Karen Dreyfus enjoys a wide-ranging career as a noted soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician and as a pedagogue. She has performed extensively in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and South America, and has toured with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Musicians from Marlboro, and the New York Philharmonic. Her numerous honors include prizes at the Naumburg, Lionel Tertis, Washington International, and the Hudson Valley competitions. Along with her work in the classical music field, Dreyfus has performed on many film scores, pop, jazz, and rock recordings.

The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Award, Ms. Dreyfus has recorded many CDs as a soloist and chamber musician. Her premiere recording with Bridge Records, Romanze, met with considerable critical acclaim. She has recorded William Walton’s Viola Concerto, Mozart’s “Sinfonia Concertante”, as well as solo works by American composers. Such composers as Ezra Laderman, Jon Deak, George Tsontakis, Paul Chihara, William Thomas McKinley, Elizabeth Brown, and others have written works expressly for her. Dreyfus has toured with jazz pianist/composer Chick Corea and recorded a Grammy- nominated work entitled “Lyric Suite for Sextet.”

In 2014 Ms. Dreyfus was invited to teach on the faculty of the USC Thornton School of Music where she continues to teach viola, chamber music, and orchestral studies. Dreyfus has taught on the faculties of The Juilliard School, Mannes School along with the Manhattan School of Music where she was honored with an Emerita Award in 2022 after more than 30 years on faculty. Many of Karen Dreyfus’ students have gone on to win positions in orchestras, teach on university faculties, as well as play in chamber ensembles.

Karen Dreyfus is a founding member of the Lyric Piano Quartet and the Amerigo Trio.

She has been a Music Academy teaching artist since 2014.

Pianist Conor Hanick is regarded as one of his generation’s most inquisitive interpreters of music new and old. A fierce advocate for the music of today, Hanick has premiered over 200 pieces and collaborated with composers ranging from Pierre Boulez, Kaija Saariaho, and Steve Reich, to the leading artists of his generation. He has performed with many of America's preeminent conductors and ensembles and in 2023 premiered Samuel Carl Adams' No Such Spring with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony. This season, Hanick presents solo and chamber recitals in the US and Europe, including concerts at The Wallis, Hancher Auditorium, Cal Performances, Segerstrom Center, Stanford Live, Guild Hall, Musikverein, and elsewhere. He appears with the Phoenix and Alabama Symphonies in works by Stravinsky, Gershwin, and a new piano concerto by Carlos Izcaray, one of a handful of premieres this year that also includes pieces by Matthew Aucoin, Nico Muhly, Tania León, and Mathew Rosenblum. A committed collaborative player, Hanick joins Julia Bullock, Seth Parker Woods, Timo Andres, the JACK Quartet, and AMOC* (The American Modern Opera Company) in projects ranging from a US tour of HARAWI to performances of Sufjan Stevens’ two piano ballet Reflections. Hanick teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center, Mannes College, Music Academy of the West, and The Juilliard School.