Siwoo Kim is an “incisive” and “compelling” (The New York Times) violinist who plays with “stylistic sensitivity and generous tonal nuance” (Chicago Tribune). Siwoo performs as soloist and chamber musician, and he is the co-founding artistic director of VIVO Music Festival in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

As soloist, Siwoo gave the world premiere performance of Samuel Adler’s violin concerto which was written for him. His recording of the work on Linn Records was praised by the BBC Music Magazine for its “notable fire & impassioned playing.” Siwoo made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut with the Juilliard Orchestra and has since performed with orchestras around the world such as the Staatsorchester Brandenburgisches Frankfurt, Houston Symphony, Johannesburg Philharmonic, Orchestre Royal de Chambre, and Seongnam Philharmonic.

As chamber musician, Siwoo regularly collaborates with Concordia Chamber Players, Music From Copland House and the Manhattan Chamber Players. Siwoo’s engagements with Quartet Senza Misura, Ensemble DITTO, Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and Decoda have led to international debuts and residencies. Highlights include summers at Marlboro Music Festival, Kennedy Center debut, serving as faculty at Stellenbosch Music Festival and collaborating with veteran artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Joyce DiDonato, and Susan Graham. 

Siwoo received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied under Robert Mann and Donald Weilerstein with full scholarship.

John Stulz (b. 1988) is a member of the Paris-based new music group Ensemble Intercontemporain and co-artistic director of VIVO Music Festival in Columbus, Ohio. His performances have been noted for their "taut control and poetic intensity" (Boston Globe) and "glowing tone and stunning technique" (the Los Angeles Times).

As a member of Ensemble Intercontemporain, John is on the cutting edge of new musical creation, collaborating with the world's leading living composers and performing masterpieces of the 20th and 21st century across the globe.

In 2015, John co-founded the VIVO Music Festival in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio with violinist Siwoo Kim and Ted Ou-Yang. Together they work to bring vital, singular and accessible chamber music performances across central Ohio.

He has performed around the world with organizations and ensembles like Klangforum Wien (Vienna, Austria), the Marlboro Music Festival, Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt, Germany), Omnibus Ensemble (Tashkent, Uzbekistan), Talea Ensemble (New York City), Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the St Paul Chamber Orchestra.

From 2007 to 2012, John was founding co-artistic director of the Los Angeles based What's Next? Ensemble with conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni. Under their joint leadership, What's Next? presented the works of over 70 southern California composers as well as masterpieces by composers ranging from Gérard Grisey to JacobTV.

John has taught at Ecoles d'Art Américaines de Fontainebleau since 2017. He has worked with students at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, Oberlin Conservatory, Conservatoire du Grand Besançon, Northern Colorado University, and on faculty at the Lucerne Festival Academy, IRCAM's ManiFeste festival, and the Decoda Skidmore Chamber Music Institute.

John’s original compositions have been presented by the New Philharmonic (Omaha), Splendor Amsterdam, the Van Abbenmuseum (Eindhoven), the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, and Omnibus Ensemble.

John studied at the University of Southern California (BM, 2010), New England Conservatory (MM, 2013), and as a fellow of Carnegie Hall's Ensemble ACJW (2011-2013). His primary teachers include Kim Kashkashian, Donald McInnes, Garth Knox, and Roland and Almita Vamos.

Liam Battle is a cellist in search of spirituality and liberation through performance and ritual. The music he specializes in concerns a wide range of American and Western styles from the mid-century Avant-Garde to new experimental music and free improvisation. He regularly performs in settings that straddle the improvisation, classical, and experimental worlds and he hopes to blur the lines that create such distinctions.

The common thread in all of Liam’s work is a commitment to newness. As a founder of the Antigone Music Collective, he regularly curates and performs contemporary classical music. The ensemble was noted for “Their technical mastery, rich tone, and fluid character…” by Cleveland Classical. Always on the cutting edge of performance and technology, they have also been hailed for their unique integration of mixed media into performance: “the pedal stomping to turn digital pages was distracting.”

Bringing new works into the world is a major part of the work Liam does with the AMC and outside of it. Liam has been the commissioner or dedicatee of dozens of works by composers including Brian Raphael Nabors, Gregory Rowland Evans, Kevin Kay, and Emma Tucker. He has also collaborated with a wide variety of today’s leading classical composers including Joan Tower, Marilyn Shrude, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, and Juri Seo. Classical concertizing has brought Liam in front of orchestras performing the concerti of Qigang Chen and Iannis Xenakis. Liam holds a BM from the University of Cincinnati and is pursuing an MM at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Isabella Prater is a violist, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, whose musical passions range across chamber music, community engagement, diverse and contemporary compositions, and arts administration. Isabella vigorously pursues programming diverse and contemporary composers, playing works by composers such as Jennifer Higdon, Tessa Lark, Caroline Shaw, and Joan Tower on her most recent solo recitals, and self-programming a classical music radio show on WSUM 91.7FM exploring underrepresented composers and artists. She graduated with a Master of Music at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music this Spring, where she studied with Ayane Kozasa, and received a Bachelor of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music studying with Sally Chisholm.