2027 ISSI Guest Artists
Yoshika Masuda, cello
Born in Kobe, Japan, Yoshika first started playing the cello at the age of five but moved to Australia as a young child where he began his studies with Georg Pedersen at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He then studied extensively with Hannah Roberts and Ralph Kirshbaum, whilst also receiving close musical guidance from Thomas Demenga and David Geringas. Yoshika graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music in the UK with distinction and received the Principal’s Prize along with the Leonard Rose Cello Award for outstanding achievement. He gained his D.M.A. from the USC Thornton School of Music.
Chamber music forms the core of Yoshika’s musical endeavours, and he has performed alongside esteemed artists such as Peter Frankl, Bruno Giuranna, Gil Kalish, Cho-Liang Lin, Alissa Margulis, Roger Tapping, Don Weilerstein, Qian Zhou and the Kronos Quartet. He is the co-founder and cellist of the Darshan Trio and the SAKURA cello quintet, as well as being the resident cellist for the chamber collective, Salastina. He was also the former cellist of the award-winning Rolston Quartet with whom he toured the US, Canada and Europe.
Yoshika has performed at the festivals of Aldeburgh and Leicester in the UK, Festival Amfiteatrof in Italy, Kirishima Music Festival in Japan, and the Yellow Barn Music Festival and Piatigorsky International Cello Festival in the USA. His performances were broadcast widely on ABC Classic FM (Australia), BBC Radio 3 (UK), Musiq’3 (Belgium), Klassik Radio (Germany), KUSC (USA) and Concertzender Radio (The Netherlands).
A keen advocate of contemporary music, Yoshika enjoys collaborating with composers on a regular basis, and has given the US & world premieres of works by Reena Esmail, Toshio Hosokawa, Derrick Skye, Kian Ravaei, Bent Sørensen, Nick Strimple and Jörg Widmann.
Yoshika demonstrates a strong commitment to community engagement by frequently collaborating with Street Symphony, an organisation that utilises music to foster human connections within homeless and incarcerated communities, with a particular focus on downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row.
His interests outside of the classical genre have led him to perform with artists such as Ben Folds at the Sydney Opera House and Pink Martini at the Hollywood Bowl. Yoshika is also featured on Leonard Cohen‘s last album ‘You Want It Darker’, which was released in October 2016 on Columbia Records.
Yoshika is dedicated to nurturing the next generation of young cellists – his students have had successes in both local and national competitions, as well as being admitted to prestigious institutions such as Juilliard, NEC, MSM, USC and the Royal Northern College of Music. Yoshika is currently the Associate Professor of ‘cello and Director of String Studies at Chapman University Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music.
He has also served on the summer faculty of the Montecito International Music Festival, Heartland Chamber Music Festival and the Yellow Barn Young Artist Program.
Sirena Huang, violin
Praised by The Baltimore Sun for her “impeccable technique…deeply expressive phrasing…and poetic weight,” Sirena Huang is one of her generation’s most celebrated violinists. She brings not only technical brilliance and powerful artistry to the stage, but also a profound sense of connection to her audience. Sirena is the 2022 Gold Medalist of the 11th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and was also awarded eight of the eleven special prizes.
Sirena made her solo debut with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra in 2004 at the age of nine and has since performed in 20 countries across three continents. She has been a soloist with numerous prestigious ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Shanghai, Russian, Evergreen, National Taiwan, and Singapore symphony orchestras, and the Staatskapelle Weimar in Germany. An avid chamber musician and recitalist, Sirena has also been a guest artist at the Verbier, Marlboro, Montreal, Ravinia, Aspen, Newport, Music in the Mountains, and Eastern music festivals. In the spring of 2025, Sirena made her Carnegie Hall recital debut in Zankel Hall to great acclaim. Her debut recording of the same program with pianist Chih-Yi Chen on the Azica label will be released this season. This season will also feature the world premiere of a work by Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) who she has commissioned to compose a work for her.
Sirena has performed before world leaders, thinkers and humanitarians. She has appeared at the World Peace Conference held in Petra and at the Opening Ceremony of the Forum 2000 World Conference in Prague. In addition to her TED Talk in 2006, Sirena has been featured on numerous radio and television broadcasts, including WQXR’s McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase and NPR’s From the Top. She graduated from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Stephen Clapp, Sylvia Rosenberg and Itzhak Perlman and holds an Artist Diploma from Yale University’s School of Music, where she studied with Hyo Kang.
Sirena performs on a Guarneri del Gesù violin, Cremona 1739 “Kortschak”, which is on loan from Dr. Ryuji Ueno and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.
Fry Street Quartet
https://frystreetquartet.com/
Touring music of the masters as well as exciting original works from visionary composers of our time, the Fry Street Quartet has perfected a “blend of technical precision and scorching spontaneity” (The Strad). Since securing the Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the quartet has reached audiences from Carnegie Hall to London, and Sarajevo to Jerusalem, exploring the medium of the string quartet and its life-affirming potential with “profound understanding…depth of expression, and stunning technical astuteness” (Deseret Morning News).
With a discography that includes a wide range of works from Haydn and Beethoven to Stravinsky, Janacek and Rorem, the quartet is known for being “equally at home in the classic repertoire of Mozart and Beethoven or contemporary music.” (Palm Beach Daily News). Navona records recently released The Crossroads Project, which features commissioned works by Laura Kaminsky and Libby Larsen, and up next is a recording of Kaminsky’s lauded new chamber opera As One, which will be released on Albany Records.
The FSQ’s tour repertoire reaches many corners of the musical spectrum, including works of Britten, Schubert, Beethoven and Bartok, as well as programs of American women composers Laura Kaminsky, Amy Beach, Joan Tower and Libby Larsen. Recently, the Salt Lake City-based NOVA series presented the FSQ’s cycle of the six quartets of Bela Bartok paired with Haydn’s String Quartets Op. 76, highlighting a juxtaposition of masterpieces by two great innovators for the string quartet. In November 2018, the FSQ will proudly present a complete Bartok Cycle in the Russell Wanlass Performance Hall at Utah State University, featuring eminent Bartok scholar Peter Laki.
The FSQ premiered Laura Kaminsky’s chamber opera As One with soprano Sasha Cooke and baritone Kelly Markgraff at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and has gone on to perform the work with Hawaii Opera Theater, Lyric Opera Kansas City, and Chautauqua Opera.
In addition to collaborations with acclaimed instrumentalists (including Joseph Kalichstein, Wu Han, Paul Katz, Donald Weilerstein, Misha Dichter, Andres Cardenes and Roger Tapping, among others), the Fry Street Quartet has commissioned and toured new works by a wide range of composers. Pandemonium by Brazilian composer Clarice Assad received its Fry Street premiere with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra; Michael Ellison’s Fiddlin‘ was co-commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music Series and the Salt Lake City based NOVA series; and both Laura Kaminsky’s Rising Tide and Libby Larsen’s Emergence were commissioned especially for the quartet’s global sustainability initiative, The Crossroads Project.
After more than 30 performances in three different countries, The Crossroads Project: Rising Tide continues to resonate with audiences. This fresh approach to communicating society’s sustainability challenges draws upon all the senses with a unique blend of science and art, and has been featured on NPR’s joe’s big idea (aired during All Things Considered), as well as in publications by Yale Climate Connections, Reuters, and the New York Times.
The quartet’s significant touring history includes performances at major venues, festivals, and for distinguished series such as Carnegie Hall and the Schneider Series at the New School in New York, the Jewel Box series in Chicago, Chamber Music Columbus, the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, the DiBartolo Performing Arts Center at Notre Dame, the Theosophical Society in London, and the Mozart Gemeinde in Klagenfurt, Austria. The quartet also enjoys a continuing residency with the Salt Lake City-based NOVA series. Projects have included the Schoenberg Chamber Symphony under the direction of Utah Symphony Music Director Thierry Fischer, the Utah premieres of string quartets by Michael Ellison and Andrew Norman, and frequent collaborations with members of the Utah Symphony.
The Fry Street Quartet is pleased to hold the Dan C. and Manon Caine Russell Endowed String Quartet Residency at the Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University.