Danni enrolled in the double-degree program at the US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music in the Fall of 2020 to study guqin performance. Through Bard’s partnership with CCOM, she studies under CCOM Professor Zhao Jiazhen.

Xiqiao Chen is a first-year guqin student at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Prior to coming to Bard she studied guqin at the Attached Middle School of the Tianjin Conservatory of Music. Xiqiao studied the violin and painting since childhood, and began learning the guqin at the age of 9.

Violinist Isabel Chin Garita is in her first year at Bard Conservatory studying with Professors Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony. She started playing the violin at age 5 and has studied at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School, Project Step (String Training Education Program, 2013-2019) and Project BEAM (Bridge to Equity and Achievement in Music). Her teachers have included Magdalena Richter and Jin Kyung-Joen. She is the recipient of the Eleanor L. Campbell Scholarship and the George James Webb Scholarship, sponsored by the Boston Society of New Jerusalem. As a soloist, she has performed with several orchestras including the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Costa Rican National String Orchestra, New England Youth Repertory Orchestra, Rivers Conservatory Ensemble, and Nashua Chamber Orchestra. In addition to solo performances, Chin enjoys chamber music and collaborating with other musicians. She performed as the Chin Duo with her brother on From The Top, a live broadcast radio station featuring promising young musicians. She also spent many years as part of Project STEP’s Honors Quartet. For the past few summers, she has attended the Bowdoin International Music Festival, studying with Almita Vamos, Robin Scott, and Mikhail Kopelman. Her music has taken her to worldwide concert halls in Boston, Costa Rica, Spain, Czech Republic, and Hungary.

Wenjun Lu (Jessy) is a pipa major in the Bard College Conservatory of Music. She attended the Affiliated Secondary School of Nanjin University of The Arts to learn pipa. Later, she studied with Professor Zhao Jie of the Central Conservatory of Music. Her master teacher at Bard is CCOM Professor Zhang Qiang.

Wang Kehan (Eric) is majoring in guqin performance in the Bard College Conservatory of Music. He studies with Professor Zhao Jiazhen of the Central Conservatory of Music, and has performed with her many times. He won the gold award in the China Instrumental Music Competition held by Eastman Conservatory of Music in 2018 and the Hongqin Cup Gold Award twice in 2019.

Ethan Young is a first year at Bard Conservatory in Peter Wiley’s cello studio. Having graduated from Eastport South Manor Jr. Sr. High School in Manorville, New York, in 2021, he participated in the orchestra, chamber ensemble, and pit orchestra among other performing ensembles with schoolmates. He studied cello with Annette Perry Delihas for six years, was a member of her cello ensemble throughout high school, and is an alumnus of the BAM Young People’s Orchestra/Chamber Ensemble and the MYO Suffolk Principal Orchestra, the former of which he performed the Haydn Cello Concerto in C Major with in Spring 2021. He has been a member of The East End Youth Quartet, Southampton Strings Festival and NYSSSA 2020, as well as various music festivals local to Long Island throughout his high school career (LISFA, HMEA, SCMEA), the NYSSMA All State Symphony Orchestra in 2019, and the NAfME All Eastern and All National Symphony Orchestras in 2021.

Ethan has also participated in masterclasses given by cellists such as Alberto Parrini and Tomoko Fujita, and was awarded numerous music scholarships leaving high school, such as the ESM Music Boosters Yo Yo Ma Orchestra Scholarship, the Michael Tortorice Scholarship for the Arts, the NYSCAME Robert W. Kruger Memorial Scholarship, and the St. Jude’s RC Church Arts Scholarship. In February 2021, Ethan placed third in the 2021 MYO Concerto Competition. He enjoys giving back to the community with free recitals, and had played volunteer services at St. Jude’s RC Church in Mastic, NY, Sunday evenings from Fall 2018 until his departure for Bard.

Yining came to Bard from Texas in the Fall of 2021 to major in Chinese percussion at the Bard College Conservatory of Music’s Chinese instrument double degree program. She is studying with Professor Qiao Jia of the Central Conservatory of Music.