Róża Kostrzewska Yoder, Artistic Director
Róża made her orchestral debut at the age of eleven, has recorded for Polish National Radio and Polish National Television, and is the prizewinner of many piano competitions. She has collaborated in chamber performances with Luz Leskowitz, Jorg Demus, Paul Badura-Skoda, and the Salzburg Solisti, and has performed in solo recital in Germany, Austria, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, and the United States.
A graduate with highest distinction from the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland, Róża studied under Bronislava Kawalla, Jan Ekier, Former Chair of the Jury of the Chopin International Piano Competition, and Daniel Pollack, Antoinette and John Perry, Vitaly Margulis, and Irina Dąbrowska. Active as a performer and teacher in Greater Los Angeles, Róża frequently gives master classes and lectures for students and teachers, and has led many study programs in Poland, France, and the United States.
Róża has taught piano festivals as a colleague of Dina Joffe (Second Prize Winner of the Chopin International Piano Competition), Natalia Troull (Second Prize Winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition and Professor of Piano at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory), Pavel Nersessian (First Prize Winner of the International Dublin Piano Competition and Professor of Piano at Boston University), and Edward Wolanin (First Prize Winner of the Darmstadt International Piano Competition).
Douglas Yoder
Douglas was a First Prize Winner of Penn State University’s Young Artist’s Competition, where he performed the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with orchestra. He has performed in solo recital in England, Germany, and Poland, and the United States, and as a chamber artist. He studied for an Advanced Studies Certificate at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland under the tutelage of Bronislawa Kawalla.
Douglas studied engineering in Pennsylvania (B.S.), philosophy, politics, and economics at the University of Oxford (B.A. and M.A.), and the philosophy of religion and biblical studies (Ph.D.) in California. His book Tanakh Epistemology: Knowledge and Power, Religious and Secular was published by Cambridge University Press in June 2020.
For more information see douglasyoder.net.