Cellist, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Cellist Michael DeBruyn joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra during the 2013-2014 season. Prior to joining the Pittsburgh Symphony, DeBruyn was principal cellist of the Louisville Orchestra. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree and a Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

DeBruyn grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and began studying the cello at the age of four. His former teachers include Dr. Felix Wang, Dr. Tanya Carey, Richard Aaron, and Desmond Hoebig. His summer engagements have included the Meadowmount School of Music, the Sarasota Music Festival, the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival.

As a chamber musician, Michael DeBruyn has worked closely with members of the Arianna, Pacifica, Cavani, and Cleveland Quartets. In 1998, he received an honorable mention in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition as a member of the Blakemore Quartet. DeBruyn and his wife, Francesca Tortorello, have been performing together as a professional duo since 2004.

Associate-Principal B flat Clarinet & Principal E-flat Clarinet, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Luperi was appointed associate principal clarinet and principal E-flat clarinet of the Pittsburgh Symphony by Manfred Honeck in 2016, having previously held the position of principal clarinet with the Fort Worth and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestras. Since 2014, she has performed at the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming.

Luperi premiered “Fantasía sobre Yma Sumac,” a work for solo clarinet and orchestra written for her by John B. Hedges, with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. She has been a featured soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Madison Symphony, Signature Symphony in Tulsa, Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles, Philharmonia of Kansas City, Córdoba Symphony, Córdoba Chamber Orchestra, and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

A devoted chamber musician, Luperi has collaborated with members of the Emerson, Vermeer, and Guarneri Quartets, and performed at the Marlboro, Mainly Mozart, and Mimir Festivals, the Académie musicale de Villecroze in France, the Oregon Bach Festival, Chicago’s Latino Music Festival and the Jackson Hole Chamber Music Series. She recently premiered “Canzoni di Fiori”, a work for two E-flat clarinets and a string quartet written for her by composer Till Meyn.

Luperi has served as a lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, adjunct faculty at Texas Christian University, and has been on faculty at Brandon University in Canada, the New York Summer Music Festival, the Filarmónica Jóven de Colombia, and the Buffet Academy in Jacksonville, Florida. She served as a jury member in the Carl Nielsen International Competition in Odense, Denmark, in 2022.

Luperi is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Donald Montanaro. She began her music education in her native Argentina with Oscar Gieco and later studied with Richard Hawkins and Yehuda Gilad. Distinctions include the First Prize in the Pasadena Instrumental Competition, the Interlochen Fine Arts Award, and the Banco Mayo Award of Buenos Aires. She has appeared in concert broadcasts on NPR’s Performance Today, WQED, WRR 101.1, WFMT, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Luperi is a Vandoren Artist and Clinician, and a Buffet Crampon USA Performing Artist. She proudly served in the research and development team of Buffet Crampon's Tradition clarinet model.

Victoria Luperi is married to Colombian-born conductor Andrés Franco.

Director of Music, Park Presbyterian Church

Eric Kochanowski of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, received his degrees in Voice and Piano from Slippery Rock University. Eric has been the featured soloist in major works such as The Requiem in D minor, Mozart, Messiah, HWV 56, Handel, “Memorial”, and Rene Clausen. His major operatic roles have included: “Samson” in Samson and Delilah, Saint-Saens and “Marcello”, La Boheme, and Puccini. A frequent recitalist, Eric sings with Aria412 and is a recognized voice teacher, who specializes in voice building and repair. Eric has served as the Director of Music at Park Presbyterian Church, Beaver, PA, since 2012.

First Violin, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Ukrainian violinist Marta Krechkovsky joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 2014-2015 season. An experienced performer of orchestral and chamber music, she has participated in numerous music festivals, such as the Pacific Music Festival and Verbier Festival, where she has served as a concertmaster. She also took part in the Miyazaki International Music Festival and was invited to perform with the World Orchestra for Peace as a tribute to Sir Georg Solti on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth. She is currently a violinist with the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

An active chamber musician, Marta Krechkovsky has appeared in New York’s concert halls, such as Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, and Bargemusic in Brooklyn, as well as Kitara Chamber Music Hall in Sapporo, Japan. A few chamber music highlights include performances with Yo-Yo Ma, Julian Rachlin and St. Lawrence String Quartet at the Grand Teton Music Festival, as well as Augustin Hadelich, Narek Hakhnazaryan, Benjamin Grosvenor and Pablo Sáinz-Villegas.

Marta Krechkovsky is a member of the Clarion Quartet, a quartet formed by members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra that specializes in “Entartete Musik.” Clarion Quartet’s debut album, Breaking the Silence, was released in February of 2018 on the TYE/Naxos label.

Marta Krechkovsky became a prizewinner at the Kocian International Violin Competition in the Czech Republic at the age of 10 and was a top-prize winner at the Canadian Music Competition in Montreal. As a soloist, Krechkovsky has appeared with numerous orchestras in her native Ukraine, including the Lviv State Symphony Orchestra. She performed Bach's Double Concerto with Joshua Bell and Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra during their Asia tour and, in 2021, performed Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Marta Krechkovsky began studying violin at the age of six with her father, Orest Krechkovsky. She received her earlier training at the Young Artists Performance Academy at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where she studied with Atis Bankas. She holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Glenn Dicterow, and a professional studies degree in orchestral performance from the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Glenn Dicterow and Lisa Kim.

Operatic Soprano & Professor of Slavic Languages, Pittsburgh University

Katie Manukyan is an operatic soprano based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2016, she was selected as a "Major Artist" by the Pittsburgh Concert Society. Most recently, Katie has produced and performed in a Concert of Ukrainian Words and Music with the University of Pittsburgh's Summer Language Institute and Department of Music, benefitting Razom for Ukraine, the Kyiv School of Economics, and Ukraine TrustChain. The recordings of the fully Ukrainian program of classical musical works, classical and contemporary poetry, and traditional kobzar songs are available to download for a donation of any denomination to the heroic relief work of Ukraine TrustChain online at ukrainetrustchain.org/donate-sli.

Katie specializes in Slavic repertoire and, in recent years, has sung the roles of Volkhova (Sadko) and Gorislava (Ruslan and Ludmila) with Opera Bel Cantanti and Tatiana (Eugene Onegin) in concert at Bellefield Hall with Undercroft Opera in a production for which she also served as primary diction coach and co-producer. Other roles that Katie has performed in Pittsburgh and beyond include Butterfly (Madama Butterfly); Zdenka (Arabella); Angelica (Suor Angelica); Pamina (The Magic Flute); Sacerdotessa (Aida); Winnie Blocker (world premiere of Gilda Lyons's A New Kind of Fallout); Micaela (Carmen); Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi); Monica (The Medium); Mabel (Pirates of Penzance); and Gloria Thorpe (Damn Yankees).

In addition to opera, Katie treasures the art song repertoire and has enjoyed presenting art songs by many composers and in multiple languages over the years. Recent recital performances have been dedicated to Clause Debussy, Enrique Granados, Déodat de Séverac, and Vasily Kalinnikov (with pianist Eric Dzugan's Exploring the Piano recital series) and Komitas Vardapet (St. Gregory of Narek Armenian Church in Cleveland).

Katie received musical training at Northwestern University, Tchaikovsky Musical College-Conservatory in Moscow, and The Ohio State University. She embarked upon her opera career with the support of the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh as a prize winner in its "Opera Champion of Pittsburgh" competition in 2011, the same year that she received her doctoral degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures. She has sung Slavic repertoire in Czech, Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian languages at a wide range of functions, including, memorably, the 2014 visit of the former first lady of Poland, Danuta Wałęsa, to Pittsburgh and the homecoming reception of the Russian Para-Olympic team in Moscow after the 2004 Games. Since 2011 Katie has been on the faculty of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches language and literature and is Managing Director of the Slavic, East European, and Near Eastern Summer Language Institute. She has published on opera and singing diction and enjoys combining her academic and musical interests in her performances and teaching.

Concertmaster, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

David McCarroll was appointed concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, holding the Rachel Mellon Walton Concertmaster Chair, beginning with the 2022-2023 season.

David McCarroll has been described as “a violinist of mature musicality and deep understanding of his repertoire whose playing is distinguished by clarity of form and line” by Musik Heute. Winner of the 2012 European Young Concert Artists Auditions, he made his concerto debut with the London Mozart Players in 2002 and has since appeared as soloist with many orchestras including the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich (Simone Young, Grafenegg), Hong Kong Sinfonietta (Christoph Poppen), Santa Rosa Symphony, and Philharmonie Zuidnederland. He regularly performs in major concert halls such as the Konzerthaus Berlin, Vienna Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Library of Congress, Kennedy Center, 92nd Street Y, and Carnegie Hall, while his performances have been broadcast on many radio stations including WGBH Boston, WQXR New York, National Public Radio, Ö1, BR¬-Klassik and the BBC.

Also an active chamber musician, David McCarroll served from 2015 to 2022 as the violinist of the renowned Vienna Piano Trio, with whom he toured and recorded extensively. The Trio’s recording of the complete Brahms piano trios was awarded the 2017 Echo Klassik prize, and in 2020, the Trio’s Beethoven recording won the Opus Klassik award.

In addition, David McCarroll has performed in many chamber ensembles with musicians including Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Miriam Fried, Pamela Frank, Anthony Marwood, Donald Weilerstein, Kim Kashkashian, Roger Tapping, Marcy Rosen, Peter Wiley, Charles Neidich, Jörg Widmann, and Radovan Vlatkovic, while he is a regular guest at festivals such as Marlboro, the Schubertiade, Heidelberger Frühling, Grafenegg, Lucerne Festival, Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Siete Lagos (Argentina), ChamberFest Cleveland, Portland Chamber Music Festival, and with the Israeli Chamber Project. Recent performances have included Stravinsky’s violin concerto at the Konzerthaus Berlin, touring with Musicians from Marlboro, and performances of György Kurtág’s “Kafka Fragments” for violin and soprano.

In demand as a teacher, David McCarroll taught a full violin class for one year at Salzburg's Mozarteum University and has taught both violin and chamber music at Ravinia's Steans Institute, at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, and at the San Francisco Conservatory.

McCarroll was born in Santa Rosa, California, in 1986 and began studying the violin with Helen Payne Sloat at the age of four. At age eight, he attended the Crowden School of Music in Berkeley, studying with Anne Crowden. When he was 13, he received an invitation to join an international group of 60 young music students at the Yehudi Menuhin School outside London, where he studied for five years with Simon Fischer. McCarroll continued his studies with Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, receiving a Master’s degree, and with Antje Weithaas in the Konzertexamen (Artist Diploma) program at the Hanns Eisler Academy in Berlin.

In addition to music, David McCarroll maintains an active interest in social concerns, including the needs of those impacted by the AIDS pandemic. He is currently working on projects of the Starcross Community to help AIDS orphans in Africa. He has performed in programs encouraging world peace promoted by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and has given benefit concerts for Doctors Without Borders. With other members of his family, he has worked to get strings to young music students in Cuba, where such items are very difficult to obtain. McCarroll plays a 1761 violin made by A&J Gagliano.

Second Violin, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Greco-Albanian violinist Regi Papa is an avid chamber musician, performing extensively in various ensembles throughout the United States and Europe, most recently as the first violinist of the Sullivan Quartet based in New York City. Previously, Papa was a member of the Tallis Quartet, is a founding member of the Olympus Piano Trio (winner of the 2016 Chamber Music of New England Competition), and is an active member of critically acclaimed ensembles such as Orchestra of St. Luke’s and The Knights in New York City. Papa has performed in prestigious concert halls around the world and has been invited to lead as a concertmaster for many orchestras, such as the Mid-Atlantic Symphony and the Washington Opera Society. Regi Papa has recorded for LP Classics, Navona/Naxos, and Sony Classical labels. He holds a Doctoral of Music from SUNY-Stony Brook, a Master of Music from The Juilliard School, and a Bachelor of Music from the Manhattan School of Music.

Viola, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Violist Sean Juhl joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in June of 2022. He has had the privilege of performing as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player in venues around the world, including prestigious locations such as Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall, New York City’s Carnegie Hall, and Salzburg’s Grosses Festspielhaus.

In 2021, Sean Juhl was named a London Symphony Orchestra Keston MAX Fellow at the Music Academy of the West and performed with the LSO under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle in March 2022. Juhl was the first prize winner in The Juilliard School’s 2019 viola concerto competition and made his solo debut with the Juilliard Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall in New York City. Additionally, Juhl joined the 2019 New York String Orchestra Seminar for multiple concerts in Carnegie Hall and performed with the Juilliard Orchestra in the BBC Proms later that summer.

Juhl served as a principal violist of the Juilliard Orchestra from 2019-2022 and is an alumnus of Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra - USA. In addition to his orchestral career, Juhl is also a passionate chamber musician, attending programs such as the Perlman Music Program and the Music Academy of the West's String Quartet Seminar.

Born and raised in New York City, Juhl first began studying the violin with his mother at age four. After trying the viola at age 14, he fell in love with the instrument’s warm colors and has pursued it ever since. In his free time, Juhl enjoys cooking, making espresso, and watching Formula 1.

Sean Juhl holds a Bachelor of Music from The Juilliard School, where he studied under Carol Rodland.

Second Violin, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

“I am so grateful to be able to perform in support of Ukraine with these amazing people and musicians. Although I am far away and isolated from the brutality in Ukraine, I want to offer this as an act of support and solidarity to those experiencing the severe injustices, in hopes that the people will never feel forgotten. This one performance is a small yet meaningful gesture for such a vast and ongoing issue, but my thoughts and support are continually with all of the people suffering in Ukraine, as well their friends and families all over the world.”

Carolyn Semes, originally from Philadelphia, has played with the Pittsburgh Symphony since January 2023. Prior to that, she played with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Laurie Smukler. While studying at Juilliard, she served as concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra and was a recipient of the Gluck Community Service Fellowship. She has performed at festivals across the United States and Europe, including the Tanglewood Music Center, Verbier Festival, Music Academy of the West, Spoleto Festival- USA, and the Aspen Music Festival and School.