Strings
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A native of Honolulu, Hawaii, violinist Sunghae Anna Lim has a varied career as both performer and teacher. She is a new member of the Manhattan String Quartet, resident quartet at Colgate University. A keen advocate for new music, Ms. Lim is also the violinist of the New Millennium Ensemble, winner of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, and a frequent guest of groups such as Talea Ensemble, New York New Music Ensemble and Da Capo Chamber Players. Ms. Lim was a founding member of the Laurel Piano Trio, winner of the Concert Artists Guild competition and resident ensemble at the Tanglewood Music Festival. The trio toured throughout the US and Central America and had its own program on WQXR, radio station of the New York Times. Ms. Lim also organizes and plays in the Richardson Chamber Players, a resident ensemble at Princeton University.
Ms. Lim has recorded the music of Anton von Webern, Arnold Schoenberg, John Cage, Morton Feldman, William Grant Still, David del Tredici, Fausto Romitelli, Enno Pope, Dan Trueman and many emerging young composers. Her performances can be heard on the Bridge, CRI, Koch and Naxos labels. Regular music festival appearances include the Portland Chamber Music Festival, Maine Chamber Music Seminar, Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove, the Weekend of Chamber Music, White Mountains Music Festival and the Wellesley Composers Conference.
As a teacher of violin and chamber music, Ms. Lim has been on the faculty of Princeton University since 2000. She is interested in diverse pedagogical approaches to violin playing in the United States and Europe from Bach’s time to the present. Her teaching is informed by the ideas of the legendary violin pedagogue, Constantin Dounis, as well as the movement studies of Moshe Feldenkrais. Having worked with Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Salzburg, she is particularly interested in the intersection of early music practices and the performance of later styles.
Ms. Lim believes in music as a way of lifting up children of all races and backgrounds. She has worked with several El Sistema-inspired programs, most recently in the Trenton NJ area. She is a faculty advisor for Trenton Arts at Princeton, a student-run organization that develops educational and artistic ties between Princeton University and Trenton. She also serves on the advisory board of the Trenton Music Makers. In that capacity, she moderated a discussion with Gustavo Dudamel at the 2019 “Seminario” at Princeton University, which brought together hundreds of students from El Sistema-inspired programs throughout the Northeast. She was named a Dudamel Foundation Mentor in 2020 for her work on virtual teaching practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
After receiving a BA from Harvard University in History and Literature, Ms. Lim was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Germany. She subsequently completed her Diplom in violin performance at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Her teachers and mentors include Sandor Vegh (Vegh Quartet), Louis Krasner, Gerhard Schulz (Alban Berg Quartet), Ernst Kovacic, Daniel Phillips (Orion Quartet), and Byron Duckwall. She holds a DMA from Rutgers University, where she studied with Arnold Steinhardt (Guarneri Quartet).
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Violist Jessica Thompson is a passionate chamber musician who performs regularly throughout the United States and abroad as a member of the Daedalus Quartet. The quartet, Grand Prize winner of the 2001 Banff International String Quartet Competition and resident quartet at Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two from 2005-07, is currently in residence at the University of Pennsylvania. As a member of Daedalus, Ms. Thompson has premiered works by such composers as Fred Lerdahl, Joan Tower, Richard Wernick, and Vivian Fung. Ms. Thompson has also toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed at numerous festivals, including the Portland Chamber Music Festival, the Halcyon Music Festival (Portsmouth, NH), the Newport Music Festival, and the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival. She performs often as a member of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra.
Ms. Thompson has appeared as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra and in recitals in cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Washington, DC. She currently teaches at Princeton and Columbia Universities. She is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Karen Tuttle.
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Praised for her “first rate and thoroughly engaging” playing, Taiwanese violinist Dr. Li-Mei Liang’s performance has been described as a “powerhouse” by the Boston Musical Intelligencer.
An active soloist and chamber musician, Li-Mei has performed with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and New York Classical Players. Her recent recording of the complete Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake with the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra as a soloist and guest concertmaster was released in 2025.
A passionate and committed educator in both music theory and violin practice, Li-Mei has served as a Violin and Chamber Music Lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, and is currently a full-time music theory faculty at the New England Conservatory. She teaches violin at NEC’s Preparatory School and is an affiliated artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Li-Mei has also given masterclasses at reputable institutions and festivals, including Georgetown University, the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, University of Texas at Austin, University of Maryland (Baltimore County), Greenwood Music Camp, and Heifetz International Music Institute.
In Li-Mei’s spare time, she can be found in the kitchen or her hopefully-critter-proof veggie garden, working on “farm-to-table” cooking projects or talking nonsense to her plants.
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Violinist Miho Saegusa, a versatile chamber musician and orchestral leader, cherishes collaboration and the joy of shared music-making. She was a founding member of the Grammy-nominated Aizuri Quartet, recipient of Chamber Music America's Cleveland Quartet Award, Grand Prize at the M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition, and top prizes at competitions in Osaka and Wigmore Hall. Memorable summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute, and Aspen Music Festival and School ignited and nurtured Miho’s passion for chamber ensembles.
Miho also loves the energy and intimacy of chamber orchestras. She is a member and has served as an Artistic Director of the celebrated Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. For five seasons she was Concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and has also performed with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center (fka Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra), Orchestra of St. Luke’s, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and NOVUS NY. Miho has been featured as soloist with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New York Classical Players, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Iris Orchestra, and New Jersey Symphony.
Miho is grateful to her principal teachers Masao Kawasaki and Dorothy DeLay for encouraging curiosity. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University, and completed graduate work at The Juilliard School, earning her Master of Music and Artist Diploma. While touring, Miho creates memories through food in addition to music. She likes to explore local restaurants and farmers markets, and experiments with recipes when back at home.
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Cellist Clancy Newman has enjoyed an extraordinarily wide-ranging career, not only as a cellist, but also as a composer, producer, writer, and educator. He received his first significant public recognition at the age of twelve, when he won a Gold Medal at the Dandenong Youth Festival in Australia, competing against contestants twice his age. He went on to win first prize at the Naumburg International Competition, and he has performed as soloist throughout the United States, as well as in Europe, Asia, Canada, and Australia. A recipient of an Avery Fisher career grant, he can often be heard on NPR’s “Performance Today” and has been featured on A&E and PBS. As a composer, he has expanded cello technique in ways heretofore thought unimaginable, particularly in his "Pop-Unpopped" project, and he has been featured on series by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Chicago Chamber Musicians. His piano quintet was premiered at the opening ceremony of the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC, and in 2021 he was commissioned by the Kingston Chamber Music Festival to produce four educational videos to assist school teachers as they navigate the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently on the faculty of Princeton University, Mr. Newman is a graduate of the five-year exchange program between Juilliard and Columbia University, receiving a M.M. from Juilliard and a B.A. in English from Columbia.
Winds
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Oboist Jacqueline Leclair is Associate Professor of Oboe at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. She is a member of Ensemble Signal, and can frequently be heard performing solo and chamber music concerts internationally. Dr. Leclair was on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music (NYC) and was Assistant Professor of Oboe at Bowling Green State University (Ohio) from 2007 to 2012. During her last two years at BGSU she also served as the Director of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music.Oboist Jacqueline Leclair is Associate Professor of Oboe at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. She is a member of Ensemble Signal, and can frequently be heard performing solo and chamber music concerts internationally. Dr. Leclair was on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music (NYC) and was Assistant Professor of Oboe at Bowling Green State University (Ohio) from 2007 to 2012. During her last two years at BGSU she also served as the Director of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music.
Summer festivals for which Dr. Leclair has served as faculty and/or performer include the Lincoln Center Festival (NYC), Chamber Music Conference at Bennington College (VT), June In Buffalo (NY), Chamber Music Festival of Aguascalientes (Mexico), East/West Festival (Kazan, Tatarstan) and the Maine Chamber Music Seminar (ME), among others.
In addition to performing a variety of classical and other musics, Dr. Leclair specializes in the study and performance of new music. She has premiered many works, and regularly presents classes in contemporary music and its techniques at schools such as UCLA, the Eastman School of Music, Brigham Young University, The North Carolina School for the Arts and University of California San Diego.
Dr. Leclair has recorded for Nonesuch, CRI, Koch, Neuma, Deutsche Grammophon and CBS Masterworks, receiving critical acclaim in particular for her premiere recording of Roger Reynolds' Summer Island. Luciano Berio's Sequenza VIIa Supplementary Edition by Jacqueline Leclair is published by Universal Edition, Vienna, and Dr. Leclair's recording of the piece is on the Mode Records collection of all Berio Sequenze and other solo works.
The New York Times has reviewed Dr. Leclair's performances as "astonishing" and as having "electrifying agility"; and the New Yorker has referred to her as "lively" and "wonderful." Dr. Leclair studied with Richard Killmer and Ronald Roseman at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester and SUNY Stony Brook, earning a Bachelor of Music, Performer's Certificate, Master’s Degree and Doctor of Musical Arts.
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FOUNDER AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Clarinetist Jo-Ann Sternberg leads a diverse musical life in the New York area as a chamber musician, orchestral player, music educator, and interpreter of new music. A member of Borealis Wind Quintet, Sequitur, the Saratoga Chamber Players, Wind Soloists of New York, the Richardson Chamber Players and the Riverside Symphony, she also regularly performs with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the American Symphony, Mark Morris Dance, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Musicians from Marlboro, and can often be heard playing in a number of different Broadway musicals.
Following her undergraduate years in the combined Tufts University/New England Conservatory dual degree program where she was mentored by Peter Hadcock, Ms. Sternberg continued her studies at Yale University with David Shifrin and at The Juilliard School with Charles Neidich.
Currently, Ms. Sternberg serves on the faculties of the Princeton University Music Performance Program, Rutgers Mason Gross School of Music, the Music Advancement Program at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music PreCollege, as well as maintaining an active teaching studio from her New York home. Additionally, she serves as a mentor in Juilliard’s Mentoring Program and coaches chamber ensembles for the New York Youth Symphony. In the summer months, Ms. Sternberg lives in Maine where she is the founder and artistic director of The Maine Chamber Music Seminar, teaches and performs at the Chamber Music Conference & Composers’ Forum of the East at Bennington College, and participates in numerous performance residencies throughout greater New England. Ms. Sternberg is a Selmer Artist residing in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
Piano
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American pianist Thomas Sauer performs regularly as soloist, chamber musician, and recital partner. His large and varied repertoire encompasses Bach to the present day. Audiences and critics alike praise his playing for its clarity, expressivity, and assured stylistic sense. Some of Mr. Sauer’s recent solo appearances include concertos with the Quad-City and Tallahassee Symphonies and the Greenwich Village Orchestra, and recitals at Mannes, Simon’s Rock, and Vassar Colleges, Merkin Concert Hall, Rockefeller University, and St. John’s College, Oxford. With his long-time duo partner, English cellist Colin Carr, Mr. Sauer has appeared at the Wigmore Hall (London), the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston). Other duo recitals include violinists Midori (Berlin Philharmonie and Brussels’ Palais des Beaux Arts) and Jennifer Koh (Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, Library of Congress, Princeton University). Among Mr. Sauer’s numerous chamber music appearances are performances at the Chamber Music Societies of Lincoln Center, Boston and Philadelphia; and numerous concerts with the Brentano String Quartet. Mr. Sauer has performed at many of the leading festivals in the United States and abroad, including Marlboro, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Northwest, El Paso Pro Musica, and the Chamber Music Festivals of Seattle, Taos, Four Seasons (North Carolina), Portland, and Salt Bay (Maine); as well as Lake District Summer Music (England) and Festival des Consonances (France). He has premiered works by Robert Cuckson, Sebastian Currier, Tania León, Donald Martino, Harold Meltzer, Ruth Schonthal, Nathan Shields, Suzanne Sorkin, and Richard Wilson, among many others. A committed teacher, with students at Mannes College, Vassar College, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Mr. Sauer was the founder and director of the Mannes Beethoven Institute, a highly-regarded week-long summer training program that ran for fifteen seasons in New York.