Faculty

Violinist Sarah Kim has performed extensively as a chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. As a resident artist at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music from 2008-2013, Sarah performed with the Apple Hill String Quartet and co-directed sessions in Apple Hill’s Summer Chamber Music Workshop. Through Apple Hill’s innovative Playing for Peace program, Sarah performed and taught chamber music workshops in major conflict areas of the world, including Israel/Palestine, Cyprus, and Ireland. From 2017-2023, Sarah was a Resident Musician with Community MusicWorks, a nationally recognized community-based music performance and education program. In addition to her work at CMW, Sarah taught at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, and from 2021-2023, Sarah taught violin and chamber music as a Teaching Associate at Brown University. Currently, Sarah teaches violin, viola, and chamber music at Loyola University Chicago and performs with Crossing Borders Music, a string quartet-based ensemble whose mission is to share the stories and music of suppressed and underrepresented people groups.  Sarah has received degrees from Indiana University, Yale School of Music, and Stony Brook University, where her principal teachers were Josef Gingold, Miriam Fried, Peter Oundjian, Pamela Frank, and Phil Setzer. In her free time, Sarah loves to knit and run on Chicago’s Lakefront Trail.

Joseph Kromholz is Assistant Professor of Music at Luther College, where he teaches violin and coaches chamber music. He was previously head of strings at Youngstown State University and taught music theory at New England Conservatory. A founding member of the Dana Piano Trio and the Vesuvius String Quartet, he is now a member of the Luther College Piano Quartet.

As an orchestral musician, Joseph served in leadership positions in CityMusic Chamber Orchestra, Opera Western Reserve, the Warren Philharmonic, Youngstown Symphony, Hauptstadt Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and Orchestre Symphonique de Luxembourg.

Born in New York and raised in Reston, Virginia, Joseph studied violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music and economics at Case Western Reserve University, followed by a doctorate from New England Conservatory. His teachers include Paul Kantor, Miriam Fried, Itzhak Perlman, Peter Salaff, Violaine Melançon, Emil Chudnovsky, Ronda Cole, and members of the Cavani, Cleveland, Juilliard, and Takács string quartets.

A founding faculty member of Encore Chamber Music, he has served on the board and as its president. He lives in Decorah, Iowa and loves cats.

Sofia Levchenko, a native of Navoi, Uzbekistan, is a passionate advocate for classical music both in her homeland and internationally. She showcases her musical prowess through solo performances, ensemble repertoire, and orchestral settings on renowned stages such as Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall, and Orchestra Hall. Currently, Sofia holds the position of Concertmaster with the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra and is an active performer and dedicated teacher based in the New York area.

Her journey in music began with a public solo debut at the age of fourteen with the Young Soloists of Uzbekistan at the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan. Since then, she has emerged as a soloist with major orchestras in her home country. Notable recent achievements include a captivating performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Wilmington Community Orchestra and her debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.

Apart from her impressive violin skills, Sofia brings over 14 years of intensive piano study to her musical repertoire. Her dual expertise not only enriches her performances but also enhances her ability to inspire and educate budding musicians.

Sofia’s international presence includes participation in festivals such as the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, Ensemble Academy Freiburg, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, and Wintergreen Summer Music Festival. She has had the privilege of working with renowned musicians such as Marin Alsop, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, and Leonidas Kavakos.

A firm believer in the importance of contemporary classical music, Sofia joined the Omnibus Ensemble in 2011, the leading ensemble for contemporary music in Central Asia. In the U.S., she collaborates with composers and ensembles, curating unique recitals that bridge Uzbek and U.S. compositions. Notably, she joined The Future Tradition Orchestra at the Hellerau Festival in Germany, contributing to a collective composition during an experimental week-long project.

Sofia’s dedication to music education is evident through her work in outreach and state-funded music education projects. Starting at the age of twenty-two, she taught at the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan, focusing on coaching chamber music ensembles and performing with conservatory students. Her educational journey continued with a Teaching Assistant position at Michigan State University under the internationally acclaimed violinist Prof. Dmitri Berlinsky.

Transitioning to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Sofia served as a Teaching Assistant, supervising an undergraduate violin studio and conducting rehearsals with the University Orchestra. Currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree under the guidance of Professors Hagai Shaham, Arnaud Sussman, Jennifer Frautschi, and the Emerson Quartet, Sofia remains committed to shaping the future of classical music through her artistry and teaching.

 Violinist Hannah MacLean is an avid performer of solo, chamber, and orchestral music and has given performances across the United States and Canada. As a devoted chamber musician, Hannah is a founding member of the Cheng-MacLean duo, who made their debut at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2022. Hannah has performed chamber music with a variety of esteemed musicians such as Rachel Barton Pine, Philip Chiu, and Marina Thibeault. Currently, she can be seen performing with orchestras including the Naples Philharmonic, the Virginia Symphony, and the Des Moines Symphony. 

Hannah holds a Doctorate of Music from Florida State University, where she taught violin and coached chamber music. She received her Master of Music from the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, and her Bachelor of Music Education from Wheaton College. Her primary teachers were Shannon Thomas, Violaine Melançon, Felicia Moye, and Paul Zafer. As a dedicated mentor to young musicians, Hannah has served as artist-faculty for the Prizm Music Festival and the Tutti Chamber Music Festival. 

Aundrey Mitchell, viola, has performed throughout the United States, South America, and Europe as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician. She has appeared at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully, Merkin Hall, and the Kimmel Center.  She attended the American Conservatoire at Fontainebleau, France and the Taos School of Music festivals. She graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music with both her BM and her MM in addition to post graduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music.  In 1998, she was awarded her DMA from Rutgers University.  Her primary teachers were Michael Tree, Karen Ritscher, and Lucian Joel.  She has taught at Moravian College, Eastern Music Festival, Westminster Choir College, and the PA Academy of Music.  She is an active chamber musician in the New York and Philadelphia areas.

Sydney Link (she/her) is the founding violist of Trillium String Quartet, graduate Quartet in residence at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Prior to Trillium, Sydney was a viola fellow at The Orchestra Now in New York. Sydney has performed as principal viola of The Orchestra Now, assistant principal of the Youngstown Symphony, and principal of the CIM Symphony Orchestra and McGill Opera. She holds degrees from Cleveland Institute of Music and McGill University. She has performed at summer festivals including the Bard Music Festival, Napa Valley Blackburn Music Festival, National Orchestral Institute, Chautauqua School of Music, and Orford International Academy. Sydney is a registered violin and viola Suzuki teacher and has been teaching violin and viola for more than ten years. When she’s not playing or teaching the viola, Sydney enjoys spending time with her friends and family. She is a runner, triathlete, and avid reader.

Laura Andrade, cellist born and raised in Austin, Texas, has established herself as a captivating solo and chamber musician, thriving in diverse musical settings. Concertizing on stages both locally in NYC and across the world, Laura first began her journey on cello at the age of 5. Before having private lessons, The start of her cello studies began in chamber music, where she discovered her love of connecting and collaborating with others through the inimitable process of making music.

Laura is a prize-winning laureate of the 2019 Sphinx Competition and has been a featured soloist with the Austin Civic Orchestra and San Antonio Symphony under the baton of Maestro Ken-David Masur. With an ongoing curiosity for chamber music, Laura has performed with members of the Juilliard, Borromeo, Miró string quartets. Additionally, Laura has enjoyed collaborations and performances with artists and ensembles such as The Afield, Graham Reynolds, American Modern Opera Company, Julia Wolfe, Pascal Le Boeuf, Reena Esmail, Shelley Washington, and members of the Silk Road Ensemble. Laura has performed at various festivals including IMS Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music (UK), Taos School of Music (New Mexico), Verbier Festival (Switzerland), Nume Festival (Italy), and Mortizburg Festival where she was part of an orchestra tour across Germany with violinist Midori Gotō and conductor Eric Jacobsen. Laura has performed with renowned chamber ensembles including, A Far Cry, Sphinx Virtuosi, Jupiter Chamber Players, Metropolis Ensemble, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Exponential Orchestra, and Sybarite5. In 2020 – 2023 Laura was the cellist of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, a program of select musicians from across the world who are committed to education, entrepreneurship, community engagement, and leadership. During her time in the ensemble, Laura performed across all of the stages in Carnegie Hall, as well as the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Guggenheim Museum. As a teaching artist with NYC public schools, Laura and her colleagues engaged with the broad NYC communities, presenting interactive concerts that foster deeper listening and audience connection.

As a recipient of the 2024 Sphinx MPower Artist Grant, Laura co-founded the Guayaquil Chamber Players (GCP) with violinist Alex Jimbo Viteri and violist Rita Andrade in her father’s hometown of Guayaquil, Ecuador. The ensemble is rooted in community, cultural connection and access, bringing together performance, education, and interactive experiences that invite audiences into the music-making process. Through commissioning new works, offering masterclasses, and reimagining concert formats, GCP fosters artistic curiosity and meaningful musical experiences to the vibrant people of the city of Guayaquil. Laura’s South American debut included performances of Haydn Cello Concerto in C Major with the Guayaquil Chamber Players and Dvorak Cello Concerto with La Sinfonica de Guayaquil and the Orquesta Sinfonica de la Universidad de Cuenca.

A devoted and compassionate educator, Laura brings the same curiosity and openness she values in chamber music into her teaching. She works closely with students across generations and stages of development, fostering not only technical growth but also confidence, self-expression, and a lifelong relationship with music. Laura has led masterclasses at Rutgers University, Ohio University, Skidmore College, the Austin Chamber Music Center, the University of Cuenca, and Academia Pepper and the Conservatorio de Música Antonio Neumane in Guayaquil. Her teaching is grounded in deep listening and adaptability, guided by the belief that every student’s musical voice carries meaning and deserves room to unfold.Laura holds a bachelor’s degree and performer’s certificate from the Eastman School of Music and a master’s from The Juilliard School. Her core cello mentors include Amy Levine-Tsang, Steven Doane, Rosemary Elliott, and Natasha Brofsky.

Outside her cello life, Laura is a 200 RYT yoga teacher, and thoroughly enjoys all kinds of tacos with jalapeño salsa, long walks in nature, and digital and film photography.

 English cellist Frankie Carr was born into a family of string players. At the age of 16, Frankie finally accepted the fact that he would never be a rock star or a Premier League football player, and joined the Yehudi Menuhin School. Since then Frankie has performed at festivals across Europe and North America, including Kneisel Hall, Music from Angel Fire, Four Seasons Chamber Music, Loon Lake Live, Stichting Kamermusiek Amsterdam, YPF Amsterdam, The Menuhin Festival Gstaad, and Greenwood. 

Frankie’s principal teachers have been Colin Carr, Melissa Phelps, Thomas Carroll, Darrett Adkins, Carter Brey, and Peter Wiley. Frankie is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Curtis Community Artist Fellowship, and a member of the Orchestra of St Luke’s. In his free time he enjoys long walks and looking at birds.

Troy Rinker’s musical journey began in the public schools of Jacksonville, Arkansas at 10 years old. At age 15 he was playing professionally with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, their youngest full member to be appointed to a position. Mr. Rinker’s musical education continued at Indiana University, the University of Central Arkansas, and The Juilliard School, where he was fortunate to study from great bass luminaries Lawrence Hurst, James Hatch, and Homer Mensch.  An enthusiast of modern music, Mr. Rinker has been a participant in many world premier performances and recordings by composers such as John Corigliano, Sebastian Currier, Charles Wuorinen, David Brynjar Franzson, Frances White, Roscoe Mitchell, Richard Toensing, Peteris Vasks, Mark O’Connor, Brian Ferneyhough, and Peter Kotik, to name a few. As a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra member Mr. Rinker regularly appears on all of New York’s concert stages, including Avery Fisher, Alice Tully, the 92nd Street Y, BAM, and Carnegie Hall. A member of several ensembles, Mr. Rinker performs regularly with the West Side Chamber Orchestra, New York City Chamber Orchestra, New York Symphonic Ensemble, Oratorio Society of New York Orchestra, Argento Chamber Ensemble, Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, SONOS Chamber Orchestra, EOS Chamber Orchestra, SEM Ensemble, New York Pops, American Composer’s Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the Stamford Symphony. In addition to Mr. Rinker’s busy performance schedule, he teaches double bass at The Third Street Music Settlement, the oldest public music program in the United States, and at the Noel Pointer Foundation. His summer festival credits include OK Mozart, Tanglewood, Spoleto, the Naumburg Bandshell concerts, the Kilkenny Arts Festival, and Caramoor. Mr. Rinker can be heard on labels Sony Classical, Telarc, Naxos, and North/South, in addition to several studio recordings for television and film. His instrument is a fine example of the modern bass maker Chris Threlkeld-Wiegand, of Iowa.

Hailed for her “verve and pizazz” and the “gleaming purity” of her artistry by the Miami Herald, Ebonee Thomas is Second Flute and Piccolo of The Dallas Opera. She has previously served as Principal Flute of the Knoxville Symphony and the Florida Grand Opera, and spent one year as Second Flute of the Houston Symphony. In addition she has performed as Guest Principal Flute with the Seattle Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Santa Fe Opera, and the Fort Worth Symphony. Ebonee has also performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Oregon Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and Dallas Symphony. During her summers Ebonee has been a member of Central City Opera, Breckenridge Music Festival, Lakes Area Music and Music in the Mountains 

Ebonee completed a four-year fellowship with the prestigious New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson-Thomas. In addition to performing at Carnegie Hall, she was a featured soloist under Tilson-Thomas, performing Joan Tower’s Flute Concerto and the North American premiere of Christian Lindberg’s flute concerto, The World of Montuagretta. 

Along with performing orchestral repertoire, Ebonee is an avid chamber musician, applauded as a “standout” by Theater Jones in a performance for the Fine Arts Chamber Players. She performs regularly with the Austin Chamber Music Society and Voices of Change, a new music ensemble in Dallas, TX. She was a finalist for the Austin Arts Awards for her performance of Valerie Coleman’s Danza de la Mariposa, for solo flute. She recently made her debut performance with the ensembleNEWSRQ, a contemporary ensemble highlighting living and underrepresented composers. Ebonee has been a member of the Firebird Ensemble with Seraphic Fire and can be heard on several of their released recordings including The Brandenburg Project. Ebonee had the rare opportunity to perform John Adams’ Chamber Symphony in Carnegie Hall under the composer’s baton. 

Ebonee feels very fortunate to have participated in some very unique projects. She served as Principal Flute of the Star Wars in Concert! Orchestra during their U.S., Canada, and Mexico tour and was Principal Flute of the American Repertory Theater’s revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. She performed for the Kennedy Center Honors as part of the New World Symphony alumni orchestra in honor of Michael Tilson Thomas. She was also part of the Re-Collective Orchestra, the first all-Black orchestra to perform to a sold out crowd at the Hollywood Bowl. Ebonee has also served as principal flute with the Chineke! Orchestra at BBC Proms and during their European Tour. She has performed all over the world. Some of her favorite venues include KKL Luzern (Switzerland), The Elbphilarmonie (Germany), Wigmore Hall (England), Snape Maltings (England), and Musiikkitalo (Finland). 

As a passionate pedagogue, Ebonee is the Assistant Professor of Flute at the University of Texas at Austin, Butler school of music. She previously held a position as Assistant Professor of Flute at the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory. Along with all of her musical endeavors, Ebonee serves as a member of the board of the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestras and, the National Advisory Board of the Memphis Youth Symphony Program, the Black Orchestral Network’s Steering Committee and is a member of the New World Symphony’s Alumni Association Committee. She is currently the Piccolo Committee Chair for the National Flute Association. 

Ebonee received her Bachelor of Music in Flute Performance degree from Southern Methodist University and received her Master of Music degree from New England Conservatory of Music. Her principal teachers Jean Larson Garver, Claire Johnson, Helen Blackburn, and Fenwick Smith. Ebonee is a Burkart piccolo artist and plays on a Burkart 998 with a platinum Mancke headjoint and a Burkart Elite Piccolo.

An acclaimed performer and teacher, Johanna Cox Pennington joined the faculty at Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music in 2023. She is the program coordinator for woodwind, brass and percussion areas and teaches oboe, chamber music and woodwind literature. 

Pennington won her first concerto competition in her hometown of Rochester, NY at age 17 and was a featured soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. A graduate of Northwestern University and the Eastman School of Music, Pennington was chosen for Eastman’s Freiburg Exchange Program which took her to Germany to study with soloist Heinz Holliger at the Freiburg Musikhochschule. Of her solo debut at Carnegie Hall in 2005, the New York Concert Review stated, “…her technique is absolutely first rate, Miss Cox played with beautiful tone, even in the highest register and at the loudest dynamic. She is an oboist that any orchestra would be fortunate to have on its roster.” 

Prior to her appointment, she served as associate professor of oboe at Louisiana State University School of Music for 11 years and was a member of the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra for 17 years. She has recorded with the Prairie Winds and the Musical Arts Quintet on Albany Records, and her first solo album featured five newly commissioned works for oboe and English horn in 2018, including a concerto conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Pennington has performed with many notable orchestras, including the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Chicago Symphony. She has taught oboe clinics, given master classes, performed as concerto soloist with orchestra and in recitals at major universities, taking her in recent years to Europe, South America, Asia and throughout the US. “Johanna will have a positive impact on the world of music, on those who study with her, as well as those who hear her perform.” – Eastman School of Music. 

Previously, she was substitute oboe with the Baton Rouge Symphony and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. Pennington was also associate professor of oboe at Ball State University, one year sabbatical. She was also an associate professor of Oboe at the University of Oklahoma School of Music, 2nd oboe and English horn with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. 

She was a visiting assistant professor of Oboe at Oklahoma State University College of Music, and 2nd oboe and English horn of the Tulsa Symphony.