Violinist Miroslav Hristov was hailed by Fanfare Magazine for his "razor sharp technique" and a "full palette of tonal colors." He presents master classes and performs extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has performed in several international festivals and concert series, including the Musical Treasures series in Carnegie Hall, the Interharmony International Music Festival in Arcidosso, Italy, the Sofia Music Weeks International Festival, the Balabanov House Music Days, the Big Arts Concert Series in Florida, and the Fredell Lack Series in Houston, Texas. Recent performances include solo and chamber performances in the national recital halls of Taiwan and Singapore. Hristov was First Prize winner of the International Violin Competition "Dobrin Petkov," and a prizewinner for the MTNA Collegiate String Performance Competition. Hristov has recorded for Centaur Records, Romeo Records, Blue Griffin Records, the Divine Arts Record label, Bulgarian National Radio and WUOT Knoxville. His recordings are broadcast on NPR stations across the United States and abroad. As part of the internationally-acclaimed Kaleidos Duo with pianist, Vladimir Valjarevic, Dr. Hristov's recordings and performances have received rave reviews from The Strad Magazine, Fanfare, DUMA (Sofia, Bulgaria), and Lucid Culture (New York).

With over twenty years of teaching experience, Dr. Miroslav Hristov has gained recognition as one of the leading violin pedagogues in the country. In the last several years, students from Dr. Hristov’s studio have earned top prizes at national and international competitions, including the American Protégé International Concerto Competition, The ENKOR International Solo Violin Competition, the Music Teachers National Association (National Finalist), the Cleveland Orchestra of Tennessee Aria and Concerto Competition, among many others. Recent teaching awards include the Tennessee Music Teachers Association Teacher of the Year, the Tennessee Governor's School for the Arts Outstanding Teacher Award, the University of Tennessee Chancellor’s Excellence in Teaching Award, and the University of Tennessee School of Music's Faculty Distinguished Teaching Award, an award nominated by and voted on by the UT School of Music Student Advisory Board.

Recent graduates from the Dr. Hristov’s studio have received full scholarships and assistantships to attend prestigious graduate programs around the country, including Indiana University, Boston Conservatory, University of Houston, Arizona State University, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Appalachian State University, and Columbus State University. Others have secured competitive jobs, including appointments to the violin faculty of the Universidad Pontifica Católica de Puerto Rico, Crown College, as well as performing arts organizations, such as the National Symphony of Ukraine, the Lexington Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, among others. Many of his students participate in prestigious festivals, such as the Aspen Music Festival, Meadowmount Music Festival, Roundtop, and Yo-Yo Ma’s Winter Music in China.

Miroslav Hristov is Professor of Violin and String Area Coordinator at the University of Tennessee. He is also Founder and Director of the University of Tennessee's Ready for the World Music Series, which brings renowned artists to perform and talk about musical styles and literature from diverse regions around the world, emphasizing each region's contribution to western classical music.

A native of Taiwan, Dr. Yu-Fang Chen is currently serving as Assistant Professor of Violin at Ball State University. She received her Doctoral of Musical Arts degrees on both violin and viola performance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2013, under the tutelage of Benny Kim and Scott Lee. As a sought-after performer and pedagogy, Chen has been invited to teach and perform at various music institutions and festivals, including the Sunflower Music Festival and the Heartland Chamber Music Academy in U.S.A, the InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy, and Thailand International Composition Festival in Salaya, Thailand, etc. Chen has won many awards and competitions and her career as a performing artist is extensive. Her international performing career has taken her to more than fifteen countries on five continents, and she continues to perform as a guest musician internationally with various concert artists, chamber ensembles, and orchestras.

Chen served as an Assistant Professor of Violin and Viola at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas from 2015-2017. She was a member of the Indianapolis Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra and the Academy of Taiwan Strings. As an enthusiastic performer of contemporary music, Chen has commissioned, premiered, and recorded many compositions by living composers. Her recordings can be found in Albany Records, Ablaze Records, RMA Classical, Navora Records, New Focus Recordings, and Parma Recordings, etc.

Dr. David Kovac maintains a varied career as a violist, conductor, artistic director, chamber musician, and instructor of violin and viola. He holds a tenured Associate Professor of Violin and Viola position at East Tennessee State University where has been teaching since 2016. He has collaborated with members of the Miami String Quartet, the Amernet String Quartet, the Rosamunde Trio, the Appalachia Piano Trio, New Ear Ensemble (a Kansas City based new music ensemble), and members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and other orchestras around the United States and Europe. Other chamber music collaborations include performances with faculty at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Stony Brook University, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Park University's International Center for Music, University of Tennessee, University of Kansas, and University of Nevada Las Vegas. He has performed as the featured soloist with the Kansas City Civic Orchestra in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante and has collaborated in opera productions with the renowned Mark Morris Dance Company.

He serves as the director of the ETSU Orchestra and Sinfonia orchestra at ETSU. Previously he conducted the Symphony of the Mountains Youth Symphony, the Heartland Camerata and Sinfonia Orchestras and guest conducted the Symphony of the Mountains Symphony.

In 2009 Dr. Kovac performed the world premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank's Puntos Suspensivos at the Joyce Theatre in New York City. The work was commissioned in part by the performing arts series, "Works and Process" at the Guggenheim Museum. He is the director of the ETSU Chamber Music Festival and previously served as an artistic co-director of the Heartland Chamber Music Festival, an internationally renowned summer program for young musicians that draws students and faculty from across the world, including the Miami String Quartet, Parker String Quartet, Harlem String Quartet, Ivan Chen, and Noah Geller.

As an adjudicator he served on numerous competitions including MTNA-TN State, TMTA State, KTMA State, TN All-East, TN All-State, Alabama All-State and International New Star String Competition. Dr. Kovac's former students have included the concertmaster and principals of the Kansas City Youth Symphony and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, as well as prize winners at the American Viola Society, Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee Music Teachers Associations State competitions and winners of the Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee chapters of the Music Teacher's National Association competition. His students have received scholarships to numerous prestigious schools and summer programs, including Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, MA, Pepperdine University, McGill University, University of Tulsa, University of Dallas, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Park University, Killington Chamber Music Festival, and the Tanglewood Chamber Music Festival. Among notable collaborations are Masterclasses with Borromeo String Quartet, Miami String Quartet and Chiara String Quartet, Parker String Quartet, Harlem String Quartet, Michael Stern.

He has previously taught at the Dana Hall School of Music in Wellesley, MA, the Brattleboro Music Center in Vermont, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) Conservatory of Music and Dance.

Dr. Kovac began his musical studies on violin at the age of four in his home country, the Czech Republic. Later, at the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava, he chose the viola as his main instrument. He completed his Bachelor of Music as a scholarship student at the Longy School of Music in Boston and received his Master of Music in viola performance from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he served as a graduate assistant in chamber music and orchestra. In 2002, Dr. Kovac became the violist in the Graduate Fellowship String Quartet at UMKC, where he completed the Doctor of Musical Arts in viola performance. He has studied with Pavel Vítek, Michelle LaCourse, and Scott Lee, and his chamber music coaches have included Benny Kim, Roman Totenberg, Seymor Lipking, Benjamin Zander, Charles Treger, Sonya Monosoff, Katherine Murdock, Eric Stumacher, and Robert Marfeld.

David Kovac performs on a viola made by Christopher Germain.

Sean Hawthorne has gained international recognition for his achievements as a chamber musician, orchestral musician, soloist and educator. He was appointed as the Assistant Professor of Cello at East Tennessee State University in 2018 where he served until 2023. Sean received his DMA from Stony Brook University in 2018, after having earned a Bachelor’s Degree from The Juilliard School and a Master’s Degree from the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. His primary teachers were Richard Aaron, Michel Strauss and Colin Carr. Sean has enjoyed an active and far-reaching orchestral career performing with orchestras such as the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada, the Royal Philharmonic in London, and the Residentie Orkest in The Hague. He served as principal cellist of the National Repertory Orchestra for two years, during which time he was featured twice as a soloist, performing Strauss’s Don Quixote and Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. In 2014, Sean was selected as the Institute for Orchestral Studies cello apprentice with the National Arts Centre Orchestra under Maestro Pinchas Zukerman. He has also been a member of several renowned summer festival orchestras, including the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra and the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra. As a chamber musician, Sean has collaborated with musicians such as Colin Carr, Arnaud Sussmann, Jennifer Frautschi, and members of the Emerson String Quartet. He has been a featured artist in venues such as Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Dr. Anton Philipszaal in The Hague, and Casa da Música in Porto. Sean regularly performs as a featured artist at Bargemusic in New York City. He has also served as a guest chamber artist/recitalist at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Ball State University, Middle Tennessee State University, South Texas College, and Carson Newman University. As a teacher, Sean has held positions at Stony Brook University and Eastern Music Festival. He has given masterclasses at universities across the country including Shenandoah University, the University of Tennessee Knoxville, and Ball State University. Sean was also a sought-after teacher for young cello students in the New York area, serving as cello instructor at the Herald Music School, the Joyous Music School and the Music Academy of Long Island. Students of Sean’s have been accepted into acclaimed music programs, such as the Juilliard Pre-College program.

Peter Opie is associate professor of cello at Ball State University. He has appeared as both a soloist and chamber musician in concerts and in festivals in Asia, Europe, and both North and South America. As a member of the American Piano Trio, he performed in South Korea, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and in many parts of the United States.

Also active as an orchestral player he has worked regularly with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and has served as guest principal for both the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. He spent a summer as a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival, where he performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and was also offered a fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival.

Formerly on the faculty of Eastern Michigan University, he has given cello and chamber music master classes at many universities and conservatoires around the world, including Oberlin Conservatory, University of Michigan, University of Illinois, Taiwan National University of the Arts, Kyunghee University, the Universidad Nacional de Bogota, the Belarusian National Academy of Music, and the Indiana University String Academy. His students have won competitions, attended prominent festivals (Round Top, NRO, Aspen, Eastern) and have successfully auditioned to perform (either as a member or substitute) with numerous orchestras, including the St. Louis Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony (Miami), Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Columbus (OH) Symphony Orchestra, and Louisville Orchestra. He holds degrees from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London (BM), the Cleveland Institute of Music (MM), and the University of Michigan (DMA). His principal teachers have included Richard Aaron, Anthony Elliott, Oleg Kogan, and Raphael Sommer. Further studies were with Eleanore Schoenfeld and Marc Coppey