Ariana Falk (ChamberFest Director/cello) is the Education Director for the Worcester Chamber Music Society and runs the Neighborhood Strings and ChamberFest programs. She is a former Fellow at Community MusicWorks, the Providence organization committed to creating an urban community through music education and performance. She combines performance with a passion for forging new paths in teaching artistry.
Ariana received a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Boston University and Master of Music and Artist Diploma degrees from the Yale School of Music, where she was the recipient of the Aldo Parisot Prize. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from Yale College. She has recently appeared as a soloist with orchestras around North America, including Portland’s Columbia Symphony, the Olympia Symphony, Yale Bach Society, and the Banff Festival Orchestras. A recent review in Portland’sOregonian said, “Falk was terrific; her tone was solid and appropriately dark, and she carefully calibrated her path from lyrically mysterious beginnings on to a blistering, biting climax.”
As a recitalist and chamber musician, she is a cellist with the Burlington Ensemble and has appeared recently as a guest artist on the Marlboro College and Longy School of Music Faculty Artist Series, live on WGBH Boston and WVPR, with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and as cellist of the Worcester Bach Consort. She has collaborated with distinguished musicians including Menahem Pressler and Paul Katz. Notable past performances include appearances at Carnegie Hall, Jordan Hall, Sprague Hall at Yale, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In addition, Ariana has toured with the Grammy Award-nominated Yale Cellos, and her discography includes their most recent CD, “Cello, Celli,” featuring the music of Bach and Dave Brubeck (Naxos).
Ariana was a Fulbright Scholar to Germany, and she now serves as Music Director of the Massachusetts Fulbright Association. She has served on the chamber music faculty of Brown University and on the faculty of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Other festival appearances include the Norfolk Music Festival, the Garth Newel Music Center, the Banff Centre, and the Juilliard, Great Lakes, and Deer Valley string quartet seminars.
A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Ariana has premiered dozens of new works and is committed to performing and celebrating the music of our time. She worked with Joan Tower, was a member of the Norfolk Contemporary Ensemble, and gave the Heidelberg premiere of Luciano Berio’s Sequenza XIV.
A native of Portland, Ariana made her solo debut with the “Live from the Schnitzer” orchestra playing Elgar at age fifteen. As part of the Charivari String Quartet with her violist twin brother, she appeared on the pilot season of “From the Top” in Boston’s Jordan Hall.
Peter Sulski (violin/viola) has performed in over 30 countries as a member of the Apple Hill Chamber Players, London Symphony Orchestra, Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields, Cyprus Chamber Orchestra, and Al Kamandjati Baroque Ensemble (Palestine). He returned to his native Worcester in 2002, after holding the position of Head of Strings of the Edward Said National Palestinian Conservatory. Mr. Sulski is a founder and member of the Worcester Chamber Mus,c Society, which performs over twenty concerts annually in the New England region. He is an educator with the society’s Neighborhood Strings, a free program for disadvantaged youth. Peter is also the founder of Chapel Royal Concerts in Brighton, England, now entering its 25th season, presenting over 40 concerts annually.
Performances of note have included the Arnold Viola Concerto with the State Orchestra of Sicily, Mozart’s Sinfonie Concertante with the Cyprus Chamber Orchestra and the Palestine National Orchestra, a Carnegie Hall debut in 1999, and a solo recital appearance at London’s South Bank in 2002.
He currently appears as principal violist with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera, Camerata New England, and the Orchestra of Indian Hill. Other chamber music activities include the Pedroia quartet, (along with Jae Lee, a founder of A Far Cry), the Chameleon Ensemble, duo partnerships with pianists Yundu Wang and Jonathan Yasuda, Boston Musica Viva, Clark 2021 Contemporary Ensemble, and the Al Kamandjati Baroque Ensemble.
Other activities and professorships include Concert Master of Bach Consort, specializing in baroque violin concertos, and positions at Clark University, Assumption College, and Worcester State University.
He received his undergraduate education at the Eastman School of Music, and holds Artist Diplomas from the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Royal Academy of Music, London. Peter is a former fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center.
Mr. Sulski is a United States Cultural Envoy to Jerusalem for his work bringing music to young Palestinians living in refugee camps. He is also a solo recording artist for Parma Records.
Rohan Gregory (violin) is a violinist that has cultivated wide-ranging expertise in chamber music, new music and world music. He has played with the Apple Hill Chamber Players, the Ancora Ensemble, and the award-winning Boccherini Ensemble and was also a founding member for ten years of the Arden String Quartet, performing new music concerts in New York, Boston, Amsterdam, and St. Petersburg, Russia. He has recorded on for Centaur records.
On the world music scene, Rohan has toured extensively. His travels have taken him to Europe with the Klezmatics, to Thailand with multi-ethnic flute player Abbie Rabinowitz, to India with the Indo-jazz group Natraj and to the U.S. west coast with Sophia Bilides Greek Folk Ensemble. Recently he has played nationally and internationally with the flamenco guitarist Juanito Pascual. Locally, Rohan is a member of the Lyric Opera Company and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. He coaches chamber music for the Walnut Hill School, teaches at the College of the Holy Cross, and spends his summers coaching at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber music in New Hampshire, at Music at Port Milford in Ontario, Canada, and at the WCMS ChamberFest.
Mark Berger (violin/viola) has performed with many of Boston’s finest ensembles, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Esplanade, Emmanuel Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Opera Boston, and Boston Lyric Opera. An avid chamber musician with a particular interest in performing new music, he is a member of the Lydian String Quartet, Music at Eden’s Edge and has a duo partnership “The Two Composers” with pianist/composer Ketty Nez. Mark has recently performed with the Radius Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva and Ludovico Ensemble. Mark also maintains an active career as a composer, having received awards from the League of Composers/ISCM and ASCAP. The New York New Music Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, ALEA III, the Worcester Chamber Music Society, Xanthos Ensemble, Music at Eden’s Edge, QX String Quartet, and the Lydian String Quartet have presented his works locally. He is currently on the music faculty at Brandeis University, Boston College, UMass Lowell and Middlesex Community College.
Randall Hodgkinson (piano) is the Grand Prize Winner of the International American Music Competition sponsored by Carnegie Hall and the Rockefeller Foundation. He’s performed with orchestras in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Boston, Cleveland, and abroad in Italy and Iceland. In addition, he has performed numerous recital programs spanning the repertoire from J.S. Bach to Donald Martino. He is the newest member of the Worcester Chamber Music Society, and he performs the four-hand and two-piano repertoire with his wife Leslie Amper. Mr. Hodgkinson’s festival appearances include Blue Hill (Maine), BargeMusic, Chestnut Hill Concerts (Madison, Connecticut), Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Recently, Mr. Hodgkinson gave the world premiere of the Piano Concerto by Gardner Read at the Eastman School in Rochester. He’s a faculty member of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and the Longy School of Music in Cambridge.