Known for her wide array of nuances of color and emotional music-making, Korean cellist Olivia Jakyoung Huh is rapidly gaining attention as one of the leading cellists of her generation. Olivia has won numerous international competitions including first prize and special prize at the Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition. Among her many earlier competition awards, she was recognized as first place in the Tecchler-Forest Cello Competition, the Joongang Daily Music Competition first prize, first place in the Shinhan Bank Music Awards, top honor in the 20th International Johannes Brahms

Competition, as well as third prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. She was most recently invited to compete in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2022 and the Geneva Competition in 2021. Her success has led to performances in venues across the United States including Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall; the Koussevitzky Music Shed, Seiji Ozawa Hall, and Jordan Hall in Massachusetts; Galvin Hall and Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in Illinois; as well as abroad in various venues around the world in Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, China, Spain, Japan, Malaysia, and South Korea.

Olivia made her solo debut recital at the age of seven in the Kumho Prodigy Concert Series followed by her concerto debut with the Guri Philharmonic Orchestra. She has been praised for her performances of the hallmarks of the cello repertoire such as Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations and her engagements over the last decade include concerto appearances with notable orchestras such as the Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra, the New Korea Philharmonic Orchestra, the Harbin Symphony Orchestra, the Busan Symphony Orchestra, the Seoul Soloist Cello Ensemble, the State Symphony Orchestra, among others.

As an avid chamber musician, she has performed at a number of prestigious festivals and seminars including the Yellow Barn Summer Festival, the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, the Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, the Borromeo String Quartet Seminar, the Tanglewood Music Festival, and the New York String Orchestra Seminar. Olivia has also attended the Orford Music Festival, the Summit Music Festival, the Great Mountains Music Festival, the Spain Calahorra Music Festival, and the Kronberg Academy as a soloist.

Olivia is currently pursuing a Master of Musical Arts degree in Cello Performance at the Yale University School of Music under Paul Watkins. She received a master’s degree at the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music under the tutelage of Hans Jørgen Jensen. Olivia was a long-time student of Myung-Wha Chung before attending the New England Conservatory, where she received her Bachelor of Music degree studying with Laurence Lesser. In her free time, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her family and her 9-year-old dog, Ramin.

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, and Turkey 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. Additionally, 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. His recordings include the complete Sonatas of L. van Beethoven with cellist Tobias Werner, Sonatas by Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff with cellist Joseph Johnson, and the Chopin and Grieg Sonatas with cellist Evan Drachman. He is featured in the award-winning recording “Songs My Father Taught Me” with Lynn Harrell, produced by Louise Frank and WFMT-Chicago.

Mr. Asuncion is the Founder, and Artistic and Board Director of FilAm Music Foundation, a non-profit foundation that is 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 at College Park under the tutelage of Rita Sloan. Victor is a Steinway artist.