Praised for his “technical virtuosity and musical sensitivity” (NewMusicBox) and “real flair” (The Well-Tempered Ear), flutist Timothy Hagen is a laureate of multiple national and international competitions, including the Myrna Brown Artist Competition and Australian International Flute Competition. He is Principal Flute of the Dubuque Symphony and Missouri Symphony, and has performed with professional ensembles across the country, including the Minnesota Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Grant Park Orchestra, Kalamazoo Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, and Dallas Wind Symphony. His award-winning compositions are performed by musicians throughout North America and Europe, and his scholarly writing has appeared in the journals of the National Flute Association (USA) and British Flute Society. 

Hagen is an instructor for online conservatory tonebase, where his courses can be found alongside those by faculty members from top musical institutions such as the Juilliard School, Rice University, University of Michigan, Peabody Institute, and the symphony orchestras of Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Detroit. He is Assistant Professor of Flute at Central Washington University and has taught at Clarke University, Austin Peay Stare University, Central Michigan University, the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Oklahoma State University, The University of Texas-Austin, and Brookhaven College, as well as in partnerships with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Lincoln Center Education, and Dallas Symphony. He completed his studies at the UNC School of the Arts, University of Southern California, Colburn School, and UT-Austin, and his teachers include Marianne Gedigian, Jim Walker, Philip Dunigan, Renée Siebert, Tadeu Coelho, Chelsea Czuchra, Felicia McNaught, and Tina Ballard.

Wilfred Farquharson is a violist from the Atlanta, Georgia area that now calls Chicago, Illinois his home. With his versatile musicality, he thrives as a studio, orchestral, and chamber musician.

As an active contributor to the dynamic musical ecosystem of Chicago, Wilfred is a violist for the chamber ensembles D-Composed Chicago and Crossing Borders Music. On top of these ensembles Wilfred can be heard around the city performing and subbing with renowned orchestras such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Philharmonic, Chicago Sinfonietta, and occasionally as the Principal Violist of the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. Outside of Chicago, Wilfred has also performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, served as guest Assistant Principal for the Augusta Symphony Orchestra, and many recording orchestras including the Re-Collective and Matt Jones Orchestras.  Furthermore, Wilfred has performed and recorded for some of Pop’s and Classical Music’s biggest artists. Some of these artists Ms. Lauryn Hill, John Legend, Jessie Montgomery, Rachel Barton-Pine, Sudan Archives, DRAMA, Andra Day, Robert Glasper, Burna Boy, Arthur Verocai, and Carlos Simon. Recently, Wilfred performed as part of Stevie Wonder’s Sing A Song To Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart Tour throughout the Midwest. 

Beyond his performance endeavors Wilfred has an ardent dedication to nurturing and educating aspiring violists and budding artists. He proudly held a faculty position at the esteemed Merit School of Music Pfaelzer Conservatory of Music from 2022-2024 and currently serves as a mentor for the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative. He also proudly contributed as an advisory board member for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s African American Network from 2022-2023.

Having been honored as a Premier Young Artist awardee, he obtained his bachelor’s degree from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and graduated with honors from the University of Southern California for his graduate studies at the Thornton School of Music.

Pianist Christopher Guzman enjoys an international performing career, performing in various styles from the Baroque era to the avant-garde. Since winning top prizes in international competitions such as the Walter M. Naumburg Competition (USA), the Seoul International Music Competition (S. Korea), the Isang Yun Competition (S. Korea), and the Concours International de Piano d’Orléans (France), Mr. Guzman has performed across Europe, North and South America, and Asia. He has appeared in concert in major international venues such as Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, Buenos Aires’s CCK, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, and London’s Wigmore Hall. As a chamber musician, he regularly performs with members of the world’s finest orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. He joined Chicago’s Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in 2024 as pianist and organist. 

Much of his career centers on music written after 1900, and his performances include world premieres by Donald Martino, Nico Muhly, and Paul Schoenfield, among others. The New York Times hailed his performance of Christopher Theofanidis’s Statues as “coiled” and “explosive.” 

Mr. Guzman began studying piano at age nine and violoncello two years later. His principal teacher teacher in San Antonio was Kenneth Thompson. He later studied at The Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory, and the University of Texas at Austin. He is now a Professor of Piano at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. For more information, please visit christopherguzmanpiano.com.