Maureen Nelson, violin, became a full-time member of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2016. As former founding member and first violinist, she led the Grammy-nominated Enso String Quartet for nearly two decades, captivating audiences from major concert stages of the world, regularly concertizing throughout North America and abroad. Founded at Yale University in 1999, the quartet has been described by The Strad magazine as “thrilling” and praised by the Washington Post for its “glorious sonorities … half honey, half molten lava.” The quartet quickly went on to win top prizes at the Concert Artists Guild competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition. Classical Voice praised the ensemble as “one of the eminent string quartets of our era.” Along with a busy touring and teaching schedule, Maureen made numerous critically acclaimed recordings on the Naxos label with the Enso.

A native of Pennsylvania, Maureen was enrolled in Temple University’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians at the age of 12, and began attending the Curtis Institute of Music shortly thereafter. As a winner of the Greenfield Competition, Maureen appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra when she was 16. While studying in Germany, she was concertmaster of the Detmolder Kammerochester and has been a member of the Houston-based River Oaks Chamber Orchestra since 2010. During summers, Maureen spends her time away from SPCO visiting family, performing at chamber festivals and is a member of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. She is married to percussionist Matthew McClung and together they enjoy a daily coffee & crosswords ritual.

Why have you chosen a career in classical music? “My mother was determined that I would become the next greatest female classical guitarist. Much to her dismay, I turned her gift of a little toy guitar around, tucked it under my chin and started making ‘air bows’. I feel so fortunate that my mother had an intensely strong love of music and kept encouraging me, even in times when things seemed too difficult. Every day I remember what a gift it is to play and share music with others.”

Described as “a virtuoso by any measure” (The Berkshire Review), violinist Katie Hyun enjoys a varied performance schedule that includes solo and chamber music performances as well as prinicpal positions in orchestras, both on Baroque and modern violin. Festival appearances include Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Bravo! Vail in Colorado, Tippet Rise Arts Center in Montana, Mostly Mozart in New York, OBX Chamber Music Series in North Carolina, Crescent City Chamber Music Festival in New Orleans, New York in Chuncheon in South Korea, and NEXUS Chamber Music in Chicago. Katie currently serves as the concertmaster of NOVUS Trinity Wall Street and associate concertmaster of American Ballet Theatre, and performs frequently with the Lenape Chamber Players and Manhattan Chamber Players. On Baroque violin, she regularly appears with the Trinity Baroque Orchestra and Seraphic Fire.  Katie also serves as faculty for Musicambia and teaches at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

Katie is also the founder and director of Quodlibet Ensemble, a collective of string players and creators dedicated to creating musical experiences that engage, entertain, and invite people to invest in their communities.  Quodlibet has performed at the Shepherd Music Series in Collinsville, Yale British Arts Center, Drew University in Madison, NJ, Rockefeller University in NYC, and most recently the Baryshnikov Arts Center in NYC.  In October 2020, Quodlibet partnered with VOTESart to produce a video performance aimed at raising awareness of voters’ rights which premiered at the Five Boroughs Music Festival.  

Katie was a founding member of the award winning Amphion String Quartet, which won the Concert Artists’ Guild Management in 2011 and a spot on the roster of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two Program.  The Amphion String Quartet’s debut CD was also featured on the New York Times’ ‘Best of 2015.’  Additionally, the quartet has performed in Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, La Jolla Music Festival, the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, OK Mozart, the Chautauqua Institution, and Caramoor Music Festival.  

Katie received her Artist Diploma at the Yale School of Music, studying Baroque violin with Robert Mealy and modern violin with Ani Kavafian, and her Masters Degree at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, where she studied with Pamela Frank, Ani Kavafian, and Philip Setzer.  She also studied with Aaron Rosand and Pamela Frank at the Curtis Institute of Music where she received her Bachelor of Music degree.

Born in 1978 in Rochester, NY, Michael Klotz has established an international reputation as a performer and pedagogue of the viola. Klotz made his solo debut with the Rochester Philharmonic at the age of 17 and has since then appeared worldwide as soloist with orchestra, recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestral principal. After a performance of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 with violist Roberto Diaz, the Portland Press-Herald proclaimed, “this concert squelched all viola jokes, now and forever, due to the talents of Diaz and Klotz”. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram recently proclaimed Michael Klotz to be “a superb violist, impressive, with an exceptionally attractive sound,” and the Miami Herald has consistently lauded his “burnished, glowing tone and nuanced presence.”

Michael Klotz joined the Amernet String Quartet in 2002 and has toured and recorded commercially with the ensemble throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Israel, Japan, South Ko-rea, Romania, Colombia, Belgium, and Spain. His festival appearances have included Seattle, Newport, Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Festival Mozaic, Great Lakes, Mediterranean Notes Festival (Montenegro), Cervantino, Festival Baltimore, Festival Mozaic, Piccolo Spoleto, Sunflower, Martha’s Vineyard, Skaneateles, Virginia Tech Vocal Arts and Music Festival, San Miguel de Allende, Beverly Hills, Music Mountain, Bowdoin, Madeline Island, and Miami Mainly Mozart.

Passionately dedicated to chamber music, Klotz regularly performs with many of today’s most esteemed artists. He has appeared as guest violist with the Borromeo, Shanghai and Ying Quartets, the Manhattan Piano Trio, and has performed with artists such as Shmuel Ashkenasi, Arnold Steinhardt, Cho-Liang Lin, James Ehnes, Augustin Hadelich, Andrés Cárdenes, Paul Neubauer, Vadim Gluzman, Gary Hoffman, Clive Greensmith, Michael Tree, Andres Diaz, Cynthia Phelps, Roberto Diaz, Chauncey Patterson, Joseph Kalichstein, Angela Cheng, Jon Nakamatsu, Anthony McGill, Franklin Cohen, and Alexander Fiterstein, as well as with many principal players from major U.S. and European orchestras. In 2015 he was named a Char-ter Member of the Ensemble with the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth and regularly appears on this series. In 2002 and 2009, he was was invited by Maestro Jaime Laredo to perform with distinguished alumni at anniversary concerts of the New York String Orchestra Seminar in Carnegie Hall.

Michael Klotz is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where he was awarded the Performer’s Certificate. In 2002 he became one of the few individuals to be awarded a double Master’s Degree in violin and viola from the Juilliard School. At Juilliard, he was the recipient of the Tokyo Foundation and Gluck Fellowships. His principal teachers and influences include Zvi Zeitlin, Lynn Blakeslee, Lewis Kaplan, Toby Appel, Peter Kamnitzer, and Shmuel Ashkenasi.

Michael Klotz is a dedicated teacher and serves as Teaching Professor and Artist-in-Residence at Florida International University in Miami, where he teaches viola and chamber music. Additionally, he mentors a select number of highly gifted pre-college students. Klotz has presented masterclasses at many of the leading institutions of music in the US. He is currently a member of the faculty of The Heifetz International Music Institute, an Artistic Advisor and viola faculty of The Josef Gingold Festival of Miami, and a viola coach at the New World Symphony. His former students currently attend and are graduates of prestigious conservatories, including the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, Indiana University, and the Cleveland Institute of Music and are already achieving leading roles in the music world.

During the isolation period of the coronavirus pandemic, Michael presented a series of video interviews called “Teacher Talks with Michael Klotz” which can be found on his YouTube channel. Michael was recently featured in the “Mind Over Finger” podcast series, the November 2013 issue of the “Alumni Spotlight” in the Juilliard Journal and as the subject of Strad Magazine’s “Ask the Teacher” column in the November 2013 issue. Michael Klotz resides in Hallandale Beach, FL with his wife Kelly and sons Jacob and Natan, as well as two dachshunds named Noodle and Strudel, and a Great Dane named Auggi/Cow.

A native of East Harlem, cellist Nicholas Tzavaras has enjoyed a distinguished career as a chamber musician, soloist, and educator for nearly three decades. From 2000 to 2024, he served as the cellist of the internationally acclaimed Shanghai Quartet, with whom he performed in more than 35 countries and at major venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, and the Seoul Arts Center. Under his tenure, the quartet held long-standing residencies at Montclair State University and The Tianjin Juilliard School, and became known for championing both classical masterworks and contemporary commissions. Tzavaras has recorded more than 28 albums on the Naxos, Delos, Decca, BIS, Centaur, Camerata, and New Albion labels. He also served as guest principal cellist with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra from 2009 to 2024.

Tzavaras began his musical studies at age two on the violin with his mother, Roberta Guaspari—the pioneering educator whose work was chronicled in the Academy Award–nominated documentary Small Wonders and portrayed by Meryl Streep in the film Music of the Heart. He switched to the cello at age seven and later attended the Bronx High School of Science before earning degrees from the New England Conservatory and SUNY Stony Brook. Tzavaras also holds an MBA from Montclair State University.

A passionate and sought-after educator, Tzavaras has held faculty appointments and leadership positions at The Tianjin Juilliard School, Montclair State University, the Longy School of Music, and the University of Richmond. He currently serves as Senior Director of Artistic Planning & Educational Programs at the Brevard Music Center and joined the faculty of Brevard College in the fall of 2025. Tzavaras makes his home in Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife, Sophia, and their three children.