2023 Festival Artists

Pianist Sean Botkin began studying the piano at age five with his mother, making his first orchestral appearance four years later with the Honolulu Symphony. He went on to study privately with Neal O’Doan at the University of Washington and, under his direction, performed with the Seattle Symphony, Spokane Symphony, and Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra. Sean has garnered prizes in an impressive list of international piano competitions, including Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, Busoni International Piano Competition, Cleveland International Piano Competition, World Piano Competition in Cincinnati, Dong-A International Music Competition of Korea, International Music Competition of Japan and the Washington D.C. International Competition. A graduate of Stanford University, the Juilliard School, and Indiana University at South Bend, Sean has studied with eminent artists Adolph Baller, Martin Canin, and Alexander Toradze. 

Sean has performed extensively in the United States, Europe, Central and South America, Asia, and Russia. He made his New York debut at Alice Tully Hall in 1993 performing Bartók’s Concerto No. 2 with the Juilliard Symphony. Equally active in chamber music, Sean has performed with such artists as William Bennett, Helen Callus, Anibal Dos Santos, Mark Votapek, and members of the Maia Quartet. In 2012, sponsored by Alexander Rachmaninoff and the Rachmaninoff Foundation, he  performed Rachmaninoff’s 4^th Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, and in 2013 with the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and guest conductor, Alexander Sladkovsky. Upcoming performances include a duo-piano recital with Korey Barrett on March 9 and a solo recital on March 20. Reactions to Sean’s performances typically are expressed with phrases such as “multidimensional talents”, “superb musicianship”, and “beautiful and rare musical experience”.

He is currently Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Northern Iowa.

An advocate for new music, Ann Bradfield commissions and premieres new works for saxophone. In the Lone Star Wind Orchestra and the University of North Texas Wind Symphony under the direction of Eugene Corporon, Dr. Bradfield performed and recorded as principal saxophonist on projects including the educational series, “Teaching Music through Performance in Band.” She has been featured in performance at the World Saxophone Congress, North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Convention, and North American Saxophone Alliance Region 2, 3 and 4 Conventions, and is currently Associate Professor of Saxophone at the University of Northern Iowa.

Violist Julia Bullard is an active solo, chamber and orchestral performer both in the US and abroad. As a chamber musician, she has performed as a guest with ensembles including the Aspen String Trio, the Maia Quartet, and the Arianna Quartet. She performs regularly as violist of Trio 826, whose first CD entitled Mosaic was released on the Blue Griffin label in 2016. The trio has toured across the US, as well as in South America and Europe. Julia has performed as a soloist with the Bogotá Chamber Orchestra (Colombia) and the UCS Symphony Orchestra (Caxias do Sul, Brazil), and in solo recitals in Colombia, Russia, and across the US.  She has also performed with various orchestras, including Des Moines Metro Opera, the Cedar Rapids (IA) Symphony, Greenville Symphony (SC), Trenton Symphony (NJ), Macon Symphony (GA), Schenectady Symphony (NY), and Utica Symphony (NY).

Dr. Bullard received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Temple University in Philadelphia, and the DMA degree from the University of Georgia. Her principal teachers included violists Joseph dePasquale, Emanuel Vardi, Sidney Curtiss, and Mark Cedel, and violinist Levon Ambartsumian. From 2000-2022, Dr. Bullard served as viola professor at the University of Northern Iowa, and served for 10 years as the Associate Director for Graduate Studies at the UNI School of Music. Prior to joining the faculty at UNI, Dr. Bullard was a faculty member at Settlement Music School (Philadelphia), Temple University’s Preparatory Department (Philadelphia), and the University of Georgia Pre-College Program, among others. In addition to her work as a musician, Dr. Bullard is also a long-time student of the Alexander Technique, and in August will complete her 1600-hour teacher certification through the Minnesota Center for the Alexander Technique. Her Alexander teachers have included Brian McCullough, Lauren Hill, Tully Hall, Kathryn Zimmerman, and Harriet Harris. Dr. Bullard brings her knowledge of the Alexander Technique to her violin and viola teaching, to help students learn to move and play with ease and freedom, and to help prevent or recover from performance-related injuries.

In August 2022, Dr. Bullard joined the faculty of Kennesaw State University, just north of Atlanta, GA, as Professor and interim Director of the Bailey School of Music.

A native of Waterloo, Iowa, Hunter Capoccioni currently lives in Houston, Texas where he works as an Administrator for Rice University's Neuroengineering Initiative. He founded Cedar Valley Chamber Music in 2006 to bring more chamber music performance to the Cedar Valley and to use the portable nature of chamber music to bring music off the traditional concert stage and access different areas of the CV community.

As a musician, Dr. Capoccioni holds two degrees from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and holds a Doctorate in Music Performance from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.  From 2003-2007 he served as Principal Double Bass of the Norrlands Opera Orchestra and the Norwegian Opera. After returning from Europe, Hunter spent seven years teaching the double bass studio at the University of Northern Iowa. During this time he served as Principal Double Bass of the WCF Symphony and was a regular section musician with the Des Moines Symphony. Dr. Capoccioni has performed as soloist with the UNI Symphony Orchestra, the UNI Wind Symphony, the WCF Symphony, and the Wartburg Community Orchestra. 

Hunter continues to be an active chamber musician in Houston as a performer and administrator. Recent activities include work with the Midbass Trio,  The Van Haydn Ensemble, and as his work as Executive Director of the Houston-based Axiom String Quartet. As a freelance musician he is a regular substitute musician with the Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet Orchestras. His teachers include Fred Reese, Gary Karr, Diana Gannett, Paul Ellison, and Michael Cameron.

Originally from Seoul, South Korea, cellist Yoo-Jung Chang has had a career as a recitalist, soloist, orchestral musician, chamber musician, and educator in US, Austria and South Korea.

 Chang has won an array of awards in competitions around the world, including the Nan-Pa Music Competition, Korean Brahms Association Competition, Seoul Baroque Chamber Orchestra Competition, Ewha Womans University Chamber Music Competitions, Gail Newby Concerto Competition, and Pasadena Music Scholarship Competition. Asa soloist, Chang was featured with the Antelope Valley Symphony Orchestra and Phil Harmonians Seoul Orchestra.  As an active orchestral and chamber musician, Chang has performed with various ensembles, including Opera Idaho, Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra (CA), Chicago Civic Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony, Orchestra Iowa, Dubuque Symphony, International Chamber Soloists Ensemble (NY), Ohio Light Opera, Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, YMF Debut Orchestra (CA), Korean Symphony Orchestra, and AIMS Festival Orchestra (Graz, Austria). She also has performed with many notable artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Lang Lang, Myung-Whun Chung, Cavani Quartet, Enso Quartet and Miami Quartet.         

 Chang was on the Grinnell College music faculty from 2011-2019 and has served on the faculties of St. Ambrose University, Augustana College, Central College, and El Camino College (CA). She has given masterclasses and lectures at the University of Iowa, University of Nebraska-Kearney, Bethel College and Black Hawk College. As a strong advocate for young musicians’ education, she serves as a faculty member at the Des Moines Symphony Academy, Verdugo Young Musicians Association (CA), Valley Youth Philharmonic Orchestra (CA), Oskaloosa String Camp (IA) and the International Cello Institute (MN).

 Yoo-Jung Chang is a cellist with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra and will be joining the faculty of Angelo State University in fall, 2023.

Benjamin Coelho, Professor of Bassoon, has been at The University of Iowa since 1998. He has appeared as soloist, chamber musician, orchestral musician, teacher and clinician in several countries including the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Panama, Portugal, France, Romania, Australia, Canada and Czech Republic.

An avid chamber musician, he has performed with the Gramado Woodwind Quintet (Brazil), the Alaria Chamber Ensemble (New York) and the Contemporary Music Group of Minas Gerais (Brazil). As a founding member of the Manhattan Wind Quintet, Mr. Coelho performed numerous recitals and concert tours throughout the United States. The group won various chamber music competitions including Artists International, Coleman, and Monterey Peninsula Chamber Music Competition. In January of 1987 the quintet played a sold-out concert at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York. As a member of the group Wizards! A Double Reed Consort, Coelho has recorded two CDs released by Crystal and Boston Records in 2000 and 2003 respectively.

Mr. Coelho has written articles on bassoon performance and literature. His work has been published in the International Double Reed Society Journal, as well as the British Double Reed Society Journal. His article Francisco Mignone and the Sixteen Waltzes for Solo Bassoon has been translated into German, and published in the German double reed magazine ROHRBLATT. Before his position at The University of Iowa, Mr. Coelho was the Vice-Dean and Bassoon Professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil). He also worked extensively as a performer in his native Brazil, including principal positions with symphony orchestras in Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, and Belo Horizonte.

In the United State Mr. Coelho has played with the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony (Iowa), The Camerata Chamber Orchestra (Indiana), The Bloomington Pops Orchestra (Indiana), The Bronx Opera Company (New York), and Orchestra Iowa. Currently, he performs as the principal bassoon with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra (Iowa/Illinois) and the Iowa Woodwind Quintet.

Praised for his “superb artistry and beautiful sound”, cellist Max Geissler currently serves as the cellist and Co-Artistic Director of the mixed instrumentation new music ensemble Latitude 49 and is a highly sought-after chamber collaborator and educator. Before his Doctoral studies at Rice working with Desmond Hoebig, he earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan working with Richard Aaron. Passionately expanding the breadth and scope of the standard repertoire, Max has participated in dozens of commissions and premieres, giving voice to an array of works ranging from inspiring student compositions all the way to collaborations with Pulitzer-prize winning composers. Working with Latitude 49, Max has recorded for New Amsterdam Records and has been showcased as a featured performer at the Bowling Green New Music Festival, Detroit’s Strange Beautiful Music, Constellation Chicago, and Princeton Sound Kitchen. As an enthusiastic educator, Max is an in-demand masterclass clinician, having given classes at schools such as SUNY Fredonia, The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Baylor University. Students of his have gone on to continue their studies at major music schools, as well as perform in both local and international competitions. Max spends his summers on faculty at ENCORE Chamber Music in Cleveland, working closely with aspiring cellists and performing alongside good friends and colleagues. Max is a lively advocate of the chamber music literature and takes any opportunity he can to excitedly share it with audiences. He has performed alongside and collaborated with artists such as Jon Kimura Parker, Clive Greensmith, Lynn Harrell, Cho-Liang Lin, Martin Beaver, Margaret Batjer, Brian Connelly, Desmond Hoebig, and James Dunham. Max is currently the Artistic Director for Kalmia Gardens Chamber Music, as well as a regular performer at the Geneva Music Festival. In addition to these festivals, Max has appeared as a Young Artist at La Jolla SummerFest, and performed as a part of the Taipei Music Academy and Festival in Taiwan.

Alan Henson is the cello instructor at Grinnell College and has an active private studio in Ames. He is Principal Cellist of the Central Iowa Symphony, and plays double bass for touring Broadway shows at Des Moines Civic Center. He is former Principal Bassist of the Des Moines, Dubuque, and Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestras, and was the double bass instructor at University of Northern Iowa and cello instructor at Wartburg College in the 1990’s. He has performed with Cedar Rapids, West Virginia, Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Shreveport symphonies, as cellist of the Blue Sage Piano Trio, and as guest artist with the Montclaire and Pioneer string quartets. He studied at CU Boulder, Rice University, and UW-Milwaukee. He received the Leopold La Fosse Studio Teacher of the Year award from Iowa String Teachers Association in 2016.

Julie Fox Henson is the Associate Concertmaster of the Des Moines Symphony, violinist for the Willis Broadway Series and soloist and chamber musician throughout Central Iowa.  She has performed concerti with the Des Moines Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of Iowa (Cedar Falls), the Fort Dodge Area Symphony, Central Iowa Symphony and the Des Moines Community Orchestra.  Ms. Henson enjoys a successful teaching studio in the Ames/Des Moines area, and was voted the 2010 Leopold LaFosse Studio Teacher of the Year by the Iowa String Teachers Association. Since the summer of 2001, she has been a member of the Belin String Quartet, which has a 10- week summer concert series in Des Moines.  Before moving to Ames, Ms. Henson performed throughout the U.S. and parts of Europe and South America as first violinist of the Montclaire String Quartet. This ensemble won the Grand Prize at the Coleman Chamber Music Competition in Los Angeles and also at the Monterey Chamber Music Competition in 1987.  They were the winners of the Prize for the Best Performance of a Contemporary Piece at the Evian (France) String Quartet Competition.

Ms. Henson received her BM from the University of Colorado Boulder on a string quartet scholarship where she was coached by the Takacs Quartet and Denes Koromzay of the Hungarian String Quartet.  She attended Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music to study with the LaSalle String Quartet and then earned her MM from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where the Montclaire String Quartet of which she was first violinist was in residence at the Institute of Chamber Music.  Ms. Henson studied at the Aspen Music Festival and School four summers, two of which were on fellowship in the Advanced String Quartet Program.  There she was coached by Earl Carlyss of the Juilliard Quartet, and members of the Cleveland and Emerson Quartets.

Hannah is a violinist and teacher based in the Iowa City area. She received a BM in violin performance from the University of Minnesota, where she studied with Mark Bjork, and MM in violin performance from the University of Northern Iowa, where she studied with Dr. Ross Winter and Dr. Julia Bullard (viola). An advocate for the Suzuki method, Hannah has studied Suzuki violin pedagogy with Mark Bjork, Joanne Melvin, and Martha Shackford.

Currently, Hannah holds faculty positions at the UNI Suzuki School in Cedar Falls and the Preucil School of Music in Iowa City where she teaches violin and viola, leads group classes, and coaches chamber ensembles and recently joined Schultz Strings as Store and Educational Associate. She maintains an active schedule performing with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, the Southeast Iowa Symphony, and freelancing throughout eastern Iowa with various other ensembles and theatre productions. While perhaps most at home in the classical music genre, Hannah has a great love of the versatility of string instruments and enjoys exploring and collaborating on projects within other genres. She recently recorded and released an album with her husband, violinist and guitarist, Austin Jacobs, and their folk trio band, “From Afar.”

Joanna Mendoza is the violist of the Arianna String Quartet and serves as chair of the Department of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL). The ASQ can be heard on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” and on “Live from Music Mountain,” broadcast to 125 stations in the U.S. and to 35 countries. Their recordings of the two Janacek Quartets, and the Early and Middle Beethoven Quartets, all released on Centaur Records, received critical acclaim.

With the ASQ, Joanna performs and teaches throughout the U.S. and abroad, in-person and online. Known for their down-to-earth and personable approach to coaching and teaching, the ASQ is regularly invited as guest artists to music schools and festivals for mini-residencies of lessons, coachings, master classes, and performances. In addition to their work with students, they work collaboratively with their colleagues at UMSL from other disciplines, including Philosophy, International Business, Nursing, and Visual Art, in lecture demonstrations and other projects both on and off campus. The ASQ's interactive series, entitled First Mondays at KWMU (St. Louis Public Radio), takes a behind-the-scenes look at music-making, the relationship of music with other disciplines, and the chemistry of quartet playing.

She is a co-founder and director of Arianna Arts, Inc., a non-profit organization that engages and enriches communities with world-class music. Arianna Arts, Inc. host sthe Arianna Chamber Music Festival, an international summer festival in St. Louis that brings together a cross-section of aspiring musicians from St. Louis, the U.S., and around the world for a cultural and musical exchange.

Ms. Mendoza maintains a highly-regarded private viola studio. Her students continue their musical studies at esteemed programs such as The Juilliard School, The Shepard School at Rice University, The Jacobs School of Music, Music Academy of the West, the Heifetz Institute, and Colorado College Summer Music Festival.

Prior to joining the Arianna Quartet, Ms. Mendoza was a ten-year member of the Harrington String Quartet and the Amarillo Symphony, and served on the faculties of West Texas A&M University and the University of Oklahoma.

Boston-based violinist Theo Ramsey enjoys a varied career as a chamber musician, orchestral violinist, and teacher. They perform as violinist and violist of Chicago's new music collective Ensemble Dal Niente and serve on that group's artistic programming committee. Recent concert highlights include leading the New World Symphony as concertmaster at Carnegie Hall, playing chamber music at the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Noon to Midnight” festival, and performing at Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, and Ravinia with Brooklyn-based orchestral collective The Knights. In 2022, Theo joined the first violin section of the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra and began teaching at the All Newton Music School in Newton, MA.

​Theo began playing the violin at the age of three at the UNI Suzuki School in Cedar Falls, Iowa. They hold degrees from Northwestern University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, where their primary teachers were Blair Milton and David Updegraff. Theo was co-concertmaster of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and spent two years as a Fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, FL.