Intimate Voices chamber music in an intimate setting
2023 - 2024 Concert Artists
Venezuelan violist Ramón Carrero-Martínez is a prize winner of numerous competitions in the US, Italy, Australia, Japan, and Venezuela, including the Grand Prize at the 2022 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, and was recently was appointed as a member of the Ensemble Connect program of Carnegie Hall. A versatile soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, he has toured with the Grammy Award-winning, conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, premiered as soloist in James Ra’s Concerto for Three Violas with the New York Classical Players ,performed with Terra StringQuartet, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Exponential Ensemble, Mark Morris Dance Group as well as New York City Ballet, Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, New York Classical Players, Experiential Orchestra, and Riverside Symphony among many others.
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 and Children Orchestras, “El Sistema.” Mr.Martinez was a member of “El Sistema” and holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Daniel Avshalomov.
For more information, please visit ramoncarreromartinez.com
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 fifteenth consecutive season of appearing with Intimate Voices.
Violist Dana Kelley is a member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble. Praised for her rich and beautiful tone, Dana has been a top prizewinner in the Sphinx Music Competition and the Irving M. Klein International String Competition among others. Ms. Kelley’s performance schedule has brought her to many prestigious venues and festivals, including multiple recitals at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Recital Hall, the Ravinia Festival, and Bravo! Vail. She has collaborated with artists such as Nobuko Imai, Miriam Fried, Anne-Marie MacDermott, Misha Dichter, and Astrid Schween of the Juilliard String Quartet. She has performed as guest principal viola of the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra and as a member of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and she frequently performs with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and A Far Cry, and The Knights chamber orchestras.
Dana serves on the viola faculty of the Mannes School of Music at The New School. She received an Artist Diploma in String Quartet Studies with the Argus Quartet as the 2017-2019 Graduate Quartet in Residence at The Juilliard School. Dana was a 2014-2016 Fellow in the Ensemble Connect program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute. She received her Bachelor’s of Music from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, and her Master’s of Music degree as a student of Kim Kashkashian at the New England Conservatory.
Cellist Sujin Lee has established herself as a versatile young artist and performed at world-renowned venues including Carnegie’s Zankel and Weill Halls, the Kennedy Center, the Louvre, Mechanics Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum. In
demand as a soloist and chamber musician, she has been a frequent artist at the Caramoor, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Perlman, Ravinia, Yellow Barn, and Verbier festivals. First prizewinner of the 2017 National Federation of Music Clubs
Competition, Ms. Lee also won top prizes at the 2016 Schadt, 2015 HudsonValley, 2009 Klein, and 2006 Johansen International competitions. She has collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Leon Fleisher, Pamela Frank,
Miriam Fried, Nobuko Imai, and Itzhak Perlman.
From Newton, MA, she holds a Master’s in Music from the New England Conservatory, where she was a Presidential Scholar and on faculty at the NEC Preparatory School. She has a B.A. in Psychology from Columbia University and completed her undergraduate music studies at the Juilliard School and Paris Conservatoire as a recipient of the Carla-Bruni Sarkozy Foundation Scholarship. Her principal cello mentors include Laurence Lesser, Paul Katz, Timothy Eddy, and Laura Blustein. Sujin is featured in the documentary, “Talent Has Hunger,” and plays on a 1790 William Forster II cello.
Violinist Sheila Reinhold is the founder and Music Director of Intimate Voices, now in its fifteenth 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 also teaches courses for adult music lovers through the University of Denver.
Violoncellist Nathan Whittaker enjoys a unique and diverse career as a concert soloist, chamber musician, recitalist, teacher, and historical cello specialist with concert stops ranging from New York to Seattle to Dubai. He is the Artistic Director of Gallery Concerts (Seattle), a concert series of chamber music on period instruments, and regularly performs with the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, New York Baroque Incorporated, ARTek, El Mundo, Fort Greene Chamber Music Society, The Sebastians, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet.
Recent appearances include the Caramoor Music Festival, Arizona Early Music Festival, Vancouver Bach Festival, Pacific Baroque Festival, Helicon Society, Berkeley Early Music Festival, Ottawa ChamberFest, the Boston Early Music Festival, and as a guest lecturer at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris. He has served on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts. He can be heard on recordings by ATMA Musique, Harmonia, and Centaur, as well as live broadcasts by NPR, CBC, and KING FM. Dr. Whittaker holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Washington and Bachelors and Masters degrees from Indiana University. He performs on a cello of Mario Gadda from 1957, and a baroque cello of Johann Christian Ficker II from c. 1770