Faculty
Chen Zhao, violin
A native of Shanghai, Chen Zhao showed an early interest in music, playing a makeshift violin (a chopstick and pencil box) until his parents gave him a 1/8-size violin on his fourth birthday. He studied with his uncle Ronghao Nie and gave his first public performance at the Shanghai Children’s Palace at age six. He went on to study at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Crossroads School for Art and Sciences, Curtis Institute of Music, SF Conservatory of Music, and joined the San Francisco Symphony at age 25. His teachers include Jiaxiang Zhou, Jiyang Zhao, Heiichiro Ohyama, Felix Galimir, and Camilla Wicks.
Chen has toured throughout the US, Europe, and Asia, and performed at Ravinia, La Jolla, Sun Valley, Round Top, Santa Fe, PMF, Evian, BBC Proms, Lucerne festivals. A seasoned performer in the world's most prestigious concert halls, Chen has also performed as a soloist most recently with the San Francisco Symphony, Curtis Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Chamber Orchestra, and the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. An avid chamber musician, he has performed with Martin Lovett, Miriam Fried, Paul Neubauer, Robert Chen, Gilbert Kalish, Jorja Fleezanis, Geraldine Walther, and studied with members of the Amadeus, Guarneri, Vermeer, Juilliard, and Borodin Quartets. Chen has also performed and recorded with artists such as John Denver, Train, and most recently, Metallica at the Chase Center.
Chen has mentored young violinists in San Francisco since 2000. He is a violin professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and serves as the orchestral training coach for both the SF Conservatory Orchestra and the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra.
Catherine Cosbey, Violin
Catherine Cosbey of the Cavani String Quartet, leads an adventurous career as a vibrant performer and presenter of chamber music. Ms. Cosbery’s international performing career has taken her throughout the US and abroad. She has made appearances at the Honens Festival in Calgary, Alberta, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany, Esterhazy String Quartet Festival in Hungary, Festival de Febrero in Mexico, Xenia Concerts in Toronto, the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the Detroit Chamber Music Society, the Kennedy Center, Severance and Carnegie Hall, amongst others. She has served as guest violinist with with the Afiara, Attacca, Cecilia, Tokai, and Verona Quartets, and has enjoyed collaborations with A Far Cry, Julian Rachlin, Sarah McElravy, Boris Andrianov, Richard Stoltzman, Donald Weilerstein, Peter Salaff, and James Dunham.
A founding member of the award winning Linden String Quartet, hailed as “polished, radiant and incisive” (The Strad Magazine), she has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe. She has served in the Fellowship Quartet at Yale University and the Apprentice Quartet at the Cleveland Institute of Music and performed residencies for the University of Iowa, and the University of Idaho. As a member of the Linden Quartet, Ms. Cosbey received the Gold Medal and Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, Coleman Barstow Prize at the 2009 Coleman National Chamber Ensemble Competition, the 2010 Hugo Kauder Competition, and the ProQuartet Prize at the 9th Borciani String Quartet Competition.
Ms. Cosbey, along with musical soulmate Katherine Dowling, is proudly co-Artistic Director of the Regina Chamber Music Festival, a week-long chamber music festival that works to bring inspiring concerts and instruction to her hometown community in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and co-Artistic Director of Bach From The Heart, a concert experience that explores the emotional journeys of Bach’s Solo Sonatas and Partitas for Violin through music and poetry. As a member of a musical family, she often performs as part of the Cosbey Piano Quintet. Ms. Cosbey holds degrees from the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Yale University’s School of Music. Her principal mentors are Eduard Minevich, Erika Raum, Paul Kantor, Peter Salaff, and the Tokyo and Cavani Quartets.
At home Ms. Cosbey enjoys serenading her many plant pets with Bach and depicting their leaves on loaves of sourdough bread.
Eric Wong, viola
Celebrated for a “tone like toasted caramel. Amazing.” (Musical Toronto), Eric Wong is the violist of the Cavani String Quartet. He was also a member of the JUNO-nominated Afiara Quartet and the Linden String Quartet, first prize winners of the Fischoff, Coleman, and Concert Artist Guild competitions. In addition to his work as a performer, Mr. Wong is an accomplished educator and has been artist-in-residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and Yale University and has served as an artist-clinician for D'Addario Orchestral Strings.
In addition to touring with the quartet, Mr. Wong has played in numerous venues around the United States and worldwide including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Taipei’s National Theater, Kings Place in London, Koerner Hall in Toronto, and Montreal’s Place des Arts. He has collaborated and toured with musical greats such as Itzhak Perlman, Kim Kashkashian, Jaime Laredo, David Shifrin, Richard Stoltzman, and with Donald Weilerstein, Peter Salaff, James Dunham, and Paul Katz of the Cleveland Quartet. He has also worked on projects with Canadian scratch DJs Skratch Bastid and Kid Koala and performed in concert with former American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, Mr. Wong received both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from CIM, studying violin with Paul Kantor and viola with Kirsten Docter and Lynne Ramsey. He subsequently earned an artist diploma from the Yale School of Music where he worked with Kazuhide Isomura. Other influential coaches and mentors have included Peter Salaff and the Cavani and Tokyo Quartets.
Off the clock, Mr. Wong enjoys language-learning, vegan cooking, and classic television.
Laura Gaynon, cello, PCMF artistic director
Cellist Laura Gaynon has performed both modern and baroque cello across the United States, Europe, Canada, and China. She has performed with the American Bach Soloists, the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Opera Parallèle, Magik*Magik Orchestra, One Found Sound, and as a founding member of the baroque chamber ensemble MUSA. A passionate chamber musician, Laura has performed as cellist of the Pacific Crest String Quartet, and of the viola-cello-piano trio Ensemble Illume with violist Jessica Chang and pianist Allegra Chapman. She has collaborated with Kim Kashkashian, Krista Bennion-Feeney, Geoff Nuttall, Bonnie Hampton, Paul Hersh, and Ian Swensen. Festival performances include the Taos School of Music, Valley of the Moon Music Festival, Toronto Summer Music Festival, American Bach Soloists Academy, Berwick Academy, the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, and the 2012 International Piatigorsky Cello Masterclasses at USC.
Laura is co-founder and Co-artistic Director of Bard Music West, a San Francisco music festival that explores the life and works of one underrepresented composer each season through music, dance, theater, film, and lectures. It has achieved widespread critical acclaim, described by the San Francisco Classical Voice as “brilliant” and a “festival [that] defies pretentious norms so prevalent in modern performance practice.”
A devoted educator, Laura is Artistic Director of the Pacific Crest Music Festival, and she teaches cello and chamber music at CSU Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA. Previously, she taught chamber music with Chamber Music by the Bay, the California Music Preparatory Academy, and the string quartet program at Thomas Hart Middle School in Pleasanton, CA.
Laura earned a master's degree in cello performance and an artist’s certificate in chamber music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied cello with Jennifer Culp and baroque cello and viola da gamba with Elisabeth Reed. She also studied with Ole Akahoshi and Carolina Singer while earning a B.A. in Molecular Biology from Yale University.
Elizabeth Dorman, piano
Praised by Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle for her “elegance and verve,” pianist Elizabeth Dorman enjoys performing music both new and old as a soloist and chamber musician.
A finalist of the 2018 Leipzig International Bach Competition, Elizabeth has been widely recognized as a leading performer for her inquisitive interpretations of Bach’s music on the modern piano. Elizabeth has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Louisville Orchestra, the Leipzig Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the California Symphony, the Vallejo Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Folsom Lake Symphony, the Stanford Summer Symphony, Symphony Parnassus, as a soloist for interdisciplinary projects at New World Symphony, and as a keyboardist at the San Francisco Symphony. She can be heard on Delos records as a concerto soloist with Santa Rosa Symphony’s new album celebrating the music of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich..
She has been presented as a soloist and chamber musician at venues including the Kennedy Center, Davies Symphony Hall, Herbst Theater, Merkin Hall, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Leipzig’s Hochschule für Musik, and her live solo performances have been nationally broadcast on NPR and public radio. Elizabeth is the Assistant Artistic Director at the Archipelago Collective, a chamber music festival in the San Juan Islands, and has appeared at other festivals including Tanglewood, Britt, Sarasota, Aspen, Toronto Summer Music, Icicle Creek, and the Banff Centre.
Working with the Bridge Arts Ensemble, Stony Brook University, and as a board member of the Ross McKee Foundation, Elizabeth has produced concerts, lectures, and workshops for music students and was honored with the Father Merlet Award from Pro Musicis for her work training high school music students in community engagement.
Elizabeth and was awarded a Doctor of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University in 2019 where she studied with Gilbert Kalish and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Michael Whitson, chamber music, PCMF founder and director
Michael Whitson is an active violist and teacher in the Southern California area. As a performer, he has shared the stage with the likes of Katy Perry, Stevie Wonder, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, Randy Jackson, Blake Shelton, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, as well as many other artists and groups. He is a regular studio musician, having performed on numerous movie scores such as "Mulan", "Pirates of the Caribbean", and "It Chapter 2". He has also recorded for many current television series such as "The Mandalorian", "Empire", and "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD". Michael performs with local orchestras and ensembles, including the Los Angeles Opera.
A passionate educator as well, Michael serves as the faculty violist at the University of Cal Poly, is currently a Los Angeles Philharmonic Teaching Artist, and maintains his own private studio. He is currently serving as project manager for the Los Angeles Philharmonic's youth orchestra summer program in Idyllwild.
Growing up in the Bay Area, his first studies were with his parents who were also active performers and teachers. He was awarded a full scholarship to attend the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he studied with Paul Hersh. He then completed his graduate studies at the University of Oklahoma in which he was a member of the university's graduate string quartet.
Along with his love for music, Michael is a passionate fly-fisherman, hiker, and sports fan.
Mary Bianco, composer in residence
Mary Bianco is a San Francisco, Paso Robles, Los Angeles and New York based composer of primarily classical chamber music . She received her M..A. degree in Music Composition from Mills College in 2015; her primary teachers being David Bernstein, Fred Frith, Chris Brown and Roscoe Mitchell. Her thesis is titled, “Understanding and Dealing with the Loss of Absolute Pitch as One Ages”. Mary received her B.A. with concentration in composing from Sarah Lawrence College.
Currently studying with David Garner, her previous teachers include Darius Milhaud, Ezra Laderman, Meyer Kupferman, and Irwin Stahl. Mary composed for the Carpenter Trio from 2011 to 2016. Currently she composes for Symphony of the Vines in the Central Coast, the Crescent City Chamber Players, Project: Music Heals Us, The Solera Quartet, The Manhattan Chamber Players, and various California artists.
Mary is a longtime board member of The Music Conservatory of Westchester in addition to serving on various educational boards both in the U.S. and internationally. She accepts selected commissions particularly for the not-for profit sector where music assists in raising the sights of funders and providing special thanks for generous ongoing supporters.
Michael Eby, violin/viola
Michael Eby enjoys a multi-faceted career performing regularly as a chamber musician, orchestral musician and soloist as well as maintaining a private teaching studio. In the Fall of 2016, Michael was chosen to perform as concertmaster for the American Premiere of Vasco Mendonça’s Chamber Opera The House Taken Over at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY. Mr. Eby performed as Associate Concertmaster to David Coucheron in Festival Orchestra Napa in the summer of 2021. In 2022 he was selected to be a Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra Fellow. He has also participated in masterclasses at the Berliner Philharmonie and Chamber Music at Lincoln Center. Recent chamber music collaborations include Cellist Christopher Costanza of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Violist Jodi Levitz and Violinist Chen Zhao. Recent solo engagements include North State Symphony, Shasta Symphony and Alba Music Festival Virtuosi. Additionally, he joined the Depue Brothers Band for their 2022 tour of “A Magical Grassical Christmas” alongside members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 2022 Mr. Eby joined the faculty of Pacific Crest Music Festival as a teaching artist. He holds both BM and MM from Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Isaac Malkin, and a DMA at the University of Connecticut where he studied under the tutelage of Dr. Solomiya Ivakhiv.