Fate, Fury and Beethoven’s Fifth

About Emily Bruskin

Emily Bruskin has performed as a soloist with the Virginia, Pacific, San Francisco Ballet, Utah, Nashville, and Wichita symphonies and has given recitals across the country and around the world at venues including Carnegie Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the American Academy in Rome, and Boston's Jordan Hall.

As violinist of the Claremont Trio, she has made critically acclaimed recordings on the Arabesque, Bridge, BMOP/Sound, American Modern, Tria, and Ongaku labels and has commissioned piano trios from Kati Agócs, Nico Muhly, Mason Bates, Gabriela Lena Frank, Sean Shepherd, Helen Grime, Judd Greenstein, and Hillary Zipper.

Ms. Bruskin has appeared at the Chamber Music Northwest, Ravinia Festival, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Mostly Mozart Festival, Caramoor Summer Music Festival, La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, Bard Music Festival, the Norfolk and Rockport festivals, and has given masterclasses at Columbia University, the New England Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music, and Duke University.

Ms. Bruskin has served as Guest Concertmaster of the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra. She can also be heard performing with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

Ms. Bruskin was a Grand Prize winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award and received BBC Music Magazine's Critics' Choice Award and the Classical Recording Foundation Young Artist Award. Her teachers have included Donald Weilerstein, Ron Copes, Naoko Tanaka, James Buswell, and Susan Reed. A graduate of the Columbia-Juilliard Program, she holds degrees in neuroscience and music.

About Julia Bruskin

Since her concerto debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at age 17, cellist Julia Bruskin has established herself as one of the premier cellists of her generation. She performed Cello Concerto by Samuel Barber with conductor Jahja Ling at David Geffen Hall and has also been a soloist with the Nashville Symphony, Utah Symphony, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and Pacific Symphony, among others. Her recent CD of music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, and Ernő Dohnányi was praised by Fanfare Magazine for its "exquisite beauty of sound and expression."

A founding member of the critically acclaimed Claremont Trio, Ms. Bruskin won first prize in the 2001 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and was awarded the inaugural Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award. The trio tours extensively, including concerts at the Library of Congress, Carnegie Hall, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Bridge Records released the Claremont Trio's recording of Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra and Beethoven's Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op. 1, No. 1 to rave reviews.

Ms. Bruskin has performed with artists including Robert McDonald, Miriam Fried, David Shifrin, Robert McDuffie, Orli Shaham, and Anthony McGill. She performs frequent solo recitals with her husband, Aaron Wunsch, including both national and international tours. The two are in their seventh season as joint artistic directors of the Skaneateles Festival in New York's Finger Lakes region, presenting artists such as Gil Shaham, Hilary Hahn, and the Dover Quartet, Miró Quartet, and Catalyst Quartet.

A frequent guest at summer music festivals, Ms. Bruskin has performed at La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, Chamber Music Northwest, Mostly Mozart Festival, Caramoor Summer Music Festival, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Bard Music Festival, and Norfolk, and has toured with the Musicians from Ravinia. Ms. Bruskin has taught at the Juilliard Pre-College and given masterclasses at the Eastman School of Music, the Peabody Institute, the Purchase College Conservatory of Music, the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Duke University, and Middlebury College.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Ms. Bruskin began cello lessons at age four. Her teachers have included Timothy Eddy, Joel Krosnick, Andrés Díaz, Norman Fischer, and Nancy Hair. She completed the five-year double-degree program at The Juilliard School and Columbia University.

Ms. Bruskin has been a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2014, where she also helps curate the orchestra's chamber music series at Weill Recital Hall and serves on the orchestra's Artistic Advisory Committee.