Our Musicians

Jacqueline Audas is a passionate violinist, focused on engaging and empowering communities through classical music. Her belief in the power of music to create bonds between people inspired her to found the non-profit organization, Classical C.A.R.M.A. (Concerts Aiming to Raise Money & Awareness). As artistic and executive director, Jacqueline helps to produce and perform innovative concert series. 

In the past few years, Jacqueline has made appearances abroad in Israel, Germany, Italy, Spain, and New Zealand and performed as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician around the United States. Most recently, she has performed at the North Shore Chamber Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Keshet Eilon Mastercourse and the Sommermusik im Oberen Nagoldtal. Jacqueline is a member of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and will be joining the Music in the Mountains Festival Orchestra for the Summer of 2022. She also performs as an artist with the  Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in New York City.   

Jacqueline has been awarded the top prize in multiple competitions. Most recently, she was the first prize winner of the Yale-Gordon Competition for Strings. She was a finalist in the Barlassina International Young Talents Competition and a quarter-finalist in both the 2019 Michael Hill International Violin Competition and the 2020 Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition.

Jacqueline Audas graduated with her Master’s Degree in Violin Performance from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where she held the Anne and Charles Duncan Concertmaster Chair. While completing both her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees at the Shepherd School of Music, she studied with Paul Kantor. Prior to attending university, she studied with the late Arkady Fomin. Currently, she works with Vadim Gluzman at Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Institute.

Katherine Audas is currently pursuing an artist diploma degree in cello performance with Brin-

ton Smith at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, where she holds the Appassionata En-

dowed Scholarship in Music and the Annette and Hugh Gragg Principal Chair in Cello. She

graduated cum laude from Rice University with her undergraduate degree in cello performance

where she studied with Norman richer and her masters degree in cello pertormance where she

studied with Brinton Smith.

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Katherine made her solo debut at the age of 11 as the winner of the Young Artist's Competition

of the Meridian Symphony. In January 2020, she was awarded first prize at the Ann and Charles

Eisemann International Young Artists Competition. In 2019, she was awarded the silver medal at the IX Concurso Internacional Violonchelo Carlos Prieto, as well as Fourth Prize and the Audience Favorite award at the 2019 Ima Hogg Competition. In the past, she has won the Shepherd School of Music Concerto Competition, the Gold Medal and the Audience Favorite Award at the Young Texas Artists Music Competition, the Grand Prize at the Enkor International Music Competition, and the Grand Prize in the junior division of the Tulsa International Crescendo Music

Awards.

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Katherine has appeared as a soloist with numerous symphonies, including the Houston Symphony at the Ima Hogg Competition, the Northbrook Symphony, the Michoacán Symphony, the Shepherd School of Music Symphony Orchestra, the Boise Philharmonic, the Walla Walla Symphony, and the Music in the Mountains Festival Orchestra. In June 2021, she recently performed at the North Shore Chamber Music Festival where she was praised for the "inviting, vocal quality" of her tone in the Chicago Classical Review.

Katherine performs on a 1696 Grancino composite cello.

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Hailed for “her expressive and sensitive sound,” Dr. Kyung-A Yoo, Associate Professor of Collaborative Piano joined the faculty of the Townsend School of Music (TSM) in 2021. As a distinguished artist at Robert McDuffie Center for Strings, Dr. Yoo coaches and performs with string players and guest artists.

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Before joining TSM, she served as an Artist Collaborator at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music for nine years. Working closely with such renowned musicians and pedagogues as Leone Buyse, Paul Kantor, Richie Hawley, and Stephen King, she played for numerous master classes and recitals every year. Her performances and interviews were featured on The Front Row, hosted by KUHF Houston Public Radio, collaborating with flutists Leone Buyse, Jean Ferrandis, and Sergio Pallottelli. Throughout her career, Dr. Yoo collaborated with many distinguished artists and the list includes Ralph Kirshbaum, Steve Doane, Tim Eddy, Mark Kaplan, Barbara Butler, Jean Ferrandis, and Richie Hawley.

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Her professional career started at Manhattan School of Music where she received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Collaborative Piano under the tutelage of Dr. Heasook Rhee and worked as a staff pianist and vocal coach. As a collaborative pianist, she frequently performed with new music ensemble the New York Composers Circle, the Joy in Singing Art Song Competition, New Triad for Collaborative Arts, and the Korea Music Foundation, presenting debut recitals and annual concerts at Carnegie and Merkin Halls. 

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After serving as a visiting Assistant Professor of Collaborative Piano at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University, Dr. Yoo continued her work as a collaborative pianist at Oberlin Conservatory. She also worked as faculty member of the Heifetz International Music Institute and joined Aspen Music Festival and School in 2014 as a collaborative pianist.

Australian Mezzo Soprano, Susan Lorette Dunn enjoys a vibrant and dynamic career as a performer and educator. She studied at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music in Brisbane, Queensland, graduating with both a Bachelor of Music Degree (performance and teaching) and a Graduate Diploma of Opera. 

Miss Dunn has performed on the operatic and concert stage globally, with engagements throughout  the USA, Europe, and Australia. In Australia Ms. Dunn has performed with Opera Australia, Opera Queensland, Queensland Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, The Queensland Ballet, The Really Useful Company, ABC Australia, 4MBS, major Australian orchestras, and other performing arts companies. 

Since moving to the USA in 2002 Miss Dunn has sung concert performances with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Chicago Philharmonic, Charlotte Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, El Paso Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Spokane Symphony, Toledo Symphony, Chautauqua Symphony, Camerata of San Antonio, Grand Rapids Symphony, Context, and the Martinu Philharmonic in the Czech Republic. Miss Dunn has performed regularly in prestigious summer music festivals including the Grand Teton Music Festival, Connecticut’s Summer Music Festival, Interlochen Music Festival, Sunflower Music Festival, Cactus Pear Music Festival, Chautauqua Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, and the International Conductor’s Workshop in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Ukraine. 

Miss Dunn has won many major Australian singing competitions including the State and Commonwealth Finals of the ABC Instrumental and Vocal Competition, an Opera Foundation Scholarship for study in Israel, Australia Council Grant for study in London, Arts Queensland Personal Development Grant, and in 2000, a prestigious Winston Churchill Fellowship where she worked with the New York Festival of Song in New York City. As a result of her Churchill Fellowship, Miss Dunn performs a series of concerts at The Shepherd School of Music, dedicated to the revitalization and re-invention of the song recital. 

Susan Lorette Dunn has held positions as an educator in both Australia and the USA. In Australia she was a lecturer at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and the Queensland University of Technology, where she also devised programs in music theatre skills. Since 2002, Miss Dunn has had the titles of Artist Teacher of Voice and Artist Teacher of Opera Studies within the Voice and Opera Faculty of the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University. 

Miss Dunn is internationally recognized for her teaching approach toward developing presence on stage. In her work with singers, instrumentalists and conductors, she employs a protocol that embodies a neurophysiological approaching for attaining peak performance. She has served on the faculty of Brevard Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, Miami Music Festival, and the International Conducting Workshop and Festival. She has taught master classes at the Aspen Music Festival, Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca, Music Academy of the West, and Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Australia.

Cellist David Dietz has performed across the US and Europe and is experienced in a variety of settings as both a performer and a teacher. He currently resides in Houston, Texas. David received his Bachelor’s Degree and Performer Diploma at Indiana University and recently completed his master’s degree at Rice University in 2022. This summer he was a teaching fellow at the Encore Chamber Music Festival in Cleveland, Ohio where he performed chamber music alongside the Verona Quartet and Sibbi Bernhardsson. In the 2022-2023 season, David will make appearances with MUSIQA, Monarch Chamber Players, Classical C.A.R.M.A., the Klangspuren Festival in Innsbruck, Austria, Dacamera Young Artists, the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra and the Houston Cello Quartet.

Christopher Theofanidis (b. 12/18/67 in Dallas, Texas) has had performances by many leading orchestras from around the world, including the London Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, the Moscow Soloists, the National, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Detroit Symphonies, among many others.  He has also served as Composer of the Year for the Pittsburgh Symphony during their 2006-7 season, for which he wrote a violin concerto for Sarah Chang.

Mr. Theofanidis holds degrees from Yale, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Houston, and has been the recipient of the International Masterprize, the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Fulbright fellowship to France to study with Tristan Murail at IRCAM, a Tanglewood fellowship, and two fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  In 2007 he was nominated for a Grammy award for best composition for his chorus and orchestra work, The Here and Now, based on the poetry of Rumi, and in 2017 for his bassoon concerto.  In 2021, his viola concerto won a grammy for violist, Richard O’Neill.  His orchestral work, Rainbow Body, has been one of the most performed new orchestral works of the new millennium, having been performed by over 150 orchestras internationally.

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Mr. Theofanidis’ has written a ballet for the American Ballet Theatre, a work for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra as part of their ‘New Brandenburg’ series, and two operas for the San Francisco and Houston Grand Opera companies.  Thomas Hampson sang the lead role in the San Francisco opera.  His work for Houston, The Refuge, features six sets of international non-Western musicians alongside the opera musicians.  He has a long-standing relationship with the Atlanta Symphony and Maestro Robert Spano, and has just four recordings with them, including his concert length oratorio, Creation/Creator, which was featured at the SHIFT festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. this year with the ASO, chorus, and soloists.  His work, Dreamtime Ancestors, for the orchestral consortium, New Music for America, has been played by over fifty orchestras over the past two seasons.  He has served as a delegate to the US-Japan Foundation’s Leadership Program, and he is a former faculty member of the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University as well as the Juilliard School.  Mr. Theofanidis is currently a professor at Yale University, and composer-in-residence of the composition program at the Aspen Music Festival.

Mark Wingate, is a composer of digital music, and has taught composition and been the director of the new center for electroacoustic music at Florida State University for many years.  He came to FSU after having co-founded and directed the Electronic Arts Studio at Istanbul Technical University in Turkey. He earned his D.M.A. in composition from the University of Texas at Austin and worked as a Fulbright Scholar to Sweden in 1994. He received a Travel Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to Caracas, Venezuela, where he wrote theater music and was awarded an NEA Composer Fellowship in 1997.

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In 1999, Wingate was a recipient of the Rome Prize in Music Composition from the American Academy in Rome. His electroacoustic works have received international acclaim at new music festivals such as ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) World Music Days, Copenhagen and London, the "Warsaw Autumn" International Festival of Contemporary Music, and others.

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Dr. Wingate's compositions have garnered prizes and honors from international juried competitions such as the Stockholm Electronic Arts Award, the "Prix de la Musique Electroacoustique Caractère," Bourges, France, and Prix Ars Electronica in Austria. His music has been recorded on Centaur Records, empreintes DIGITALES Records, and Mnémosyne Musique Média Records UNESCO/CIME.