies including: Bach, Dancing & Dynamite Society (WI); Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival (WA); Music in the Vineyards (CA); Round Top Festival Institute (TX); Salon Concerts (TX) and, Tuckamore Festival (Newfoundland, Canada). Continuing her deep commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion throughout her four-decade professional career, Ms. Sant’Ambrogio frequently programs marginalized and lesser known female composers to introduce her students and the general public to these neglected artists. Her chamber music activities have included performances and recordings with such noted artists as Ida Kavafian, Richard Stoltzman, Joyce Yang, David Shifrin, Jon Nakamatsu, Richard Goode, Jon Kimura Parker and Gunther Schuller. She is featured in chamber music recordings under the Arabesque, Albany, Bridge and MSR Classics labels, and her live concert performances have been aired on National Public Radio’s Performance Today. Ms. Sant’Ambrogio has performed as first violinist with the Miami String Quartet and has been a guest artist with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing at both the Lincoln and Kennedy Centers. She toured Italy with Mikhail Baryshnikov and his White Oak Dance Project, toured extensively throughout Ohio with Cleveland’s Myriad, and for ten years performed with the Amici String Quartet, of which she was a founding member. Ms. Sant’Ambrogio studied with and was the graduate assistant to Donald Weilerstein at The Eastman School of Music, where she received her Master of Music degree. Previously she received her Bachelor of Music degree with distinction from Indiana University as a scholarship student of Laurence Shapiro and James Buswell. The name Sant’Ambrogio is frequently found in concert programs throughout America. John Sant’Ambrogio, former principal cellist of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, gave his daughter Stephanie her first violin lessons at the age of five. Her sister Sara is a cellist with the Naumberg Award-winning Eroica Trio. For thirty years the Sant’Ambrogio family directed Red Fox Music Camp in the Berkshires founded by grandmother Isabelle Sant’Ambrogio, a celebrated concert pianist and pedagogue. The legacy of teaching music has been passed down in the Sant’Ambrogio family for four generations. Ms. Sant’Ambrogio plays a violin crafted in 1757 by J.B. Guadagnini of Milan, Italy, the city from which the family name Sant’Ambrogio originates, and her contemporary viola was made by Jacek Zadlo in Chicago in 2008. She and her graphic designer husband Gary Albright have enjoyed exploring Lake Tahoe and the West Coast for the past eighteen years, but are now moving back to Cleveland to be closer to their grown children Bella and Brie.

CRAIG SORGI, EDUCATION DIRECTOR  Currently, Craig is a 1st violinist with the new San Antonio Philharmonic. He was a member of the San Antonio Symphony First Violin section from 1982 until 2022 when it ceased operations. During the 2004-06 and 2012-13 concert seasons he was appointed Acting Assistant Concertmaster. Craig was also the Concertmaster of the San Antonio Opera from 1999 until it ceased operations in 2012. In 2005, he was invited by then Music Director David Mairs to be the Concertmaster of the Mid-Texas Symphony. Craig has been very active as a chamber musician and solo recitalist since his arrival in the South Texas area. In 2011 Craig founded, and began performing with, the Mid-Texas Symphony Chamber Players and has also served as their Artistic Director. Music education has also played an important part in Craig’s career. In 2003 he joined the music faculty of Trinity University where he served as Adjunct Professor of Violin until 2016. And since 2008 Craig has served as the Director of the Cactus Pear Music Festival’s Young Artist Program. Craig is married to Melanie, a career music educator. He and his wife are the proud parents of two wonderful sons: Baltimore Symphony violist Colin; and Los Angeles-based visual effects artist Cameron. They are also pretty crazy about their granddaughters, Clara and Chloe, and their daughters-in-law, Jaclyn and Jenna.

JEFFREY SYKES, PIANO & CPMF ARTISTIC DIRECTOR  Acclaimed by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as "a commanding solo player, the most supportive of accompanists, and a leader in chamber music," pianist Jeffrey Sykes has performed across four continents and collaborates regularly with leading instrumentalists and singers. In the fall of 2018 he gave a recital on Chicago’s prestigious Dame Myra Hess concert series, and he recently returned from a tour of France that culminated in performances of French solo and chamber music at the Musée des Impressionismes in Giverny, home of Claude Monet. He was recently a guest artist at the African American Art Song Alliance conference in Irvine, California.  Together with violinist Axel Strauss and cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau, Sykes is a founding member of the San Francisco Piano Trio, an ensemble noted for its virtuosic interpretations of works ranging from the trios of Haydn and Beethoven to those of Leon Kirchner and Astor Piazzolla. He is the co-founder and artistic co-director of the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society of Wisconsin (www.bachdancing.org), a highly-acclaimed and innovative chamber music festival now in its 32nd season. The festival is noted for integrating dance, drama, and visual art into the concert setting and creating an approach to chamber music that makes it more easily accessible to audiences. He is a regular guest artist with the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society; the Olmos Ensemble in San Antonio, Texas; and Music in the Vineyards in Napa Valley, California; and in 2007, he served as the guest artistic director of Music in the Vineyards. In the fall of 2022, he was honored to be selected as the interim artistic director of San Antonio’s Cactus Pear Music Festival (www.cpmf.us), now in its 27th season. He has recorded for the Albany, CRI, Mandala, Centaur, and Cactus Pear record labels, and in spring of 2018 released the world premiere recording of Kevin Puts' song cycle In at the Eye on the Albany label. For eighteen years, Dr. Sykes served as the Music Director of Opera for the Young, a preeminent producer and presenter of opera for children that has introduced more than two million children to opera. He teaches piano, voice, and chamber music at the University of California at Berkeley and California State University, East Bay. He coaches regularly for professional and adult amateur chamber music groups across California. A recipient of the Fulbright and Jacob Javits Fellowships, he completed his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

STAS VENGLEVSKI, BAYAN/ACCORDIAN  His artistry, dazzling technical command, and sensitivity have brought Stas Venglevski, a native of the Republic of Moldova, part of the former Soviet Union, increasing acclaim as a virtuoso of the Bayan. A two-time first prize winner of Bayan competition in the Republic of Moldova, Stas is a graduate of the Russian Academy of Music in Moscow where he received his Master’s Degree in Music under the tutelage of the famed Russian Bayanist, Friedrich Lips. He has toured extensively as a soloist throughout the former Soviet Union, Canada, Europe, and the United States, including numerous performances with Doc Severinsen, Steve Allen and with Garrison Keillor on the Prairie Home Companion Show. Additionally, he has performed with the Chicago, Tacoma, Milwaukee, Racine, Jefferson, Nuremberg (Germany), Pueblo, Sheboygan and Seattle Symphony Orchestra. He is a regular participant the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's Arts in Community Education Program (ACE). 

CARMIT ZORI, VIOLIN  is the recipient of a Leventritt Foundation Award, a Pro Musicis International Award, and the top prize in the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition. She has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others, and has given solo recitals at Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Tel Aviv Museum, and the Jerusalem Center for the Performing Arts. Her performances have taken her throughout Latin America and Europe, as well as Israel, Japan, Taiwan, and Australia, where she premiered the Violin Concerto by Marc Neikrug. Ms. Zori has appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and has been a guest at chamber music festivals and concert series worldwide, including Festival Casals in Puerto Rico, the Chesapeake Bay Music Festival, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, the Bard Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the La Jolla Chamber Music Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, and many others. She is a regular participant at the Marlboro Chamber Music Festival in Vermont. Ms. Zori has also participated in “Music for Food,” a concert series aimed at alleviating food insecurity, and has performed for Project Music Heals Us, a nonprofit organization focused on outreach to the elderly and disabled. She is a member of the Israeli Chamber Project, which performs and provides educational outreach in Israel and internationally. Ms. Zori, who served as artistic director of Bargemusic for ten years, founded the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society in 2002, where she has presented concerts in Brooklyn Heights for nearly twenty years. She has recorded for the Arabesque, Koch International, and Elektra-Nonesuch labels. Ms. Zori began her studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where her teachers included Ivan Galamian, Jaime Laredo, and Arnold Steinhardt, after being invited by Isaac Stern at the age of fifteen.