Born in Taiwan and raised in Florida, clarinetist Elisha Willinger leads a versatile career as a chamber musician, soloist, educator, and orchestral performer. His appearances have included performing with many ensembles such as the Detroit, Baltimore, North Carolina, Virginia, Richmond, Charleston, and New World symphonies. He has also appeared as principal with the New Haven Symphony and performed chamber music with members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

A winner of competitions including the 2012 Yamaha Young Performing Artists competition, 2017 Yale Chamber Music Society, and 2019 International Clarinet Association’s orchestral competition, he has performed in the US, Europe, and Canada and was soloist with The Royal Conservatory Chamber Orchestra. He has spent summers performing as a fellow with the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, National Repertory Orchestra, Sarasota, Norfolk, American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, among others.

An avid educator, Dr. Willinger joined as the Assistant Teaching Professor of Clarinet at Ball State University in the Fall of 2023. He holds graduate degrees from Yale University, University of Michigan, and The Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School in Toronto. He earned his Bachelor of Music from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. His major teachers include David Shifrin, Joaquin Valdepeñas, Daniel Gilbert, Chad Burrow, and Ixi Chen.

Award-winning pianist Lior Leigh performs as a solo and chamber artist in the US and abroad. At the age of 19, he made his New York concerto debut at Carnegie Hall performing Piano Concerto No. 1 by Dmitri Shostakovich. He won grand prize and audience prize in the Camerata Artists International Piano Competition following his performance of Piano Concerto No. 3 by Sergei Prokofiev at Merkin Hall.
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An avid chamber musician, Dr. Leigh has collaborated in recitals with musicians of the Boston, Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, Cleveland, and Minnesota orchestras. Passionate about the music of our time, Dr. Leigh has premiered countless works and has released a commissioning/performance/article series on I CARE IF YOU LISTEN called Active Listening. Each work in the project hopes to bring awareness and action to a social justice issue chosen by the composer.
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Dr. Leigh earned the Bachelor of Music degree, the Master of Music degree, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with renowned artist-teacher, Yong Hi Moon. During his graduate studies, Peabody Conservatory honored Dr. Leigh with the Sidney Friedberg Prize in Chamber Music and the Presser Music Award “given to a student demonstrating excellence and outstanding promise for a distinguished career in the field of music.”
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Active in the Baltimore community, Dr. Leigh is the Founder/Artistic Director of the If Music Be the Food concert series in Baltimore which acts to increase support and awareness for those struggling with food insecurity. The series, which partners with the Maryland Food Bank, has raised thousands of meals for those in need. Towards the end of his doctoral studies, he was appointed to the music theory and keyboard studies faculty at Peabody Conservatory.