A program for professional and early career string players

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Program Details

The CMSPB Rising Artists Program brings four extraordinary young string players to Palm Beach for an immersive week of collaboration, mentorship, and performance.

 

Each January, CMSPB welcomes four exceptional musicians for a residency that blends rehearsal, performance, and community engagement. Under the direction of violinist and CMSPB Artistic Director Arnaud Sussmann and cellist Edward Arron, the experience culminates in Rising Artists in Concert at CMSPB. Audiences witness the next generation of chamber music leadership on stage. This year’s cohort includes four artists whose work is already earning attention across the classical world.

Program Dates

January 4 – 11, 2026

Application Deadline

September 15, 2025

Acceptance Decisions

October 13, 2025

Eligibility

Artists age 20 – 30 years old

Location

Palm Beach, Florida

Stipend

$1,500 + Housing, Meals, & Travel Provided

Instruments

Violin, Viola, and Cello

Application Fee

$25 by August 25
$45 from August 26 – September 15, 2025

Artist-Mentors

Arnaud Sussman

Arnaud
Sussmann

Director & Violin

Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Arnaud Sussmann has distinguished himself with his unique sound, bravura, and profound musicianship. Minnesota’s Pioneer Press writes, “Sussmann has an old-school sound reminiscent of vintage recordings by Jascha Heifetz or Fritz Kreisler, a rare combination of sweet and smooth that can hypnotize a listener.”

Mr. Sussmann has recently appeared as a soloist with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev, and the Vancouver, and New World Symphonies. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the Tel Aviv Museum, London’s Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, and the White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg. He has also given concerts at the Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Mainly Mozart, and Seattle Chamber Music festivals, collaborating with many of today’s leading artists including Itzhak Perlman, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Wu Han, David Finckel, and Jan Vogler.

Sussmann is Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, Co-Director of Music@Menlo’s International Program, and teaches at Stony Brook University. Mr. Sussmann plays the 1731 ‘Schneeberger’ Stradivarius violin on loan from a private owner.

Edward
Arron

Guest Co-Director & Cello

A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Arron made his New York recital debut in 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since that time, he has appeared in recitals, as a soloist with major orchestras, and as a chamber musician, throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

The 2024-25 season marks Mr. Arron’s 12th season as the co-artistic director with his wife, Jeewon Park, of the Performing Artists in Residence series at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Mr. Arron tours and records as a member of the renowned Ehnes String Quartet and he is a regular performer at the Boston and Seattle Chamber Music Societies, the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, Caramoor, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival, Seoul Spring Festival in Korea, Music in the Vineyards Festival, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Manchester Music Festival, and the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland.

Mr. Arron’s performances are frequently broadcast on American Public Media’s Performance Today. In 2021, Mr. Arron’s recording of Beethoven’s Complete Works for Cello and Piano with pianist Jeewon Park was released on the Aeolian Classics Record Label. The recording received the Samuel Sanders Collaborative Artists Award from the Classical Recording Foundation. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Mr. Arron currently serves on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Outstanding Rising Artists alumni enjoy future performance opportunities as part of CMSPB main season concerts in Palm Beach and at our partner venue, the Boscobel Chamber Music Festival in New York.

Artists

Bobby Boogyeom Park

Violin

Bobby Boogyeom Park is a sophomore at the Juilliard School studying with Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho under the Kovner Fellowship. In the past, Bobby has also studied with Li Lin. Before going to college, he was a student of the Juilliard
Pre-College Division where he studied with Catherine Cho and Donald Weilerstein for seven years. He has attended the Perlman Music Program in the summer from 2022~24. Bobby has been a guest soloist at international concerts and festivals including the  Shanghai International Arts Festival at Oriental Art Center in Shanghai. He was a 1st prize winner at the International Russian Rotary Music Competition in Moscow and the 2019 Juilliard Pre-College Concerto Competition. In 2021, at the age of 15, Bobby was the bronze medalist at the Stulberg International String Competition. In 2022, Bobby performed with Maxim Vengerov and the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra in Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall. Bobby has participated in festivals such as the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival and NUME Festival. Recently, Bobby participated as an active participant at  ronberg Academy Violin Masterclasses 2025 and  worked with Mihaela Martin. He has also worked with distinguished pedagogues such as Maxim Vengerov, Gidon Kremer, Vadim Repin, Mihaela Martin, Ilya Kaler, Kyung Sun Lee and Joel Smirnoff. He has
also collaborated on stage with artists such as Maxim Vengerov, Nicholas Kitchen, Ara Gregorian, Stella Chen, Tommaso Lonquich and Marios Papadopoulos.

Gabrielle Després

Violin

Praised for her “gorgeous, rich tone” and fresh, insightful interpretations, violinist Gabrielle Després has emerged as one of Canada’s most compelling young artists, performing across North America and Europe to critical acclaim. As a recent finalist of the 2025 Sibelius International Violin Competition, she was also first-prize winner of the Irving M. Klein International String Competition and the Juilliard Concerto Competition, and a top prize recipient at the Michael Hill, Elmar Oliveira, and Washington International Violin Competitions. She has garnered major honors including the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award, Verbier Academy’s Prix Reyl, and Juilliard’s distinguished William Schuman Prize. In 2020, CBC recognized her artistry by naming her to its list of 30 Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30.

As a soloist, Gabrielle has appeared with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Juilliard Orchestra, Spokane Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Edmonton, and Peninsula Symphony, among others. Her recital credits span leading series and festivals, including the Schiermonnikoog Festival, Gualala Chamber Music, St. Albert Chamber Music Society, and Kelowna Chamber Music Society. During her two-years as Concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra (2021–2022), she led concerts under eminent conductors, including a celebrated performance of Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben with Sir Antonio Pappano.

A passionate chamber musician, she has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, ChamberFest Cleveland, Music in the Vineyards, and the Edmonton Summer Solstice Music Festival, and collaborated with ensembles such as the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players and CMS of Lincoln Center’s Meet the Music series. Committed to using music as a force for connection, Gabrielle has served as a Gluck Community Engagement Fellow at Juilliard, creating interactive programs for hospitals and nursing homes throughout New York City, and collaborates with Project: Music Heals Us, teaching and performing for incarcerated individuals in California.

Gabrielle earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at the Juilliard School as a proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship and is now pursuing an Artist Diploma there, studying with Catherine Cho. Her formative mentors include Donald Weilerstein, Joseph Lin, Masao Kawasaki, Robert Uchida, and James Keene. Her artistic development has been supported by major awards from her home province of Alberta, including the Queen’s Jubilee Award, the Anne Burrows Music Foundation Award, and the Winspear Fund Scholarship, as well as immersive summers at leading programs such as Aspen Music Festival, Kneisel Hall, the Perlman Music Program, and the Verbier Festival Academy.

Katie Liu

Viola

Katie Liu joined the Seattle Symphony in September of 2024 as their Associate Principal Viola. She switched to the viola in her senior year at Princeton University, where she concentrated in Operations Research and Financial Engineering and minored in Computer Science and Musical Performance. She has had prior corporate working experience in asset management and fintech consulting and started pursuing viola as the winner of the Princeton University Concerto Competition in her junior year; as a soloist, she has performed with the Princeton University Orchestra and Colburn Orchestra. After graduating Princeton, she received her Master of Music degree at the Colburn School under the tutelage of Paul Coletti and Teng Li, where she was also the principal violist of the American Youth Symphony.

During her graduate years in the studio of Ettore Causa at the Yale School of Music, she was section violist at the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and was a semi-finalist at the 2024 Primrose International Viola Competition and 2023 Oskar Nedbal International Viola Competition. As a student, her festival experience included the NUME Academy, Verbier Festival Academy Soloists’ Programme, Music@Menlo’s International Program, Kronberg Academy’s Chamber Music Connects the World programme, and YellowBarn.

Katie performs occasionally with the New York Philharmonic and has gone on tour with them to Guangzhou, Nanjing, and Shanghai. An active and avid chamber musician, she was a guest artist at the North Shore Chamber Music Festival, Emerald City Music, the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival, Aspect Chamber Music series, and Music on Park Avenue and Princeton Chamber Music series with pianist Per Tengstrand. Her upcoming engagements include performances at the Music@Menlo Winter Residency and Chamber Music Northwest.

Katie plays on a viola made for her by Frédéric Chaudière in 2024.

Sydney Lee

Cello

Praised for her “mesmerizing” interpretation of Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante, where she “surmounted all of its technical challenges with ease and gave us a joyous musical experience… it’s a performance to treasure,” (cellist Julian Lloyd Webber) cellist Sydney Lee continues to captivate audiences with her refined elegance, expressive depth, and radiant sincerity.
A rising force in the classical music world, she was awarded First Prize at the 2022 Washington International Competition, Second Prize at the Classic Strings International Competition, and became the inaugural recipient of Meadowmount School of Music’s prestigious $50,000 Gurrena Fellowship.

Since her debut at age thirteen with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Sydney has appeared with the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, and the Avanti Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She has also recently been heard in recital at Carriage House Violins, the Sinebrychoff Museum in Helsinki, Finland, and on Chicago’s Guarneri Hall and Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series.

A passionate chamber musician, Sydney is the founder of the Galvin Cello Quartet, which has garnered international recognition after winning the Silver Medal at the 2021 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and joining the Concert Artists Guild roster as winners of the 2022 Victor Elmaleh Competition. The ensemble is now represented by Epstein Fox Performances and Dinin Arts.
Committed to her passion for teaching, she has served as the Teacher Assistant to Hans Jørgen Jensen at the Meadowmount School of Music and Northwestern University, as well as Adjunct Cello Professor at the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings, Mercer University. She has been invited to give masterclasses at the Tennessee Cello Workshop at the University of Tennessee Knoxville and CelloFest, working with undergraduate students of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland.

Deeply committed to arts advocacy and education, Sydney serves on the Board of Directors for the Back to Bach Project, a global initiative reaching over 70 regions and 800 members, dedicated to inspiring children through music and community engagement. As Director of Global Operations, she founded chapters

in Calgary, Canada, and Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and under the mentorship of Midori, spearheaded a landmark collaboration between Play On Philly, the Curtis Institute of Music, and Back to Bach. She has also led virtual educational seminars for young audiences across the United States, Spain, and France as a Back to Bach Soloist. Sydney’s unwavering commitment to her philanthropic endeavors led to Back to Bach’s receipt of funding in 2020 from the esteemed U.S. Presidential Scholars Foundation and Alumni Association Seed Grant Program.

A native of New York City, Sydney is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music and Northwestern University, where she is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree under the mentorship of Hans Jørgen Jensen.
Discover more about her journey and latest projects on Instagram: @sydneylcello.

Outstanding Rising Artists alumni enjoy future performance opportunities as part of CMSPB main season concerts in Palm Beach and at our partner venue, the Boscobel Chamber Music Festival in New York.

The Rising Artists Program offers a unique platform for musicians in the early stages of their careers to collaborate with and perform alongside world-renowned artist-mentors during an immersive week of rehearsals and performances.

Audition Requirements

Video Requirements

  • Solo: 1st movement of a Major Sonata or Concerto (accompaniment preferred)
  • Chamber: Two (2) contrasting movements from one or more major chamber music works (can be from the same work)

Guidelines

  • Recording of you playing in an ensemble
  • String trios or larger ensembles preferred
  • Sonatas with piano will not be accepted for chamber music requirement
  • Performances of full works are also welcome

2026 Rising Artists Sample Schedule

Date

Schedule

Sunday, 1/4/26

Rising Artists Arrival

Monday, 1/5/26 –
Sunday, 1/11/26

10 am – 1 pm: Rehearsals or Outreach Performance

1 pm – 2:30 pm: Lunch and Conversations on Career Topics

2:30 pm – 6:30 pm: Rehearsals

7:30 pm: Evening activities (Donor Dinner, attend a Concert or Music Event, Private House Concert, or Rising Artists Program Concert)

Sunday, 1/11/26

Rising Artists Departure evening of Sunday, 1/11 OR morning of Monday 1/12

Rising Artists Program Alumni

Angela
Chan

Violin

Praised for her sensitivity and incredible tone, Hong Kong born Chinese violinist Angela Chan has found success both as a soloist and a chamber musician. She is the winner of 2024 Hannover Joseph Joachim Violin Competition and recipient of the prize for the best interpretation of commissioned work, first prize and winner of the best interpretation of concerto prize in the 2017 Louis Spohr Violin Competition, and laureate of the Singapore International Violin Competition and Shanghai Issac Stern International Competition.

 

Read full bio →

Matthew
Hakkarainen

Violin

Recently appointed Associate Concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Matthew Hakkarainen is the first American violinist to win first prize at the Premio Rodolfo Lipizer International Violin Competition, where he also received three special prizes. He attended the Curtis Institute of Music (BM ‘22) and the Juilliard School (MM ‘24), studying with Pamela Frank, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Ronald Copes. Matthew is currently a 2024-25 Rebanks Family Fellow at the Glenn Gould School in Toronto, where he works closely with Barry Shiffman.

Read full bio →

Brian
Isaacs

Viola

American violist Brian Isaacs is based in Berlin as a member of the Karajan-Akademie der Berliner Philharmoniker, where he is mentored by Sebastian Krunnies. He studies simultaneously with Tabea Zimmermann as a student in the Konzertexamen program of HfMDK Frankfurt.

 

Brian has received awards and prizes from institutions such as the Verbier Festival Academy, Yale University, Frank Huntington Beebe Fund, and international competitions including Grunewald, Nedbal, and Rubinstein.

 

Read full bio →

Sara
Scanlon

Cello

Known for captivating audiences with her passionate performances and musical artistry, cellist Sara Scanlon, age twenty-four, is quickly becoming a sought-after talent in the world of classical music. Sara made her solo debut, performing the Elgar Concerto with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. She has been a featured soloist on NPR’s nationally broadcasted program “From The Top” and was the principal cellist for the Emmy Award-winning “Night of Georgia Music” on PBS.

 

Read full bio →

FAQs

The Rising Artists program of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach is very much inspired by Caramoor’s Rising Stars, a program that made a meaningful impact in our lives as young artists. Musicians of different generations come together, sharing their love and joy for playing chamber music. This collaborative spirit is at the heart of the program, creating a dynamic learning environment where young musicians can gain invaluable insights and inspiration from their experienced colleagues, and vice-versa!

– Edward Arron and Arnaud Sussmann

Preprofessional and early career string players (violin, viola, cello); ages 20-30 years old

The application deadline is by 11:59 pm on Monday, September 15, 2025

Application decisions will be sent by Monday, October 13, 2025

$25 application fee until August 25 (11:59 PM ET)

$45 from August 26 through September 15 (11:59 PM ET)

No letters are needed. Provide contact information (email address & phone number) for two (2) professional references.

  • Does my Sonata/Concerto selection need to be accompanied or unaccompanied?
    Accompaniment is preferred but not required.
  • Does my chamber repertoire need to be solo or playing in an ensemble?
    Please submit recordings of you playing in an ensemble.
  • I don’t have a trio or larger work. Can I submit a string duo? e.g. Kodaly Duo for Violin & Cello
    Yes, a string duo is acceptable if you do not have a trio or larger work available.
  • Can I submit entire works?
    Yes, you can submit recordings of entire works.

The video submission procedures will be available once the application opens.

International students currently studying in the US can apply, but will need to apply for a work permit from your educational institution.

TBD: 2026 Rising Artists Program repertoire often includes a string trio, a string quartet, and a string sextet

  • Starting an organization
  • Donor relations
  • Education and Community Engagement programming

Applicants chosen for the Rising Artists Program will receive a $1,500 stipend (USD).

  • Flights: CMSPB will cover round trip domestic economy flights
    • seats for cellos will be covered
  • CMSPB will provide all local ground transportation 

Rising Artists will have rental home accommodations or hosted home stays.

All meals will be provided by CMSPB (home meals and restaurants)

Rising Artists of CMSPB in Concert