Multiple award-winning violinist Lijiong Liao has performed and taught in both America and China for more than two decades. Currently a studio teacher and international performer, Ms. Liao performed recently with the Asian Festival Performance and Malden TV and was a member of the Miami New World Symphony Orchestra in 2004. She has performed as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra after winning the Tanglewood Festival competition in 2004. Additionally, she was awarded the second prize of the Boston Youth All Instruments Competition in 2003; the first prize of the all-instrument competition of Iowa University under the instruction of Mr. Leopold Lafosse in 2001; and the first Prize of Boston University Bach competition in 2005 and in 2003.

Ms. Liao is a devoted teacher, whose students have won first and second prizes in the New York International All Instruments Competition, and who are regular members of the New England Conservatory Youth Orchestra, the Boston University Youth Orchestra and the junior and senior district orchestras.

Ms. Liao earned both a Master of Music and a Performance Diploma with full scholarship from Boston University, where she studied with Mrs. Dana Mazurkevich, one of the most renowned students of master violinist David Oistrakh.

Barbara Lysakowski started her collegiate studies at the Academy of Music in Gdansk, Poland.  Under the supervision of the renowned pianist and chancellor, Waldemar Wojtal, she obtained Master of Arts in Piano Performance with Academic Honors. She was an instructor of chamber music at that institution for three years.  After moving to the US, she enrolled at the New England Conservatory graduate program where she studied with Randall Hodgkinson and earned a Master of Music in Piano Performance with Academic Honors.  Since then, she taught at the South Shore Conservatory and Franklin School for the Performing Arts. Currently, she is a member of the piano faculty at All Newton Music School in Newton, MA. Under her tutelage, one of her students at that school performed in Carnegie Hall.

Cellist Rebecca Hartka brings joy, stylistic versatility and passion for cross cultural connection to the art of music making. With playing described by the Hanoi Times as “… magical and eloquent” she has performed in venues throughout the United States with international appearances in Cuba, Italy, Turkey, Mexico, Vietnam and Thailand. A long time collaborator with Cuban American Guitarist Jose Lezcano, she has also performed with Curi Cachimuel, a Quechua indigenous musician and composer from Otavalo, Ecuador as well as Mayan musicians in the Yucatán Mexico, and appeared on the Tedx stage. She has performed solo recitals at venues such as Saugerties Pro Musica; the Frederick Historical Piano Collection Concert Series; the French Cultural Center of Boston; and the Dweck Center, among others.

Hartka has released three CDs on Becsta Records. Her 2017 Colors Couleurs Colores Cores (Becsta records) which “displays a high degree of heart and total control” (Michael Johnson), was recorded with Guitarist Jose Lezcano and pianist Barbara Lysakowski. In 2014 she released her second CD, Light & Shadow: Sonatas of Rachmaninov and Poulenc, with pianist Alys Terrien-Queen. A review in the Boston Musical Intelligencer stated that they “take this rich Russian music to new heights”, and that their performance “ranks comfortably alongside several impressive readings by other major cellists.” Hartka released her debut CD Folkfire with pianist Azusa Komiyama in October 2010, receiving critical acclaim as well as radio play on both WFCR and WAMC Performance Place.

Hartka completed a Doctor of Musical Arts in Cello performance and a Masters in Music at Boston University College of Fine Arts in May 2007, as a four-year recipient of the Deans Scholar Award. An educator for twenty years, she is on the faculty of the Osher School of Music at the University of Southern Maine and the Al-Newton Music School in Newton, MA.