Sullivan County Chamber Orchestra

The Sullivan County Chamber Orchestra’s mission is to serve the community and elevate the quality of life for all generations through artistic expression and cultural experiences; to inspire a viable renaissance; promoting a positive economic resurgence; supporting physical and emotional well-being by enhancing the cultural fabric of our community.

The following performances art held at the Hurleyville Performing Arts Centre Ballroom.  Masks required indoors

Saturday  |  8/28/21, 4:30 pm – Sounds of Jewish Culture Part 1

Sunday     |  8/29/21, 3pm  – Sounds of Jewish Culture Part 2

Saturday  |  9/18/21, 6pm – Art of the String Quartet
Saturday  | 10/23/21, 6pm – Ellen Taaffe-Zwilich & Schubert’s Trout quintets
Saturday  |  12/4/21,  6pm- Holiday  Family Concert

Saturday  |  3/26/2022, 6pm – SCCO Ladies Night!
Saturday  |  5/7/2022, 6pm – Mothers Day Family Concert
Saturday  |  6/11/2022, 6pm – Muss es sein?

SCCO is an NCA Supported project.  This program is made possible in part by funds from the Jewish Federation of Greater Orange County, Fairgame Upstate Theater Coalition, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Sullivan County Chamber Orchestra

Akiko Hosoi  | Violin

A resident of New York City, Japanese violinist Akiko Hosoi is an active solo and chamber music performer across the United States, while being a member of the New Haven Symphony and Stamford Symphony Orchestras. Akiko enjoys collaborating with other artists and organizations dedicated to promote community enhancement and social justice, with projects such as organizing outreach performances at veteran hospitals, hospices, schools, and state prisons across the US, as well as benefit concerts to raise money for the 3/11 Fukushima disaster. Akiko also maintains a performing presence in Japan with regular recitals as well as outreach collaborations with Alexander Technique Studio Tokyo. In 2016, Akiko partnered with Sullivan County (NY) non-profit arts organization Nesin Cultural Arts (NCA) to co-establish and lead the Sullivan County Chamber Orchestra, a conductor-less string orchestra, whose mission is to serve the community and elevate the quality of life for all generations through artistic expression and cultural experiences.

Always trying to inspire the younger generation, Akiko is in high demand as a violin instructor. Through NCA she has co-founded the Aspiring Young Musicians Program and the Summer Music (Arts) Academy, designed to provide students aspiring to develop their musicianship with regular and frequent contact with high caliber performing artists who have a commitment to music education. In 2019 she was invited to teach as a strings instructor at Summer Music in Tuscany, Italy.

Akiko has had an international career from an early age. After attending the Junior Department of the Toho Gakuen School of Music, she enrolled in the Purcell School of Music in London where she was a recipient of many awards and scholarships including the British Government Music and Ballet Scholarship. As a solo recitalist and chamber musician, she worked with distinguished pianists such as Noriko Ogawa and Boris Berezovsky; touring the UK, Finland, Malta, Russia and Japan. A third-prize winner in the 4th Uralsk International Violin Competition in Kazakhstan, she performed with the West Kazakhstan Philharmonic Orchestra. Festival invitations include Mozarteum Summer Music Academy, Encore School for Strings, Taos School of Music, Perlman Music Program Chamber Workshop, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Akiko has performed in masterclasses for Ida Haendel, Gyorgy Pauk and Zakhar Bron, and as a chamber musician, has worked with Seymour Lipkin, Bonnie Hampton, Peter Salaff, Roger Tapping, Donald Weilerstein, and members of the Borromeo, Brentano, Cavani, Orion and Shanghai Quartets. Akiko holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School. Her teachers include David Cerone, Ronald Copes, Maurice Hasson, Lydia Mordkovitch, Kazuki Sawa, and David Updegraff.

Alexander Margolis  |  Violin

Sasha Margolis is a versatile violinist with wide experience in chamber, symphonic, early, new, jazz, and klezmer music. Praised by the Washington Post for his “incisive, vibrato-rich tone,” he has performed chamber music in Italy, Japan, and throughout the U.S, collaborating with pianists Sanford Margolis and Jeremy Denk; members of the Pittsburgh, Detroit and National Symphonies; and the Maia Quartet and members of the Corigliano and Pro Arte Quartets. In addition, he has played as a guest member of the Arianna Quartet. At Spoleto Festival USA, Mr. Margolis was concertmaster for U.S. premieres of little-known operas by Janacek, Henze, Bellini and Donizetti, also playing and acting in Mauricio Kagel’s La Trahison Oral. He was a longtime member of the Honolulu Symphony.

Mr. Margolis has appeared for a total of about two minutes on network TV: five seconds of these were spent impersonating a strolling violinist on ABC’s Lost; the remainder, reciting Shylock’s “I am a Jew” speech on CBS Sunday Morning. He also leads the eclectic music ensemble, Big Galut(e). His first novel, The Tsimbalist, was published in February 2016.

Chelsea Wimmer

Chelsea Wimmer, an active freelance violist based in NYC, received her DMA in Viola Performance from Stony Brook University in 2020, where she was a dedicated chamber musician and active member of internationally renowned harpsichordist Arthur Haas’ Baroque Players, the acclaimed Contemporary Chamber Players, and the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Wimmer’s research centered around the Late Baroque music of Heinrich Biber, translating historically-informed performance practice techniques to modern instruments, World War II-era music, and the musical aesthetics of Paul Hindemith. She primarily studied with Lawrence Dutton of the Emerson String Quartet and Nicholas Cords of the Silk Road Ensemble and Brooklyn Rider.

Kirsten Jermé  | Cello

Cellist Kirsten Jermé leads a multi-faceted life as a chamber musician, recitalist, educator, and arts advocate. Kirsten was previously Principal Cellist of the Evansville Philharmonic and cellist of the Eykamp String Quartet, which served as Faculty Artists-in-Residence at the University of Evansville, where she developed and directed a chamber music course. She was also cellist of the Larchmere String Quartet, with whom she performed across the United States, Canada and Italy, gave university masterclasses, and recorded for the Naxos label. An avid chamber musician, she has performed internationally from Harlaxton College in England to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, the Banff Arts Center in Canada, Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and the Speed Museum in Louisville.

As a freelancer in New York City, Kirsten performed at Carnegie, Weill and Zankel Halls, Le Poisson Rouge, the Joyce Dance Theatre and the Strad for Lunch Recital series, recorded with Mimesis Ensemble for Bridge Records, and taught cello at Greenwich House Music School in Manhattan and Frank Sinatra High School of the Arts in Queens. She has appeared as a soloist with the Metro Chamber Orchestra in Brooklyn, Russian Chamber Chorus of New York, Stony Brook University Orchestra, University of Evansville Symphony Orchestra, and, as a member of the Eykamp String Quartet, with the Evansville Philharmonic. She spends summers in Oregon as a member of the Britt Festival Orchestra.

An advocate of music in the community, Kirsten co-founded and curated the “Coffee and Classics” series at Wired in Evansville, and previously worked for Turtle Bay Music School and The Learning Maestros in New York City on education and outreach initiatives. While still in college, she helped launch an outreach program through the Staller Center for the Arts, serving students across Eastern Long Island.

Kirsten received her M.M. at Eastman School of Music as a student of Steven Doane and Rosemary Elliott, and a B.A. from Stony Brook University, where she studied with Colin Carr and the Emerson String Quartet. She also spent a semester at the Royal College of Music in London, studying with Thomas Carroll.