About
Trio Raconteur
Piano Trio
Amy Schroeder, violin
Felix Umansky, cello
Yalin Chi, piano
Brought together through a love for trio repertoire, especially the French, Trio Raconteur is a New York based ensemble formed in 2019. Amy Schroeder, 2x Grammy Award winning first violinist of the internationally renowned Attaca Quartet and Felix Umansky, cellist of the Grammy Award winning Harlem quartet, are joined by pianist Yalin Chi.
Shows
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Individual Bios
Amy Schroeder
Violinist
New York based violinist and pedagogue Amy Schroeder is a founding member of the GRAMMY award winning Attacca Quartet and has been hailed by the Washington Post as ‘an impressive artist whose playing combines imagination and virtuosity.’ She has soloed with orchestras including the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Amherst Symphony, the Clarence Symphony, the Hilton Head Symphony, and the Greater Buffalo Youth Orchestra. As a founding member of the internationally acclaimed Attacca Quartet, Ms. Schroeder has soloed with the Spanish National Orchestra with composer John Adams conducting, and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra with Marin Alsop conducting. Since its inception the Attacca Quartet has won an array of awards including the grand prize in the Osaka International String Quartet Competition, the National Federation of Music Clubs Centennial Chamber Music Award, the Arthur Foote Award from the Harvard Musical Association, and the Lotos Prize in the Arts from the Stecher and Horowitz Foundation. The quartet has also held prestigious residencies including one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and currently at Texas State University in San Marcos. With the Attacca Quartet Ms. Schroeder can be heard on several critically acclaimed recordings produced by Azica Records: “Fellow Traveler” the complete works of John Adams, Haydn: “Seven Last Words,” “Songlines,” works of Michael Ippolito, and most recently on Nonesuch/New Amsterdam Records the GRAMMY award winning album, Shaw/Attacca Quartet 'Orange.' In 2016 the Quartet completed a six year project in which they performed all 68 of Haydn’s String Quartets.
Ms. Schroeder recently formed the Schroeder Umansky Duo with her husband Felix Umansky, internationally celebrated cellist and member of the Harlem Quartet. In 2002 she was the recipient of the Henrietta and Albert J. Ziegle Jr. Scholarship, which provided the tuition for her studies at Juilliard where she was a student of Sally Thomas and the Juilliard String Quartet. Growing up in Buffalo, NY Ms. Schroeder began her violin studies with Karen Campbell and Thomas Halpin. She currently plays on two different violins, a Fernando Gagliano made in 1771 on loan to her from the Five Partners Foundation, and a violin made by Nathan Slobodkin in 2012. In New York Ms. Schroeder teaches violin and piano to students of all ages, and in her spare time she enjoys composing, traveling with her husband, and scuba diving.
Felix Umansky
Cellist
Praised for his “sublime” playing by Cleveland Classical, cellist Felix Umansky is a frequently sought-after recitalist, chamber musician, and pedagogue. His versatile career has taken him all over Europe and North America where he has performed in some of the most prestigious concert halls including Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, the Krannert Center, and the Kennedy Center.
Prior to joining the world-renowned Harlem Quartet, Mr. Umansky spent six seasons as a founding member of the award-winning Linden String Quartet. Accolades with the Linden include first prizes in the 2009 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, 2009 Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition, 2010 Hugo Kauder Competition, and 2010 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, as well as the ProQuartet Prize at the 2011 Borciani International String Quartet Competition, and an honorable mention at the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2013.
One of Mr. Umansky’s missions as a performer is to bring a wide range of classical music to as many people as possible. In addition to performing in concert halls, he has been seen and heard playing everything from Bach to works written just yesterday in settings such as libraries, coffee shops, restaurants, bars, and even performances on the street. An avid supporter of contemporary music, Mr. Umansky has performed and premiered works by numerous living composers such as William Bolcom, John Corigliano, Kelly-Marie Murphy, Vivian Fung, John Harbison, Chen Yi, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Chick Corea, among many others. As the newest member of the Harlem Quartet, Mr. Umansky is excited about future collaborations with many Jazz and Latin-American composers.
Mr. Umansky has been an artist-in-residence at Yale University and the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts. He has also performed and given masterclasses at the University of Idaho, University of Iowa, University of Wyoming, and Utah State University. His festival appearances include Aspen, La Jolla, Music Mountain, Perlman Music Program, Music at Port Milford (Ontario), Highlands-Cashiers (NC), Madison (GA), and Amelia Island.
A native of Carmel, Indiana, Mr. Umansky holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and an Artist Diploma from Yale University. His teachers have included Richard Aaron, Desmond Hoebig, Clive Greensmith, Janos Starker, and Polina Umansky. In his free time, he enjoys exploring New York City as well as traveling with his wife, violinist Amy Schroeder.
Yalin Chi
Pianist
With performances in venues including Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York City, the Gardner Museum in Boston, Kumho Art Hall in Seoul, and ZhongShan Music Hall in Beijing, pianist Yalin Chi has delighted audiences with her “gorgeous tonal coloring” and “masterful and flowing” playing (Leslie Garber, Hudson Valley One). An active chamber musician, Yalin is a founding member of Trio Raconteur and together with pianist Steve Beck performs as the At Once Duo. Yalin has also performed with clarinetists David Shifrin and Alexander Fiterstein, principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic Joseph Alessi, principal trumpet of the London Symphony Orchestra Philip Cobb, concertmaster of the Seoul Symphony Orchestra Wayne Lin, concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Andrew Wan, with the Knights chamber orchestra, and regularly performs with the Albany Symphony and the New Jersey Festival Orchestra. Her recording projects include Dream: Piano Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff and works by composer Steven Sacco.
As a soloist, Yalin has appeared with the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the Central Opera Symphony Orchestra, and the West Point Band. Yalin has held the principal keyboard position at the Hudson Valley Philharmonic since 2014, and has been pianist with the West Point Band since 2008.
In addition to her career as a performer, Yalin serves as the Interim Music Director at the St. James Episcopal Church in Ridgefield, New Jersey and as Artistic Director of the Sunday Music Series at the Chapel Restoration in Cold Spring, New York.
Originally from Beijing, China, Yalin studied at the Interlochen Arts Academy before earning her bachelor’s and master’s at the Juilliard School, where she studied with Seymour Lipkin and Jerome Lowenthal, and pursued additional studies with Peter Frankl at Yale School of Music.
