A L P E N K A M M E R M U S I K
F E L L O W S
The Fellows program will offer a full scholarship and cover room and board.
If interested, please indicate that you are applying for the Fellows program in our
application. Those who don’t receive a fellowship will still be eligible for scholarship.
AlpenKammerMusik is proud to continue its Fellows Program. Open to pre-professional or young professional musicians, AKM Fellows will have an experience that is both artistically and professionally meaningful. They will act as assistant faculty to festival instructors from top universities and conservatories from around the globe, including Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Eastman School of Music; artists from major ensembles like the Dalí Quartet; and heads of management agencies like Concert Artists Guild. They will also be invited to perform alongside the faculty in public performances.
For a second round, AKM will ask potential candidates to sit for an interview with faculty and staff.
We are looking for two inaugural AKM Fellows who clearly demonstrate the following qualities:
Exceptionally fine playing at an artistic and technical level
Demonstrated interest in the professional musical life, evidenced by entrepreneurial artistic activity
An interest in music pedagogy, and willingness to collaborate with musicians of all levels
Demonstrated economic need for a high level of assistance to attend this or other programs
Please submit the following to be considered in the first round of applications:
Complete the application on getacceptd.com
Submit a video recording of a complete solo work (concertos are acceptable) AND a video of a performance of a complete chamber work
Evidence of your level of economic need (e.g. a letter from your college/conservatory/university outlining your scholarship offer)
A statement of interest in the fellowship, stating how the position aligns with your career goals
Contact information for three references
2026 AKM Teaching Fellows
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Winner of the 2023 Concert Artist Guild Competition, major prize winner at the 2022 Sibelius and Singapore International Violin Competitions, recipient of the Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and youngest ever to win the Windsor Festival Competition, violinist Nathan Meltzer is establishing a holistic and multi-faceted career as both a soloist and chamber musician, with passions for both standard and contemporary repertoire.
Nathan has performed as a soloist with major orchestras around the world. He has performed with the Orchestre national d'Île-de-France, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, the Finnish RSO, the Helsinki Philharmonic, and the Aalborg, Charlotte, Concepción, Indianapolis, Medellín, Montréal, North Carolina, and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras, among others, performing across Europe and North and South America.
As a recitalist and chamber musician, Nathan has performed at celebrated series including the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, Dresden Musikfestspiele, Heidelberger Frühling, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Kallos Chamber Music Series, Parlance Chamber Concerts, and Midori’s Partners in Performance, and at festivals including ChamberFest Cleveland, IMS Prussia Cove, Krzyzowa Music, La Jolla SummerFest, Montreal and Moritzburg Chamber Music Festivals, Music@Menlo’s International Program, Newport Classical, the Ravinia Festival Institute, the Perlman Music Program, Verbier Festival Academy, and Yellow Barn.
He is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of The Green Room Ensemble, a non-profit chamber music organization dedicated to new music and historically unexplored works by composers from a variety of backgrounds and heritages.
A Juilliard graduate and student of Li Lin and Itzhak Perlman, Nathan plays on a Storioni violin on generous loan from the Rin Collection.
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Cellist Yoanna Prodanova was born in Bulgaria and lived in Canada before establishing herself in London which she has been calling home since 2012. An Associate of the Royal Academy of Music since 2025, Yoanna leads a dynamic career and has performed in halls such as Wigmore Hall, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus Berlin and Studio Ernest Ansermet in Geneva.
An established chamber musician, she is regularly invited to festivals such as the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, Rencontres de violoncelle de Belaye, Peasmarsh Festival and IMS Prussia Cove among others. Yoanna is a founding member of the internationally acclaimed Barbican Quartet who won the 1st Prize at the ARD String Quartet competition in 2022.
Yoanna studied at the Guildhall School with Louise Hopkins, Rebecca Gilliver
and Richard Lester, where she completed her Bachelor and Master's degrees. She then continued her studies in the prestigious Advanced Diploma course at the Royal Academy of Music with Hannah Roberts, where she was awarded the Bicentenary Scholarship and performed Haydn’s C major concerto with the RAM Chamber Orchestra. Yoanna taught chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music between 2023-2025 as a part of the Nina Drucker Fellowship, and has given chamber music masterclasses in the UK, Germany, Belgium and Argentina.
Yoanna plays on a 18th century cello made in Naples by Giovanni Gagliano and a bow by Nicholas Voirin, on generous loan by the Canimex Group, Drummondville, to whom she is deeply grateful.
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Born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, violinist and violist Ilinca Forna is a versatile musician based in Switzerland. She devotes herself with equal passion to chamber music, historically informed performance, orchestral projects, improvisation, folk music, and occasionally, her own compositions and teaching. Deeply curious and open-minded as an artist, she is constantly searching for new ways to connect music with audiences.
She began her musical training in her hometown with Răsvan Dumitru and Ramona Telcean, alongside viola studies with Aida Carmen Soanea. Since 2023, she has been studying at the Basel University of Music in the class of Silvia Simionescu, and since 2026, she has been pursuing her soloist diploma with Anna Gebert at the Zurich University of the Arts.
As a passionate chamber musician, Ilinca has performed at festivals such as SoNoRo Festival, Encuentro de Santander, the Riehener Serenaden, and Eulirio. Her orchestral collaborations include the Basel Chamber Orchestra, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Romanian Radio Orchestra, I Tempi Kammerorchester, and Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco, among others.
Alongside her musical activity, Ilinca also integrates visual art into her projects and seeks new forms of expression that make music accessible to a wider audience. Through her performances, she aims to bring warmth, imagination, and a sense of connection, while exploring innovative concert formats in various chamber music constellations, like her current project, Anima Mechanica-with cellist Maksim Barbash and pianist Kirill Zvegintsov.
She plays a D. S. Finkel bow, generously gifted to her by Christoph Schiller.
2026 AKM Fellows
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Xinyuan Wang, born in 2005, is a German violist currently pursuing his Bachelor of Music in Konzertfach Viola at the Mozarteum University Salzburg under the guidance of William Coleman. He began his musical studies with Max Bock and later continued with Michael Hanko, developing a strong foundation in both solo and ensemble playing. Over the years, Xinyuan has been an active chamber musician and has held section‑leader positions in several youth orchestras. He has performed with ensembles such as the Neue Philharmonie München, Sinfonietta Isartal, and the JSO Hochtaunus, taking part in numerous projects and a China tour in 2024–25. Xinyuan has broadened his artistic perspectives through masterclasses with William Coleman and Jean Sulem.
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Mark began his musical journey studying the piano from roughly four years of age. He won a scholarship to the Purcell School of Music, where he studied for eight years, performing at venues such as Milton Court and Wigmore Hall. After Purcell, he became an organ scholar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he studied music as an undergraduate, followed by a Master’s degree in composition. During his time at Cambridge, Mark performed prolifically as both soloist and accompanist, appearing in several recitals per term; he directed Emmanuel College Choir’s summer tour in 2022, and was the winner of the University’s concerto competition, performing Britten’s Piano Concerto under Delyana Lazarova in 2023.
Mark is currently a Master’s student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on the Collaborative Piano course. In his first year, he won the St James Chamber Prize, and was a finalist in the Ivan Sutton Chamber Prize. He has worked with musicians including Richard Hetherington, Ralf Gothoni, and Graham Johnson; he participated in a research project in partnership with the Exilarte Centre in Vienna, performing previously unpublished songs by the French Jewish composer Edouard van Cleeff; and most recently he performed as part of Guildhall’s Chamber Music Festival. Next year, he continues his studies at Guildhall on the Artist Diploma course.
Outside of the piano, Mark continues to explore other areas of music-making: last academic year, he held the Mary and Bryn Walters Organ Scholarship at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, and is currently Organ Scholar at Royal Hospital Chelsea. He is also an experienced choral singer, having sung on BBC Radio 3 on multiple occasions, been a member of Genesis Sixteen, and an Emerging Artist at St Martin-in-the-Fields. He also has experience conducting both choral and orchestral music, having directed his own consort of singers in Cambridge, conducted the Cambridge Graduate Orchestra, and conducted Guildhall's student production of Little Women (the Broadway musical) last year.
2025 AKM Fellows
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Ciara McGuire is a baroque and modern violinist based in Rochester, NY. A passionate performer of music new and old, she has performed concertos with various ensembles at the Eastman School of Music, including Baroque Collegium and Musica Nova. She holds a BM from Oberlin College and Conservatory and is completing her masters’ degree at Eastman, where significant teachers and mentors have included Sibbi Bernhardsson, Yoojin Jang, Marilyn McDonald, and Brad Lubman. Ciara has been the guest concertmaster of the Genesee Valley Orchestra and Chorus since 2023, and has performed with orchestras and in concert series throughout upstate New York. A passionate chamber musician, Ciara is the founding violinist of the Vantage Trio, which will compete in several upcoming national competitions, including Plowman and Fischoff. In June, she will perform Berg’s violin concerto “To the Memory of an Angel” with orchestra, as the winner of the Mostly Modern Festival’s 2024 concerto competition.
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Constant Clermont is a French violinist who currently studies at CNSM de Paris with Olivier Charlier and privately with Julien Szulman. In his teenage years, he has studied in Cleveland with professor Isabel Trautwein and was associate concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra.
During his studies in 2020, he founded Quatuor Mirages which was the youngest resident quartet in Fondation Singer-Polignac. They participated in the Verbier Festival Academy and the Aix en Provence Academy, and studied with teachers such as Mathieu Herzog, Gábor Takács-Nagy and members of the Ebene, Belcea, Berg quartets. At the end of 2023, the quartet stopped its activities and Constant decided to focus more on his own career.
In recent months, he’s had the great privilege to receive advice from great artists such as Noah Bendix-Balgley, Petteri Iivonen, Rainer Küchl. He has performed for Festivals/Organisations such as Festival des Arcs, Les Concerts de Poches, La Chaise Dieu, Festival d’Auvers sur Oise along David Grimal, Augustin Dumay, Michel Dalberto, Emmanuel Rossfelder, Sivan Magen, Meesun Hong Coleman and more. For more than a year now, Constant has taken part in chamber music sessions organized by Musethica and has performed in Barcelona's L'Auditori and in Bonn’s BeethovenFest. He has been invited multiple times to be a substitute with Camerata Bern in places such as Gstaad Festival and will go on tour with them in May 2025.
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Jinzhao Xu is a pianist celebrated for his playing style, which blends delicacy and gentleness with dynamic intensity. As the winner and laureate of over ten international and national piano competitions, he has performed in numerous countries, including China, Japan, Israel, Italy, the United States, France, and Romania. In the summer of 2013, he made his orchestral debut as a soloist with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra during the 17th Morningside Music Bridge in Canada, where he performed Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Since then, he has collaborated with several esteemed orchestras, including the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra in China and the Raanana Sinfonietta in Israel.
Alongside his solo career, Xu has developed a reputation as an accomplished chamber musician. He has performed with renowned ensembles and soloists, including the Shanghai String Quartet, Telegraph Quartet, violinist Weigang Li, and Suona player Zhanzhan Wang. He maintains a long-standing collaboration with cellist Youngeun Lee and following her gold medal win at the 17th Tchaikovsky International Music Competition in 2023, they performed as a duo in prestigious venues such as the Seoul Arts Center in Korea. As the founder of the Oak Piano Trio, Xu and his ensemble won the National First Prize at the 2019 MTNA Chamber Music String Competition in the United States.
Xu began his doctoral studies at the University of Michigan in the fall of 2024, under the guidance of Professor Christopher Harding. He previously earned a Specialist Degree in Collaborative Piano from the University of Michigan, a Master of Music in Chamber Music from the Tianjin Juilliard School, where he was awarded the prestigious Tianjin Juilliard School Prize as part of the inaugural graduate class of 2022, and a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His principal teachers include Professors Christopher Harding, Xiaohan Wang, Jon Nakamatsu, Yoshikazu Nagai, Fang Yuan, Xinning Zhang, Martin Katz, and Amy I-Lin Cheng.
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Youngeun Lee is a cellist celebrated for her heartfelt artistry, warm presence, and for winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Known for her captivating performances, she has graced renowned stages such as in Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, and Jeju, among others. As a dedicated chamber musician, she collaborates with pianists, string players, wind players, vocalists, and traditional Korean instrumentalists, bringing her genuine passion and approachable spirit to every ensemble.
Ms. Lee has consistently earned recognition for her talent, including a merit scholarship for her exceptional performance and academic achievements during high school, college, and graduate school. She graduated as the cello valedictorian from Seoul National University, where she also served as principal cellist of the Seoul National University Symphony Orchestra. Since then, she has toured in Korea and abroad, performing with various ensembles and championing contemporary music through her involvement in modern music.
Continuing her studies at the Tianjin Juilliard School, Ms. Lee’s warmth and collaborative spirit shone in concerts such as faculty-student side-by-side concert, performing repertoire spanning baroque to contemporary. Meanwhile, she has toured China as a member of the Trio con Fuoco, sharing her musical passion in cities such as Qingdao, Wuhan, Beijing, and Tianjin. Now pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Michigan with a full scholarship and teaching assistantship, she continues to inspire through her solo and chamber performances, as well as her teaching and masterclasses at institutions like the Juilliard School New York and Ewha Womans University.
Her principal teachers include Sungzhin Peter Lee, Jisuk Shin, Nick Tzavaras, Yeonjin Kim, and Richard Aaron. The pronunciation of her name is: [jʌŋ ɯn], [young-un].