Stephanie Jeong was appointed associate concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2011 by Music Director Riccardo Muti. Prior to joining the Orchestra, she was a member of the New York Philharmonic from 2010 to 2011. She is a top-prize winner and recipient of the Best Paganini Concerto Prize of the 2008 Paganini Violin Competition in Italy. Jeong made solo debuts at the age of 12 with the CSO and the Philadelphia Orchestra, respectively, as winner of the Feinberg Competition. A native of East Rutherford, New Jersey, Stephanie Jeong began her studies in New York with Nicole DiCecco at the Suzuki Program Music School. At the age of three, she moved to Chicago, where she studied with Betty Haag-Kuhnke at the Betty Haag Academy of Music. In 1997, at nine, she became one of the youngest students ever accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Aaron Rosand. She received a master’s degree from the Juilliard School as a student of Cho-Liang Lin and Ronald Copes.

Matous Michal was appointed to the violin section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by Maestro Riccardo Muti in February 2016. Prior to joining the CSO, he held a position in the first violin section of the Grant Park Orchestra. A native of the Czech Republic, Matous Michal began his violin studies at age four under his father, Ladislav Michal. At the age of 14, he began studies at the Prague Conservatory as a student of Jaroslav Foltýn. Also at age 14, Michal came to the United States for the first time to participate in a summer program at the Meadowmount School of Music in upstate New York under the tutelage of Charles Avsharian. After graduating from the Prague Conservatory, he joined the studio of Glenn Dicterow and completed his bachelor’s degree at the Juilliard School. While at Juilliard, Michal worked closely with Sylvia Rosenberg and Joseph Kalichstein. In May 2016, he earned his master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music in the orchestral performance program under Dicterow and Lisa Kim, four months after joining the CSO. 

Violist Danny Lai was appointed to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2014 by Riccardo Muti. He began his musical studies on the piano at age six and started the viola in the Iowa City public school system when he was ten. At age sixteen, after performing the first movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, he decided to pursue his dream of becoming a professional violist. He studied at Northwestern University with Roland Vamos while taking orchestral repertoire classes with former CSO principal violist Charles Pikler. After graduating with degrees in both economics and music, Lai joined the viola section of the Colorado Symphony. Lai has made recital appearances at the Kennedy Center in Washington (D.C.). He is an alumnus of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and the YouTube Symphony Orchestra in Sydney, Australia. He is also a prize winner in major competitions, including the Stulberg Competition, Jefferson Symphony International Young Artists Competition, Thaviu String Competition and Luminarts Union League Strings Competition.

Having given his Carnegie Hall recital debut in 2022, cellist Alexander Hersh has quickly established himself as one of the most exciting and creative talents of his generation. He frequently appears as soloist with major orchestras, including the Houston Symphony, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and Boston POPS, and has received top prizes at competitions worldwide including the: 2024 Naumburg International Cello Competition, 2022 Pro Musicis International Award, 2020 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, 2019 Astral Artists National Auditions, National Federation of Music Clubs Biennial Young Artists Competition, New York International Artists Association Competition, Friends of the Minnesota Orchestra, Ima Hogg, Schadt, Artist Concerts Series National Solo Competition, Luminarts Classical Music Fellowship, Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award, Hellam Young Artist Competition, Boston Pops/New England Conservatory Competition, Jefferson Symphony International Young Artists Competition, Society of American Musicians, Saint Paul String Quartet, and the Fischoff National Chamber Music competition. 

Hailed by The Washington Post for his “poised and imaginative playing,” Filipino-American pianist Victor Santiago Asuncion has appeared in concert halls in Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, Spain, Turkey and the USA, as a recitalist and concerto soloist. He played his orchestral debut at the age of 18 with the Manila Chamber Orchestra, and his New York recital debut in Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in 1999. In addition, he has worked with conductors including Sergio Esmilla, Enrique Batiz, Mei Ann Chen, Zeev Dorman, Arthur Weisberg, Corrick Brown, David Loebel, Leon Fleisher, Michael Stern, Jordan Tang, and Bobby McFerrin. A chamber music enthusiast, he has performed with artists such as Lynn Harrell, Zuill Bailey, Andres Diaz, James Dunham, Antonio Meneses, Joshua Roman, Cho-Liang Lin, Giora Schmidt, the Dover, Emerson, Serafin, Sao Paulo, and Vega String Quartets. He was on the chamber music faculty of the Aspen Music Festival, and the Garth Newel Summer Music Festival. Mr. Asuncion is the Founder, and Artistic and Board Director of FilAm Music Foundation, a non-profit foundation dedicated to promoting Filipino classical musicians through scholarship and performance. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in 2007 from the University of Maryland under the tutelage of Rita Sloan. Victor Santiago Asuncion is a Steinway artist.