Cellist David Finckel’s multifaceted career as concert performer, recording artist, educator, arts administrator, and cultural entrepreneur places him in the ranks of today’s most influential classical musicians.

He has been hailed as a “world class soloist” (Denver Post) and “one of the top ten, if not top five, cellists in the world today” (Nordwest Zeitung, Germany). In high demand as a chamber musician, David Finckel appears in over one hundred concerts each season in recital with pianist Wu Han and as cellist of the Grammy Award-winning Emerson String Quartet at the most prestigious venues and concert series across the United States and around the world. His activities as a concerto soloist include performances and recordings of the Dvorák Concerto, John Harbison Concerto, and Augusta Read Thomas’s Ritual Incantations.

In addition to his distinction as one of classical music’s most accomplished performers, David Finckel has established a reputation for his dynamic and innovative approach to the recording studio. In 1997, David Finckel and Wu Han launched ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, whose catalogue of twelve albums has won widespread critical acclaim. David Finckel’s recording for the ArtistLed label of the Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev sonatas received BBC Music Magazine’s coveted “Editor’s Choice” award. This season, ArtistLed releases its thirteenth recording, an album of clarinet trios by Beethoven, Brahms, and Max Bruch, with clarinetist David Shifrin.

David Finckel and Wu Han have served as Artistic Directors of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004. They are also the founders and Artistic Directors of Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival and institute in Silicon Valley that has garnered international acclaim since its inception in 2003.

David Finckel has achieved universal renown for his passionate commitment to nurturing the careers of countless young artists through a wide array of education initiatives. For many years, he taught alongside the late Isaac Stern at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center. In 2009, under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, David Finckel and Wu Han established chamber music training workshops for young artists in Korea and Taiwan, intensive residency programs designed to bring student musicians into contact with an elite artist-faculty.

Jonathan Yates is the Music Director of the Norwalk Youth Symphony and the conductor of the Principal Orchestra. Jonathan has earned high praise as a conductor, solo pianist, and collaborative artist for his musicianship, intellect, and the remarkable variety of his musical endeavors.

He made his professional orchestral conducting debut at 23, leading the National Symphony Orchestra in a Millennium Stages Concert.
The following year he made his Carnegie Hall debut as a participant in the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop. Jonathan also serves as Music Director of the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, where he has been a driving force in reinvigorating the relationship between the symphony and its community.

He has collaborated as a pianist and conductor with many of the country’s most respected musicians, including Midori, Kim Kashkashian, David Finckel, Charles Neidich, Ida Kavafian, Colin Carr, Gilbert Kalish, Paul Neubauer, Joseph Lin, and William Purvis; and the Avalon, Daedalus and Pacifica Quartets. He has been heard as a chamber musician at the 92nd Street Y, Miller Theater, Bargemusic and Merkin Hall, as well as at the Caramoor Festival and on the Ravinia Festival Rising Stars Series. As an ardent devotee of the music of our time, he has conducted new music concerts with the Argento Chamber Ensemble and the Knights, was the recipient of an ASCAP award for adventurous programming, and has given local and regional premieres of pre-eminent composers including Augusta Read Thomas, Huang Ruo, Zhou Long, Chester Biscardi, and Chen Yi.

Jonathan received his Graduate Diploma in conducting from the Juilliard School, where he studied with James DePreist and Otto-Werner Mueller, and was the holder of the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship. He received his Master of Music from State University of New York, where he worked with Gilbert Kalish, and his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University, where he studied with Robert Levin. His past work includes serving as founding Music Director of Camerata Notturna, as Music Director of Music Mountain, and on the faculty of Sarah Lawrence College. He was recently named Director of Classical Series at 23Arts Windham Music and Jazz Fest. He descends from a family that has been on the forefront of the battles for the cultural and humanistic life of our country. His grandfather, U. S. Representative Sidney R. Yates, was the principal defender of the National Endowment for the Arts in his 48 years in Congress, and his father, the Honorable Stephen R. Yates, was the first judge in Illinois to approve same-sex adoption.