Festival Finale: Miró Quartet and Beth Newdome Fellows

The Am Meer Quartet was established in 2025 at Manhattan School of Music and studies under Peter Winograd of the American String Quartet.

A native of Bethesda, Maryland, violist Harry Panner is pursuing his Masters in Music at Manhattan School of Music. Harry currently studies with Cong Wu, Assistant Principal Violist of the New York Philharmonic. Harry has performed as soloist with the Amherst Symphony Orchestra, in various chamber ensembles at the Bowdoin International Music Festival and as principal violist under the baton of Delyana Lazarova at the Round Top Festival Institute. An avid chamber musician, Harry has participated in masterclasses with leading musicians and ensembles including Emanuel Ax, the Juilliard String Quartet, the Miró Quartet, the Aizuri Quartet, and the Calder Quartet, among others. While a student at Amherst College, Harry helped to cofound the Amherst College Artist Connections program, connecting the college with the broader community through local outreach concerts and advocating support for music at the college with performances for the president and board of the institution. In 2025, Harry graduated Summa Cum Laude with distinction from Amherst College with majors in Music and in French.

Japanese-American violinist Kayla Yagi-Bacon is currently pursuing her Master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Peter Winograd of the American String Quartet. She earned her Bachelor of Music with electives in business from the McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University where she studied under Amy Schwartz Moretti, Robert McDuffie, and David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Kayla has served as concertmaster and principal of the Macon-Mercer Symphony Orchestra, and in 2024, she was part of the Concertmaster Studio at the Brevard Music Center, leading the season’s final concert as concertmaster while studying with Robyn Bollinger of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. As an active chamber musician, she has performed with Matthew Lipman, Brannon Cho, Sydney Lee, Timothy Cobb, Fabiola Kim, Annie Fullard, Lawrence Dutton, Wolfram Koessel, Andrew Armstrong, and others. In her free time, she loves to bake and cook for friends and family.

Riku Korenaga is a violinist from Bethany, Connecticut. He is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studies with Nicholas Mann. He recently graduated from Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music with a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance under the guidance of Cornelia Heard. Riku began playing the violin at age three and has studied with distinguished teachers including Naoko Tanaka and Kikuei Ikeda. He is passionate about both solo and chamber music and has spent five summers at the Meadowmount School of Music and the past two summers at the Aspen Music Festival. He has participated in masterclasses with Gil Shaham and Edgar Meyer. He was the winner of the 2017 Hamden Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition and received first prize in the 2019 Mitchell Family Fund Wallingford Symphony Orchestra String Concerto Competition, performing the Dvořák Violin Concerto for the orchestra’s children’s concerts. In addition to violin, Riku enjoys playing the piano—having studied with Amy Dorfman at Blair—and produces indie pop music for his sister in his free time.

Born and raised in Shanghai, Juewen Zhang is a cellist and Master of Music candidate in Orchestral Performance at the Manhattan School of Music, where she studies with Alan Stepansky. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree with Distinction and an Advanced Diploma in Performance from the Eastman School of Music, studying with David Ying. Juewen has served as Principal Cellist of the New York City Orchestra Project and has appeared as principal and assistant principal cellist under the direction of Christopher Eschenbach, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Sanderling, and David Chan. She has performed in major concert halls across the United States and Europe, including the Elbphilharmonie, the Konzerthaus Berlin, Koncertsalen Alsion, and Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, and has participated in festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Brevard Music Center Summer Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, and Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. In addition to performance, she is deeply committed to music outreach and community engagement, having worked as a Performing Artist with Eastman Performing Arts Medicine in hospital settings and as a Program Assistant with the Harmony Program in New York City, supporting music education initiatives for children in underserved communities.

Formed at Manhattan School of Music and based in NYC, the Knödel String Quartet—violinists Jihyun Baik and Yuyu Ikeda, violist Yat Lee, and cellist Hannah Kim—currently studies with Nicholas Mann and Peter Winograd. The quartet has appeared at the 2026 Robert Mann String Quartet Institute, and has additionally worked with esteemed artists including Wolfram Kossel, Eugene Drucker, Sam Rhodes, David Geber, and Mark Steinberg.

Violinist Yuyu Ikeda debuted at the age of ten with the Bellflower Symphony Orchestra. Currently based in New York, she performs regularly with the New York Classical Players and Princeton Symphony Orchestra. During the 2022–23 season, she served as concertmaster of the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra and assistant concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra.
An active chamber musician, Yuyu is a first prize recipient of the Ruth Widder String Quartet Competition, and has appeared at Juilliard’s 37th Annual Focus Festival and the Sarasota Music Festival, where her performance was featured on WQXR-FM. A dedicated educator, she currently serves on the faculty of the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School and previously taught for Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program and the 2023 Artists Program
Chamber Music Festival. She also regularly programs outreach concerts with Concerts in Motion and Project Music Heals Us. Yuyu holds degrees from Juilliard and Oberlin Conservatory, as well as a bachelor’s degree in biology from Oberlin College, and is currently pursuing a Professional Performance Diploma at the Manhattan School of Music.

Jihyun Baik is a New York–based violinist whose musical life is rooted in collaboration, community engagement, and teaching. Born in South Korea, she developed her passion for the violin under the influence of her mother, a dedicated Suzuki violin teacher. A prizewinner of the 2020 Euroasia International Competition, Jihyun has appeared as a soloist with the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Royal Symphony Orchestra, and Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn. In 2025, she received the Manfred-Grommek-Förderpreis at the Kronberg Academy Masterclasses and was awarded First Prize at the Ruth Widder Competition for String Quartets. She is also a laureate of the Chicago Violin Competition and received a special prize at the Rodolfo Lipizer International Violin Competition. Jihyun has participated in major music festivals including the Taos School of Music, Heifetz Institute of Music Chamber Music Seminar, Aspen Music Festival, and Pacific Music Festival. She toured as a member of the Heifetz Ensemble in Residence and collaborated with artists
such as violist Paul Neubauer. Jihyun attended Korea National University of Arts on special admission at age sixteen, received her Master’s degree from The Juilliard School, and is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Manhattan School of Music.

Hong Kong violist Yat Lee has performed extensively across Europe, the United States, Asia, and the Middle East, appearing in leading venues including the Musikverein Wien, Wiener Konzerthaus, Berlin Konzerthaus, Royal Albert Hall, Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Carnegie Hall, KKL Luzern, Victoria Hall, Shanghai Concert Hall, and Suzhou Museum. An avid chamber musician, Lee has collaborated with distinguished artists such as Maxim Vengerov, Nobuko Imai, Renaud Capuçon, Gérard Caussé, Liviu Prunaru, Clemens Hagen, Antonio Lysy, and Gilbert Kalish. He has been invited to major international festivals including Wien Modern, Prussia Cove, Gstaad Menuhin, Pablo Casals, Kuhmo, Music@Menlo, Stauffer, and Beare’s Premiere Music Festival, and has appeared on international broadcasts for ORF, Léman Bleu, and RTHK. A prizewinner of the Kreisler Institute Competition (Vienna) and the Ruth Widder Competition (New York), Lee is currently studying at the Manhattan School of Music with Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec on full scholarship. He performs on a c.1800 John Betts viola on loan from the PostScript Collection through Beare’s International Violin Society.

Hannah Jiwon Kim is a Korean-American cellist based in New York City. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School (B.M. 2022) and the Royal Academy of Music in London (M.Mus. 2024), and has performed at major international venues including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, and Lincoln Center. Highlights of the 2026–2027 season include concerto appearances with the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic at the Schönbrunn Palace Theater and with the Madrid Atlántida Chamber Orchestra at the National Auditorium, as well as tours of Greece and the Netherlands with the Athens State Orchestra and the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra of Szolnok. In summer 2026, she will perform Vivaldi’s Concerto for Violin and Cello in Europe. Hannah has appeared at festivals such as Orford Musique, Música en Compostela, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, and has collaborated with leading artists including Barbara Hannigan and Emmanuel Ax. A committed multidisciplinary artist, she is the founder of Irregular Pearl, a nonprofit digital platform dedicated to innovative, accessible classical music education and resource-sharing.