Symphony San Jose

A graduate of the Juilliard School and Indiana University, violist Craig Bate has appeared as soloist throughout the United States, including a concerto performance in Bloomington, IN, as the winner of Indiana University’s concerto competition. He was also the Grand Prize Winner at the Gee Viola Competition in Aspen, Colorado. While a student at Juilliard, he was invited to tour Europe and the United States with the Juilliard Orchestra. He was also selected to perform on a nation-wide PBS broadcast for Juilliard’s centennial anniversary. Before moving to California, Mr. Bate was a member of the Eykamp String Quartet in residence at the University of Evansville. He has served as Principal Violist of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, Owensboro Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Kentucky and Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra. At age 17, he became the youngest member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, where he was offered tenure two years later.

San Francisco Opera Orchestra

Mariya Borozina is a member of First Violin sections of the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet orchestras and a substitute player with the San Francisco Symphony. She is a Conductor of Galbraith Honor Strings of Golden State Youth Orchestra.

Born in Moscow, Mariya Borozina began playing the violin at the age of 5, following in the footsteps of her violinist father. Starting at the Gnessins School of Music, she continued her studies at the Moscow Conservatory, class of Marina Yashvili. After moving to the US, she earned a postgraduate degree at Manhattan School of Music studying with Glenn Dicterow, Lisa Kim, Yoko Takebe, and Albert Markov. She performed around the globe as a Concertmaster of Verbier Festival and Verbier Festival Chamber orchestras.

An avid chamber music player, she has appeared as part of several local groups, including Eos Ensemble and Farallon Quintet. She appears regularly as a concertmaster and soloist for the Russian Chamber Orchestra and performs at various venues in the Bay Area and beyond. As an educator, Ms. Borozina coaches chamber groups and orchestras, performs at outreach programs, and teaches privately. She is frequently invited to judge local music competitions.

San Francisco Symphony

David Chernyavsky joined the San Francisco Symphony in 2009. Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, he began violin studies at the age of six and at eleven gave his first solo recital. After winning prizes in competitions in Russia and France, he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. In 1997, Mr. Chernyavsky came to the US to study at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music with the famous Profesor Nelli Shkolnikova and, later, at the Juilliard School. Before joining SF Symphony Mr. Chernyavsky had been a member of the Kennedy Center Opera orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic. He performed and recorded several CDs with the Saint Petersburg String Quartet and with the Joel Rubin Klezmer Music Ensemble, and he has released a solo CD, Klezmer Violin. He also performs and teaches with the San Francisco Academy Orchestra.

Kevin Hsu is a violist hailing from Saratoga, California. Throughout his storied career, Mr. Hsu has performed throughout the continents with esteemed artists and groups such as Midori Goto, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony and the Classical Music Institute. He has also collaborated with musicians such as Alfred Brendel, Augustin Dumay, members of the Artemis Quartet, Glenn Dicterow, Donald Weilerstein and many more. In addition to his viola performances and activities, Mr. Hsu is also a professional photographer and videographer.

Conservatoire de Versailles

Born in Moscow, Masha Lankovsky began her musical studies in Australia and New Zealand where she spent her childhood.  Following studies at the Royal Academy of Music, Masha was awarded her Bachelors and Masters degrees from Indiana University, Bloomington and her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. As a violinist Masha has appeared in international festivals such as Schleswig Holstein (Germany),  Britten Pears festival (England), the American Conservatoire in Fontainebleau (France) and she has been awarded multiple residencies at the Banff Centre (Canada). She is presently a violin professor at the Conservatoire de Versailles and artistic co-director of the Shkolnikova Academy. Masha has written articles for The Strad magazine and her English translation and edition of the writings of the renowned pedagogue Yuri Yankelevich is published by Oxford University Press. 

San Francisco Conservatory of Music
San Francisco Symphony

Jay Liu serves as the Associate Principal Viola for the San Francisco Symphony since 1993. He also serving as a faculty member at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), where he teaches viola performance and viola orchestral excerpts. His students winning the position in the most prestigious symphony orchestras around the world.

Liu has been participation in the Asian Youth Orchestra as a viola coach for 15 years. In 2011, as a Fulbright Specialist, he has completed his residency at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, sponsored by the Fulbright Specialist Foundation. 

Kim Mai Nguyen is a Juilliard-trained violist whose artistry bridges cultures and styles, from baroque to contemporary and world music. Based in Paris, she performs with leading ensembles including Ensemble Jupiter, Les Siècles, and Le Poème Harmonique.

An artist deeply engaged in world citizenship, Kim Mai has performed and taught across the globe in Afghanistan, Belize, France, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Jamaica, Prague, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, and the United States, using music as a language of cultural dialogue and exchange. Her international projects with organizations such as MusAid and American Voices reflect her belief in music’s power to connect communities beyond borders.

Praised by The New York Times for her “colorful, committed readings,” she has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the MoMA Summergarden Series, and major festivals worldwide. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Kim Mai brings artistry, curiosity, and a global vision to her performances, sharing a deep commitment to musical collaboration and human connection.

San Francisco Symphony

Florin Parvulescu was born in 1971 in Bucharest, Romania. He started playing the violin at the age of six at the Georges Enescu music school. In 1978, he attended the Juilliard School Pre-College division, studying with Shirley Givens.

By 1989, Florin Parvulescu went on to study at the Peabody Conservatory of Music where his principal teachers were Sylvia Rosenberg and Herbert Greenberg. He also worked closely with pianist Leon Fleisher and violinist Berl Senofsky.

In addition to earning Bachelors and Artist Diploma degrees at Peabody, Mr. Parvulescu was awarded numerous prizes, among them the Marbury Award and Yale Gordon award.

Mr. Parvulescu has given masterclasses at the Beijing Conservatory and taught at the Singapore International Violin Festival in 2018 . He was featured on the McGraw Hill Young Artist Showcase on WQXR radio NY, National Public Radio, WFMT Chicago, and King FM in Seattle. The San Francisco Chronicle has praised him for his “gleaming tone and pyrotechnics.”

American violinist Hannah Tarley began playing the violin at age two.

Winner of Astral’s 2018 National Auditions, Hannah has soloed with orchestras including the Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and Lynn Philharmonia Orchestra.

Hannah has worked with numerous conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas and Edwin Outwater, and has participated in various festivals, including the Heifetz International Music Institute, Perlman Music Program, Kronberg Academy Masterclasses, and Aspen Music Festival and School.

Hannah founded Notes By The Bay Music Festival and School, a year-round music school and summer festival for children and adults in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through music lessons and theatrical performances, NBTB presents a unique platform for solo and ensemble playing, as well as exploring different forms of the arts. Hannah also performs with Violins of Hope, an organization that brings to life the history of the Holocaust and the stories of its victims and their violins.

A former student of Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School, Hannah received her Bachelor’s Degree from the Royal College of Music in London. She received her Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School, under the guidance of Itzhak Perlman, Donald Weilerstein and Catherine Cho, and was awarded the Irene Land Scholarship and the Norman Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant. Hannah recently graduated with a Master of Musical Arts degree from Yale University, studying with Ani Kavafian, and was awarded the Horatio Parker Memorial Prize and the Philip F. Nelson Prize.