Musicians
Sasha Callahan
Violinist Sasha Callahan has established a vibrant and diverse career as a recitalist, chamber and orchestral musician. She has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia, and is a founding member of Sheffield Chamber Players and the Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival. Chamber music has been one of Sasha’s great loves since she played her first string quartets with her sister Eve and their grandparents. She’s particularly interested in projects that bring audiences and performers closer together to forge connection and community. The Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival, Sheffield Chamber Players, and the educational string trio All Ears were each formed with this in mind. Recent and upcoming performances with Houston-based chamber ensemble Aperio, Music of the Americas also reflects this interest. Sasha is passionate about exploring new music alongside masterpieces of the past, and has worked closely with, premiered, and recorded works by composers including Kenji Bunch, Reena Esmail, Gabriela Lena Frank, Lukas Foss, Osvaldo Golijov, Jessie Montgomery, Kareem Roustom, Gunther Schuller, Joan Tower, and Evan Ziporyn.
In addition to performing more than 50 chamber music concerts a season, she can be heard as a member of the Portland (Maine) Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and New Hampshire Music Festival, as well as with the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Lyric Opera, Odyssey Opera, and the Boston Ballet Orchestra. Sasha has performed on multiple GRAMMY nominated and award winning albums, as well as a recent album of string quartets by Gabriela Lena Frank called Her Own Wings. She recently served as a faculty mentor to emerging composers at the innovative Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music in California. A native of Portland, Oregon, Sasha received her BM degree in violin performance from Rice University and MM from Boston University. Principal teachers include Lucia Lin, Sergiu Luca, Denes Zsigmondy, and Carol Sindell. She currently resides in Boston with her husband Leo Eguchi, and daughter Freya, but pines for her homeland of Oregon, and looks forward to returning to the gorgeous shadow of Mt. Hood as often as she can.
Violin
Leo Eguchi
Leo Eguchi has been described as “copiously skilled and confident” (New York Times) with performances that were "ravishing" (New Bedford Standard-Times) and "played with passion and vitality" (Boston Music Intellegencer).
A native of Michigan, Leo has performed extensively across North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. He enjoys an active and multi-faceted performance schedule – Leo can be heard in myriad chamber music settings, including the Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival and Sheffield Chamber Players; in larger ensembles as principal cellist of the New Bedford Symphony, a member of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the New Hampshire Music Festival and the Portland Symphony; and frequent appearances with the Boston Pops.
A strong advocate of new music, Leo has premiered dozens of pieces by, and worked closely with, many notable composers including William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, George Crumb, Lukas Foss, Joan Tower, Ken Ueno, Yehudi Wyner, Jessie Montgomery, Gabriela Lena Frank, Evan Ziporyn, Ketty Nez, Osvaldo Golijov, and Daniel Bernard Roumain.
Recent solo performing highlights include being a prize winner at the 2021 ProCello International Cello Competition, several GRAMMY nominated recording releases from Parma recordings, multiple concerto appearances, an artist residency and solo performances in Kabul, Afghanistan, and opportunities to share the non-classical stage with the likes of Pete Townshend, Queen Latifah, Melissa Etheridge, Demi Lovato, Brian Wilson, Kelly Clarkson, Peter Gabriel, Billy Idol, Jennifer Hudson, Nick Jonas, Josh Groban, and Audra McDonald, to name a few.
Leo is on the music faculty of Boston College, and is the Assistant Conductor of the MIT Symphony Orchestra. His degrees include a BM (Cello Performance) and BS (Physics) cum laude from the University of Michigan, and MM (cello performance) from Boston University, where he received the String Department Award for Excellence. Leo, along with violinist wife Sasha Callahan and cat-obsessed daughter Freya, live in Boston and spend their non-musical time time appreciating the outdoors, food, and wine.
Cello
Charles Noble
Charles Noble has been assistant principal viola of the Oregon Symphony since 1995. He holds degrees from the University of Puget Sound, the University of Maryland, and the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, where his primary teachers were Joyce Ramée, Joseph de Pasquale, Michael Tree, and Roberto Díaz.
During the summer months Charles serves as principal viola of the Sunriver Music Festival. He has also played with the Oregon Bach Festival orchestra since 1996, and was a participant in the 2015 Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City. Past festival appearances have included the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival, Cascade Festival of Music, the Mt. Angel Abby Bach Festival, and the Ernest Bloch Music Festival. In 2002, 2004, and 2006, Charles was a featured performer at the International Viola Society’s annual Congress.
In addition to his orchestral work, Charles is an active chamber musician. He is a founding member of both the Arnica String Quartet and the Pyxis String Quartet, which is part of the newly-created 45th Parallel Universe musical collective.
Away from the viola Charles can be found riding his bike, reading, watching movies, enjoying craft beer and local wines, and cooking with his wife Stephanie and their two cats.
He writes a classical music blog (soon to be joined by a podcast) at www.nobleviola.com and tweets @nobleviola.
He plays on a 1997 viola by Gabrielle Kundert and a 2018 bow by Darrell Hanks.
Viola
Megumi Stohs Lewis
Raised in Portland, Oregon, Megumi Stohs Lewis started playing the violin at age three, but grew up with a dream of studying agricultural science. The summer she turned sixteen, she attended the Olympic Music Festival, held on a beautiful farm in Washington State, and realized that music and the countryside were a perfect combination. Since then, Megumi has soloed with orchestras throughout the US and Japan, and has toured with ensembles throughout Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. Now residing in Boston, she is a co-founder of A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra; has been a guest with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, the Radius Ensemble, the South Coast Chamber Players and the North Country Chamber Players. Starting in 2008, Megumi picked up the baroque violin and quickly fell for the gut strings and a variety of period bows. This love has led to performances with Boston Baroque, and the formation of Antico Moderno, a new ensemble actively commissioning contemporary works for period instruments. She also loves to fiddle and play rock and has regularly toured with Britain’s Jethro Tull. Megumi’s primary influences include her teachers Lucy Chapman at the New England Conservatory and Camilla Wicks and Ian Swensen at the San Francisco Conservatory. Especially in chamber music and period performance, Roger Tapping, Phoebe Carrai, Manfredo Kraemer, and Mark Sokol have been significant mentors. Her early studies were guided by Edie Bennett, Bette Boyer, and Kathryn Gray. Megumi is currently satisfying her longing for agriculture through heirloom vegetable gardening.
Violin
Greg Ewer
Greg Ewer, hailed by The New York Times for his “refinement and spirit,” has been a member of the Oregon Symphony since 2001. Greg is also well known to Portland audiences for his regular appearances with the Portland Baroque Orchestra, Third Angle New Music Ensemble, and Pink Martini. He is also the founder and artistic director of 45th Parallel, a highly acclaimed chamber music series founded in 2009, featuring musicians of the Pacific Northwest.
Greg has appeared as a guest recitalist at Yale University, and at the National Library in Mexico City. He has performed at numerous summer festivals, including the Tanglewood Music Center, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Moab Music Festival, and the Montana Baroque Festival.
Greg’s 2014 recording of the Complete Sonatas for Two Violins of Jean-Marie Leclair with his longtime collaborator Adam LaMotte was described as a “landmark recording” and hailed for its “zest and athleticism” by The Strad magazine. In addition to his performing activities, Greg is on the music faculty of Reed College in Portland.
Violin
Catherine van der Salm
Catherine van der Salm is a versatile musician praised for her “agile, supple and richly expressive” voice (The Oregonian). She is an active collaborative artist singing with Cappella Romana, In Mulieribus, Cantores in Ecclesia, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Resonance Ensemble, The Ensemble of Oregon and Oregon Catholic Press. She has appeared as a guest artist with Portland Youth Philharmonic, 45thParallel, Newport Symphony Orchestra, Third Angle, Willamette Master Chorus, Musica Maestrale and BachCantata Vespers at St. James Lutheran Church. Catherine makes her home in Vancouver, Washington, with her husband, Ruud and their daughters Juliana and Annelies.
Soprano
*Photo credits Rachel Hadiashar