CCM Presents
Virtuosity, Vision and the Viola with Roberto Díaz

A violist of international reputation, Roberto Díaz is president and CEO of the Curtis Institute of Music, following in the footsteps of renowned soloist/directors such as Josef Hofmann, Efrem Zimbalist, and Rudolf Serkin. As a teacher of viola at Curtis and former principal viola of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Mr. Díaz has already had a significant impact on American musical life and continues to do so in his dual roles as performer and educator.

As a soloist, Mr. Díaz has collaborated with important 20th- and 21st-century composers including Krzysztof Penderecki, Edison Denisov, Jennifer Higdon, Ricardo Lorenz, Bright Sheng, and Roberto Sierra. Mr. Díaz performed Penderecki’s viola concerto many times with the composer on the podium and gave the US premier of the composer’s double concerto for violin and viola. In 2018 his recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Viola Concerto won two Grammys: Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Best Classical Compendium.

Mr. Díaz has collaborated with distinguished artists in concert halls, major chamber music series, and festivals across the world. He has toured Europe, Asia, and the Americas as a member of the Díaz Trio with violinist Andrés Cárdenes and cellist Andrés Díaz. The Díaz Trio has recorded for the Artek and Dorian labels. Mr. Díaz's recordings on the Naxos label with pianist Robert Koenig include the complete works for viola by Henri Vieuxtemps and a Grammy-nominated disc of viola transcriptions by William Primrose. Also on Naxos are the Brahms viola sonatas with Jeremy Denk and Jonathan Leshnoff's Double Concerto for violin and viola with violinist Charles Wetherbee and the Iris Chamber Orchestra led by Michael Stern. A live performance of Jacob Druckman’s Viola Concerto with Mr. Díaz, Wolfgang Sawallisch, and the Philadelphia Orchestra was recorded for the New World Records label. Mr. Diaz recorded the Walton Viola Concerto with the New Haven Symphony and William Boughton for the Nimbus label. On the Bridge Records label are works for viola and orchestra by Peter Lieberson with the Odense Symphony Orchestra conducted by Scott Yoo. Recently, Mr. Diaz recorded Bright Sheng’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra Of Time and Love with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra with a release date forthcoming.

Since founding Curtis on Tour, Mr. Díaz has taken the hugely successful program to North and South America, Europe and Asia, performing chamber music side-by-side with Curtis students, faculty, and alumni of the school. Mr. Díaz enjoys collaborating with young artists, bringing a fresh approach to the repertoire and providing invaluable opportunities to artists at the beginnings of their careers. His tenure as president of Curtis has also seen the introduction of a classical guitar department and new conducting and string quartet programs.

Mr. Díaz received an honorary doctorate from Bowdoin College and was awarded an honorary membership by the National Board of the American Viola Society. In 2013 Mr. Díaz became a member of the prestigious American Philosophical Society which was founded by Benjamin Franklin. As a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he was selected by Music Director Christoph Eschenbach to receive the C. Hartman Kuhn Award, given annually to "the member of the Philadelphia Orchestra who has shown ability and enterprise of such character as to enhance the standards and the reputation of the Philadelphia Orchestra." Mr. Díaz received a bachelor's degree from the New England Conservatory of Music where he studied with Burton Fine, and a diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music where his teacher was his predecessor at the Philadelphia Orchestra, Joseph de Pasquale. Mr. Díaz also has a degree in industrial design.

In addition to his decade-long tenure as principal viola of the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he performed the entire standard viola concerto repertoire and gave a number of Philadelphia Orchestra premieres, Mr. Díaz was principal viola of the National Symphony under Mstislav Rostropovich, a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, and a member of the Minnesota Orchestra under Sir Neville Marriner. Mr. Díaz plays the ex-Primrose Amati viola.

Hailed for her “magnetic, wide-ranging tone and her “rock solid technique” (Philadelphia Inquirer), violist Ayane Kozasa, is a sought-after chamber musician, collaborator and educator.

Since winning the 2011 Primrose International Viola Competition— where she also captured awards for best chamber music and commissioned work performances—Ayane has appeared on stages across the world, from Carnegie, Wigmore, and Suntory Hall to Ravinia, Aspen, and the Marlboro Music Festival. She is a passionate advocate for the expansion of viola repertoire, and has commissioned multiple new works featuring the viola, including “American Haiku” by Paul Wiancko and “K’Zohar Harakia” by Judd Greenstein.

Ayane is a member of the San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet. Their current season tours include performance venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to the Vicenza Jazz Festival, and they will be making stops in Brazil, Japan, Sweden, and Latvia. Alongside fellow new member Gabriela Díaz, their 2025 Carnegie performance was hailed by the New York Times as a “glow up” where the inner voices were the “quartet’s engines of emotional intensity.” Many of Kronos’s concerts include dynamic collaborators such as Indonesian singer Peni Candra Rini, visual storyteller Ariel Aberg-Riger, and composer Terry Riley. Ayane is also a member of the quartet collective Owls, whose debut album Rare Birds was just released on New Amsterdam Records.

From 2011-2022, Ayane was a founding member of the Aizuri Quartet, who were the 2018 quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum and the grand prize winners of both the Osaka International String Quartet Competition and MPrize Chamber Arts Competition. The Aizuri Quartet’s debut album, Blueprinting—which features the music of 5 American composers, all commissioned by the quartet—was nominated for a Grammy Award and named one of NPR’s top 10 classical albums of 2018.

Much of Ayane’s current work involves mentoring aspiring young musicians through programs like the Green Lake Chamber Music Camp and Olympic Music Festival and now, Meadowmount School of Music. From 2022-2025, Ayane was on the viola faculty at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She previously served on the viola faculty at Adelphi University in Long Island, and as guest faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Ayane is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Kronberg Academy in Germany, and Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied viola with Misha Amory, Roberto Díaz, Nobuko Imai, and Kirsten Docter. Aside from music, she enjoys baking, hiking, camping, and creating animation.

Violist Teng Li is an internationally celebrated soloist, chamber musician and recording artist, hailed for her “burnished sound and elegant command of phrasing” (New York Times) and “a musical personality that mesmerizes the ear” (BBC Music). In September 2023, Li was appointed to the Paul Hindemith Principal Viola Chair of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by Music Director Emeritus for Life Riccardo Muti, a post she assumes at the beginning of the 2024/25 season. Previously, she was principal viola of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 2018 to 2024 and served for 14 seasons as principal viola of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Recognized as a “dazzlingly virtuosic” soloist (Los Angeles Times), she has appeared with premier ensembles throughout the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, National Chamber Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Shanghai Opera Symphony Orchestra and Esprit Orchestra. Most recently, she was featured in acclaimed performances of Paganini’s Sonata per la Grand Viola with Lina González-Granados and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, as well as in Kancheli’s Styx with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic led by Alexander Mickelthwate.

Li is an ardent chamber musician with notable past engagements at the Marlboro, Santa Fe Chamber, Rome Chamber and Moritzburg music festivals; Chamber Music Northwest, La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, ChamberFest Cleveland and the prestigious Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society Two program. She has performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and the 92nd Street “Y” Chamber Music Society in New York, and collaborated closely with the Guarneri Quartet, joining the ensemble in concerts during the quartet’s final season in 2008/09. She is a founding member of the Rosamunde Quartet, together with violinists Noah Bendix-Balgley and Shanshan Yao and cellist Nathan Vickery, with whom she has given performances and masterclasses throughout the United States and Canada.

Li’s probing interpretations of chamber works can be heard on several critically acclaimed recordings, among them 1939, her solo album for Azica Records with violinist Benjamin Bowman and pianist Meng-Chieh Liu. Her discography also includes recording credits with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Toronto Symphony, most notably on the latter’s Juno Award-winning Vaughan Williams album for Chandos, which features Li in a “ravishing” (CBC Music) performance of Flos Campi.

Li has won top prizes at the Johansen International Competition, the Holland-America Music Society Competition, the Primrose International Viola Competition, the Klein International String Competition, and the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, Germany. She was also a winner of the Astral Artistic Services’ 2003 National Auditions.

A committed educator, Li has taught at the Colburn School, University of Toronto, Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and Montreal’s Conservatoire de Musique, and joins the faculty of Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performance Arts in the 2024/25 academic year. In addition, she teaches at the Sarasota Music Festival and Morningside Music Bridge. Li is a graduate of the Central Conservatory in Beijing, China, and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Michael Tree, Joseph de Pasquale, and Karen Tuttle.

Praised by Strad magazine as having "lyricism that stood out...a silky tone and beautiful, supple lines," Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt has established herself as one of the most sought-after violists of her generation.  In addition to appearances as soloist with the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, theTokyo Philharmonic, the Jacksonville Symphony, the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra, and Symphony in C, she has performed in recitals and chamber-music concerts throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia, including an acclaimed 2011 debut recital at London’s Wigmore Hall, which was described in Strad as being "fleet and energetic...powerful and focused."  

Ms. Pajaro-van de Stadt was the founding violist of the twice-Grammy-nominated Dover Quartet, and played in the group from 2008-2022. During her time in the group, the Dover Quartet was the First Prize-winner and recipient of every special award at the Banff International String Quartet Competition 2013, and winner of the Gold Medal and Grand Prize in the 2010 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Also during her tenure, the Dover Quartet received the Cleveland Quartet Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Her numerous awards also include First Prize at the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and top prizes at the the Sphinx Competition and the Tokyo International Viola Competition. While in the Dover Quartet, Ms. Pajaro-van de Stadt was on the faculty at The Curtis Institute of Music and Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, and a part of the Quartet in Residence of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She is now a member of the newly formed piano quartet “Espressivo!” along with acclaimed artists Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, and Anna Polonsky.

A violin student of Sergiu Schwartz and Melissa Pierson-Barrett for several years, she began studying viola with Michael Klotz at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in 2005. Ms. Pajaro-van de Stadt graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Roberto Diaz, Michael Tree, Misha Amory, and Joseph de Pasquale. She then received her Master's Degree in String Quartet with the Dover Quartet at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, as a student of James Dunham.

Praised by the New York Times for her “probing introspection”, and by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “a star” with “a voluptuous tone,” American violist Vicki Powell enjoys a multifaceted international career. She currently resides in Sweden, where she has held the position of Principal Viola of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra since 2018, and is regularly invited to play as Guest Principal with other orchestras including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester, and Australian Chamber Orchestra among others.

Vicki is the recipient of a Gold Award in Music from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and is the laureate of top prizes at the Primrose International Viola Competition,  the Philadelphia Orchestra Greenfield Competition, the Johansen International Competition, and the Aspen Low Strings Competition. As soloist, she has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.

An avid chamber musician, Vicki performs with the Boccherini String Trio (www.boccherinitrio.com), alongside Suyeon Kang and Paolo Bonomini. Their debut CDs of the complete Beethoven String Trios (Genuin), followed in 2024 by an album of Hungarian string trios (BIS Records), were released to critical acclaim. Vicki appears frequently in chamber concerts at Konserthuset Stockholm, and is a fixture at chamber festivals throughout Europe and the US. Recent highlights include performances at the Olympic Music Festival, Festival Pro "Lieblingsstücke”, Aldeburgh Festival with Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, Korsholm Music Festival, MiTo Settembre Musica, Teatro La Fenice, and Berlin Konzerthaus. She has previously collaborated with renowned artists such as Anne Sofie von Otter, Janine Jansen, Mihaela Martin, Franz Helmerson, Nobuko Imai, and Mitsuko Uchida.

In addition to her pursuits as a violist, Vicki has served as Director of the Verbier Festival Academy's "Reaching Out" program, where she helped enable musicians to harness and broaden their outreach, business, networking, and leadership skills in order to be innovative and active participants within their own communities. She is passionate about passing on her knowledge to the next generation of musicians and works closely with the students of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra Academy as viola and chamber music mentor. 

A graduate of the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" Berlin, Juilliard School, and Curtis Institute of Music, Vicki counts Máté Szűcs, Misha Amory, Roberto Diaz, Rainer Schmidt, Pamela Frank, and Hatto Beyerle among her most formative mentors.