Intimate Voices chamber music in an intimate setting
2022 -2023 Concert Artists
New York-based Venezuelan violist Ramón Carrero-Martínez won the Grand Prize at the 2022 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition as a member of the Terra String Quartet, a young and vibrant ensemble based in NewYork City, and he has won other competitions in the US, Italy, and Venezuela as both a soloist and a chamber musician.
His most recent engagements include the 2022 National Tour with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Branford Marsalis, and his debut as a soloist with the New York Classical Players performing the world premiere of James Ra's “Triple Viola Concerto”. As a chamber musician he has appeared at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Haydn Hall of the Esterházy Palace, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others, and festivals such as Esterhazy Palace String Quartet Festival, Musica Mundi International Chamber Music Festival and Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival.
As an educator, Mr. Carrero-Martinez is a faculty artist at the San Antonio Classical Music Institute (CMI) summer education program as well as a member of the faculties of the Bronx-based music program UpBeat NYC, and the Orchestrating Dreams program in Inwood. Both of these New York City programs are inspired by the philosophy of Venezuela’s National System of Youth Orchestras, “El Sistema.”
Mr. Carrero-Martinez was a member of “El Sistema” and previously studied economics in Venezuela. He holds a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music, studying with Daniel Avshalomov.
For more information, please visit ramoncarreromartinez.com
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Violinist Renée Jolles enjoys an eclectic career as soloist and chamber artist specializing in a wide variety of styles from the Baroque to the contemporary. Hailed as a “real star” by The New York Times for her New York concerto debut in Alice Tully Hall, she has premiered hundreds of works, including the American premiere of Schnittke’s Violin Concerto No. 2. Her concerto engagements have included orchestras such as Orpheus, the Philharmonic Orchestra of New Jersey, and the Salisbury Symphony.
Ms. Jolles is a member of the Jolles Duo, Continuum, Intimate Voices, and The New York Chamber Ensemble, and she is a concertmaster of the world-renowned, Grammy Award winning, conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Honored to be a featured soloist in three world premieres as part of the Orpheus “New Brandenburg” commissions, she can be heard as soloist on the WQXR website in live performances from Carnegie Hall. She has performed at festivals such as Marlboro, Cape May, Norfolk, Taos and Riverrun. Committed to recording new music, she can be heard as soloist and chamber artist on the CRI,Cambria, North/South Recordings, Albany, and New World record labels, as well as on recent recordings which showcase the music of Oleg Felzer, Victoria Bond, and Ushio Torikai.
Ms. Jolles is Professor of Violin at the Eastman School of Music, and during the summer she is on the faculty at the Bowdoin International Music Festival. She received her BM and MM from Juilliard, and her teachers have included Lewis Kaplan, Felix Galimir, Jacob Lateiner, and members of the Juilliard, Tokyo, and American String Quartets.
This is Ms. Jolles's fourteenth consecutive season of appearing with Intimate Voices.
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Cellist Melissa Meell performs throughout the world as both soloist and chamber musician. The New York Times has called her “a cellist with a fine singing quality and a poetic sensibility that proves memorable.” She has the rare distinction of twice winning the prestigious Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award. As a result of the award, she was presented in critically acclaimed debuts at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, commissioned new works for the ensembles, and performed in every major concert hall throughout the United States.
Ms. Meell is an active member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with whom she has recorded extensively for Deutsche Grammophon and Nonesuch records. In addition to their annual series at Carnegie Hall, they have been featured performers on the PBS series, “Live From Lincoln Center” with such luminaries as, Gil Shaham, Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell and Renee Fleming. She has also served as an Orpheus board member and Artistic Director.
Ms. Meell has enjoyed performing in a variety of musical styles including performances with artists from Sinatra to Sting, as a member of “The Guys All-Star Shoe Band” on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor, and starring in an Off Broadway show written for her string quartet by Tina Howe and directed by Andre Gregory.
In addition, Ms. Meell has collaborated with the country’s finest ensembles including, Musicians from Marlboro, Bridgehampton Chamber Music, Chesapeake Chamber Music and North Country Chamber Players. For many years, she was a member of The New York Philomusica with whom she has recorded the chamber music of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms.
Violinist Sheila Reinhold is the founder and Music Director of Intimate Voices, now in its fourteenth season. She gave her first performance as soloist with orchestra at the age of nine in the Kaufmann Concert Hall of New York's 92nd Street Y. At fourteen, she played for Jascha Heifetz, and was invited to join his master class at the University of Southern California, where she studied with him for five years. She received her B.Mus. from USC, and studied theory and analysis with Leon Kirchner and Earl Kim at Harvard University.
Ms. Reinhold's engagements have included solo appearances with conductors such as Zubin Mehta and André Kostelanetz, chamber music with Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky, and performances as soloist at the Chautauqua and Ives Festivals. She has also premiered solo and chamber works for both violin and viola, and been a regular participant in chamber music on both violin and viola in series such as the Mohawk Trails Concerts in Massachusetts. She plays music in other genres as well, working on major films and Broadway productions, and appearing with popular artists including Tony Bennett. She has recorded as a chamber musician on the Albany and North/South labels, and is featured on a recent recording of the music of Allen Shawn.
Ms. Reinhold’s lifetime dedication to teaching has led to positions ranging from Resident Musician at Harvard University to chair of the string faculty at the Children’s Orchestra Society in New York, and in the summer she is a member of the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East. She recently taught a course on the Bach works for solo violin through the University of Denver.
Called “intense, precise, and full of personality” after appearing as concerto soloist with The Juilliard Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall (OperaClick), violinist/violist Caeli Smith is an award-winning chamber musician, educator, and facilitator. She has performed across the United States, Europe, and Asia with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The Knights, Sejong Soloists, Jordi Savall, the Verbier Chamber Orchestra, and Sybarite5. Caeli (pronounced “chay-lee”) is an alum of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, the post-graduate performance, education, and leadership program of Carnegie Hall and The Juilliard School.
A curious and enthusiastic teacher, Caeli is on the faculty of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, the Heifetz International Music Institute, the Kinhaven Music School, and Hofstra University. She is a Teaching Assistant and Technique Instructor for the ACHT Viola Studio at The Juilliard School. She has led educational workshops for the fellows of Ensemble Connect and the teachers of Musical Mentors Collaborative.
Caeli holds two degrees from The Juilliard School: a bachelor’s degree in violin performance and a master’s degree in viola performance. Upon graduating, she received the William Schuman Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music. More recently, Caeli graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a Masters in Education, Leadership, Organizations and Entrepreneurship, with a concentration in Arts and Learning.
Caeli has written for radio, TV, and print, and her articles have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as Strings, Teen Strings, and Symphony magazines.
Championing musical works from all periods, cellist James Wilson performs on Baroque as well as modern cello with repertoire ranging from the late-17th century to new works especially written for him. As recitalist and chamber musician, he has appeared in Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Koelner Philharmonie, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, and the Sydney Opera House. He has performed at music festivals around the world such as the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the City of London Festival, the Deutches Mozartfest in Bavaria, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland, the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York City and the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado.
Mr. Wilson is a member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, serving also as one of its Artistic Directors, and he has frequently served as principal cellist with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a former member of the Shanghai and Chester String Quartets and the Da Capo Chamber Players, he has recorded and toured extensively in the United States and around the world. His performances have been broadcast on West German Radio and Bavarian Radio in Germany, CBC radio in Canada, Radio Shanghai, Radio Helsinki, and CBS television and National Public Radio in the United States. A resident of both New York City and Staunton, Virginia, Mr. Wilson is currently the Artistic Director of the Richmond-based Chamber Music Society of Central Virgina.
This is Mr.Wilson's fourteenth consecutive season of appearing with Intimate Voices.