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Annie Barley began playing the cello at the age of two. Annie attended the Eastman School of Music and the University of South Florida, earning both bachelors and masters degrees. A versatile musician, Annie is in high demand as a Suzuki cello clinician, she has frequently been invited to teach all over the world and has been directly involved in the creation of three separate Suzuki Education programs.  Annie spent the past year teaching general music as well as Suzuki cello and piano in Tanzania, East Africa and is looking forward to her new position as the music teacher and director of gospel choirs at St. Aloysius School in Harlem, New York City.

Elizabeth Brown was born in San Diego, California, and began playing the cello at the age of four.
Ms. Brown has performed with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, Canton Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, National Repertory Orchestra and others. Ms. Brown received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Alan Harris.  Ms. Brown is currently in her fourth season as the principal cellist of La Orquesta Sinfonica Sinaloa de las Artes, in Sinaloa, Mexico.
Adam Carter is currently pursuing a doctoral degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Mr. Carter is a member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and is an adjunct professor of cello and bass at Ripon College.  Mr. Carter received an MM and a BM with distinction from the Eastman School of Music.  His principle teachers include Steven Doane, Rosemary Elliot, Robert Marsh, and Uri Vardi.   Mr. Carter has played in master classes for such artists as Stephen Geber, Ronald Leonard, Hans Jensen, and members of the Emerson, Miro, and Ying quartets.  Mr. Carter is a top prizewinner at the 1998 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.


Alex Greenbaum began playing the cello at age three.  In the past few years he has performed as soloist or collaborator at venues throughout New York City, including Bargemusic, Merkin Hall, Makor, Tonic, The Cutting Room, Rockwood Music Hall, the Brooklyn Lyceum and at Lincoln Center.  An avid chamber musician, Alex is a member of the Knights chamber ensemble and the new music group Signal and Noise.  Alex has appeared as a soloist with the National Repertory Orchestra, and this season will solo with the Chelsea Symphony.  He has attended the Eastman School of Music, the Royal Northern College of Music, the University of Miami and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College.  His teachers have included Steven Doane, Marcy Rosen, Ross Harbaugh and Andre Emelianoff.  Alex plays a cello crafted in 2006 by Michele Ashley. 
Susannah Kelly ?lives in Tampa, FL where she is currently the principal cellist of the Southwest Florida Symphony in Fort Myers, FL and a graduate assistant at the University of South Florida. She received degrees in cello performance from the Eastman School of Music. She has participated in numerous festivals including the Tanglewood Music Center, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Quartet Program at Bucknell and has performed in the cello sections of orchestras including the New World Symphony, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, and the National Repertory Orchestra.

Kevin McFarland received a Bachelor’s Degree in Composition from the Eastman School of Music. While a student there he was a highly active performer of contemporary music, including frequent concerts with the school’s Ossia New Music and Musica Nova ensembles, and over one hundred premieres of works by faculty and students. He is also a member of the JACK quartet, a group dedicated to the performance of modern and contemporary works for string quartet based in New York City.  He has collaborated with a diverse array of composers, including Pierre Boulez, Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm, La Monte Young, and John Zorn.  He currently lives in Pennsylvania where he works as a math tutor and makes electronic music in his spare time.
Michael Midlarsky, currently a student of Uri Vardi and Collins Distinguished Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, has performed extensively as a chamber musician and soloist during his formative years.  He has won numerous awards and distinctions including the National School Orchestra Soloist Award, Queen’s College Cultural Heritage Competition, NJ American String Teacher’s Association Competition, East Brunswick Orchestra Competition, and prizewinner in the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra Competition and Woodmere String Competition.  Recent festivals include the Taos School of Music and Roundtop International Institute.  As a chamber musician he has performed in over 15 states, 4 countries, and on the radio program From the Top, after which he won the ensuing competition.  Known for a “remarkable warmth of sound” and “lilting lyricism” (competition judges), Michael is looking forward to many premier performances as his career continues to blossom.  
Florent Renard-Payen was born in Paris to a family of professional musicians; his parents were both harpists. He studied in France with Annie Cochet and Michel Strauss. At the age of twenty, he moved to Boston to pursue five years of graduate study with Andrés Díaz, culminating in a Master’s degree and the Pi Kappa Lambda award for musical achievement from Boston University in 1996. He completed his musical studies in 2004, earning a Doctor of Musical Arts in Cello Performance from the Eastman School of Music. During his studies in the states, Florent had the honor of performing in master classes for Pieter Wispelwey, Yo-Yo Ma, Roberto Díaz and the late Joseph Gingold. Since 1999, Florent has been teaching cello at Colgate University and chamber music at Hamilton College, NY. A champion of music of the 20th and 21st centuries, Florent is the founder of the Tarab Cello Ensemble, and a guest performer of the Society for New Music in Syracuse. Florent has commissioned and premiered solo cello works by Randall Bauer, Garrett Byrnes, Todd Coleman, Gregory Mertl, Aaron Travers, and Dan Trueman.