55th Sitka Summer Music Festival
Subscription Concert 5 –
Piano Trios – Beach, Schoenfeld, Schubert
Helen Kim, Violin; Charae Krueger, Cello; Bryan Wallick, Piano; Katerina Chatzinikolau, Violin; Zuill Bailey, Cello; Natasha Paremski, Piano
Friday, June 19, 7 p.m. – Harrigan Centennial Hall
Program
Amy Beach – Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 150
Helen Hwaya Kim, Violin
Charae Krueger, Cello
Bryan Wallick, Piano
Paul Schoenfeld – Café Music for Piano Trio
Helen Hwaya Kim, Violin
Charae Krueger, Cello
Bryan Wallick, Piano
—Intermission—
Franz Schubert – Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 100, D. 929
Katerina Chatzinikolau, Violin
Zuill Bailey, Cello
Natasha Paremski, Piano
About the Artists
Helen Hwaya Kim joined the music faculty in 2006 at Kennesaw State University, where she serves as Professor of Violin and Coordinator of String Studies with a stellar performance background. She made her orchestral debut with the Calgary Philharmonic at the age of six and has gone on to become a respected and sought-after artist. She has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Pops at Boston’s Symphony Hall, as well as with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras.
Ms. Kim earned her Bachelor and Master's Degree from the Juilliard School, where her teachers included Cho-Liang Lin and Dorothy DeLay. While at Juilliard, she served as Concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra and was the winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition at both the Pre–College and College levels. She is the recipient of more than one hundred national and international awards, including Winner of the American Prize in Chamber Music Performance. She won the prestigious Artists International C...
A native of Canada, Ms. Kim has been engaged as a soloist by many of Canada's leading orchestras, including the National Arts Center Orchestra, Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, McGill Chamber Orchestra, and the Windsor, Regina, Victoria, and Prince George Symphonies. She has also appeared with the DeKalb, New Orleans, El Paso, Aspen, and Banff Festival Orchestras, as well as orchestras in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Poland.
Ms. Kim has been profiled on national and international television and has appeared on CBC, PBS, and CBS networks. Her performances have been aired on NPR and CBC radio networks.
Ms. Kim has toured extensively throughout Canada and the United States, including performances at Alice Tully Hall and the Santa Fe and La Jolla International Music Festivals, where she performed with Cho-Liang Lin, Gary Hoffman, André Previn, and the Orion String Quartet. She performed Bach’s Double Violin Concerto with Hilary Hahn at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival. Other festival highlights include performances at Pro Musica San Miguel de Allende, Deia International Music Festival, Highlands-...
An avid performer of new music, she can be heard on the recent CD release of the works of Alvin Singleton on Albany Records. Helen performed the world premiere of the Concertino by Chen Yi, scored for solo violin and orchestra, which was commissioned especially for her and the KSU Orchestra.
Ms. Kim currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, where she served as Assistant and Associate Concertmaster for the Atlanta Symphony for three seasons. She is currently the Assistant Concertmaster of the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and recently joined the roster of the Atlanta Chamber Players.
Cellist Charae Krueger is Principal Cellist for the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra. She is Lecturer and Artist in Residence in Cello at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, having been a faculty member since 2006. Ms. Krueger is an avid chamber musician and is a member of the Summit Piano Trio and the Serafin Ensemble. She is a regular featured artist at the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival in North Carolina, the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming and at Serafin Summer Music. Her solo and chamber music recitals have been featured on NPR's Performance Today, WABE Radio Atlanta and WGBH Radio Boston. She plays frequently with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Charleston Symphony. Ms. Krueger also enjoys recording studio work and has played on albums of Bruce Springsteen, Faith Hill and Natalie Cole.
Recent concerts include chamber music performances at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Grand Teton Music Festival with violinist Julian Rachlin, Charleston’s Piccolo Spoleto Festival, concerts with Cho-Liang Lin and Concertmasters William Preucil, Andres Cardenesand David Coucheron at the Highland-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival, chamber music performances with the Atlanta Chamber Players and the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta. Ms. Krueger has been featured in solo recitals at the Blue Ridge Chamber Music Festival and All-Saints Church concert series in Atlanta, concerto performances with DeKalb Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Community Orchestra. She has twice performed the entire Beethoven cycle of Cello Sonatas with pianist Robert Henry and has done a recital tour and accompanying live CD of the Southeastern US with pianist Stanley Yerlow.
Ms. Krueger received her early cello training in Canada at the Regina Conservatory of Music. She went on to study at Brandon University and received her Bachelor of Music Performance degree from New England Conservatory in Boston. She also holds an Artist Diploma from the Longy School of Music in Cambridge MA. She continued her training during the summers at the Banff Centre in Canada and did quartet training with the Juilliard Quartet at the summer program at the Juilliard School. Ms. Krueger was also a participant in the New York String Orchestra Seminar under the direction of Alexander Schneider with concerts at Carnegie Hall. She was a founding member of the award-winning Arden String Quartet, with national and international appearances at Merkin Hall in NYC, Brown and Hofstra Universities as well as radio programs throughout the US East Coast.
Bryan Wallick is increasingly recognized as one of the foremost American virtuoso pianists of his generation. A gold medalist of the 1997 Vladimir Horowitz International Piano Competition in Kyiv, he has performed extensively across the United States, Europe, and Africa.
Mr. Wallick made his New York debut in 1998 at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and his London debut in 2003 at Wigmore Hall. He has also appeared at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall with the London Sinfonietta, at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and most recently made his debut at the city’s newly opened Bechstein Hall in March 2025.
In recent seasons, he has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Arizona Musicfest Orchestra, Boise Philharmonic, Boulder Symphony, Brevard Symphony, Cape Town Philharmonic, Cincinnati Pops, Evansville Philharmonic, Fort Collins Symphony, Illinois Philharmonic, Johannesburg Philharmonic, Kentucky Symphony, KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic, Memphis Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Portland Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony, Western Piedmont Symphony, and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. His collaborations have included such conductors as Erich Kunzel, Marvin Hamlisch, Robert Moody, Daniel Raiskin, Bernhard Gueller, Adrian Prabava, Daniel Boico, Arjen Tien, Yasuo Shinozaki, Andrew Sewell, Vladimir Verbitsky, Josep Vicent, Leslie Dunner, Alfred Savia, Christopher Confessore, Matthew Troy, and Wes Kenney, among others.
Mr. Wallick’s recital appearances have taken him to the Château de Differdange in Luxembourg, Copenhagen’s Tivoli Artists Series, the Ravinia Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Xavier Piano Series (Cincinnati), Scottsdale Center’s Virginia Piper Series, Sanibel Island Music Festival, Cleveland Museum of Art’s Tri-C Classical Series, and the Classics in the Atrium Series in the British Virgin Islands. In 2002, he performed two solo recitals at Ledreborg Palace for HRH Princess Marie Gabrielle Luxembourg and HRH Prince Philip Bourbon de Parme.
An avid chamber musician, Mr. Wallick has collaborated with violinists Nikita Boriso-Glebsky, Rachel Lee Priday, Yi-Jia Susanne Hou, Miriam Contzen, and Sergei Malov, as well as cellists Zuill Bailey, Alexander Buzlov, Alexander Ramm, and Wolfgang Emmanuel Schmidt. He is a member of the Mendelssohn Trio, ensemble-in-residence at Colorado State University, which will embark on a European tour in May 2026 with performances in Switzerland, Austria, and Germany.
From 2015 to 2020, Mr. Wallick served as Artistic Director of Schalk Visser Concert Promotions, presenting international artists on concert tours throughout South Africa. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he collaborated virtually across three continents with violinist Frank Stadler (Austria) and cellist Peter Martens (South Africa) to record Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, Op. 56 (Trio Version), which received South Africa’s 2020 KykNet Fiesta Award for Best Achievement in Classical Music. He is also actively involved in the International Keyboard Odyssiad and Summer Festival in Colorado, where he performs, lectures, and teaches, and is on the faculty of the Rocky Ridge Summer Festival in Estes Park, Colorado.
Recent highlights include performances with the Brevard Symphony, Boulder Symphony, Cape Town Philharmonic, Fort Collins Symphony, Johannesburg Philharmonic, KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic, Memphis Symphony, and Western Piedmont Symphony. His recital project Virtuosic Fugue has been presented at the Grand Teton Music Festival, University of Texas (El Paso), Las Cruces (New Mexico), Scottsdale Center, Ravinia Festival, Xavier Piano Series, Cleveland Museum of Art, and throughout South Africa. He recorded Virtuosic Fugue, Vol. 1 for Navona Records in July 2023 and will release an album of Franz Liszt’s piano music in spring 2026. His chamber performances have included collaborations with Zuill Bailey for Chamber Music Detroit, the Library of Congress, and Classics and Jazz at Juneau; with Rachel Lee Priday at the University of Washington and Colorado State’s Classical Convergence Series; and at the Chintimini Chamber Music Festival in Oregon.
Mr. Wallick has performed on Chicago’s WFMT Fazioli Series and “Live from WFMT,” BBC Radio’s In Tune, Danish National Radio, National Ukrainian Television and Radio, Colorado Public Radio, and NPR’s Performance Today. In 2006, he was awarded a grant by the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts to develop a multimedia project exploring his synesthetic experiences—his ability to perceive specific colors associated with musical pitches—by projecting these color mappings in real time during performance.
A native of the United States, Mr. Wallick studied with Jerome Lowenthal at The Juilliard School, where he became the first student to earn both an undergraduate Honors Diploma (2000) and an accelerated master’s degree (2001). He continued his studies with Christopher Elton at London’s Royal Academy of Music, receiving the Associated Board International Scholarship and graduating with Distinction. Earlier studies were with Eugene and Elisabeth Pridonoff at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
Mr. Wallick is Associate Professor of Piano at Colorado State University, where he resides with his wife and three children. A feature article by George Plimpton on his early career appeared in the March 2002 issue of Contents magazine.
With her consistently striking and dynamic performances, pianist Natasha Paremski reveals astounding virtuosity and profound interpretations. She continues to generate excitement from all corners as she wins over audiences with her musical sensibility and a powerful, flawless technique.
Natasha is a regular return guest of many major orchestras, including Minnesota Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Grant Park Festival, Winnipeg Symphony, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Elgin Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Virginia Symphony, and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with whom she has performed and toured frequently since 2008 in venues such as Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, and Cadogan Hall. She has performed with major orchestras in North America including Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Houston Symphony, NAC Orchestra in Ottawa, Nashville Symphony. She has toured extensively in Europe with such orchestras as Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Vienna’s Tonkünstler Orchester, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre de Bretagne, the Orchestre de Nancy, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchester in Zurich, Moscow Philharmonic, under the direction of conductors including Thomas Dausgaard, Peter Oundjian, Andres Orozco-Estrada, Jeffrey Kahane, James Gaffigan, JoAnn Falletta, Fabien Gabel, Rossen Milanov and Andrew Litton. In addition, she has toured with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica in Latvia, Benelux, the United Kingdom and Austria as well as appearances with National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra in Taipei.
Natasha has given recitals at the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, Wigmore Hall, Schloss Elmau, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Verbier Festival, San Francisco Performances, Seattle’s Meany Hall, Kansas City’s Harriman Jewell Series, Santa Fe’s Lensic Theater, Ludwigshafen BASF Series, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Tokyo’s Musashino Performing Arts Center and on the Rising Stars Series of Gilmore and Ravinia Festivals.
A passionate chamber musician, Natasha is a regular recital partner of Grammy winning cellist Zuill Bailey, with whom she has recorded a number of CDs. Their Britten album on Telarc debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Classical Chart, remaining there for a number of weeks, in addition to being featured on The New York Times Playlist. She has been a guest of many chamber music festivals such as Jeffrey Kahane’s Green Music Center ChamberFest, the Lockenhaus, Toronto, Sitka Summer Music, and Cape Cod Chamber Music festivals to name a few.
Natasha was awarded several prestigious prizes at a very young age, including the Gilmore Young Artists prize in 2006 at the age of eighteen, the Prix Montblanc in 2007, the Orpheum Stiftung Prize in Switzerland. In September 2010, she was awarded the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year. Her first recital album was released in 2011 to great acclaim, topping the Billboard Classical Charts, and was re-released on the Steinway & Sons label in September 2016 featuring Islamey recorded on Steinway’s revolutionary new Spirio technology. In 2012 she recorded Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Fabien Gabel on the orchestra’s label distributed by Naxos.
With a strong focus on new music, Natasha’s growing repertoire reflects an artistic maturity beyond her years. In the 2010-11 season, she played the world premiere of a sonata written for her by Gabriel Kahane, which was also included in her solo album.
Natasha continues to extend her performance activity and range beyond the traditional concert hall. In December 2008, she was the featured pianist in choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s Danses Concertantes at New York’s Joyce Theater. She was featured in a major two-part film for BBC Television on the life and work of Tchaikovsky, shot on location in St. Petersburg, performing excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto and other works. In the winter of 2007, Natasha participated along with Simon Keenlyside in the filming of Twin Spirits, a project starring Sting and Trudie Styler that explores the music and writing of Robert and Clara Schumann, which was released on DVD. She has performed in the project live several times with the co-creators in New York and the U.K., directed by John Caird, the original director/adaptor of the musical Les Misérables.
Natasha began her piano studies at the age of four with Nina Malikova at Moscow’s Andreyev School of Music. She then studied at San Francisco Conservatory of Music before moving to New York to study with Pavlina Dokovska at Mannes College of Music, from which she graduated in 2007. Natasha made her professional debut at age nine with El Camino Youth Symphony in California. At the age of fifteen she debuted with Los Angeles Philharmonic and recorded two discs with Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.
Born in Moscow, Natasha moved to the United States at the age of eight, becoming a U.S. citizen shortly thereafter, and is now based in New York City where she is Artistic Director of the New York Piano Society, a non-profit organization that supports pianists whose professions lie outside of music.
Violinist Katerina Chatzinikolau has been hailed by the Rheinische Post as a musician of "sparkling vitality and virtuosity". She has made significant strides in her career, including becoming the first-ever female concertmaster in the history of Greece. Since 2023 she is holding the concertmaster position of the Athens State Orchestra. She has held prominent positions as concertmaster of the Duisburger Philharmoniker at Deutsche Oper am Rhein and of the Bergische Symphoniker. Her solo debut with conductor Christoph Eschenbach at the International Kalamata Music Days in July 2022 marked a significant milestone. Since January 2025 Katerina is guest professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in the department Musical Studies. Katerina is Youth Ambassador for the Hellenic Institute of Cultural Diplomacy promoting Greek heritage and culture through music. Katerina is a multiple award-winning artist. She is winner of the first prize of the Golden Classical Music Awards, the eMuse International Music Competition, the Thöne International Competition and a prize winner of the London International Music Competition, the Panhellenic Young Soloists Competition and the Alois Kottmann Prize. Katerina is a tireless explorer with a great desire to offer new artistic approaches. She produces her own music videos that reflect her creativity and remarkable technical skills as virtuoso in original compositions for violin solo. Her videos on Youtube and Instagram reach millions of people worldwide. In the recent years Katerina has established a rapid career as a soloist. As a soloist she has been invited to perform at prestigious venues the Cologne Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, the rbb-Rundfunksaal Berlin, the Royal Theatre of Thessaloniki, the Beethovenhalle Bonn, the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, the Liederhalle Stuttgart and the Ruhrtriennale. As a chamber musician Katerina played in famous concert halls around the globe such as Beijing Concert Hall, Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai Oriental Art Center, Lanxess Arena Cologne, the BarclayCard Arena Hamburg, the Allianz Arena Munich & Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, National Theater Kuala Lumpur, Singapore Raffles Center. She has performed with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Bremerhaven Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonie Südwestfalen, Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, Athens Philharmonia Orchestra, Vamos Orchestra, Neues Rheinisches Kammerorchester Köln, Neue Philharmonie Westfalen and Cognimus Kollektiv and the Athens State Orchestra. In addition, she received numerous scholarships reflecting her dedication and excellence in music from Tarisio Auctions, the Horst and Gretl Will Foundation and the Franz and Christel Kuhlmann Foundation. She has received a scholarship from "Yehudi Menuhin - Live Music Now" and has been awarded the NRW scholarship, the E.ON scholarship fund and a DAAD scholarship. Katerina began her musical studies in Greece (Goumenissa/Kilkis) and continued her studies at the Pre-College of the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf with Prof. Alexander Kramarov. She is a Master's graduate of the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne where she studied "Solo Violin" with Prof. A. Daskalakis as well as Musicology. She received further musical impulses at international master classes with Leonidas Kavakos, Pavel Vernikov, Andres Cardenes, Mauricio Fuks, Ida Kavafian, Barnabas Kelemen, Mihaela Martin, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Evgueni Sinaiski and Anthony Spiri at the Kronberg Academy and at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music, among others. In the field of historically informed performance practice, she received intense lessons on the baroque violin with baroque violinist Prof. Richard Gwilt and had the opportunity to expand her knowledge in master classes with Sigiswald Kuijken. As a recording artist she has been broadcasted at German and Dutch TV some of which have been nominated for Cannes International Series Festival. Her performances have been broadcasted on radio and television worldwide, including the Radio France, MDR, ERT, Kol HaMusica, WDR3, KJAG Kansas, KZYK California, KQAC FM, and RTL. Her variety of sound testifies to an intensive work with historically informed performance practice as well as with contemporary music. The Leverkusen Stadtanzeiger praised her with the words "Pure naturalness, with which she devotes herself equally ingeniously to classical and contemporary music".
Zuill Bailey, Cello Zuill Bailey, widely considered one of the premiere cellists in the world, is a Grammy Award winning, internationally renowned soloist, recitalist, Artistic Director and teacher. His rare combination of celebrated artistry, technical wizardry and engaging personality has made him one of the most sought after and active cellists today. Mr. Bailey has been featured with symphony orchestras and music festivals worldwide. He won the Best Solo Performance Grammy Award in 2017, for his recording of Michael Daugherty’s Tales of Hemingway, with the Nashville Symphony led by Giancarlo Guerrero. His extensive discography includes his newest release – the world premier recording of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Cello Concerto with the Santa Rosa Symphony. Mr. Bailey received his Bachelor’s Degree from the Peabody Conservatory where he was named the 2014 Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Alumni, and received a Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School. He performs on the “Rosette” 1693 Matteo Gofriller Cello formerly owned by Mischa Schneider of the Budapest String Quartet. He is the Artistic Director of El Paso Pro-Musica (Texas), the Sitka Music Festival, Sitka International Cello Seminar, (Alaska), Juneau Jazz and Classics, (Alaska), the Northwest Bach Festival (Washington), Classical Inside Out Series- Mesa Arts Center (Arizona) and is Director of the Center for Arts Entrepreneurship and Professor of Cello at the University of Texas at El Paso.
About the Sitka Music Festival The Sitka Music Festival (SMF) inspires audiences, sparks creativity, and strengthens community across Alaska through world-class chamber music performances, education, and artist training. For 55 years, SMF has presented classical music at the highest artistic standards. Festival musicians have traveled to more than 40 Alaskan communities, including remote villages off the road system, sharing music with audiences who might not otherwise experience live chamber music at this level. In turn, visiting artists are enriched by the deep cultural traditions and unique landscapes of Alaska. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, SMF remains committed to bringing exceptional music experiences to communities statewide.