2425 medi bistro – Apollo's Fire

HANNA BINGHAM

Apollo’s Fire Young Artist Fellow Hanna Bingham is currently an actively performing violinist in the greater Chicago area. Raised in Dekalb, Illinois, Hanna holds a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from Northern Illinois University, where she studied under Blaise Magniere as well as with soloist Yang Liu. Hanna also received her Masters Degree in String Performance from Northwestern University Bienen School of Music where she studied with Blair Milton and Desiree Ruhstrat. Hanna also studied with Ann Monztka Smelser, Okumura Kazuo, and Drew Lecher. She has soloed with a number of orchestras including the NIU sinfonia, Rockford Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Oistrakh Symphony of Chicago, and the NIU Philharmonic. She has been featured on the WFMT broadcast “From the Top.” Her chamber music experience is diverse, and features an array of ensembles including a string quartet that competed in the St. Paul String Quartet Competition and were named semi-finalists in the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition in South Bend, Indiana. Hanna has been anmed as a recipient of the Richard and Helen Thomas Endowed Fellowship, twice, and is a recipient of the School of Music Eckstein Fund at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.

As an instructor, Hanna has been teaching privately for over a decade and pulls inspiration from both the Suzuki method and other traditional methods of teaching. She has worked closely with Stacia Spencer at Northwestern University and Ann Montzka-Smelser at NIU for her pedagogy and teacher training. She is passionate about making sure students get off to a good start and that music making is wonderful for all levels of players.

ALAN CHOO

Violinist Alan Choo, whose performances have been described by The Straits Times Singapore as “an intoxicating brew of poetry and dare-devilry,” appears on the global stage as a leading soloist, chamber musician and historical specialist. He made his solo debut with Apollo’s Fire at the Tanglewood and Ravinia Music Festivals in 2017, and currently serves as Concertmaster and Assistant Artistic Director for the ensemble. He is also Founder and Artistic Director of Red Dot Baroque, Singapore’s first professional period ensemble and Ensemble-in-Residence at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music. In May 2019, he was invited as guest concertmaster and soloist with the Shanghai-based baroque ensemble, Shanghai Camerata. He has also appeared as a soloist with the FVG Orchestra (Italy), St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Chinese Orchestra, Orchestra of the Music Makers and more.

Alan is the recipient of the Early Music Award 2016 from Peabody Conservatory, the Paul Abisheganaden Grant for Artistic Excellence 2015, the Goh Soon Tioe Centenary Award 2014, the Grace Clagett Ranney Prize in Chamber Music 2014 and 1st prize in the National Piano and Violin Competition 2011, Artist Category. He has also given masterclasses and lectures in violin performance, performance practice and stage presence to college students at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Michigan State University, Baldwin-Wallace College, Bowling Green State University, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

Alan holds a Doctorate in Historical Performance from Case Western Reserve University, as well as degrees from the Peabody Conservatory and the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. His teachers include Julie Andrijeski, Risa Browder, Victor Danchenko and Alexander Souptel. His solo debut album with Apollo’s Fire, the complete Mystery Sonatas of Heinrich Biber, was released on AVIE Records in 2024 and debuted at #2 on the Billboard Classical chart.

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MIRA FU-EN HUANG

Taiwanese-American soprano Mira Fu-En Huang uses her voice to veer off the beaten path and bring lesser-told stories to the forefront. She has had the pleasure of singing not just in the languages of the western classical canon, but in Spanish, Korean, Irish, Czech, Bulgarian, Nisenan, and more. Her repertory sprawls across cultures and eras, from folk music to medieval motets and to the works of living composers.

Hailed for her “nuanced vocal splendor” and “mesmerizing style” (Upstage), Mira especially enjoys bringing life to underrepresented stories from early and modern eras. She has performed as Semele in Handel’s opera of the same name, Cupid in Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Night in Purcell’s Fairy Queen, Euridice in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, and Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. She also enjoys regular collaborations with living composers across the globe.

A lover of community storytelling, Mira is an avid ensemble singer, having sung with The Thirteen, Chantry Early Music, Vox Musica, Il Dolce Suono, the choir for the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and more. Her choral accolades include performing for the east-coast premiere of Ēriks Ešenvalds’ Sunset in My Hand at Carnegie Hall in 2017 and soloing at the Vatican in 2013. Mira has also enjoyed numerous soprano solos in choral masterworks, ranging from new music premieres to Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor.

Mira obtained an M.M. in Historical Performance from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, studying under Ah Young Hong. She also received undergraduate degrees in Vocal Performance and Psychology, as well as a minor in English, from the University of California, Davis. She has been coached by a variety of early and new music specialists, including Quince Ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, Dame Emma Kirkby, and Julianne Baird.

Selected honors Mira has won include the George Castelle Memorial Award (2022), the Fannie Copald Stein Memorial Award (2019), and the Carol Lee Coss Memorial Scholarship (2018). Additionally, her passions for writing and researching in the arts have made her a competent grants-writer who won the Peabody Institute’s $5,000 Launch Grant Award in 2021.

Currently, Mira works as a freelance soprano and full-time administrator in Maryland, and she enjoys researching, reading, and writing in numerous genres. In her free time, she can be found playing flute and viola da gamba, drinking excessive amounts of coffee, and writing in various book-filled locales.

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ADRIAN MURILLO

Adrian Murillo is a guitarist and lutenist who specializes in playing historical instruments. He completed both his bachelor and masters degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of David Tanenbaum, Marcin Dylla, John Dearman, Judicael Perroy, and Richard Savino.

Adrian enjoys performing solo and with ensembles, such of which have included the San Francisco Opera, Oregon Bach Festival Baroque Orchestra, and the San Francisco Guitar Quartet.

Besides his classical studies, Adrian has spent time in Granada, Spain learning and performing flamenco guitar.

RENÉ SCHIFFER

Cellist René Schiffer is praised for his “interpretive imagination and patrician command of the cello” (The Cleveland Plain Dealer). He is a native of Holland where he was a protégé of Anner Bijlsma. He later studied baroque cello with Jaap ter Linden and viola da gamba with Catharina Meints. As a member of Sigiswald Kuijken’s La Petite Bande for sixteen years, he toured four continents and appeared many times on European television. He has also performed with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Les Musiciens du Louvre, and in over forty projects with Tafelmusik of Toronto. As a concerto soloist, he has appeared throughout North America and Europe, including such venues as the Royal Theatre of Madrid, and can be heard on acclaimed CD recordings of the Vivaldi Concerto for Two Cellos and the Tango Concerto for Two Gambas (his own composition) on British label AVIE. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the renowned baroque festivals of Utrecht and Bruges, as well as the Flanders Festival and Versailles. He can be heard on more than forty CD recordings, on the Harmonia Mundi, Philips, Virgin Classics, Erato, Sony, and AVIE labels. He serves on the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music as Teacher of Baroque Cello, and has given masterclasses and coachings for the New World Symphony (Miami), the University of Michigan, Oberlin Conservatory, and Cincinnati College-Conservatory.

“The U.S.A.’s hottest baroque band.” –CLASSICAL MUSIC MAGAZINE (UK)