Yoonshin Song was appointed as Concertmaster of the Houston Symphony in August 2019. Prior to that, she held the same position with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for seven seasons. In Europe, Yoonshin has served as guest concertmaster of the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer for several years, and she has led the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra under numerous top-tiered conductors, such as Sir Simon Rattle, Klaus Mäkelä, Daniel Harding, Mikhail Pletnev, and Antonio Pappano. She also served as guest concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the KBS Symphony Orchestra.

Beyond her first chair duties, Yoonshin has performed as a soloist with many orchestras around the world, including the Houston Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony, New Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Paul Constantinescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the KBS Symphony Orchestra, among many others.

She has also participated as a soloist and a chamber musician in various roles in leading music festivals, including the ones in Verbier, Lucerne, Samos, and Bayreuth in Europe; and the Marlboro, Great Lakes, and Deer Valley in the United States.

Yoonshin has earned many prestigious prizes throughout her career, including top prize awards in the Lipizer International Violin Competition, the Lipinski and Wieniawski International Violin Competition, the Henry Marteau International Violin Competition, and first prize at the Stradivarius International Competition in the United States.

She studied under the tutelage of Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory and with Robert Mann, Glenn Dicterow, and Lisa Kim at the Manhattan School of Music.

Winner of Third Prize at the 2013 Michael Hill International Violin Competition, Boson was named as one of Canada’s “30 under 30 Top Classical Musicians of 2015” by CBC Radio-Canada. He is a recipient of the “Prix Joseph-Rouleau” at the 2010 Montreal International Violin Competition as well as a top 25 candidate at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, and is a winner of Canada’s prestigious Sylva Geber Foundation Award. Additionally, he is a two-time winner of Canada Council for the Arts’ Musical Instrument Bank loan. Mo served as Acting Assistant Concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in the autumn of 2017 and is now a member of the Houston Symphony. He will forever be a student of mentors Keqiang Li and Paul Kantor, and he currently performs on a violin by MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient Joseph Curtin.

Joan DerHovsepian is the newly appointed Principal Viola of the Houston Symphony after winning the international audition held in May 2023. She first joined the viola section of the Houston Symphony in 1999, hired by Christoph Eschenbach, won the audition for Associate Principal Viola in the fall of 2010 during the tenure of Hans Graf, and now begins serving as Principal with Music Director Juraj Valčuha. Recent solo performances with the Houston Symphony include Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with Concertmaster Yoonshin Song in October 2022 and Bruch Double Concerto with Principal 2nd Violin MuChen Hsieh in March 2022. Joan was formerly Principal Viola of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as guest principal viola with the Chicago and Cincinnati symphonies.

Joan is Artist Teacher of Viola at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, instructing students in viola orchestral repertoire and independent study. Students who have come through her course have gone on to win positions in the Cincinnati Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, Houston Symphony, Metropolitan Opera, Minnesota Orchestra, National Arts Center Orchestra, National Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Pittsburgh Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Washington National Opera, among others. She is regular guest faculty for the New World Symphony and has given masterclasses in the study of orchestral excerpts for viola students of the Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory and the University of Melbourne Conservatorium.

Recent festival and chamber music appearances include the Seattle Chamber Music Society, Mainly Mozart Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Mimir Chamber Music Festival (Ft. Worth TX and Melbourne Australia), Music in Context, Peninsula Music Festival, National Orchestral Institute and Lake Lure Chamber Music Festival.

She was the violist of the award winning Everest Quartet, top prize winners at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Joan was the second prize recipient of the Primrose International Viola Competition. She attended the Eastman School of Music studying with violist James Dunham, and the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg Germany, with violist Kim Kashkashian.

Born in China, Wei Jiang began studying violin with his father at the age of 5 and began studying viola after being admitted to the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Having graduated with the highest honor, he was subsequently offered a teaching position at the conservatory as the youngest member of the music faculty. During his five-year tenure at the Central Conservatory, Jiang was actively involved in performing both solo and chamber music and toured extensively with his string quartet in Asia and Europe. He was also a founding member of the Eclipse Ensemble, a unique performing group that showcases music by contemporary Chinese composers throughout China.

Jiang came to the United States in 1996 to further his musical training at the Oberlin Conservatory and later at the University of Maryland. In 1999, he became a member of the Houston Symphony. Jiang is also a member of the Fidelis String Quartet which performed in recital at Carnegie Hall in 2005 and toured Puerto Rico in 2006.

Critics have described American cellist Brinton Averil Smith as a “virtuoso cellist with few equals,” hailing him as “a proponent of old-school string playing such as that of Piatigorsky and Heifetz.” Gramophone praised Brinton in his debut recording of Miklós Rózsa’s Cello Concerto as a “hugely eloquent, impassioned soloist,” writing “The sheer bravura of Smith’s reading is infectious.” BBC Music magazine wrote of his recent Naxos recording of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Cello Concerto, “his is a cast iron technique of verve and refinement put entirely at the service of the music… The artistry on display here is breathtaking,” while David Hurwitz of Classics Today wrote, “Smith plays the living daylights out of it. His full tone, impeccable intonation, and fleet passage work–never for a moment ungainly or stressed–lets the music soar.” Gramophone also wrote of Smith’s most recent Naxos recording, Exiles in Paradise, which explores the rich legacy of the émigré composers who gathered in Hollywood in the mid-20^th century, “Smith plays the bejesus out of it, making child’s play of the rapid-fire spiccatos and almost impossible-to-control harmonics. …and teems with old-school elegance and just the right dose of schmaltz.”

Brinton’s North American engagements have included performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and recital and concerto engagements throughout the country, while his broadcast performances include CBS’s Sunday Morning and regular appearances on NPR’s Performance Today and Symphonycast. He has appeared regularly as a soloist with the Houston Symphony since joining the orchestra as principal cellist in 2005. Prior to this, he was the first musician chosen by Lorin Maazel to join the New York Philharmonic and the principal cellist of the Fort Worth and San Diego Symphony Orchestras. His live concert performances on YouTube have been viewed more than one million times, including more than 250,000 views of a live encore of Paganini’s 24^th Caprice. Devoted to expanding the cello repertoire, Brinton performs a wide variety of violin, piano, and vocal transcriptions, and gave the North American premiers of rediscovered cello works of Jean Sibelius and Alexander Zemlinsky as well as the world premiere of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Sonata for violin and cello. He also gave the first professional performance of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s cello concerto since its 1935 premiere with Arturo Toscanini and Gregor Piatigorsky.

An active chamber musician, Brinton has collaborated with violinist Gil Shaham on numerous occasions, including Carnegie Hall’s Gil Shaham and Friends series. He has also collaborated with cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell; pianists Yefim Bronfman, Emanuel Ax, Jeffrey Kahane, and Kirill Gerstein; violinists James Ehnes, Cho-Liang Lin, and Sarah Chang; soprano Dawn Upshaw; and members of the Beaux Arts Trio; and the Guarneri, Emerson, Juilliard, Cleveland, and Berg quartets. He has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Marlboro Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, the Mainly Mozart Festival, the Brevard Music Festival, and the Texas Music Festival. Brinton is currently an associate professor at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and a faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival.

The son of a mathematician and a pianist, Brinton Averil Smith was admitted to Arizona State University at age 10, where he took courses in mathematics and German and, at age 17, completed a B.A. in mathematics. He then became a student of Eleonore Schoenfeld at the University of Southern California, where he was also a teaching assistant in the mathematics department, and completed work for an M.A. in mathematics at age 19. He subsequently studied with the legendary cellist Zara Nelsova at The Juilliard School. While there, he was a prize winner in several consecutive Juilliard concerto competitions and the Leonard Rose International Cello Competition and received a doctor of musical arts degree, writing on the playing of Emanuel Feuermann. Brinton lives in Houston with his wife, the pianist Evelyn Chen, and their enormous but benevolent dog. Their daughter, Calista, is a soprano studying at Northwestern University. His cello was made by Gaetano Pasta in Brescia, c.1710.

Visit www.brintonaverilsmith.com

Christopher French is the associate principal cellist of the Houston Symphony. Before joining the orchestra in 1986, he held titled positions in both the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Symphony. French is the seventh of a full octave of musical siblings. He enjoys performing with the Bad Boys of Cello, the alter ego of the Houston Symphony cello section. The Bad Boys have played in homeless shelters and elementary schools in an effort to eliminate the classist misconceptions about classical music.

French is a graduate of North Park University in Chicago, where he won the Performance Award. In addition to three concerto performances with the Houston Symphony, he has appeared on the Chamber Players series, and with Da Camera of Houston and the Greenbriar Consortium. He participates in the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, Music in the Mountains in Durango, Colorado, and the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

French teaches orchestral repertoire at Rice University.

Ian Mayton, a native of Durham, North Carolina, was appointed fourth horn of the Houston Symphony by Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada in November 2014. Mayton has performed with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the North Carolina Symphony. After completing his Bachelor of Music degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Mayton spent a year in the Master of Music program at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music studying with William VerMeulen.

Mark Hughes “knows how to spin out a long line with the eloquence of a gifted singer,” says Derrick Henry of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Hughes developed his abilities at Northwestern University where he studied with the late Vincent Cichowicz of the Chicago Symphony. After graduation, he joined the Civic Orchestra of Chicago as a scholarship student of Adolph Herseth, the legendary Principal Trumpet of the Chicago Symphony.

Hughes then began touring with Richard Morris as the popular organ and trumpet duo, “Toccatas and Flourishes,” performing throughout the United States and Canada. His appointment as Associate Principal Trumpet with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra followed, which he held for 12 years. During his time with the ASO, he appeared as soloist with the orchestra on numerous occasions, performed on dozens of recordings, and was an active studio musician.

Hughes is currently Principal Trumpet of the Houston Symphony, a position he has held since 2006. He has appeared as soloist with the orchestra on several occasions, including the performance of the Shostakovich Concerto no. 1 for Piano and Trumpet with Jon Kimura Parker, a performance heard nationally on American Public Radio’s SymphonyCast. Since his arrival in Houston, Hughes has performed and recorded with the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras and continues to be in demand as a soloist with orchestras and in recital. In addition, he serves on the faculties of the Brevard Music Center and the Texas Music Festival each summer. Hughes lives in Bellaire with his wife, Marilyn, and their two children, Thomas and Caroline.

John Parker, a native of High Point, North Carolina, joined the Houston Symphony in May of 2016 as Associate Principal Trumpet. Previously, he was Principal Trumpet with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, a position he attained after his undergraduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). While at UNC, Parker was a recipient of the Kenan Music Scholarship and also the Frank Comfort Education Scholarship. Parker has also performed as Principal Trumpet of the Charleston Symphony, the Roanoke Symphony, and the Greensboro Symphony. He attended the Aspen Music Festival and School on a full fellowship in both 2012 and 2013 and has also performed twice as a soloist at the National Trumpet Competition.

Nick Platoff harnesses the power of music to deliver compounding benefit to the world. He enjoys a multi-faceted career as a trombonist, composer/producer, singer, educator, conductor, and concert producer. After eight seasons as Associate Principal Trombone of the San Francisco Symphony, where he was appointed by Michael Tilson Thomas at age 23, Nick joined the Houston Symphony Orchestra as Principal Trombone in September 2024.

Nick loves using music to delight, inspire, and empower audiences, and does so in a wide variety of mediums and genres as a soloist as well as in collaboration with artists like Jacob Collier, KNOWER, esperanza spalding, Common, Metallica, Steve Lacy, Sigur Ros, Nu Deco Ensemble, the New York Philharmonic, and Yo-Yo Ma.

Recent highlights include conducting the Stanford Brass Ensemble on a concert which included the world premiere of his “The Fanford Stanfare”, composing music for Ramazan Nanayev’s film “Ikigai” and producing a silly music video about spies, both to be premiered Fall 2024. In August 2024, he toured Spain with Zirzuví, a Santa Cruz based band specializing in Sephardic music. Other proud moments include the August 2023 world premiere of his Symphony No. 1 with the SF Civic Symphony, and the November 2022 release of his debut album “Limousine of Creative Potential” featuring songs written and recorded in his friend Joel’s limousine during the pandemic.

Nick’s compositions center on themes of family, hope, mental health, and nature, and he genre-hops between the symphonic world, silly-pop, bumpin’ funk bangers, heartfelt tributes, and jungle soundscape. He regularly performs as a singer-songwriter on the Sofar Sounds series.

Nick joined the faculty of the University of Houston Moores School of Music in September 2024, and has previously served as a faculty member at Stanford University, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College Division, and the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra. As a guest educator, he has taught recently at Rice, Yale, Juilliard, the National Orchestral Institute, and Amateur Music Network. He has collaborated as video producer and co-host with his father, musicologist John Platoff, on various SF Symphony online educational events as well as the Professor Platoff YouTube channel. Nick is a proud alumnus of New Haven’s Neighborhood Music School, Northwestern University, and the New World Symphony.

Phillip I FREEMAN was appointed bass trombonist of the Houston Symphony in 2007 after six seasons with the Sarasota Opera. He has also performed with the Dallas Symphony, the Grant Park Music Festival, the Houston Ballet, the Minnesota Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Sarasota Orchestra, the San Antonio Symphony, and the Utah Symphony.

A graduate of the University of Houston, Freeman received his bachelor’s degree in music, satisfying the requirements for both composition and euphonium performance. After taking up bass trombone during his senior year he continued its study at the Manhattan School of Music and the Tanglewood Music Center.

He has taught at the Moores School of Music, the Shepherd School of Music, and the Texas Music Festival, and has presented masterclasses and recitals at Baylor, McGill, and UTSA.

Freeman is a MICHAEL RATH TROMBONES performing artist.

phillipifreeman.com