Isaac Pastor-Chermak, cello; Alison Lee, piano; Nicole Oswald, violin
Ensemble 1828 debuted in June 2019 with a seven-concert tour of Northern California cities, performing an all-Schubert program to packed houses and critical acclaim. Honoring Schubert’s last and most productive year with their name, Ensemble 1828’s debut was praised for its “thoroughly engaging energy” and “rhetorical uniqueness.” This concert will celebrate Beethoven's 250th birthday, and also feature works by Piazzolla, Mendelssohn and Bernstein.
*This event is part of our Third Sunday Concert Series: Third Sunday is a curated monthly concert series, led by Artistic Director and noted flautist Jane Lenoir. The series offers a diverse selection of genres and styles, as well as a balance between new and established artists, all with one thing in common: wonderful music!
Nicole Oswald is currently pursuing a masters of music under the world- renowned violinist, Andrés Cárdenes at the Carnegie Mellon School of Music. At CMU, Nicole is a graduate assistant and serves as concertmaster of the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic Orchestra. Nicole recently received an Artist Diploma from the Frost School of Music in Miami, FL 2018. There, she studied under Charles Castleman as a graduate teaching assistant and Henry Mancini Institute fellow. Nicole plays on a 1920 Stefano Scarampella on generous loan to her from Charles Castleman.
Alison Lee is a pianist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the first prize winner of several competitions such as Thursday Musical’s Scholarship Competition, the Dorothy Van Waynen Piano Competition and the Pacific Musical Society Competition. She was awarded second prize in the 2016 Midwest International Piano Competition, where she performed Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with conductor Jason Weinberger and the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony. Most recently, Alison was featured as a soloist with the Coeur d’Alene Symphony Orchestra after winning their 2019 National Young Artists Competition. Alison holds a doctoral degree in piano performance from the University of Minnesota, where she was a student of Lydia Artymiw. Prior to studying in Minneapolis, Alison studied with Jon Kimura Parker at Rice University and Angela Cheng at Oberlin Conservatory.
Isaac Pastor-Chermak is Principal Cellist of Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony; Associate Principal Cellist of Stockton Symphony; Assistant Principal Cellist of Opera San Jose and Fresno Philharmonic; and a member of Berkeley Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, Monterey Symphony, Santa Cruz Symphony, and Dayton Philharmonic. He spends his summers at the Eisenstadt Classical Music Festival in Austria, where he is Assistant Principal Cellist, and the Lake Tahoe Music Festival, as Principal Cellist. Mr. Pastor-Chermak is the cellist of Black Cedar Trio, the only professional flute-cello-guitar ensemble in the country, and Ensemble 1828, a piano trio, as well as a frequent sonata collaborator with pianists Miles Graber and Alison Lee. Mr. Pastor-Chermak is in constant demand as a solo artist, performing more than 100 concerts every season on an 1889 Riccardo Antoniazzi cello.
Pastor-Chermak sits on the Board of Directors of the East Bay Music Foundation, which supports outreach and performance opportunities for young musicians, and Calliope, a brand new ‘arts hub’ based in Albany, CA. Mr. Pastor-Chermak holds degrees from the University of California, Berkeley (B.A. with honors) and San Francisco Conservatory of Music (M.M. with honors). He makes his home in the North Berkeley hills, but is at home wherever the music takes him. www.isaacpastorchermak.com