Festival Fellows
The Colorado Music Festival’s Festival Fellows program hosts a total of eight aspiring professional musicians in Boulder, Colorado. Up to four of these Festival Fellows will be selected by the Sphinx Organization, whose goal is to address “the social issue of under-representation of people of color in classical music.” Fellows will perform up to two concerts per week within the ranks of the Festival Orchestra, as well as at various outreach concerts within the community — all while being coached by the Festival’s illustrious, resident guest musicians.
Selected by the Sphinx Organization:
Ivalas Quartet
Founded in Ann Arbor in 2016, the Ivalas Quartet is composed of violinists Reuben Kebede and Anita Dumar, violist Aimée McAnulty, and cellist Pedro Sánchez. Ivalas has performed with artists such as the Calidore String Quartet, Imani Winds, Danielle Belen, David Ying, and Patricia Terry-Ross. The quartet has also been heard on WRCJ 90.9 FM’s Classical Brunch series and appeared at the inaugural Detroit Music Weekend. Maintaining their commitment to community engagement, Ivalas has also represented the Sphinx Organization playing for students in Flint and the Metro Detroit area. Recently awarded first prize in the 2019 WDAV Young Artists Chamber Music Competition, the quartet also took first prize 2018 Briggs Chamber Music Competition and was named a semifinalist group at both the M-Prize competition and Concert Artists Guild competition in New York.
Selected through an invitation-only audition process:
Jennifer Liu, violin
Violinist Jennifer Liu delights audiences as a performer, teacher, and arts advocate. She began her violin studies at the age of four in Los Angeles with her mother. She moved to New York City at age 15 to study with Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho at The Juilliard School. She finished her studies as a proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship at Juilliard under the tutelage of Sylvia Rosenberg and Donald Weilerstein.
Gergana Haralampieva, violin
Gergana Haralampieva is a Bulgarian-American violinist based in New York City. Born into a family of music teachers, Gergana began singing in her father’s children’s choir at the age of three and playing the violin at the age of six. At eleven, she began attending New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School and later the Walnut Hill School for the Arts. She obtained her Bachelor’s Degree at the Curtis Institute of Music, studying with Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank. She received her Master’s Degree in 2018 from the New England Conservatory where she was a student of Paul Biss and Miriam Fried.
Joshua Kail, viola
Joshua Kail, violist, started on the violin at the age of seven. Through Opus 118’s violin program based in East Harlem, he took violin classes twice a week at his public elementary school, Central Park East II. He later attended Special Music School, which offered a vigorous learning environment for both music and academics. In the fall of 2012, Josh won the concerto competition at Lucy Moses School/Special Music School and performed with an orchestra in 2013 in Merkin Hall under the baton of Nathan Herrington. He continued his studies at Special Music School High School, where he switched to viola and also won the strings category of their competition in his junior year. Josh has participated in numerous music programs and music festivals, including New York Youth Symphony, the Chamber Music Program at NYYS, Greenwood Music Camp, Face the Music, Interlochen, and Juilliard Pre-College, where he studied with Hsin-Yun Huang, Yi-Fang Huang, and Molly Carr. He spent four summers at the Perlman Music Program as a Dusenberry Scholar, where he enjoyed studying with Kirsten Docter and Carol Rodland, while immersing himself in great chamber music with guru Merry Peckham. This past summer he attended Taos School of Music and worked closely with the Borromeo, Shanghai and Brentano String Quartets. He spent the rest of his summer teaching at various festivals. Joshua is a recent semi-finalist of The Stulberg International String Competition. He is a junior at The Juilliard School, under the tutelage of Hsin-Yun Huang and Heidi Castleman.
Joshua Halpern, cello
Joshua Halpern, cello, is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where his teachers included Carter Brey, Peter Wiley, and Desmond Hoebig. Halpern is a founding member of the Rodin Trio and has collaborated with artists including Itzhak Perlman, Jonathan Biss, Roberto Diaz, Viviane Hagner, and Kim Kashkashian. With Curtis On Tour, he has traveled throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America. He served as principal cello of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra throughout the 2016-2017 season and as guest principal cello with the Rotterdam Philharmonic in the 2018-2019 season. He has participated in music festivals including the Ravinia Steans Institute, the Perlman Chamber Workshop, the Taos School of Music, La Jolla SummerFest, and Krzyzowa Music. As a teacher, he has presented master classes throughout the United States and South America and has taught at Curtis Summerfest and the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. He is a Music For Food Artist.