Frank Huang, the First Prize Winner of the 2003 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s Violin Competition and the 2000 Hannover International Violin Competition, has established a major career as a violin virtuoso. Since performing with the Houston Symphony in a nationally broadcast concert at the age of 11 he has appeared with orchestras throughout the world including The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Hannover, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, and the Genoa Orchestra. He has also performed on NPR’s Performance Today, ABC’s Good Morning America, and CNN’s American Morning with Paula Zahn. He has performed at Wigmore Hall (in London), Salle Cortot (Paris), Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), and the Herbst Theatre (San Francisco), as well as a second recital in Alice Tully Hall (New York), which featured the World Premiere of Donald Martino’s Sonata for Solo Violin. Mr. Huang’s first commercial recording — featuring fantasies by Schubert, Ernst, Schoenberg, and Waxman — was released on Naxos in 2003. He made his New York Philharmonic solo debut in June 2016 leading and performing Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, as well as leading Grieg’s The Last Spring. In October–November 2016 he performs Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, led by Pablo Heras-Casado.

Mr. Huang has had great success in competitions since the age of 15 and received top prize awards in the Premio Paganini International Violin Competition and the Indianapolis International Violin Competition. Other honors include Gold Medal Awards in the Kingsville International Competition, Irving M. Klein International Competition, and D’Angelo International Competition.

In addition to his solo career, Mr. Huang is deeply committed to chamber music. He has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia’s Steans Institute, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and Caramoor. He frequently participates in Musicians from Marlboro’s tours, and was selected by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to be a member of the prestigious CMS Two program. Before joining the Houston Symphony, Mr. Huang held the position of first violinist of the Grammy Award–winning Ying Quartet and was a faculty member at the Eastman School of Music.

Frank Huang was born in Beijing, China. At the age of seven he moved to Houston, Texas, where he began violin lessons with his mother. He commenced study with Fredell Lack at the University of Houston and at 16 he enrolled in the pre-college program at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) where he studied with Donald Weilerstein. He continued studies with Weilerstein in college and earned his bachelor of music degree from CIM in 2002. He subsequently attended The Juilliard School in New York City, studying violin with Robert Mann, and is an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West, now a partner in the New York Philharmonic Global Academy. Mr. Huang, who began his tenure as concertmaster of the Houston Symphony in 2010, also serves on the faculties of The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and the University of Houston.

Violist Robert Rinehart, a member of the New York Philharmonic, is a familiar figure on the New York chamber music scene. A founding member of the Ridge String Quartet, Mr. Rinehart has performed in every major music center in the United States, as well as in Europe, Asia, South America, Canada, and Australia, and has collaborated with Benny Goodman, Rudolf Firkusny, and the Guarneri String Quartet, among many others. He has appeared at the Spoleto Festival, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, the Bridgehampton Festival, Chamber Music/West, Chamber Music Northwest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, at the 92^nd Street Y in New York, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. His chamber music recordings include have received a Grammy Award, two Grammy nominations and the Diapason d’Or. Born in San Francisco, Mr. Rinehart received his first instruction on the violin in public school; soon afterwards he began taking private lessons, first with Frank Houser, then with Isidore Tinkleman, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. After his undergraduate work there, he completed his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. At Curtis his violin teachers were Jaime Laredo and Ivan Galamian, while Felix Galimir ;and Mischa Schneider were his instructors in chamber music. Mr Rinehart is a member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, where he teaches viola, chamber music, and orchestral repertoire.

Pianist John Novocek regularly tours the Americas, Europe and Asia as solo recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist; in the latter capacity he has presented over thirty concerti with dozens of orchestras.

John Novacek’s major American performances have been heard in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, 92^nd Street Y, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, Merkin Concert Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Symphony Space, Washington’s The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center and Los Angeles’ Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Hollywood Bowl and Royce Hall, while international venues include Paris’ Theatre des Champs-Elysées, Salle Gaveau and Musée du Louvre, London’s Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre, as well as most of the major concert halls of Japan. He is also a frequent guest artist at festivals, here and abroad, including New York City’s Mostly Mozart Festival, California’s Festival Mozaic and those of Aspen, Cape Cod, Caramoor, Chautauqua, Colorado College, Mimir, Ravinia, Seattle, SummerFest La Jolla, Wolf Trap, BBC Proms (England), Braunschweig (Germany), Lucerne, Menuhin and Verbier (Switzerland), Majorca (Spain), Sorrento (Italy), Stavanger (Norway), Toulouse (France) and Sapporo (Japan).

Often heard on radio broadcasts worldwide, John Novacek has appeared on NPR’s Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday and, as both featured guest composer/performer, on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. He was also seen and heard on television, including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Entertainment Tonight and CNN International.