Jane Bowyer Stewart is a first violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra. A devoted chamber musician, she is a member of the Prism Piano Trio and Columbia String Quartet, as well as a frequent guest artist with the Twenty-first Century Consort and the Kennedy Center Chamber Players. Stewart earned both her Bachelor of Arts (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and Master of Music degrees from Yale University. At Yale, where she was the first recipient of the Broadus Erle Memorial Scholarship, she studied violin with Broadus Erle and Syoko Aki and chamber music with Raphael Hillyer and the Tokyo Quartet. In the Washington area, Stewart has performed chamber music at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, the Phillips Collection, the Corcoran Gallery, and the Library of Congress. She has performed and recorded with the Chamber Soloists of Washington, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Chamber Ensemble, the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, and the Manchester String Quartet. Her several chamber music CDs include one Grammy nominee. Outside of Washington, Stewart has participated in the Grand Teton Music Festival more than ten times and performed chamber music with Joseph Silverstein at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Currently she spends part of each summer on the violin faculty at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival. As a concerto soloist, Ms. Stewart has appeared with the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony, and the National Symphony. She plays a violin made in 1691 by the Venetian master Matteo Goffriller.

Praised for her “beautifully expressive” playing, cellist Kerry Van Laanen has performed with the Washington, DC area’s top ensembles since 1985. As an opera musician, she plays regularly with the Washington National Opera (including for the complete 2016 Ring cycle), the Wolf Trap Opera and the Maryland Lyric Opera. As a symphonic musician, she appears with the National Philharmonic, National Gallery Orchestra, PostClassical Ensemble, and National Symphony Orchestra. A highly sought-after chamber musician, she has performed at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and at the Mendocino Festival, as well as at the Kennedy Center and Strathmore. She spent several seasons presenting the entire Beethoven and Bartok string quartets with the Beethoven Cycle Quartet. With the tango ensemble QuinTango, she recorded and toured across the United States. She is a founding member of the Columbia String Quartet, which recently gave recitals at the Lyceum and Smithsonian and participated in the National Symphony Orchestra’s In Your Neighborhood program. She has also performed several times at the Kennedy Center’s Millineum Stage, most recently with the Prism Piano Trio of which she is a founding member. As a soloist, Ms. Van Laanen has appeared with the Oklahoma Symphony, the Catholic University Orchestra and the National Philharmonic. Ms. Van Laanen has been on the faculty at Cello Speak and the National Philharmonic’s Summer String Institute. She maintains an active private teaching studio in Rockville, Maryland.