Deadline to apply for Opus 1 Chamber Music Pre-College and Adult Programs, and enroll in Opus 1 Music Theory.

Celebrated for a “tone like toasted caramel. Amazing.” (Musical Toronto), Eric Wong is the violist of the Blair String Quartet and Assistant Professor of Viola at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University. He was also a member of the Cavani String Quartet and the JUNO-nominated Afiara Quartet. In addition to his work as a performer, Mr. Wong is an accomplished educator and has been artist-in-residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Royal Conservatory of Music, and Yale University.

Originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, Mr. Wong received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees studying violin with Paul Kantor and viola with Kirsten Docter and Lynne Ramsey. He subsequently earned an artist diploma from the Yale School of Music where he worked with Kazuhide Isomura and other members of the Tokyo Quartet as a member of the graduate string quartet-in-residence.

Required for all participating Pre-College Students.

Kyle Barrett Price, Founder & Artistic Director of the Caroga Arts Collective, member of the Cavani String Quartet and founding member of KASA Quartet, is nationally recognized for his multi-faceted musical career, innovative leadership style, and advocacy for collaborative programing in the arts and humanities.

His profound love of chamber music stems from a family of dynamic musicians at The Chamber Music Connection, where he had the opportunity to work with some of the most respected and acclaimed musicians of our time, including members of The Cleveland, Cavani, Emerson, Guarneri, St. Lawrence, and Brentano String Quartets. As the cellist of the Cavani Quartet, Kyle has taught and performed across the country including visiting residencies at University of Michigan, Peabody Conservatory, Montclair State University, University of Iowa, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University, Denison University, Kent State University-Stark, East Tennessee State University, Cleveland State University, Penn State-Erie, Ravinia Festival, Maverick Concerts, Chamber Music Connection, among others. As a member of Cavani, Kyle helped organize and co-initiate the Beyond Beethoven Project which featured the complete Beethoven Cycle along with eight new works with a culminating performance in Severance Hall partnering alongside four high school orchestra programs. In conjunction with his fellow Cavani members, Kyle was co-director of Arts Renaissance Tremont (ART), faculty at Encore Chamber Music Festival, Visiting Quartet-in-residence at Cleveland State University and associate faculty at The Chamber Music Connection. His contributions with the quartet are also highlighted in the upcoming book, The Art of Collaboration: Rehearsal Techniques & Teambuilding authored by Annie Fullard with writing partner Dorianne Cotter-Lockard, Ph.D. to be published by Oxford University Press in Fall of 2024.

As a soloist, Kyle has performed at internationally renowned music festivals including The Perlman Music Program and Banff School of the Arts. Kyle’s concerto appearances include performances with the LaCrosse Symphony Orchestra, Wisconsin Philharmonic, The Chamber Music Connection, National Summer Cello Institute and Caroga Arts Ensemble. He has made guest teaching appearances at Montclair State University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, DePaul University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Arizona, among others. Honors and solo prizes include Grand Prize Winner of the 2018 Schubert Club Competition, Grand Prize winner of the 2015 Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition, and Honorable Mention in the 2017 Gershwin International Music Competition.

In addition to playing the cello, Kyle has been composing from the age of 10 and has distinguished himself with an original voice, receiving commissions from the Johnstone Fund for New Music, Carpe Diem String Quartet, and the Chamber Music Connection. His compositions have been performed by Calidore Quartet, University of Wisconsin-Madison Symphony Orchestra, National Summer Cello Institute, Caroga Arts Ensemble, and Chamber Music Connection Orchestra.

Kyle’s compositions and arrangements are also regularly featured through his performances as a member of the KASA Quartet, a multi-genre quartet formed at the Caroga Lake Music Festival. Grand Prize winners of the 2017 Coltman Chamber Music Competition, KASA Quartet frequently performs, records and collaborates with artists such as Eddie Barbash, Sawyer Fredericks, WARP Trio, and Miriam Elhajli, among others. KASA has had residencies across the U.S. including with The Chamber Music Connection, Austin Chamber Music Center, Second City Chamber Music, Caroga Arts Collective, Ohio State University, Denison University, and performed at Ravinia Festival, MET Museum, Louis Armstrong Museum, The McKittrick, among others. KASA Quartet was a semi-finalist for the 2022 Concert Artists Guild Competition and released their debut album, Forever Wild Vol. 1 in the summer of 2022. The quartet has garnered over 50,000 listeners across streaming platforms and have toured regularly with Eddie Barbash, Laufey and others.

Kyle’s passion for chamber music and desire to facilitate opportunities for those around him acted as a catalyst for his vision to form an artist-led creative community, resulting in his creation of the Caroga Lake Music Festival in 2012 and the Caroga Arts Collective in 2016. With the help of his family, partner, peers and community, Kyle has grown the organization from a “homemade” music festival of eight musicians in his grandmother’s house to an organization that hosts over fifty events throughout the calendar year, featuring 150+ artists and attracting 10,000+ individuals. It is widely regarded to be the pride and joy of the community and a model for artist-led festivals around the country.

Kyle completed his Masters and Doctoral degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a Paul J. Collins Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellow and a Graduate Quartet-in-Residence Fellow, studying under the renowned pedagogue cellist and Feldenkrais practitioner Uri Vardi. He received his Bachelors degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music under the tutelage of the founding Cavani String Quartet cellist Merry Peckham. Outside of music, Kyle enjoys going on adventures with his partner, Hinano Price, Artistic Producer of the Ravinia Festival, and playing basketball in his free time. In the peak of his basketball career, Kyle created and led the CIM Basketball team to become the first music conservatory athletic team to participate in a NCAA Division III Tournament. Although they did not win, they returned to Cleveland and beat the Case Western Football team in a historic championship game, claiming the Case Western Reserve University Intramural Basketball Championship title.

Kyle Barrett Price, Founder & Artistic Director of the Caroga Arts Collective, member of the Cavani String Quartet and founding member of KASA Quartet, is nationally recognized for his multi-faceted musical career, innovative leadership style, and advocacy for collaborative programing in the arts and humanities.

Deadline to apply for Opus 1 Chamber Music Pre-College and Adult Programs, and enroll in Opus 1 Music Theory.

Required for all participating Pre-College Students.

Hailed for her “sensitive, flexible, and tempestuous dexterity” (Fanfare Magazine), pianist Michelle Schumann has built a reputation for evocative and moving performances that are infused with unique energy and zeal. Winner of the 2006 Janice K. Hodges Competition for Contemporary Music, Schumann’s programs feature meticulously integrated selections of classic and contemporary repertoire producing performances that are “smart, irresistible, and utterly captivating” (Austin-American Statesman). Recent international performances have taken her to the City de la Musique-Paris, Conservatoire de Gabriel Faure, and Conservatoire de Maurice Ravel in France; Birmingham Conservatory and St. Mary’s Cathedral-Haxby in England; the Roxy Theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland; and the Salzburger Dom Cathedral and Konzervatorium Wien in Austria.

Michelle’s most irresistible qualities as a performer include her unabashed musical expression and her ability to connect with audiences. Her performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue conducted by Peter Bay of the Austin Symphony was named the #1 Classical Arts Event of 2008 by the Austin Chronicle. Additional accolades include the 2017 award for Classical Music Ensemble; the 2009 award for “Best Instrumentalist;” and the 2006, 2007, and 2008 award for “Best Chamber Music Performance” given by the Austin Critics’ Table. While deeply steeped in the creative-cultural community of her hometown, Michelle has also been a featured performer at international festivals including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Ottawa Chamberfest, Ethos Contemporary Music Festival, San Angelo Piano Festival, Fayetteville Chamber Music Festival, International Festival Institute at Round Top, Long Beach Opera Festival, Bang-on-a-Can Summer Festival at the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art, Banff Festival of Music and Sound, Snake River Chamber Music Festival, Victoria Bach Festival, Victoria International Festival, and Tanglewood.

Praised for her versatility, Schumann has helped to lead an eclectic array of projects demonstrating her commitment to unexpected creativity in collaboration. Project highlights include designing and performing the music for Ballet Austin’s “Truth and Beauty: The Bach Project” which featured solo piano music by J.S. Bach and Philip Glass and was later aired on the lauded PBS-KLRU program, “IN CONTEXT.” In addition to performing the solo piano program, Schumann also led a baroque ensemble from the harpsichord for Bach’s Orchestral Suite No.2. In 2010, Schumann served as music director, conductor, and pianist for Michael Nyman’s chamber opera The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, in a collaboration with Austin Lyric Opera during the Austin Chamber Music Festival. In 2006 and 2008, Michelle’s pianism took to the dramatic stage in a staged production of Schubert’s Die Winterreise, directed by the Viennese Maverick producer Andreas Mitisek of the Long Beach Opera. Michelle has also been an enthusiastic proponent of the music of John Cage and has developed a cult-like following for her annual “Happy Birthday, Mr. Cage!” concert which she has been producing, performing, and directing since 2000. Highlights of the series includes a collaboration with film-collage artist Luke Savisky in an acclaimed rendering of Cage’s “Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano;” and a co-production with the Austin Zen Center of Cage’s most meditative music, set for an encore presentation at the Brooklyn Zen Center in 2011.

From 2006 to 2024, Michelle served as Artistic Director of the Austin Chamber Music Center, “fearlessly expanding our definition of chamber music” (Austin-American Statesman). Following her ground-breaking first season with the Austin Chamber Music Center, she won multiple awards from the Austin Critics Table, including the coveted award for “ Body of Work/Season.” Praised for “her whip-smart sense of programming” (Austin-American Statesman), Schumann’s specialty is developing unexpectedly integrated and thought-provoking programs. Her brand of performance includes an enthusiastic interplay with the audience, with whom she shares surprising insights about the music, composers’ lifestyles, and the social context of music performed. Her trademark includes bringing diverse music together under a cohesive narrative, producing not simply concerts, but events. She was named “Best Classical Musician” in the Best of Austin 2019 Readers Poll by the Austin Chronicle.

Michelle has enjoyed performing with some of the finest musicians gracing the world’s stages, including violinists Soovin Kim, Charles Wetherbee, and Brian Lewis; cellists Clancy Newman and Sara Sant’Ambrogio; and the Jupiter, Cavani, Carpe Diem, and Chiara String Quartets. Michelle’s other collaborations include the Meridian Arts Ensemble, American Repertory Ensemble, American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, the Austin Symphony Orchestra, and Long Beach Opera.

Schumann was artist-in-residence and professor of piano at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor where she was the founder and Artistic Director of the Hillman Visiting Artists Series. She received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The University of Texas at Austin and additionally holds a Young Artist Diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a Performance Diploma from the Vienna Conservatory. Her principal teachers included Anton Nel, Gregory Allen, and Marilyn Engle with additional teaching mentors including Emmanuel Ax, Peter Serkin, Ursula Oppens, Anne Epperson, and James Dick.

Required for all participating Pre-College Students.