Resident Faculty

The Chamber Music program at the Onomatopoeia Institute is directed by cellist Steuart Pincombe. Steuart works with each chamber ensemble every other week in 1.5 hour coachings, providing in-depth teaching on the art of chamber music. As a much in-demand chamber musician, Steuart has held positions in celebrated chamber ensembles such as Ensemble Ausonia (Belgium), Ensemble Philidor (France), Oerknal (The Netherlands), Van Swieten Society (NL), Eef van Breen Group (NL), and Les Délices (US) and has been a guest with many other ensembles. From the time he was in high school, he was presenting chamber tours across the Midwest, playing concerts with Missouri State University faculty in the US and UK, and was invited to play piano trios with Mark Peskanov and Jeffery Biegel at New York’s premier chamber music venue Bargemusic. Since then, Steuart has appeared as a featured chamber musician is leading festivals and concert halls in the US and Europe including Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, Concertgebouw Brugge, RADIALSYSTEM V Berlin, Bozar Brussels, Tivoli Vredenburg, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, and the Kauffman Center. Steuart’s most regular chamber music collaborators include pianists Shuann Chai and Bethany Brooks, and violinists Shunske Sato, Joseph Puglia, and David Danel.

Guest Faculty

Groups that show dedication in their work, are open to learning, and show significant progress will the opportunity to have a virtual coaching with world class guest faculty who are leaders in the field of chamber music.

Violin, Joseph Puglia - Concertmaster Asko|Shönberg, Amsterdam

Joseph Puglia has given concerto and chamber music performances at venues such as Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall (New York), Library of Congress (Washington DC), Southbank Center (London), Salle Pleyel (Paris), and Melbourne International Arts Festival (Australia). His solo debut in the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam was hailed by the Dutch press as “Exceptional” (NRC Handelsblad), saying he “brought the hall to a boil” (De Volkskrant). He is a guest concertmaster with many orchestras including the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, and Netherlands Philharmonic. He has played chamber music with members of the Juilliard and Brentano string quartets, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and frequently performs in international festivals across Europe and in the US. He recorded for the Sony Classical, ECM, Attacca, Brilliant Classics, and Hungaroton labels, and performed on television and radio programs in the US, Europe, and Australia.

Joseph is increasingly known for his interpretations of 20th and 21st century music. He has given countless premieres and worked with many leading composers including John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Joerg Widmann, Kaija Saariaho, and Pierre Boulez. His “Berio Project” includes a CD acclaimed by the Dutch press as “Mindblowing” (Luister magazine) and “Spectacular” (Opus Klassiek), and has led to many inspiring performances with student and amateur musicians. A creative partnership with conductor Reinbert de Leeuw included performances of violin concerti by John Adams, Ligeti, and Saariaho in Europe and the US. In his “…and Beyond” series, as leader of the Asko|Schoenberg ensemble, he uses masterworks from the past as starting points for unconducted programs of 20th and 21st century compositions.

Joseph’s interest in the connection between science and music have led to a collaboration with the European Space Agency, a performance of music written by artificial intelligence, and a program titled “Music and Quantum Physics”, with his wife, physicist Stefania Giodini. During the current Covid-19 crisis he has been active online and live (when possible), having started local initiatives in The Netherlands and the creation of a worldwide quarantine recording of Terry Riley’s In C with the Asko|Schoenberg ensemble. He is currently developing and performing a series of live-streamed “Young People’s Concerts” aimed at inspiring young musicians. Other projects have included a chamber music series at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, which drew connections between museum exhibitions and chamber music masterworks, and provided an opportunity to display the museum’s extensive instrument collection, now in storage.

Joseph is currently solo violinist with the Asko|Schoenberg ensemble in Amsterdam, and teaches on the the violin faculty at the Royal Conservatory in The Netherlands. He studied at The Juilliard School from 1994-2006 with Robert Mann, Nicholas Mann, and Louise Behrend. He received his Master of Music degree with highest possible marks at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague in 2008, working with Vera Beths. Some of Joseph’s notable musical mentors have included Anner Bylsma, Reinbert de Leeuw, Joel Krosnick, and Barbara Hannigan. A native of New York City, he has resided in The Netherlands since 2009.

Viola, Martina Forni - Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam

The Italian violist Martina Forni grew up surrounded by many kinds of music. The equally diverse musical activities she would later employ, from baroque to contemporary music passing through jazz and Argentinian tango, turned her into an eclectic musician.

Martina Forni graduated magna cum laude at both the Conservatory of Verona and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Among her teachers and mentors were Nobuko Imai, Michael Gieler, Umberto Forni and Anner Bylsma.

She was a member of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and played with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Asko|Schönberg for many years. In 2013 Forni joined the viola section of the Concertgebouworkest.

In the 2007/2008 season, she was a member of the Academy of the Concertgebouworkest.

Martina Forni plays in many prize-winning chamber music ensembles, such as the Il Faro Kwartet and Ensemble Lumaka. She also plays baroque viola and has been principle violist of Anima Eterna Brugge, Ensemble Zefiro and La Chambre Philharmonique.

Cello, René Schiffer - Principal Cello Apollo’s Fire, Cleveland

René Schiffer studied cello with his father György Schiffer, with Anner Bijlsma in Amsterdam, with Jaap ter Linden in Rotterdam and gamba with Catharina Meints in Oberlin. His music was substantially enriched both from playing alongside Hidemi Suzuki in La Petite Bande and with that group’s leader, Sigiswald Kijken, whose last name actually means “ young chick”. Schiffer, whose name means “skipper”, played in renowned ensembles like the European Philharmonic Orchestra (what’s in a name…), the European Community Baroque Orchestra, the Beethoven Academy (Louvain), the Musicians du Louvre (Paris), The Dutch Bach Society (Utrecht), the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (not upstate New York), La Petite Bande (the world), Tafelmusik (Toronto, Ontario), with renowned musicians like Sigiswald Kuijken, Ton Koopman, Gustav Leonhardt and Jan Caeyers, who among his musicians is sometimes fondly called Herbert von Caeyersjan. He, Schiffer, not Caeyersjan, also substituted in the Brabant's Orchestra (Netherlands) and the Toledo Symphony, and played with the Pittsburg Symphony in a baroque project. He coached the New World Symphony in Miami several times in their baroque programs.

Schiffer is the founding continuo cellist and soloist in Apollo’s Fire led by the incomparable, orange-haired Jeannette Sorrell. His various performances brought him in many a major hall in Europe and the US, including the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam and Bruges), the Opéra in Paris, the Arena in Verona, the Arsenal in Metz, Teatro Colon (Buenos Ayres), Teatro Municipal in Madrid, the Franz Liszt Hall in Budapest etc. He did solo performances at festivals in Utrecht, Versailles (yes, the Palace!) Budapest, Tallinn, and Grandchamp (yes, the Monument). Schiffer is affiliated with Music in Familiar Spaces, a program designed by Charles Steuart Wesley Pincombe to bring classical music to places where it is actually unfamiliar.

Schiffer collaborated in over 50 recordings, on some of which he is more discernible than on others: he is on three Mozart operas, 12 Haydn symphonies and many other productions with La Petite Bande, two baroque operas with the Musicians du Louvre, a Charpentier CD with ABO, and a dozen chamber music CDs with Il Gardellino, sometimes jokingly called Gare de Lyon. He is of course on almost all CDs brought out by Apollo’s Fire, including in concerto solo spots. Karim Suleiman’s CD with Monteverdi songs recently won a Grammy. That seems to be a big deal. Schiffer’s Tango concerto is regularly played all over the world, including the southern Hemisphere, where if you were to throw the Apollo’s Fire CD, on which this piece appears, in a big toilet, it would drain counterclockwise, they say. His Beauty of the Earth was recorded in the early 2000’s, but the CD never came out $#%@!!! - Schiffer has been in over 40 countries in the world and 43 states in the US. He recently added Utah to his collection, driving through the stunning Monument Valley.

Application for chamber music ensemble placement

Guidelines and Expectations

1. Once assigned to a chamber group, a weekly time slot will be scheduled. One week the group will rehearse on their own, the next week they will have a coaching. ​Students are expected to treat this time as a serious commitment and should not cancel unless there are significant extenuating circumstances such as illness or travel. ​If a student must cancel, the group will still meet at their regular time and rehearse or coach together.

2. Students are expected to practice their assigned repertoire on their own at least 2 hours per week, ​in addition to​ the weekly coaching/rehearsal.

3. The fee for each chamber coaching is $15-25 per student (dependent on length of coaching, and number of players in ensemble). The fee is only charged during the weeks of the coaching (i.e. every other week). If this is a significant burden for you and your family, please let Steuart know and something can be worked out.

4. The chamber groups will occasionally have the opportunity to play in group settings with other students in the Institute. This is a time when all of my students are invited to come together, hear one another play, and receive an informal master class in front of their peers.

5. The students will be encouraged to find opportunities to perform as a group when they are ready. The Institute will assist in creating performance opportunities for qualified ensembles.