Hailed as an “Astounding Virtuoso” and “Exhilarating” performer, percussionist Britton-René Collins is a winner of the 2020 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, receiving the Ambassador Prize for her exceptional musicianship and demonstrated passion for creating social change in her endeavors as both an educator and performer.
A Grand Prize winner of the 2022 Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition and the 2021 Chicago International Music Competition, Britton-René has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Canada, and Europe. She has performed with several orchestras including the Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Meridian Symphony Orchestra, the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra, and the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Her 2023–24 season includes performances alongside the Battle Creek Symphony, the Greenwich Village Orchestra, the Central Oregon Symphony, and the Saint Paul Civic Symphony. Her 2022–23 season included performances alongside the Rogue Valley Symphony Orchestra, the Western Piedmont Symphony, the Albany Symphony Orchestra (GA), the Marquette Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra Iowa. In addition to her active solo career, Britton-René enjoys life as a chamber musician and co-director with her New York City-based groups “Excelsis Percussion Quartet” and “Vision Duo”. Her upcoming chamber collaborations include touring with the Sphinx Virtuosi, where she will premiere a new work by Curtis Stewart.
As an advocate for new music, Britton-René’s current projects involve generating new solo and chamber works for multi-percussion and marimba. Most recently, she was the first percussionist to ever be awarded the prestigious Princeton University Mary Mackall Gwinn Hodder Fellowship (2024–25). During her fellowship year, she will conduct research and commission new works by underrepresented composers as part of her 10-month appointment, “Sphygmology — Cultural Exchange for Solo Percussion”, at the Lewis Center for the Arts, which will culminate with her debut performance installation, “Sphygmology”, centered on desegregating Western Classical Music spaces through utilizing percussion as a medium for celebrating Black identity.
Britton-René’s recent highlights include attending the soundSCAPE new music composition and performance exchange in Italy, premiering a new work at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention for the second year since making her PASIC Artist debut in 2021, and participating in the Banff Centre’s Evolution: Classical program. As an Artist Endorser, Britton-René proudly performs using Vic Firth sticks and mallets, Zildjian cymbals, Marimba One instruments, and Remo drumheads.
Born in the United States, Britton-René began playing the piano at age five. She discovered percussion at eight years old when she became intrigued by the drum set. She quickly fell in love with playing rock, jazz, and pop music on the drum set, which ignited her enthusiasm to explore various percussion instruments and styles of music. She received her B.M. from the University of Toronto with Aiyun Huang, Beverley Johnston, and John Rudolph, where she won the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition and performed the Canadian premiere of Sergei Golovko’s first marimba concerto alongside Maestro Uri Mayer and the UTSO. Britton-René received her M.M. from the University of Michigan, where her primary instructors were Doug Perkins and Ian Antonio.
Eliam Ramos — bass-baritone
Photo by Reji
Puerto Rican bass-baritone Eliam Ramos graduated from the Conservatory of Music of his country. In his 2011 professional operatic debut he interpreted the role of Il Commendatore in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Teatro de la Ópera de Puerto Rico. Appearances in his home country include Balthazar (Amahl and the Night Visitors), Fauré’s Requiem, a Gala of Zarzuela with the Puerto Rico Symphonic Orchestra, Mozart’s Requiem with the Puerto Rico Philharmonic Orchestra, Luis Nogales in the zarzuela Luisa Fernanda, Don Pedro in the zarzuela El Barberillo de Lavapies, a pirate in the operetta Cofresí by Rafael Hernández, to name but a few. A member of the Opera Workshop of the Conservatory in Puerto Rico, he performed the role of The Superintendent in the opera Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten, Der Tod in Der Kaiser von Atlantis by Victor Ullman and the Priest in Die Zauberflöte by W.A. Mozart.
In 2013 he made his way to New York City, and with the Brooklyn College Opera Workshop, performed the role of Lord Sidney in Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims, Sparafucille and Monterone in Verdi’s Rigoletto, and Ben in The Telephone by Gian-Carlo Menotti.
With his outstanding vocal beauty and artistic skill, Eliam Ramos has been heard internationally in numerous performances including Donizetti’s Don Pasquale in Spain, Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Israel, and the title role of Hans Werner Henze’s El Cimarrón in Mexico. Closer to home, he was featured in the Metropolitan Opera Guild’s 2022–23 Verdi Baritones Series.
Engagements in the 2023–24 season include Brahms’ Requiem with the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, Masetto (Don Giovanni) at Opera in Williamsburg, Belcore (L’Elisir D’Amore) and Baron Mirko Zeta (The Merry Widow) for Geneva Light Opera, Angelotti (Tosca) with Soo Theatre in Michigan, Clif Hardin’s Requiem for his Carnegie Hall debut, the world premiere of Song of the Nightingale and a Gala with On Site Opera, a concert with Zombie Opera, Count Ceprano (Rigoletto) and Alfio (Cavalleria Rusticana) with Regina Opera, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Cantata No. 33 with Bach in Baltimore, the Doctor in the world premiere of The Extinctionist with Heartbeat Opera, Haydn’s Missa in angustiis (Nelson Mass) with the ECSO, in addition to several solo recitals.
Itamar Zorman — violin
Photo by Jamie Jung
Itamar Zorman is one of the most soulful, evocative artists of his generation, distinguished by his emotionally gripping performances and gift for musical storytelling. Since his emergence with the top prize at the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, he has wowed audiences all over the world with breathtaking style, causing one critic to declare him a “young badass who’s not afraid of anything.” His “youthful intensity” and “achingly beautiful” sound shine through in every performance, earning him the title of the “virtuoso of emotions”.
Awarded the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award for 2014, violinist Itamar Zorman is the winner of the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia.
Mr. Zorman has performed as a soloist with such orchestras as the Mariinsky Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, KBS Symphony Seoul, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, German Radio Philharmonic, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Kremerata Baltica, RTE National Symphony Orchestra (Dublin) and American Symphony. He has worked with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Michael Tilson-Thomas, David Robertson, Valery Gergiev, James DePreist, Karina Canellakis, Yuri Bashmet, and Nathalie Stuztmann. Mr. Zorman has performed around the world in halls such as Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Zurich Tonhalle, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, and Teatro Massimo Palermo. As a recitalist he performed at Carnegie Hall’s Distinctive Debut series, Wigmore Hall, People’s Symphony Concerts, Merkin Hall, the Louvre Museum, Suntory Hall, Laeiszhalle Hamburg and HR-Sendesaal Frankfurt.
Mr. Zorman was invited to the Verbier, Marlboro, Rheingau, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brevard, Classical Tahoe, MITO SettembreMusica, and Radio France Festivals. He has also collaborated with a number of legendary artists such as Richard Goode (including performances at Carnegie Hall and Library of Congress), Mitsuko Uchida, Steven Isserlis and Jörg Widmann.
Mr. Zorman’s latest CD, Violin Odyssey, a collection of works for violin from five continents, was released in 2022 by First Hand Records to critical acclaim. As part of an ongoing exploration of the music of Paul Ben-Haim, Mr. Zorman released a CD of the works for violin and orchestra with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Philippe Bach for BIS Records, in April 2019, entitled Evocation. His first solo CD recording, entitled Portrait, features works by Messiaen, Schubert, Chausson, Hindemith, and Brahms and was released by Profil – Editions Günther Hänssler.
Described as a “poet of the violin”, Itamar Zorman is also a committed chamber player. He is a founding member of the Israeli Chamber Project and a member of the Lysander Piano Trio, with which he won the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Grand Prize in the 2011 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, First Prize in the 2011 Arriaga Competition, and a bronze medal in the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
Born in Tel-Aviv in 1985 to a family of musicians, Itamar Zorman began his violin studies at the age of six with Saly Bockel at the Israeli Conservatory of Music in Tel-Aviv. He graduated in 2003 and continued his studies with Professor David Chen and Nava Milo. He received his Bachelor of Music from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance as a student of Hagai Shaham, and his Master of Music from The Juilliard School in 2009, where he studied with Robert Mann and Sylvia Rosenberg. He then went on to receive an Artist Diploma from Manhattan School of Music in 2010 and an Artist Diploma from Julliard in 2012 under the tutelage of Sylvia Rosenberg, and he is an alumnus of the Kronberg Academy where he studied with Christian Tetzlaff and Mauricio Fuks. He is also the recipient of scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and has taken part in numerous master classes around the world, working with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Shlomo Mintz, Ida Haendel, and Ivry Gitlis.
Mr. Zorman is currently on faculty at the Eastman School of Music. He plays on a 1734 Guarneri del Gesù, from the collection of Yehuda Zisapel.
Samuel Magill — cello
Cellist Samuel Magill has been called “…a world-class artist…” by Fanfare Magazine and his first Naxos CD, of Vernon Duke’s 1945 Cello Concerto, was hailed as “flat-out magnificent” by American Record Guide. After a 1990 concert, Lorin Maazel hailed Magill’s playing as “…well-nigh perfect”. In 2014 The Strad magazine raved about Magill’s “sumptuous tone” in his 2014 recital at New York’s Bargemusic series, in which he and Beth Levin played the rarely heard Czerny arrangement of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Violin Sonata. This led to their 2016 Navona CD which includes the Kreutzer, the Solo Cello Sonata by Artur Schnabel, and the Ballade by Emanuel Moór. Writing in Classics Today, Jed Distler said “…Magill’s superb technique, range of color, and intelligent pacing make a compelling case (for the Schnabel)”. Among Magill’s 20 CDs, his and his colleagues’ (Elmira Darvarova, Craig and Mary Ann Mumm, and Scott Dunn) three volume survey of the complete chamber music of Franco Alfano, for Naxos, is a stand-out.
Mr Magill has appeared as a soloist throughout Japan and the U.S., including performances of both the Schumann Concerto and the Brahms Double Concerto in Tokyo’s famed Suntory Hall, and the Brahms and the Haydn D Major Concerto in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. During nine tours of Japan, Magill performed, besides the above works, the concerti of Dohnanyi, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, and the Triple Concerto of Beethoven. He has partnered with the pianists Oxana Yablonskaya, Pascal Rogé, and the late Grant Johannesen, and presented annual recitals from 1994 until 2019 at Lincoln Center’s New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. He is a co-founder, with flutist Lucian Rinando and harpist Grace Ludtke, of the flute, cello, and harp trio Sono Auros. They made their New York debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall to critical acclaim, with Strings magazine declaring them “masters of their instruments”. Magill is also a founding member of the New York Piano Quartet (Elmira Darvarova, violin; Ronald Carbone, viola; and Linda Hall, piano). Festivals Mr. Magill has participated in include the Tanglewood, Aspen, Tahoe, Castleton, and the Festival Albert Roussel in France and Belgium, for which he and pianist Diane Andersen played recitals in Bruges and Paris.
A pupil of the late Zara Nelsova, Mr. Magill also studied with Laurence Lesser at the Peabody Institute and with Shirley Trepel at Rice University. He is the former Associate Principal Cello with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, former member of the Houston Symphony, and a former member of the Pittsburgh Symphony. In his 43 years as a member of these orchestras, Magill worked with conductors Muti, Levine, Rattle, Bernstein, Ozawa, Maazel, Thielemann, Rozhdestvensky, Leinsdorf, Rudolf, Barenboim, Luisi, and Santi, among many others.
Mr. Magill is originally from Chapel Hill, NC and attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts for high school. There he was a student of the late Irving Klein, who was a pupil of Emanuel Feuermann, as were Ms. Trepel and Ms. Nelsova.
