The 2025 Participants

Steven Beck

Pianist Steven Beck has recently appeared with the orchestras of Austin, Princeton, and Chattanooga, been heard in chamber music in Chicago, and Oklahoma City, and repeated his annual Christmas Eve performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at Bargemusic, which has become a New York institution.

As a soloist Mr. Beck has performed with the New York Philharmonic and the National Symphony and has appeared at Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress; summer concerts have been at the Aspen Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, and Lincoln Center Out of Doors. As an orchestral musician he has played with the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, and Orpheus.

An experienced performer of new music, Steven Beck has premiered works by Charles Wuorinen and Fred Lerdahl. He can be heard on over 40 CDs, including the first complete recording of George Walker’s piano sonatas, for Bridge Records. Mr. Beck is a member of the Knights, the Talea Ensemble, Quattro Mani, and the Da Capo Chamber Players. He is on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the Sewanee Summer Music Festival. A Steinway Artist, he is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he now teaches orchestral piano.

The Cassatt String Quartet

Hailed for its “mighty rapport and relentless commitment,” the Cassatt String Quartet has performed throughout the world for four decades, with appearances at Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall; Tanglewood Music Center; the Kennedy Center; Théâtre des Champs-Élysées; Centro National de las Artes; Maeda Hall; and Beijing’s Central Conservatory.

The Cassatt Quartet – founded in 1985 – now joyfully celebrates its 40th year with a  busy 2025-2026 calendar of major performances, collaborations, and teaching. Their anniversary schedule includes performances in their hometown of New York City and across the U.S.; concerts, masterclasses, and workshops at teaching institutions such as Columbia, Fordham and Texas Tech Universities, Bennington, Bowdoin, Hobart and William Smith and Williams Colleges, and a new CSQ residency at the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music; and a CD release of music by Daniel Strong Godfrey, featuring collaborations with guitarist Eliot Fisk, cellist Nicole Johnson, and pianist Ursula Oppens. In proud Cassatt Quartet fashion, this season and the years ahead will center as well around the premieres and championing of important CSQ commissions, with particular attention to the music of great American women composers, the season features Joan Tower’s String Quartet No. 7, premiered at Maverick Concerts in September 2025 and presented again at the Cassatt Quartet’s 40th anniversary celebration at Merkin Hall, NYC, on October 15, 2026. The anniversary year also includes a new piano quintet by Victoria Bond, inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting Skyscraper, created in collaboration with pianist Magdalena Stern-Baczewska.

They continue their residencies with the Seal Bay Festival of Contemporary American Music in Maine.

The members of the Cassatt Quartet are violinists Muneko Otani and Laura Jean Goldberg ; violist Amy Galluzzo; and cellist Yi Qun Xu. The Quartet is named for Mary Cassatt, the great painter who – in addition to being the only American to exhibit in Paris alongside the Impressionists – did devoted, lifelong work in support of women’s equality and right to vote.

http://www.cassattquartet.com

Peter Weitzner

Peter Weitzner, a graduate of the Juilliard School, has performed with Solisti New York, the Jupiter Symphony, EOS Ensemble, SONYC, Philharmonia Virtuosi, Stamford Symphony, Musicians Accord, and the New Jersey Symphony. As soloist, he has appeared with the Baltimore Symphony and performed the New York premiere of Sheila Silver’s Chant for bass and piano. Mr. Weitzner has been a frequent participant at international music festivals including Mostly Mozart, OK Mozart, Cape May, Festival of the Hamptons, Bratislava Music Festival, and the Bruckner Festival in Linz, Austria.

An avid chamber musician, Mr. Weitzner is currently the curator and host of the BPL Chamber Players in residence at the Central branch (Grand Army Plaza) of the Brooklyn Public Library. He has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Orion, Ens?, Daedalus and Clarosa Quartets, Trio Solisti, New York Chamber Ensemble, Yale at Norfolk, Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival, New York Philomusica, Garden City Chamber Music Society, Sherman Chamber Ensemble and the Berkshire Bach Society.

He has also performed with the dance companies of Lar Lubovitch and David Parsons as well as Merce Cunningham's 80th birthday celebration at the Lincoln Center Festival in the New York premiere of Biped. He also participated in a performance at NJPAC (NJ Performing Arts Center) with the re-emerging Alice Coltrane shortly before her passing. For ten years Mr. Weitzner toured the world as a member of the Giora Feidman Trio. In the spring of 2009, he was invited to become a member of the Quincy Jones Musiq Consortium, an arts education advocacy group comprised of arts related non-profits, musicians and educators.

His work can be heard on the Nonesuch, Albany, Pro Gloria Musicae, New World Records, Musical Heritage Society, Delos, Grenadilla, and Berkshire Bach Society record labels. He has also produced recordings of the Brandenburg Concerti with the Berkshire Bach Society and the critically acclaimed complete flute music of J.S. Bach with flutist Susan Rotholz and Kenneth Cooper, fortepiano, released by Bridge Records. A CD of American flute music with Susan Rotholz and pianist, Margaret Kampmeier has also been released by Bridge. He is also a frequent contributor of concert recordings to NPR’s Performance Today.

Joan Tower (non resident)

Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of the most important American composer’s living today. During a career spanning more than 60 years, she has made lasting contributions to musical life in the United States as composer, performer, conductor and educator. Her works have been commissioned by major ensembles, soloists and orchestras, including the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir quartets, soloists Alisa Weilstein, Evelyn Glennie, Carol Wincenc, Davis Shifrin, Paul Neubauer, and John Browning, and the orchestras of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore.

Victoria Bond

Internationally acclaimed composer/conductor Victoria Bond’s compositions have been praised by the New York Times as “powerful, stylistically varied and technically demanding.” She is a graduate of the Juilliard School (DMA, 1977) and has served as conductor with The Pittsburgh Symphony, NYC Opera, Chamber Opera Chicago, Harrisburg Opera, Bel Canto Opera, Opera Roanoke, Roanoke Symphony, New Amsterdam Symphony and has guest conducted nationally and internationally.

Her opera, Clara, premiered at the Berlin Philharmonic’s Easter Festival in Germany. Bond’s chamber music includes two string quartets, Dreams of Flying (comm. by the Audubon Qt.); Blue and Green Music (comm. by the Cassatt Qt.); New York Nocturne (piano quintet comm. by the Cassatt Qt.). Other chamber works include Bridges (clarinet, violin, cello, piano), Dancing on Glass (string trio), Frescoes and Ash (string quintet, piano, clarinet, percussion), Instruments of Revelation (flute, clarinet violin, cello, piano), Sacred Sisters (violin, harp, piano),Notes from Underground (alto saxophone, piano), The Voices of Air (trombone, piano).

In addition, Bond has composed eight operas, six ballets, two piano concertos and numerous orchestral, chamber, vocal, choral, and keyboard compositions. She has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, NBC Today Show, People Magazine, and New York Times. Her music is published by G. Schirmer, C.F. Peters, Theodore Presser, Subito Music and Protone Music, and recorded on the Naxos, Koch, Albany, GEGA, Protone, and Family Classic labels. Bond is the creator, producer and Artistic Director of Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival, which she hosts every year in New York City. She has been honored with the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Walter Hinrichsen Award, the Miriam Gideon Prize, the Perry F. Kendig Award and honorary doctorates from Washington and Lee University, Hollins College and Roanoke College. She has lectured for the NY Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and the Santa Fe Opera.
Cody W. Forrest

Cody is currently composer-in-residence with the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra and has been commissioned by Phoenix, Dinosaur Annex, and the Cochran Wrenn Duo. His music has been performed by Boston Music Viva, the Cassatt String Quartet, and internationally by violinist Léo Marillier.

He has received the Florence Price fellowship from the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, the Classic Pure Vienna International Composition Competition grand prize, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and was selected for the 2015 EarShot New Music Readings.

In 2016 he served as composer-in-residence with Chamber Music Campania in Varano, Italy. Teaching appointments have included Northeastern University and New England Conservatory. Cody currently resides in Providence, RI.
Dan Sonenberg

Dan Sonenberg is a composer, performer and educator living in Portland, Maine. His opera The Summer King was premiered in concert performance by Portland Ovations at Merrill Auditorium in 2014, and then received two fully staged productions, at Pittsburgh Opera in 2017 (starring Denyce Graves) and Michigan Opera Theater (now Detroit Opera) in 2018. His one-act opera Girl in Six Beats was commissioned by Opera Maine, and premiered by members of the University of Southern Maine opera program at numerous venues in 2018. His First Light: A Fanfare for Maine (2021) was commissioned and premiered by the Portland Symphony Orchestra. His electro-acoustic compositions Machine Shop (2015) and The Surprise Guest (2023) have become part of the regular repertory of Lynn Vartan, an internationally-acclaimed percussionist with whom Dr. Sonenberg has collaborated numerous times.

Mr. Sonenberg’s recent work involves “scripted looping,” and features himself as the performer on numerous instruments. He presented a full concert of looping works at the Crewe Center for the Arts at the University of Southern Maine (USM) in March 2026. He has been a faculty member at USM since 2004, and is currently full professor and Director of Composition Studies there.

Other recent compositions include a Wind Octet (2023), a Wind Quintet (2024), and, with lyricist Heidi Parker, the new alma mater for USM, “Southern Maine is Coming Home.”

Dr. Sonenberg has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, numerous Maine Arts Commission grants, and numerous fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Virginia Center for the Arts.

Since 2013 he has released numerous recordings of both rock and contemporary art music, both with his bands Lovers of Fictions and Flying Saucer Surprise, and as a solo artist.

Read more about him at his website: www.danielsonenberg.co

Daniel S. Godfrey

Daniel Strong Godfrey (b. 1949) has earned awards and commissions from the J. S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Fromm Music Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bogliasco Foundation, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, and the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, among many others. His music has been performed by soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestras throughout the U.S. and abroad. He is founder and co-director of the Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music (on the Maine coast) and is co-author (with the late Elliott Schwartz) of Music Since 1945, published by Schirmer Books.

Godfrey's works have been recorded on Albany, CRI, GM, Innova, Klavier, Koch, UK Light and Mark compact disks. His music is available through publishers Carl Fischer and G. Schirmer.

Godfrey received his graduate degrees in composition from Yale University and the University of Iowa. He is currently Professor and Chair in the Department of Music at Northeastern University's College or Arts, Media and Design (Boston, Massachusetts). Prior to his recent appointment at Northeastern, Godfrey was Professor of Music Composition, Theory and History at Syracuse University's Setnor School of Music, and he has also held guest faculty appointments in composition at the Eastman School of Music and the Indiana University School of Music.

Composer Institute

Visual Artist

Diana Cherbuliez

Born in 1965 in White Plains, NY, Diana began visiting Vinalhaven as a young child. She earned degrees from Simon's Rock of Bard College and San Francisco Art Institute.  Upon completion of her graduate work at Alfred University in 1993 she moved to Vinalhaven full time and began building her house and studio.

Her art practice has been most strongly influenced by her upbringing by a beekeeping Swiss psychiatrist and an American landscape architect, and her 35+ years of improvising her way through restoration, renovation, and sculpture-related jobs. She has done residencies at Yaddo and Villa Montalvo, has exhibited at Mexico City and Miami Art Fairs and numerous galleries and institutions throughout Maine and New England, was awarded a Percent for the Arts Commission (Vinalhaven School Foyer), two Maine Project Grants, and was the 2019 Maine State Visual Artist Fellow.

She collects cat whiskers, likes sunset in the woods and bookshelf Tetris.