Paul Wiancko is a composer, cellist and serial collaborator. Called a "multifaceted talent" with a "singular voice" by the Washington Post, Wiancko has composed, arranged, and performed in a dramatically large range of genres, collaborating with artists like Max Richter, Chick Corea, Norah Jones, Dirty Projectors, The National, Wye Oak and the Aizuri, Guarneri, JACK, St. Lawrence and Kronos Quartets. A member of Kronos Quartet since 2023, Wiancko succeeded the late Geoff Nutall as Artistic Director for Chamber Music at Spoleto USA. He is the first composer to hold either position.

Violinist Alexi Kenney is forging a career that defies categorization. The recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, Kenney has appeared as a soloist with the Detroit Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Santa Fe Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sarasota Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and as guest leader of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. As a recitalist, Kenney has performed at Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Phillips Collection, 92nd Street Y and many more. In 2021, he released his first commercial recording, Paul Wiancko’s X Suite for Solo Violin, accompanied by a visual album that pairs each of the seven movements of X Suite with seven contemporary sculptures. Kenney has been profiled by Musical America, Strings Magazine, and The New York Times, and has written for The Strad. As a chamber musician, Kenney regularly tours with Musicians from Marlboro and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has performed at numerous festivals, including Bridgehampton, Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Chamber Music Northwest, Festival Napa Valley, La Jolla, Ojai, Kronberg, Music@Menlo, Ravinia and Spoleto. Kenney is a graduate of the New England Conservatory, where he was a student of Miriam Fried and Donald Weilerstein.

Cellist Gabriel Cabezas is a true 21st-century musician. A prolific and sought-after soloist and collaborator, he is as comfortable interpreting new works as he is with the pillar scores of the cello repertoire. Cabezas has appeared with America’s finest symphony orchestras and has premiered dozens of new works by some of the most brilliant composers of his time. He recently released Lost Coast, a dynamic album of original music composed by Gabriella Smith, inspired by her reflections on the devastating effects of climate change. The album was named a favorite album of 2021 by NPR and The New York Times. Cabezas is a member of the acclaimed chamber sextet yMusic, quartet collective Owls and is a co-founder of Duende, a new music and contemporary dance collective. In 2016, Cabezas received the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, a career grant awarded to extraordinary classical Black and Latinx musicians. Cabezas studied at the Curtis Institute of Music under Carter Brey.

Hailed for her “magnetic, wide-ranging tone” and “rock solid technique” (Philadelphia Inquirer), violist Ayane Kozasa is a chamber musician, collaborator and educator. Winner of the 2011 Primrose International Viola Competition, Kozasa joins the Kronos Quartet after the conclusion of the 2023-24 season. She succeeds Hank Dutt, the ensemble’s violist of 45 years. Kozasa is a founding member of the Aizuri Quartet, who was the 2018 quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the grand prize winner of both the Osaka International String Quartet Competition and MPrize Chamber Arts Competition. The Aizuri Quartet’s debut album Blueprinting (New Amsterdam) was nominated for a Grammy Award and named one of NPR’s top 10 classical albums of 2018. In 2020, the quartet launched AizuriKids, an interactive web series for children that explores relationships between music and themes ranging from astrophysics to cooking. In 2022, Kozasa joined the viola faculty at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She previously taught at Adelphi University in Long Island and has been a guest professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Kozasa is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Kronberg Academy, and Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied viola with Misha Amory, Roberto Díaz, Nobuko Imai and Kirsten Docter.