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Sakiko Ohashi
Sakiko Ohashi, a native of Japan, began her piano studies at the age of four. By the time she was 10 years old, she was accepted to the Juilliard Pre-College Division as a student of Herbert Stessin. Since then, performances have taken her throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe.
In 1996, Sakiko made her concerto debut at Lincoln Center in New York City, performing Bartok’s 3rd Piano Concerto with the Juilliard Symphony conducted by Otto-Werner Mueller. She is also the winner of the 1993 E. Nakamichi Concerto Competition at the Aspen Music Festival where she appeared with the Aspen Young Artists Orchestra. She has appeared with numerous orchestras including the South Carolina Philharmonic, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and the South Dakota Symphony.
In New York, her appearances have included venues such as Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Juilliard Theatre, and The Harvard Club. At the Juilliard School, her awards and scholarships included Van Cliburn, Lilian Halpern, Bertha Levin, Alexander Siloti, and the Maxwell Muriel Gluck Fellowship. She studied chamber music under Felix Galimir, Stephen Clapp, and Jonathan Feldman.
Sakiko has appeared in numerous music festivals, including the Aspen Music Festival, Killington Music Festival, Orford Centre for the Arts, Banff Center for the Arts, Fontainebleau Music Festival in France, Glassboro Summer Session, and Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, Austria.
She holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School, and has taught at the Greenwich House of Music in New York, the Sewanee Summer Music Festival in Tennessee, and Augustana College in South Dakota. She studied with Zitta Zohar and participated in master classes with Anton Kuerti, Philippe Entremont, Gaby Casadesus, Philippe Bianconi, Bernd Glemser, and Catherine Vickers. In addition, she is featured in three CDs of Creole composers Gottschalk, Dede, and Lambert on the Naxos label.
A dedicated teacher, her students have won numerous competitions both locally and nationally. She currently resides in Miami, Florida with her husband, Gary on, Kenji, and Toby, the darling mini-dachshund.
Orli Shaham
Orli Shaham (Pre-College ’93; BCJ exchange ’97, piano) has established an international reputation as one of today's most gifted pianists. She has performed with most of the major orchestras in the U.S. and internationally from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House.
Orli is artistic director of Pacific Symphony’s chamber series Café Ludwig in Costa Mesa, California, and artistic director of the interactive children’s concert series Orli Shaham’s Bach Yard, which she founded in 2010.
Highlights of Ms. Shaham’s 2025-2026 concert season include Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto at the Classical Tahoe Festival, performances of Light Forming by David Robertson with St. Louis and Nashville symphonies, and the premiere of a concerto for violin and piano by Reena Esmail she commissioned with her brother, the violinist Gil Shaham, with the National and Virginia symphonies.
In 2026, Orli released an album of American chamber music with members of the Pacific Symphony, including works by Margaret Brouwer, Avner Dorman, Reena Esmail and Viet Cuong. Her 2024 box set of the complete sonatas by Mozart received accolades worldwide. Ms. Shaham’s discography also includes her acclaimed solo album, Brahms Inspired; John Adams' Grand Pianola Music with the pianist Marc-André Hamelin and the San Francisco Symphony, with the composer conducting; and American Grace, featuring Steven Mackey’s Stumble to Grace, written for her, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Orli is on the piano and chamber music faculty at The Juilliard School and is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Kaufman Music Center. She is a major presence on public radio as Co-Host and Creative for NPR’s From the Top and was host of Dial-a-Musician, a radio feature series she created. She is regularly featured on the popular music education platform Tonebase, including masterclasses on Mozart's piano sonatas and a lecture-performance about Clara Schumann.
Orli studied with Luisa Yoffe in Jerusalem and with Herbert Stessin at Juilliard. In addition to her musical education at Juilliard, she holds a BA from Columbia University, where she pursued her graduate studies in historical musicology. She is a winner of the Gilmore Young Artist Award and the Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Salix Trio
The Salix Piano Trio was founded in New York City in 2023 by longtime friends and colleagues — violinist Joanna Maurer, cellist Alberto Parrini, and pianist Anna Stoytcheva — out of a desire to explore the rich and vast piano trio canon.
For the past 20+ years, Maurer, Parrini and Stoytcheva have performed and toured together around the United States in different combinations, notably as members of the American Chamber Players. Their extraordinary, dynamic performances have been enthusiastically praised:
“a stunning performance (by Maurer and Stoytcheva) that…turned what might have been just an entertaining evening into a must-hear musical event. ” (Washington Post); “…Maurer and Parrini delivered an outstanding performance; their virtuosic technique and acute sense of pathos helped energize the audience…” (Palm Beach Daily News).
They have always found great joy in crafting musical ideas together, appreciating the ease in which their concepts of sound and interpretation align. Reconnecting as a trio has enabled the artists to weave their deeply expressive, graceful and passionate styles together in a more intimate combination.
Since their founding, the Salix Piano Trio has performed on the Bulgarian Concert Evenings in New York series as well as on their Opening Gala at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall among other venues. Some of their upcoming 2025-2026 season performances include Wooster Chamber Music Series, Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music, West Side Concert Series, New Marlborough Meeting House, Bulgarian Concert Evenings in New York and The Saint Andrew Music Society.
Highlights of the 2026-27 season include a return to Sanibel Music Festival, and appearances at Gettysburg Community Concert Association and The University Club in New York City.
The name Salix comes from the group’s mutual love for the graceful and poetic weeping willow tree (salix babylonica).
More: https://www.salixpianotrio.com/about
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Helen Kim
Helen Hwaya Kim made her orchestral debut with the Calgary Philharmonic at the age of six, and has gone on to become a respected and sought-after artist. She has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Pops at Boston’s Symphony Hall, as well as with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras.
Ms. Kim earned her Bachelor and Master's Degree from the Juilliard School, where her teachers included Cho-Liang Lin and Dorothy DeLay. While at Juilliard, she served as Concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra and was the winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition at both the Pre–College and College levels. She is the recipient of more than one hundred national and international awards. She won the prestigious Artists International Competition in New York and, as a result, gave debut recitals at Carnegie Weill Hall and the Aspen Summer Music Festival.
A native of Canada, Ms. Kim has been engaged by many of Canada's leading orchestras, including the National Arts Center Orchestra, Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, McGill Chamber Orchestra, and the Windsor, Regina, Victoria and Prince George Symphonies. She has also appeared with the DeKalb, New Orleans, Aspen and Banff Festival Orchestras, and with orchestras in the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland.
Ms. Kim has toured extensively throughout Canada and the United States, including performances at Alice Tully Hall and the Santa Fe and La Jolla International Music Festivals, where she performed with Cho-Liang Lin, Gary Hoffman, Andre Previn, and the Orion String Quartet. She performed Bach’s Double violin concerto with Hilary Hahn at the Amelia Island Chamber music festival.
Helen also performed the world premiere of the “Concertino” by Chen Yi, scored for solo violin and orchestra that was commissioned especially for her and the KSU Orchestra and was recently released by Centaur in 2016.
Ms. Kim currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, where she served as Assistant and Associate Concertmaster for the Atlanta Symphony for three seasons. She is currently the Assistant Concertmaster of the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and recently joined the roster of the Atlanta Chamber Players.
TICKETS & DONATIONS
ON SALE STARTING MARCH 1, 2026
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$25 Per Concert
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Festival Ticket - $60 for 3 Concerts
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Seniors and Children 12 and under - $15
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Donations (tax deductable) are welcome! - https://gofund.me/7213ddf7a
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Tickets can be purchased at the door using cash, check, or VENMO.
Your donation helps this small but feisty non-profit cover the expense of the yearly piano rental. Thank you for your consideration!
PHOTO GALLERY
VIDEO
"We drove up from Putney and had no idea what a wonderful experience it would be. Someone said the festival in West Windsor is charming. So true!"
- Glen and Lois W.
the festival
The West Windsor Music Festival is the creative endeavor of Artistic Director, Sakiko Ohashi. There's no better place to share the wonders and beauty of chamber music with friends and neighbors. 2026 is the fifth anniverary of the festival, and we have many of our friends and neibors of West windsor and the surrounding area to thank.
The West Windsor Music Festival enriches the community through music, friends, and unforgettable gatherings. We thank our many friends in the Brownsville area and the leaders of the community for your support and encouragement of the festival each year. As each festival comes, we add or tweak or add a surprise, but in the end, it is all about the exceptional music.
The West Windsor Music Festival is primarily self-funded. As a not-for-profit, we gladly accept donations. Receipt for tax purposes available.
VENMO - @Gary-Wood-22
The West Windsor Music Festival is the creative endeavor of Artistic Director, Sakiko Ohashi. There's no better place to share the wonders and beauty of chamber music with friends and neighbors.
The West Windsor Music Festival is the creative endeavor of Artistic Director, Sakiko Ohashi. There's no better place to share the wonders and beauty of chamber music with friends and neighbors.
TOWN HALL
22 Brownsville-Hartland Road
Brownsville, VT 05087
Phone
802.672.1958 Vermont Home in Summer.
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