Eight string players and a quartet join the programme for a three-year residency
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) has announced the twelve artists and the ensemble that will be joining its Bowers Program for 2027–2030. 192 individual candidates and 17 ensembles competed in this round of auditions. As part of the three-year residency, the selected artists will teach, tour and perform alongside CMS artists.
They are violinists Joshua Brown, Tianyou Ma, Clara Neubauer and Oliver Neubauer; violist Brian Isaacs; cellists James Baik and Haddon Kay; double bassist Will Duerden; and the Callisto Quartet. Other instrumentalists joining the program are pianists Charles Berofsky and Chelsea Wang, percussionist Jessie Meng-Chieh Chang and clarinettist Han Kim.
Among his accolades, US violinist Joshua Brown, 26, has won the first prize at the inaugural Global Music Education International Violin Competition in Beijing in 2023, second prize and the audience award at the 2024 Queen Elisabeth Competition, as well as an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2025. He is represented by both the Young Classical Artists Trust and the Concert Artists Guild.
Chinese violinist Tianyou Ma, 25, studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Pamela Frank and Shmuel Ashkenasi, and is currently studying with Catherine Cho at the Juilliard School, having previously received a Kovner Fellowship. He has won prizes at competitions including the Sendai, Singapore and Menuhin international competitions and the Lillian and Maurice Barbash J.S. Bach Competition.
US violinist Clara Neubauer, 24, is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where she studied with Li Lin, Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho, performed as concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra, and received the both the Kovner Fellowship and the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leaderhsip in Music. Later this year she will begin her studies with Mihaela Martin at the Kronberg Academy, having been awarded the academy’s Ana Chumachenco Award.
US violinist Oliver Neubauer, 26, studied with Li Lin, Itzhak Perlman and Donald Weilerstein at the Juilliard School as a Kovner Fellow, and is currently studying with Mihaela Martin at the Kronberg Academy. He is a 2025 laureate of the Foundation Gautier Capuçon, a winner of the 2023 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and has won prizes including the Verbier Festival’s Prix de l’APCAV and the Juilliard School’s Gerschen Cohen Award.
US violist Brian Isaacs, 26, has studied with Ettore Causa at Yale University and with Tabea Zimmermann at both the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and at the Kronberg Academy. He shared the first prize at the 2025 Concours de Genève and was a member of the Berlin Philharmonic’s Karajan Academy from 2023–2025.
A graduate of the Colburn Conservatory of Music, US cellist James Baik, 24, is currently studying with Clive Greensmith. He was among the winners of the 2023 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and has been a member of the acclaimed Galvin Cello Quartet since 2024.
Chinese–American cellist Haddon Kay, 26, is graduate of the Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where he is continuing his studies with Hans Jørgen Jensen. He received the third prize at the 2024 George Enescu International Competition and is a founding member of the Galvin Cello Quartet, which won the 2021 Fischoff Competition and the 2022 Victor Elmaleh Competition.
British double bassist Will Duerden gained acclaim as a strings category finalist in the 2018 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. His accomplishments since then include being a winner at the 2023 Young Classical Artists Trust International Auditions, and in 2024 he became both a Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship artist and a Classic FM Rising Star.
Formed in 2016 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Callisto Quartet comprises Taiwanese–US violinist Eric Tsai, 29, Canadian violinist Gregory Lewis, 29, Canadian–US violist Eva Kennedy, 31, and US cellist Hannah Moses, 31. Among its accolades, the quartet has won the grand prize at the Fischoff Competition, second prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, as well as top prizes at competitions including the Bordeaux, Melbourne and Wigmore Hall international competitions.
CMS artistic directors David Finckel and Wu Han expressed their enthusiasm for the artists joining the programme:
‘We could not be more excited to welcome this extraordinary group of Bowers Program artists into the CMS family. In keeping with our criteria for selection, each brings something unique and magical in their musicianship and personality.
‘Even among the violinists, four distinct voices will add a rich dimension to the fabric of our sound. They come from far and wide, and also from right here at home, contributing to the musical melting pot that is so essential to CMS.
‘Our listeners can look forward to making friends with 16 of the world’s most gifted musicians.’
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