Tara Helen O’Connor is a charismatic performer noted for her artistic depth, brilliant technique and colorful tone spanning every musical era. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, a two-time Grammy nominee and the first wind player chosen to participate in The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), she is now a Season Artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A Wm. S. Haynes flute artist, Tara regularly participates in the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, Spoleto Festival USA, Chamber Music Northwest, Mainly Mozart Festival, Music from Angel Fire, the Banff Centre, Rockport Music, Bay Chamber Concerts, Manchester Music Festival, the Great Mountains Music Festival, Chesapeake Music Festival and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.  Along with her husband Daniel Phillips, she is the newly appointed Co-Artstic Director of the Music From Angel Fire Festival in New Mexico.

Tara is a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape, the legendary Bach Aria Group and is a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning New Millennium Ensemble. She has premiered hundreds of new works and has collaborated with the Orion String Quartet, St. Lawrence Quartet and Emerson Quartet. Tara has appeared on A&E’s Breakfast for the Arts, Live from Lincoln Center and has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Bridge Records.

Tara is Associate Professor of Flute, Head of the Woodwinds Department and the Coordinator of Classical Music Studies at Purchase College School of the Arts Conservatory of Music. Additionally, Tara is on the faculty of Bard College Conservatory of Music, the Contemporary Performance Program at Manhattan School of Music and is a visiting artist, teacher and coach at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.  She lives with her husband, violinist Daniel Phillips and their two miniature dachshunds, Chloé and Ava on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Since 1980, Melanie Field has been principal oboist of the Stamford Symphony Orchestra. She is a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and American Composers Orchestra and is principal oboist of the Westchester Philharmonic. She is the English Hornist of the American Symphony Orchestra and has performed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Since 1992, she has been a member of the orchestra for the Broadway production of Phantom of the Opera. For a number of years she was a member of the New York Pickup Ensemble, playing the annual Carnegie Hall P.D.Q. Bach programs. Her recording credits include albums on the Music Masters, CBS, Telarc, Harmonia Mundi, Decca, EMI, Nonesuch and New World Records.

A native of the San Francisco Bay area, Ms. Field moved to New York City to attend the Mannes College of Music and completed her graduate studies at the Juilliard School of Music. Her teachers have included Leland Lincoln, Marc Lifschey, Stephen Adelstein and Ronald Roseman. Melanie resides in Leonia, New Jersey with her music librarian husband David Carp. Former members of the Carp household are son Joshua (father of Elliott Jordan Carp) and daughter Elizabeth; current inhabitants are cats Navy and Choco.

TODD PALMER (clarinet) is a three-time Grammy nominee and has appeared as soloist, recitalist, chamber music collaborator, educator, arranger, and presenter in a variety of musical endeavors around the world. As a winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and grand prize winner in the Ima Hogg Young Artist Auditions, he has appeared as soloist with many symphony and chamber orchestras including those of Houston, Atlanta, St. Paul, Cincinnati, Montréal, BBC Scotland; and has given recital performances that include Weill Hall and the 92nd St. Y in New York City, The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Mr. Palmer has collaborated with some of the world’s most renowned artists and ensembles such as the St. Lawrence, Brentano, Borromeo, Jupiter, Chiara, Lark, and Pacifica string quartets; and sopranos Kathleen Battle, Renée Fleming, Elizabeth Futral, Heidi Grant Murphy and Dawn Upshaw. He has championed and recorded Osvaldo Golijov’s klezmer clarinet quintet, The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind; commissioned Ricky Gordon’s theatre work, Orpheus and Euridice, presented by Great Performers at Lincoln Center; and also premiered David Bruce’s Gumboots at Carnegie Hall. His festival appearances include Spoleto USA, BRAVO!, Music@Menlo, La Jolla, Portland, Vancouver, Banff, Manchester, Marlboro and Tanglewood – where he received the Leonard Bernstein fellowship as a student. He has also worked directly with numerous composers including Osvaldo Golijov, Thomas Adès, David Bruce, Ricky Ian Gordon, Christopher Rouse, Mason Bates, Ned Rorem, and George Tsontakis. Moreover, Mr. Palmer appeared as soloist in director Robert La Page’s staging of The Nightingale and Other Fables at BAM, and gave the world premiere of Crosswalk, a new work for clarinet and dance especially created for him by choreographer Mark Morris. His Broadway credits include South Pacific, Les Miz, The King & I, Sunset Boulevard starring Glenn Close, and most recently Lincoln Center Theater’s production of My Fair Lady.

Cynde Iverson is recognized as one of the finest bassoonists today. She is Principal bassoonist with the Stamford Symphony and New Haven Symphony and a member of the American Ballet Theater Orchestra. She performs with many of New York’s most prestigious ensembles, including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the American Symphony Orchestra.

As a soloist Ms. Iverson has toured the US, Europe, Japan and Asia with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Iverson is a founding member of the Wind Trio of New York.

In the summer months she performs at the Caramoor Music Festival, North Country Chamber Players, Moab Music Festival and Chamber Music Northwest.

As an advocate for contemporary music, Ms. Iverson has performed and recorded numerous compositions with the chamber ensembles Continuum and Musical Elements and has explored the medium of Jazz with artists such as Steve Lacy, Anthony Davis and James Newton. She was a member of the Jazz ensemble Episteme and toured extensively both locally and abroad.

Cynde Iverson received her B.M. (cum laude) from Indiana University as a student of Leonard Sharrow and her M.M. (cum laude) from the Juilliard School as a student of Stephen Maxym.

Lawrence DiBello performs extensively in the NYC metro area. In addition to his position as Principal horn of the Stamford Symphony Orchestra he is currently Principal horn of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra at Lincoln Center as well as 3rd horn in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. He is also a member of the American Symphony Orchestra, New York Pops and New York Symphonic Brass. During the 2010-2011 season he filled in as acting Principal horn of the New York City Opera Orchestra. He has also been invited to play Principal horn with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra on several occasions.