Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival - CelloBration! with Zuill Bailey

Zuill Bailey:

Zuill Bailey, widely considered one of the premiere cellists in the world, is a Grammy Award winning, internationally renowned soloist, recitalist, Artistic Director and teacher.  His rare combination of celebrated artistry, technical wizardry and engaging personality has made him one of the most sought after and active cellists today.

Mr. Bailey has been featured with symphony orchestras and music festivals worldwide.  He won the Best Solo Performance Grammy Award in 2017, for his recording of  Michael Daugherty’s “Tales of Hemingway,” with the Nashville Symphony led by Giancarlo Guerrero.  His extensive discography includes his newest release – the world premier recording of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Cello Concerto with the Santa Rosa Symphony. In 2021 he released his second recording of the Bach Cello Suites for PS Audio’s Octave Records label, recorded and mixed in stereo and multichannel sound.

He appeared in a recurring role on the HBO series “Oz,” and has been heard on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “Tiny Desk Concert,” “Performance Today,” “Saint Paul Sunday,” BBC’s  “In Tune,” XM Radio’s “Live from Studio II,” Sirius Satellite Radio’s “Virtuoso Voices,” and his latest disc of Bach Suites was the disc of the week on Sirius’ Symphony Hall.

Mr. Bailey received his Bachelor’s Degree from the Peabody Conservatory where he was named the 2014 Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Alumni, and received a Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School.  He performs on the “rosette” 1693 Matteo Gofriller Cello formerly owned by Mischa Schneider of the Budapest String Quartet.

He is the Artistic Director of El Paso Pro-Musica (Texas), the Sitka Summer Music Festival/Series and Cello Seminar, (Alaska), Juneau Jazz and Classics, (Alaska), the Northwest Bach Festival (Washington),  Classical Inside Out Series- Mesa Arts Center (Arizona) and is Director of the Center for Arts Entrepreneurship and Professor of Cello at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Khari Joyner:

Described by the New York Classical Review as “one of the most exciting young musicians on the classical scene”, Khari Joyner has a following both nationally and abroad as a versatile soloist, chamber musician, and ambassador for the arts. He has made numerous guest appearances with orchestras and ensembles across the world, including two recent performances of both Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto in A Minor and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which received rave reviews. In addition, he has given many cello masterclasses and lectures at notable institutions, most recently at Stetson University and Oberlin Conservatory. Joyner also received the 2017-2018 career grant from the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund, which nominates and endows a select number of gifted artists with generous funding to further their careers. Joyner has also performed for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the latter for which he gave a private performance in the Oval Office. A passionate advocate for the music of the 21st century, Joyner has collaborated and given performances of works by major composers such as Tyshawn Sorey, Carman Moore, Kaija Saariaho, Magnus Lindberg, among many others. An active chamber musician and one of the founding members of the Altezza Piano Trio, Joyner also has given performances as a guest at the Ritz Chamber Players, Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia, Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival, Fontainbleau Music Festival, and on WQXR as a part of the Midday Masterpieces series. A graduate of Juilliard’s prestigious Doctor of Musical Arts program, he continues to serve as Teaching Assistant to his former teacher Joel Krosnick, and also pursued a mathematics concentration in an exchange program with Columbia University, while studying in Juilliard’s Accelerated BM/MM program. Joyner has also collaborated with choreographers and actors, and was even considered for the role of the young Nathaniel Ayers as part of the Hollywood film The Soloist.

Guang Wang:

Chinese-born cellist Guang Wang began his cello studies at the age of eight. In 1994 he became one of the youngest titled players in the history of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, serving as Assistant Principal Cellist under world-renowned conductors such as Michael Tilson Thomas and Christoph Eschenbach, and performing over 200 concerts throughout Asia before moving to the United States to continue his studies. Mr. Wang holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, an Artist Diploma from the Harid Conservatory, and a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music.

Mr. Wang is a founding member of the Vega String Quartet, which has been Emory University’s Quartet-in-Residence since 2006. He routinely gives both chamber music and cello masterclasses across the U.S, most recently at Kennesaw State University, the University of Alabama, the University of Alaska Southeast, and the University of Texas at El Paso.

Mr. Wang strongly believes in music education at all levels and regularly performs outreach at area schools as well as provides in-depth teaching to passionate adult amateurs. His students have won awards at several iterations of the American Protégé International Piano and Strings Competition, as a result performing in Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, as well as at various young artist competitions in the greater Atlanta metropolitan area.

Grace Bahng Gavin:

Grace Bahng Gavin was a scholarship student of Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins at the Juilliard School where she received her B.M. and M.M. degrees. She was a member of the Blair String Quartet and Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University from 1984-1999. Widely acclaimed in concert performances across the country, she has appeared in recital at the Library of Congress, Kennedy Center, 92nd St. Y in New York, Alice Tully Hall and on National Public Radio and Television. She has been in residence at the Aspen, Marlboro, Sunflower, Sewanee, Buzzard’s Bay and the Crested Butte Chamber Music Festivals, the El Paso Pro Musica International Chamber Music Festival, the Sedona Chamber Music Festival, the Highlands/Cashiers Chamber Music Festival, the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival and the St. Barths Music Festival.

Ms. Bahng has performed with a wide array of musicians, including: Edgar Meyer, Robert McDuffie, Donald McInnes, Joseph Silverstein, Bela Fleck, Nigel Kennedy, Mark O’Connor, Vince Gill, Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride and has played on numerous movie soundtracks. Grace lives in Orlando, Florida, where she lives with her husband, Kip, and enjoys competitive tennis and cooking.

Nick Curry:

Dr. Nick Curry is the Associate Professor of Cello and the Assistant Director of the School of Music at the University of North Florida where he also serves as the Director of Music Scholarships. In early 2015, he joined fellow Jacksonville musicians Aurica Duca and Clinton Dewing as founders of the Lawson Ensemble. The Lawson Ensemble collaborated with the San Marco Chamber Music Society and recorded works of Amy Beach and Bill Douglas for Albany Records in 2018, and went on concert tours of England and Germany. Nick received his BM, *** laude, from Vanderbilt and then served as Hans Jørgen Jensen’s teaching assistant for five years at Northwestern University, earning both his Master and Doctor of Music degrees. He also was the teaching assistant to Professor Jensen at the Meadowmount School of Music for four summers. Nick has performed in Austria, England, France, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, Taiwan, Germany and Turkey, and throughout the United States. In April of 2006, he was a soloist on National Public Radio (USA) Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion on the King Amati (ca. 1538) cello. Dr. Curry is on the faculty at the Aria International Summer Music Academy and was previously visiting faculty at the Meadowmount School of Music for two summers. He is a sought after clinician and adjudicator and has presented at national, regional and state conferences. His research has been published in the ASTA journal many times. At UNF, he was named the Gerson Yessin professor and was awarded an Eisen Experiential Grant. In 2016, he founded the annual Jacksonville Cello Workshop, an educational workshop for cellists of all ages and levels. In 2018, the UNF President honored him with a Presidential Faculty Leader Award.

Philip Jeong:

Cellist Philip Jeong, 14, first picked up the cello at the age of nine and made his first solo appearance at the age of 12 at Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall. Philip has soloed with the Alpharetta Symphony Orchestra and the Gwinnett County Youth Symphony Orchestra as a winner of their respective Concerto Competitions. In addition, he performed in Morgan Concert Hall at Kennesaw State University as a winner of MTNA Junior String Competition as well as in Carlos Museum Ackerman Hall at Emory as an invited Atlanta’s Young Artist in the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta Family Concert. Philip won numerous concerto competitions and international music competitions in the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. As a competition winner, he was selected to perform at the Beethoven House in Bonn (Germany), at the Carnegie Hall in New York (USA), and at Teatro Studio, Parco Della Musica in Rome (Italy).

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