The Great Winds

Conor Nelson gave his New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Solo engagements include performances with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and numerous others. Commanding an international reputation as an educator, performer, and recording artist, Conor is currently the Associate Professor of Flute at UW-Madison. He previously taught at Bowling Green State University and Oklahoma State University and has given master classes at over 150 colleges and universities. He received degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, Yale University, and Stony Brook University, where he was the winner of the school-wide concerto competitions at all three institutions. He has also recorded for the New Focus (NYC), Albany, Toccata Classics (London), Blue Griffin, and Paladino Music (Vienna) labels. He is currently the Principal Flutist of the New Orchestra of Washington. His teachers include Carol Wincenc, Ransom Wilson, Linda Chesis and Susan Hoeppner. Dr. Nelson is an artist for Powell Flutes.

Professor Stephen Key is an in-demand oboist and pedagogue. Currently, he holds the position of Oboe Professor at Shenandoah Conservatory while playing Principal Oboe with the New Orchestra of Washington and the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival. Hailed for his “gorgeous performance[s]; rich, warm tone... and terrific, notable solo [playing]” (Oberon's Grove, NYC), Key plays regularly with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, including as solo English Hornist. Stephen frequents as Guest Principal with the Maryland Symphony and has also performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, Austin Symphony, New World Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of San Antonio, and many, many more. Additionally, Professor Key now serves as faculty/performer for the much beloved Chamber Music Conference of the East, and has coached and performed chamber music and solos, throughout the United States, Europe, and Russia.

Key believes deeply in the value of classical music education; maintaining a private studio of middle and high school students, as well as coaching wind sectionals for the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestras. Also a composer, his music and arrangements have been performed across the country.

Stephen was a member of the National Symphony Orchestra Youth Fellowship Program, and studied at the Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Texas at Austin. Born in Oklahoma, he is a proud member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and lives with his husband, Robert Schroyer, and their cat, Jasper, in Fairfax, VA.

​Clarinetist Garrick Zoeter's passionate and exciting way with the clarinet has been acknowledged around the world. The Clarinet recently described his playing as "remarkable, his tone is beautiful and he shows complete mastery of all the technical demands and effects that are required of this piece, His artistry and virtuosity are compelling. This is one of the finest clarinet performances I have reviewed."

A native of Alexandria, Va., Mr. Zoeter received his bachelor’s degree from the Juilliard School and his master’s degree from Yale University. He has won numerous competitions as a soloist including the 1991 International Clarinet Society International Clarinet Competition, as well as prizes in chamber music – the Grand Prize in the 1998 Fischoff, Coleman, and Yellow Springs chamber music competitions, the silver medal in the 1997 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition and first prize in the 2002 Concert Artists Guild competition.

Mr. Zoeter is the founding member of the acclaimed multi-award-winning clarinet, violin, cello, piano quartet Antares. From 1997-2013 with Antares, he annually gave performances around the United States at such prestigious venues as The Kennedy Center, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Aspen Music Festival, Strathmore, Ensemble Music Society of Indianapolis, Carnegie Recital Hall, Market Square Concerts, The Library of Congress, The Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art, and Cincinnati Chamber Music Society.

Mr. Zoeter is also a frequent performer with such diverse groups as Trio Solisti, The Audubon String Quartet, The Ensemble for the Romantic Century, the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, the University of Buffalo's Slee Sinfonietta, The Post Classical Ensemble, the Pressenda Chamber Players, the Monadnock Music Festival, and the New Orchestra of Washington. Recent performances have included Donald Martino’s Triple Concerto in Buffalo, NY, and chamber music appearances in Strasbourg, France, and Medellin, Columbia, as well as an appearance at The Cactus Pear Music Festival in San Antonio, TX. and the Bennington Chamber Music Conference in Vermont.

A committed teacher as well as performer, Mr. Zoeter serves as the Anna Lee Van Buren Professor of Clarinet at the Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University. His students from Shenandoah include numerous competition winners and can be found performing in professional ensembles such as the President’s Own Marine Band, teaching in university and public schools positions, and serving as music therapists throughout the country and abroad. In the summers he serves on the faculty of the Chamber Music and Composers Forum of the East at Colgate University.

Come visit him at his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SUclarinets

Erich Heckscher is currently Principal Bassoon with the National Philharmonic Orchestra and the Maryland Symphony Orchestra. For the 2011–2012 season he served as Acting Second Bassoon with the National Symphony Orchestra, including a South American tour. He served as guest Principal Bassoon with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in 2000, and was previously Principal Bassoon with the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra and Second Bassoon with the Houston Ballet and Alabama Symphony Orchestras. He has also performed with the Dallas Symphony, the Charleston Symphony, the Atlanta Opera, the Tulsa Opera and the Des Moines Metro Opera orchestras. Erich holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with K. David Van Hoesen and John Hunt, and Southern Methodist University, where he studied with Wilfred Roberts. He is Principal Bassoon of the Britt Festival Orchestra in Jacksonville, OR, and has participated in festivals in Breckenridge, Chautauqua, Durango and Sarasota.

Praised by the New York Times for her "consistent, strong" and "smooth and full" horn playing, Wei-Ping is the second horn of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra / Washington National Opera Orchestra. A native of Taoyuan, Taiwan, she began playing the horn at the age of nine and continued her studies at the Idyllwild Arts Academy under Kurt Snyder. She received her bachelor's degree from the Manhattan School of Music as a student of Jerome Ashby, and her Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Julie Landsman. She is the first and only horn player in Juilliard School history to be awarded the Artist Diploma.

Wei-Ping held the fourth horn position in the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra / Washington National Opera Orchestra from 2014 through 2017, and was acting assistant principal horn for the San Diego Symphony from 2007 to 2011. She has performed with a variety of orchestras and chamber groups, including the National Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke's, American Symphony Orchestra, the Knights, Wind Soloists of New York, and Genghis Barbie. As a chamber musician, she spent many summers at the Marlboro Music Festival and performs on "Musicians from Marlboro" tours. She has appeared as a guest artist at the Chesapeake Music Festival, Mt. Desert Festival of Chamber Music, Artosphere Music Festival, and Lake Champlain Music Festival. Wei-Ping was featured as a soloist, performing the Gliere Concerto, with the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra.

An avid educator, Wei-Ping has taught on the horn faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University since 2018. She has also taught on the horn faculty for NYO2 (National Youth Orchestra 2). When not playing the horn, Wei-Ping enjoys cooking, baking, crafting, and last but definitely not least, flying trapeze! Most recently, she has also upgraded to become a mom!

Wei-Ping will be teaching at NYO2 in the summer of 2024!

Hailed by The Washington Post as “A pianist’s pianist”, Ryo Yanagitani has established himself as one of Canada’s shining artists. Ryo has made concerto appearances with orchestras around the world including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Hartford Symphony Orchestra, the Moroccan Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Kioi Symphonietta. His performances have taken him to such venues as the Kennedy Center, The National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and Salle Cortot in Paris among others. He has released two solo albums dedicated to works by Chopin and Debussy, as well as collaboration album with the cellist Dai Miyata in Japan.

He directed the highly acclaimed Evermay Concert Series in Georgetown and held the position of Artistic Director at the Ryuji Ueno Foundation in Washington DC, an organization that supports highly talented individuals in the field of the performing arts.