Program and Artist Biography

Artist Biographies

Cellist Bonnie Hampton leads an active musical life as a chamber musician, soloist, and teacher. A student of Pablo Casals, she participated for many years in the Casals and Marlboro festivals. She has also performed at the Chamber Music West, Seattle, Ravinia, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festivals. Currently, she is involved in the summer programs at the Tanglewood Music Center and the Yellow Barn Festival. Her early studies were with Margaret Rowell, the Griller String Quartet and Zara Nelsova.  Ms. Hampton has taught at Mills College, Grinnell College, Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, and at the San Francisco Conservatory for 30 years. In September 2003, she joined the faculty at the Julliard School. She is a past president of Chamber Music America.

Award-winning Russian-born American pianist Yuliya Gorenman has rightfully been called a "pianist without fear." Now firmly established in her performing career, Ms. Gorenman first achieved international acclaim in 1995 as a winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium. Since then she has been continually invited to perform solo, chamber, and orchestral concerts throughout the United States and in Europe, earning consistent praise for her artistic fire, extraordinary virtuosity, and the depth of her interpretations.

Born in Odessa, Ukraine, and raised in Kazakhstan, Ms. Gorenman began to shape her performance style at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. As a student, she performed throughout the former Soviet Union. After immigrating to the United States in 1989, she studied first at the San Francisco Conservatory and then at the Peabody Conservatory with mentors such as Nathan Schwartz and Leon Fleischer.

Concerti performed by Ms. Gorenman include Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 and Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on the Celebrity Series, as well as Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3 and Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Slatkin in the Kennedy Center. She recorded all the Beethoven piano concerti and the Triple Concerto live with the Bavarian Chamber Orchestra and conductor Philip Greenberg, in France and Switzerland. An international performer, she has performed and recorded with the Hugo Wolf String Quartet, the St. Louis Philharmonic, the Liège Philharmonic, the National Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic of Flanders, among other ensembles. From 1999 to 2003 she performed at “L’eté musical dans la vallée du Lot” in Cahors, France.

In Washington, D.C., Ms. Gorenman’s recent activities include a solo recital in the Evelyn Hayes Piano Series of the Washington Performing Arts Society in 2008, performances at the Smithsonian and, with Frederica von Stade, at the Kennedy Center. She is currently performing and recording all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas at American University.