Bokyung Byun

Committed to expanding the role of a 21st-century musician, Byun’s concert program often features contemporary music alongside traditional repertoire. As Byun herself says, “it’s vital and exciting to audiences for concerts to join the new with the old. For guitar music to continue to grow, I believe that new works must actively be cultivated in programming, and it is my hope that audiences leave my performances with new experiences.” This skill at navigating both classic repertoire and fresh work has led her to co-found Sounding Board: The New Music Initiative for Guitarists and Composers. The project focuses on promoting collaborative relationships between composers and performers to create new works for guitar, and its inaugural festival in Besançon, France in 2019 has been praised as “extraordinary, in the strict sense of the word,” by La Presse de Gray in France. 

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Ricardo Cobo

His diverse and innovative programming ranges from solo concerti with orchestra to historical chamber settings as well as Tango and Flamenco dance ensembles to Latin and world music concerts. He has performed with the Orchestra Of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, The Dallas Symphony Orchestra at Meyerson Symphony Hall and the Philharmonia Virtuosi of New York with Richard Kapp on tour in Southern Europe and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; as part of the Tango Consort with Tango couples Sandor & Parissa, Armando & Daniella, and Francisco & Carolina; the Ballet Jazz of Montreal, U. of Hawaii’s Guitar Summit with the Flying Pisanos and “Masters of the Acoustic Guitar” at Alice Tully Hall, to name a few.