Artists

Chris Tantillo, originally from Long Island, NY, began playing the violin at age 7. He switched to the viola in high school while attending the Interlochen Arts Academy. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Stanley Konopka, and continued his graduate work there as a student of Robert Vernon. After school, Chris was invited to join the New World Symphony, in Miami Beach, FL, under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas. The following year he spent playing with the San Diego Symphony and, since 2006, has been playing with the Saint Louis Symphony. He has spent past summers as a member of the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, CO, at the Aspen Music Festival, and as a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival, where he received the viola award for excellence in performance.  In his free time, Chris enjoys grilling and playing golf. He lives in St. Louis with his wife Becky and son Gabriel.

Susan Kier Gordon is a native of Bay Village, Ohio and began viola studies at age 8. She has been a viola section member of the St. Louis Symphony since 1987, upon receiving her bachelors of music with Robert Vernon at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Previously, while studying with Dr. Jerzy Kosmala, Susan served as violist of the Baton Rouge String Quartet from 1981-83. She holds the 1983 National Federation of Music Clubs competition award and has appeared as soloist for the National Arts Chamber Orchestra. Susan is very musically active performing chamber music, including a ten-year tenure as violist of the Amici Quartet in residence at St. Louis University. Susan performs on a Max Frirsz viola, one of twin violas originally commissioned for and owned by Heidi Castlemann, made in 1985 in Cooperstown, New York. Coincidentally, the other viola twin found a home in the St. Louis Symphony. Ms. Gordon is part founder of Chamber Music Society of St. Louis, formed in 2008. Featured musician on AAM Recordings release Chamber Music for English Horn and Strings, 2004.  

Joo Kim joined the first violin section of the St. Louis Symphony in September of 2004 while completing the Master’s program at the Juilliard School.  Joo made her solo debut with the Saint Louis Symphony in 2008 performing Zigeunerweisen by Sarasate. Since then, she has returned as a soloist with the orchestra on multiple occasions, presenting works by Piazzola, Vivaldi, and Tchaikovksy. Joo has performed as a soloist with the Spoleto USA Festival Orchestra, New World School of the Arts Orchestra in Miami, Florida and the Sebastian Chamber Ensemble in Korea. Her solo and chamber music appearances have been presented in numerous prestigious venues, including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Aspen Music Festival and Lincoln Theater in Miami Beach. As a chamber musician, Joo has collaborated with renowned artists such as Andres Diaz, Ricardo Morales, and Lev Polyakin. Joo began her violin studies at the age of four in Seoul, Korea. At the age of six, she won the Korea Times Music Competition and had a subsequent performance live broadcast on Korean national television. After moving to the U.S. in 1992 she continued her violin studies at the New World School of the Arts in Miami. Joo earned her B.M. and M.M. Degrees from The Juilliard School where she studied with legendary pedagogue Dorothy Delay as well as with Naoko Tanaka. Her other principal teachers include Todd Phillips, Felicia Moye, and Ivan Chan. She has served as concertmaster of the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra in Japan and the Spoleto USA Festival Orchestra. Joo also toured with the Grammy award-­?winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra as guest principal and held the same position with the Jerusalem International Symphony Orchestra in Israel. She has participated in numerous music festivals including Taos Chamber Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Pacific Music Festival, Spoleto USA, Sun Valley Music Festival and Encore School for Strings. Joo is a dedicated teacher whose students have been accepted to the finest conservatories, universities, and summer festivals. She also enjoys her partnership with the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra as a regular coach and mentor for the first violin section. Joo lives with her husband, St. Louis Symphony cellist James Czyzewski. She performs on a rare Italian violin made by Francesco Rugeri in 1694.  

Xiaoxiao Qiang joined the First Violin Section of the St. Louis Symphony in 2011. An experienced orchestral musician, she has also performed with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and was a member of Singapore Festival Orchestra during her studies in Singapore. Born in China, Xiaoxiao began playing the violin at the age of four under her father’s instruction. After attending the Middle and High School attached to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing from 1999 to 2005, she received a full scholarship with living stipend to study in the Bachelor of Music program at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore, where she studied with the head of the string faculty Qian Zhou. Xiaoxiao then completed a Master of Music degree in violin performance under Cho-Liang Lin at Rice University, where she won the Dr. Joseph A. and Ida Kirkland Mullen Scholarships, the University’s highest scholarship awarded to any student of the year. Xiaoxiao has performed extensively as a chamber musician and soloist. She was invited to perform at La Jolla Summerfest, Tongyeong International Music, the Texas Piano Festival, and received a two-year fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival for 2009 and 2010. She has also performed in the Spoleto Festival in December of 2010, as well as part of the New York String Orchestra Seminar under renowned musician Jaime Laredo at Carnegie Hall. She is the founding violinist of the Eon Trio, and with them toured throughout Asia. Xiaoxiao represented the string quartet of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, which performed at the state banquet hosted in honor of H.R.H. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn in 2007 and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2006. She has collaborated as a chamber musician with renowned artists such as the Tokyo String Quartet, Cho-Liang Lin, Kyoko Takezawa, Robert McDuffie, Augustin Hadelich, and Jian Wang. As a soloist, Xiaoxiao has been a top prizewinner in numerous competitions, including second prize in the 2011 Schmidbauer International Young Artist Competition, the “Violin Performance Award” in the 2009 Corpus Christi International String Competition, first prize in the 2011 Ruth Burr String Competition, and the third prize of the Tuesday Musical Club String Competition in San Antonio. She recorded “la rosée fond” by Kawai Shui which was released on Ablaze Records in 2008. In 2008 she was the Grand Prize winner of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music Concerto Competition in Singapore, and in 2010 was one of only forty violinists invited to compete in the 8th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.

Eva Kozma joined the St. Louis Symphony as Assistant Principal Second Violin in 2004 at the invitation of Itzhak Perlman, the orchestra’s Artistic Advisor at the time. She began violin lessons at the age of seven in her hometown of Targu Mures, Romania. Eva participated in many competitions, including the Romanian National Competition, where she won prizes in 1993 and 1994. She made her solo debut with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Targu Mures 1989 and since then has performed numerous concertos with that ensemble. In 1997, Eva won a full scholarship to the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina where she was chosen concertmaster of the orchestra and also won the concerto competition. There Eva met noted violinist and teacher, Ani Kavafian, who invited Eva to study with her at McGill University in Montreal following the completion of her undergraduate studies. While pursuing her undergraduate degree at the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca, Romania Eva performed with the Targu Mures Philharmonic. The next year, she was able to obtain a visa to Montreal where she studied with Kavafian and Denise Lupien. In 2003 she won the university concerto competition, and performed Beethoven’s violin concerto during the final year of her studies. She was also invited to perform with the Societe Philharmonique de Montreal under conductor Takacs Miklos. Eva was recognized with the school’s award for “Outstanding Achievement in Violin Performance” and received her Licentiate of Music diploma in 2003. While in Montreal, Eva performed the Mendelssohn Concerto for Violin and Piano with the McGill Chamber Orchestra and played in the “Debut Young Artist’s Series,” which was broadcast on CBC Radio. In addition, she won a full scholarship with the quartet she founded, the Lloyd Carr Harris Quartet, to attend the Orford Music Festival and again had the opportunity to perform on CBC Radio. In 2006 Eva was asked to perform as a soloist with the St. Louis Symphony in a program dedicated to the music of Spain. The performance was repeated at the orchestra’s 2006 New Year’s Eve concert. Eva is an ardent chamber music performer and shares her talents with the St. Louis community performing frequently in St. Louis area schools, churches, hospitals and retirement homes. She lives with her husband Laszlo, who is a sculptor, and their three children.  

Kristin Ahlstrom joined the St. Louis Symphony in 1996, and was appointed to the Associate Principal Second Violin chair in 2001.She has performed as a soloist with the orchestra on numerous occasions. Kristin received both her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Violin Performance at Indiana University-Bloomington having studied with Henryk Kowalski, Josef Gingold, and Stanley Ritchie. Before joining the St. Louis Symphony she was a member of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. An avid chamber musician, Kristin has been featured in chamber music recitals as well as orchestral concerts as a member of the Sun Valley (Idaho) Summer Symphony since 2001, has appeared several times since 1998 as a chamber musician at the Garth Newel Music Center in Hot Springs, Virginia and is a regular performer in the St. Louis Symphony’s Community Partnership Program. For the last six summers, Kristin has performed as a guest artist at Indiana University’s Summer Festival concert series. She and her husband, pianist Peter Henderson, perform as members of the Ilex Piano Trio.

Jessica Cheng Hellwege became a member of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra violin section in 2008. Previous to her joining the SLSO, Jessica was a regular substitute with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and was the Assistant Principal for the Santa Barbara Symphony. She was also a member of Germany’s prestigious Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival for five summers where she served as concertmaster and principal. Jessica has also participated in the New York Strings Seminar, Encore School for Strings, and Mimir Chamber Music Festival. A native of Arlington Texas, Jessica moved to Los Angeles where she earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 2004 from the University of Southern California Thornton School Of Music. There she studied with Alice Schoenfeld going on to earn a Master of Music degree in 2006 and was named Outstanding Graduate – Class of 2006. She lives in University City with her husband Pete. Jessica plays on a violin made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume in 1825.

Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO), Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL), Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), and Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria (OFGC). He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting throughout the world and is active as a composer, author, and educator. Slatkin has received six Grammy awards and 35 nominations. His latest recordings are Jeff Beal’s The Paper Lined Shack on Supertrain Records and Slatkin Conducts Slatkin, a compilation of pieces written by generations of his musical family, including three of his own compositions, on Naxos Records. Naxos has also recently remastered and reissued audiophile editions of his recordings of Gershwin’s and Rachmaninov’s orchestral works (with the SLSO) for Vox. Other Naxos releases include works by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, and Berlioz (with the ONL) and music by Copland, Rachmaninov, Borzova, McTee, and John Williams (with the DSO). In addition, he has recorded the complete Brahms, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky symphonies with the DSO (available online as digital downloads). The 2023-24 season includes engagements with the Oregon Symphony, Orquesta de València, Orquesta Sinfónica de Radio Televisión Española, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland), ONL, SLSO, Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Mellon University Philharmonic, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, OFGC, Prague Symphony Orchestra, and Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa. A recipient of the prestigious National Medal of Arts, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. He has received the Prix Charbonnier from the Federation of Alliances Françaises, Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton Award, and the 2013 ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award for his debut book, Conducting Business. His second book, Leading Tones: Reflections on Music, Musicians, and the Music Industry, was published by Amadeus Press in 2017, followed by Classical Crossroads: The Path Forward for Music in the 21st Century (2021). Two volumes of a new series comprising essays that supplement the score-study process are scheduled for release by Rowman & Littlefield in 2024. He is also working on several new compositions. Slatkin has held posts as Music Director of the New Orleans, St. Louis, and National symphony orchestras, and he was Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He has served as Principal Guest Conductor of London’s Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and the Minnesota Orchestra. He has conducted virtually all the leading orchestras in the world, including: New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, all five London orchestras, Berlin Philharmonic, Munich’s Bayerischer Rundfunk, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Slatkin’s opera conducting has taken him to the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Santa Fe Opera, Vienna State Opera, Stuttgart Opera, and Opéra Bastille in Paris. Born in Los Angeles to a distinguished musical family, he began his musical training on the violin and first studied conducting with his father, followed by Walter Susskind at Aspen and Jean Morel at Juilliard. He makes his home in St. Louis with his wife, composer Cindy McTee.