Performer Bios
Patrick Gardner
Patrick Gardner’s performances have been acclaimed by audiences, critics, and composers, including Tarik O’Regan, William Bolcom, John Harbison, Lou Harrison, Lukas Foss, and Jennifer Higdon. Gardner’s performance of major works by Lou Harrison, which he curated and conducted at Trinity Church Wall Street, was named in The New York Times list of “Best Classical Performances of 2017.” Director of the Riverside Choral Society of New York City, Gardner is also director emeritus of choral activities at Rutgers University, where he conducted the Rutgers Kirkpatrick Choir and the Rutgers Glee Club and supervised doctoral students in choral conducting. He has conducted more than 100 major choral orchestral masterworks, from the Mozart Requiem, the Bach B-minor Mass and Christmas Oratorio at Carnegie Hall to the Missa Solemnisand the Verdi and Brahms Requiems at Lincoln Center. He has presented master classes for advanced choral conducting students and professional conductors in Taiwan, Italy, and the Netherlands. Gardner has served as a member of the grants panel of the National Endowment for the Arts and has recorded for the Naxos, Albany, Ethereal, and Folkways labels.
Paul Conrad
Paul Conrad, from North Brunswick, NJ, received a MM in Collaborative Piano and a BM in Piano Performance from Mason Gross School of the Arts (MGSA). He is the choir director and organist at Middlebush Reformed Church, a staff pianist and classroom piano instructor at MGSA, and accompanist of the Rutgers University Glee Club (RUGC), Kirkpatrick Choir, and the Highland Park Community Chorus (HPCC). Paul is an experienced ballet pianist and played for a number of years at the Cecchetti International Summer School in Holland, MI. He has joined Berkshire Choral International faculty for festivals in Sonoma, Asheville, Baltimore, Boston, and Seattle, and participated in Sheffield, MA as both BCI scholar and apprentice. Recent notable performances include accompanying the NJMEA All-State Mixed Chorus (2022), Hub City Opera and Dance Company’s productions Un\Rooted (2020) and Masks (2021), playing and conducting Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with HPCC (May 2019), and accompanying RUGC on tours in the UK and the Netherlands (2015), Scandinavia and Estonia (2018), and at the ACDA Eastern Region Conference in Rochester, NY (2020).
Jordan Enzinger
With a versatile background in solo, chamber, and orchestral music, Dr. Jordan Enzinger is a dynamic performing cellist in the New Jersey, New York City, and Philadelphia areas. He regularly performs in the area’s finest venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kimmel Center. Dr. Enzinger is a member of the cello section of the American Symphony Orchestra, and has performed with numerous ensembles in the area, some of which include the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, New Jersey Symphony, Princeton Symphony, Princeton Festival Orchestra, and the New Brunswick Chamber Orchestra.
Aside from Dr. Enzinger’s performing career, he is in demand as an avid teacher. He currently serves as cello faculty at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, instructing music majors and non-majors, as cello and chamber music faculty at Kinhaven Music School in Weston, Vermont, and as chamber music faculty at the American String Teachers Association (ASTA) Chamber Music Institute in New Brunswick, New Jersey. As an academic he is a guest lecturer for collegiate music classes at Rutgers. Dr. Enzinger is a certified cello instructor with the Suzuki Association of the Americas, and maintains his private cello studio in East Brunswick, New Jersey. Dr. Enzinger’s students have performed in Carnegie Hall, won numerous prestigious national and international competitions, and have received collegiate music scholarships. If interested in Dr. Enzinger’s private cello studio please visit masteringthecello.com for more information.
Yenhsuan Lee
Yenhsuan Lee is a freelance musician. She studied viola under the tutelage of Daniel Panner, Mark Jackobs, Michael Zaretsky, and Yura Lee and earned her Master’s degree at the University of Southern California and Rutgers University and her B.M. at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Lee has previously participated in the American Conservatory Summer Music Festival in Fontainebleau, France, the Järna Festival Academy in Sweden, and in master classes and lessons under Benjamin Zander, James Buswell, Jean Sulem, Peter Salaff, Yehudi Wyner, and Pierre-Henri Xuereb, among many others.
Erin Schwab
Erin Schwab is an experienced performer, arts administrator, and teaching artist with a special interest in the intersection of art and social activism. She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Music from Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she studied Vocal Performance and was the recipient of the Michael Fardink award for “Outstanding Vocalist” and the Olga Marsano Burian award for “Outstanding Achievement in Music.” She received further vocal and stage training through scholarships at Maestro Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Festival, The Chautauqua Institution’s Opera Conservatory, and an artist residency at The Crested Butte Music Festival. She is adept at multiple styles of singing, ranging from the Baroque to the 21st century, and has performed many operatic roles, including Susanna (Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro), Venus (Blow’s Venus & Adonis) Soeur Constance (Poulenc’s Les Dialogues des Carmélites), La Princesse (Ravel’s L'enfant et les sortilèges), Zan (Blitzstein’s Regina), Ginevra (Handel’s Ariodante), Nanetta (Verdi’s Falstaff), Lucia ( Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia), Noémie (Massenet’s Cendrillon) and Lucy Lockit (Britten’s The Beggar's Opera). She is a highly accomplished and sought after concert soloist and choral ringer, and has been the soprano section leader at The Community Presbyterian Church in Ringwood, NJ since 2010.In addition to her active freelance singing career, Erin currently serves as the Marketing & Communications Director for Music in the Somerset Hills, a nonprofit with the mission of creating high-quality musical experiences and fostering education, artistry, and community through music. In January 2022, she became the Chorus Manager for Downtown Voices, a semiprofessional choir in NYC made up of volunteer singers and members of the GRAMMY®-nominated members of The Choir of Trinity Wall Street. In September 2022, she signed on as the Executive Director of Skylands Music Academy, a tuition-free after school program for students grades 1 through 8. She is also the Marketing Coordinator for PROTESTRA (protest + orchestra), a nonprofit organization with the mission of educating audiences about social justice issues through the context of classical music.
Jihyang Jennifer Seo
Dr. Jihyang Jennifer Seo began her violin career under the guidance of Junsu Jeong at the age of 10. She pursued her education at Kyung Hee University in South Korea before earning a full scholarship to Stony Brook University, where she had the privilege of studying with violinists Soovin Kim, Philip Setzer, Jennifer Frautschi, Arnaud Sussman, and the Emerson String Quartet. She won several competitions at Saegaeilbo, Emakchunchu, Kyung Hee University, and Stony Brook University, performing Mozart, Brahms, and Sibelius with multiple orchestras, and achieving the distinction of being the youngest violinist in the Gwacheon Philharmonic Orchestra in Korea. Dr. Seo participated in the Seoul International Music Festival and Music Academy of the West, where she studied with Katherine Winkler and had masterclasses with Gil Shaham, Glenn Dicterow, Midori Goto, and Cho-Liang Lin. Under the guidance of Carmit Zori, she served as the concertmaster of the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra and was honored with the A. Kunrad Kvam Award in Music, recognizing her excellence on a stringed instrument. In 2022, Dr. Seo earned her Doctoral of Musical Arts in Violin Performance from the Mason Gross School of the Arts. Currently, she contributes her expertise as a faculty member of the New York International Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, inspiring and mentoring young musicians.
Enriqueta Somarriba
Praised by the New York Concert Review for her “aplomb” and her “natural, individual interpretation,” Spanish pianist Enriqueta Somarriba develops her career as a soloist and chamber musician, performing in venues such as New York's Carnegie Hall, the State Theatre of New Jersey, the Organization of American States in D.C., and internationally renowned venues and festivals in Spain, Belgium and Italy. She has performed as a soloist with the Andrés Segovia Orchestra, Virtuosi Brunensis Orchestra, Orquesta Fórum Musikae and Rutgers Symphony Orchestra. Her performances have been broadcasted on the Spanish National Radio, Veracruz Television-Radio (Mexico) and 89.1 WWFM Radio. In the last years, Somarriba has carried a mission to promote Ibero-American music in the US, curating concerts and lectures around Spanish and Latin composers in institutions such as Cornell University, Manhattan School of Music and University of Michigan. Somarriba holds degrees from Manhattan School of Music, Roosevelt University and Rutgers University, where she is a Part-Time Lecturer and Staff Pianist.