Prisma Health Presents Andy & Friends #3

Serge Koussevitzky
Valse Miniature, for Double-Bass and Piano

Rebecca Clarke
Viola Sonata

William Grant Still
Mother & Child, arr. for Cello and Piano

Arvo Pärt
Fratres – “Brothers,” for Violin and Piano

Franz Schubert
Piano Quintet in A Major, D. 667, “The Trout”

Praised by critics for his passionate expression and dazzling technique, pianist Andrew Armstrong has delighted audiences across Asia, Europe, Latin America, Australia Canada, and the United States, including performances at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and Warsaw’s National Philharmonic.

Andrew’s orchestral engagements across the globe have encompassed a vast repertoire of more than 60 concertos with orchestra as well as solo recitals and in chamber music concerts at festivals around the globe.

This 2025-26 season, Andrew will perform Grazyna Bacewicz’s Piano Concerto and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto both with the South Carolina Philharmonic.  This October 2025, Andrew launches the first presentation of his Tuscan Music Festival, October 11-19.  Throughout calendar year 2026, Andrew joins longtime friend and duo partner, Two-Time Grammy Winning violinist James Ehnes in a cross-country tour across Canada, playing in each capital, province, and territory. Back in the States, year-round, Andrew directs and hosts six thriving chamber music series. Three of them are in South Carolina – in Beaufort (USCB Chamber Music), in Columbia (SC Philharmonic’s Andy & Friends), and in Greenville (Sigal Music Museum presents Andy & Friends, a combination of evening chamber music concerts and daytime workshops with students at the remarkable public arts high school, the Fine Arts Center).  He also directs New Canaan Chamber Music in Connecticut, Fabbri Chamber Concerts in NYC at Fabbri Mansion’s 1609 Italian Renaissance Library, a rare, intimate jewel with only 80 seats, and A Little Night Music at Tuckerman Hall in Worcester, MA, the vibrant city where Andrew lives happily with his wife Esty, their three children Jack (19), Elise (14), and Gabriel (8), and their dog Dooker.

Georgia native Gabriela Diaz began her musical training at the age of five, studying piano with her mother, and the next year, violin with her father. 

​As a childhood cancer survivor, Gabriela is committed to supporting cancer research and treatment in her capacity as a musician. In 2004, Gabriela was a recipient of a grant from the Albert Schweitzer Foundation, an award that enabled Gabriela to create and direct the Boston Hope Ensemble. This program is now part of Winsor Music. A firm believer in the healing properties of music, Gabriela and her colleagues have performed in cancer units in Boston hospitals and presented benefit concerts for cancer research organizations in numerous venues throughout the United States.

 A fierce champion of contemporary music, Gabriela has been fortunate to work closely with many significant composers on their own compositions, namely Pierre Boulez, Magnus Lindberg, Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Lucier, Unsuk Chin, John Zorn, Joan Tower, Jessie Montgomery, Roger Reynolds, Chaya Czernowin, Steve Reich, Tania León, Brian Ferneyhough, and Helmut Lachenmann. Gabriela plays regularly with Winsor Music, Castle of our Skins, Radius Ensemble, is concertmaster of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICEensemble), and A Far Cry. 

​In 2012 Gabriela joined the violin faculty of Wellesley College. She also teaches at the Longy School of Music at Bard College. Gabriela is co-artistic director of  the much beloved Boston-based chamber music and outreach organization Winsor Music.  Please visit winsormusic.org for more information!

​Gabriela's recording of Lou Harrison's Suite for Violin and American Gamelan was highlighted in the New York Times Article "5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Classical Music."

​Critics have acclaimed Gabriela as “a young violin master,” and “one of Boston’s most valuable players.” Lloyd Schwartz of the Boston Phoenix noted, “…Gabriela Diaz in a bewitching performance of Pierre Boulez’s 1991 Anthèmes. The come-hither meow of Diaz’s upward slides and her sustained pianissimo fade-out were miracles of color, texture, and feeling.” Others have remarked on her "indefatigably expressive" playing, “polished technique,” and “vivid and elegant playing.”

Gabriela can be heard on New World, Centaur, BMOPSound, Mode, Naxos, and Tzadik records.

​Gabriela plays on a Vuillaume violin and a viola made by her father, Manuel Diaz.

Gabriela is proud to be a core member of the team that created Boston Hope Music, bringing music to patients and frontline workers during the pandemic. More info can be found at bostonhopemusic.org 

Beginning in the summer of 2024, Gabriela will be a member of the Kronos Quartet!

Marguerite Cox, a double bassist from northeast Ohio, is a versatile and in-demand collaborator in numerous musical settings throughout the United States. A recent alumna of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect fellowship, she performs regularly with A Far Cry, Palaver Strings, and Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, and counts forthcoming appearances with The Knights, AMOC*, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Ruckus, Teatro Nuovo, and other chamber ensembles exploring music through the ages. 

Marguerite received her undergraduate degree at Rice University’s Shepherd School and her master’s at the Curtis Institute, where she was the first bassist to receive that degree. In 2016, she founded the Ohio-based Artists for Action, through which she organizes community benefit concerts and other funding initiatives for local organizations. Based in New York, she instructs budding musicians of all ages across the city, lately at Brooklyn High School of the Arts through her Ensemble Connect placement. 

Acclaimed for his stellar stage presence and joyous musicianship, cellist Sterling Elliott is a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the winner of the Senior Division of the 2019 National Sphinx Competition. Already in his young career, he has appeared with major orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

In the 2024/2025 season Sterling Elliott debuts with the Atlanta Symphony, Reno Philharmonic, Columbus Symphony, Ann Arbor Symphony, Des Moines Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony and returns to the Wilmington Symphony. He joins the Madison Symphony for the Beethoven Triple Concerto with Gil and Orli Shaham and returns to Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s led by Louis Langree.

As the YCAT–Music Masters Robey Artist he will Tour New Zealand in addition to appearances at Wigmore Hall, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Konzerthaus Berlin, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and others. This season he also begins his tenure as a BBC New Generation Artist with radio appearances and more.

Born into a musical household, Sterling initially wanted to play the violin like his older brother and sister. After a bit of encouragement, he completed The Elliott Family String Quartet, an ensemble that enjoyed personalized arrangements of genres such as bluegrass, gospel, and funk music.

Sterling is pursuing an Artist Diploma at the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Joel Krosnick and Clara Kim, following completion of his Master of Music and undergraduate degrees at Juilliard. He performs on a 1741 Gennaro Gagliano cello on loan through the Robert F. Smith Fine String Patron Program, in partnership with the Sphinx Organization

American violinist Kevin Zhu is an artist in constant evolution. Searching for stories through sound, Kevin believes that music is a powerful catalyst for communication between past and present. Spontaneity, a sharp eye for detail, and peerless mastery of the instrument define his musicianship and embolden his unrelenting pursuit of new interpretation.

Kevin first came to international attention with early successes at the Yehudi Menuhin and Paganini Competitions. His young career has since taken him to renowned concert halls across the globe, ranging from the Konzerthaus Berlin to the Esplanade in Singapore, London’s Royal Festival Hall to the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, and Bozar Brussels to The Kennedy Center. Favorite performing memories include concerts on Paganini’s famed violin ‘Il Cannone’, invitations to the Moritzburg Festival in Germany in consecutive years (including one edition where he was asked to step in on short notice—twice—in the span of a week), and a performance of Kreisler’s Liebesfreud for the pandemic-era Musical Storefronts series in New York City which moved children to dance upon hearing the music.

Contrast is an essential part of Kevin’s musical ethos. He has earned praise in varying repertoire for both “infinite delicacy” and “wild intensity, the audience crushed in their seats by the violence of what had happened” (RTBF Belgium). His playing is acclaimed for “absolute virtuosity, almost blinding in its incredible purity” (L’ape musicale) yet also “has soul, character, an inner life, with meticulousness and a great deal of sensitivity” (Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten).

Kevin studied with Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin at The Juilliard School, where he holds a Bachelor’s degree. Kevin performs on the c1700 “ex-Petri” Antonio Stradivari violin, on loan from the Ryuji Ueno Foundation and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.