FSMA Faculty
Violin
Addison Teng
Director
Violinist Addison Teng 鄧丞修 is an internationally sought-after performer and teacher who has given solo and chamber music performances across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The upcoming season will include concerts in San Marino, Italy, France, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam, Singapore, and across the United States, as well as masterclasses at conservatories and schools in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
Teng and has performed as soloist with the Oberlin College Orchestra, Eastman String Fellowship Orchestra, Sinfonia Academy Orchestra in the Philippines, the University of Macedonia Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Irvine, Concord Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta de Cuerdas de San Agustín, and Sea Coast Symphony. This season includes concerto performances with the North Shore Chamber Orchestra and the Manitowoc Symphony Orchestra.
Teng is a founding member of the Fulton Chamber Players, who recently gave their debut performance at Newport Classical as well as performances at the Taipei National Concert Hall in Taiwan, Esplanade Theater in Singapore, Teatro Macedonio Alcalá in Mexico, Silk Purse Arts Center in Canada, and Teng has also played with the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago.
Teng is president and founder of the nonprofit Fulton Music Society and is the director of the Fulton Summer Music Academy, Fulton In Residence, and Fulton Conservatory of Music programs. He was previously on the faculty at DePaul University School of Music, the Music Institute of Chicago, and the Montecito International Music Festival. Teng began his teaching career at 17 as the youngest ever teaching assistant at the Meadowmount School of Music, and subsequently at Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, assisting Sally Thomas, Amy Barlowe, and Roland and Almita Vamos.
He has given masterclasses at institutions including the Colburn School of Music, Lawrence University, University of Denver Lamont School of Music, Eastman Pre-College, Xinghai Conservatory in China, Pôle Sup’93 in France, Taiwan National University of Arts, Conservatorio Nacional de Música in Mexico City, Ho Chi Minh Conservatory in Vietnam, Conservatorio Bruno Maderna in Italy, and Conservatório Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro.
Teng's students have placed at competitions both locally and nationally, including DePaul Concerto Competition, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Bach Double Competition, Rockford Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, Denver Young Artists National Violin Competition, Walgreens National Competition. Many of his students have been admitted to top conservatories including Oberlin Conservatory, Juilliard School of Music, New England Conservatory, and Curtis Institute of Music. They have gone on to win orchestra jobs in ensembles including the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Grant Park Orchestra.
Teng graduated with a Master of Music in Violin Performance and String Pedagogy from Northwestern University Bienen School of Music and received his Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from Oberlin Conservatory of Music. His principal teachers and mentors have included Joey Corpus, Sally Thomas, Ann Setzer, Roland and Almita Vamos, Peter Takács, Amy Barlowe, and Karen Ritscher. In 2018 he received the Outstanding Young Alumni Award at Oberlin College and Conservatory, and he has also been recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of the Meadowmount School of Music and has been inducted into Marquis Who's Who.
Learn more about Addison Teng at https://www.addisonteng.com
Viola
Violist Amy Hess has forged a multi-faceted career in chamber music, orchestral performance, and education. Praised for her “honeyed, gentle-voiced sound” by the Chicago Classical Review, she has performed on stages and worked with students across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Based in Chicago, Hess is a member of the viola sections of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Grant Park Orchestra. Previously, she was a principal viola of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and a member of the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra. She has played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, and Chicago Philharmonic.
Hess is a founding member of the Fulton Chamber Players and has performed with the ensemble at venues such as Newport Classical, Taiwan’s National Recital Hall in Taipei, the Esplanade in Singapore, and MASKFest in San Marino. Upcoming seasons include performances across the Midwest as well as tours to Taiwan, Japan, and Mexico. Before joining Fulton, she performed on the Rush Hour Concert Series in Chicago and with the Chicago Ensemble.
As a soloist, Hess has performed Strauss’ Don Quixote with the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra and Stamitz’s Viola Concerto with Sinfonietta DuPage. She also performed in the Chicago premier of Joel Puckett’s Short Stories for string quartet and wind ensemble with the Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she gave a radio broadcast recital as part of the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago.
Passionate about educating the next generations of musicians, Hess is on the faculties of the Fulton Summer Music Academy and the Fulton Conservatory of Music. She has given masterclasses at schools including the School of the Arts in Singapore, Manila Junior Symphony Orchestra in the Philippines, and University of Hawaii at Manoa. She previously taught at the Merit School of Music in Chicago.
Hess received her Master of Music in viola from Northwestern University and is a Phi Beta Kappa alumna of Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music, where she earned degrees in French and violin. While at Oberlin, she spent a semester in Paris, studying violin with David Rivière of the CNSM and musicology at the Sorbonne. Her interest in French music continued through a collaboration with Ravel scholar Sigrun Heinzelmann on a presentation at the Music Theory Midwest conference and several lectures at Oberlin. Amy’s principal teachers and mentors have included Karen Ritscher, Roland Vamos, David Bowlin, and Addison Teng, but it all began thanks to her mother, a Suzuki violin teacher in Lancaster, PA
Amy Hess
Director of Student Life
Cello
Nicholas Mariscal
A native of Tucson, Arizona, cellist Nicholas Mariscal has been a member of the cello section of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra since May of 2023. Beginning in 2021, he held the position of Assistant Principal Cello of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and served as the orchestra’s Acting Principal Cello during the 2023-24 season.
Mariscal has appeared as guest principal cellist with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra on their 2019 tour of South Korea, and has performed as principal cello of the Fjord Cadenza Festival orchestra in Ålesund, Norway. A recent alumnus of the New World Symphony in Miami, Mariscal was a winner of the orchestra’s concerto competition, performing Khachaturian’s Concerto-Rhapsody for cello and orchestra. In 2018, he made his professional solo debut performing the same work with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, he is a top prize winner in the Sphinx, Edith Knox, and Indiana University Latin American Music Center competitions.
As an ardent performer of new and lesser-known music, Mariscal has been involved in dozens of premieres of new works, and has performed extensively as a member of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, and USC’s Thornton EDGE ensemble. A passionate proponent of Latin American music, he has recorded rarely-heard music for unaccompanied cello by 20th and 21st century composers including Osvaldo Golijov, Alberto Ginastera, and Paul Desenne, and is a frequent programmer and performer of music from Latin America. Also an avid chamber musician, Mariscal has performed with esteemed artists including Midori Goto, Jorja Fleezanis, Tamás Varga, Atar Arad, and Frank Almond.
Mariscal received his Bachelor of Music degree from Indiana University under the tutelage of Eric Kim, and received a Master of Music degree and a Graduate Certificate from the University of Southern California, where he studied with David Geringas and Ralph Kirshbaum.
Piano
Hailed by the New York Times as “a marvelous pianist,” Peter Takács
has performed widely, receiving critical and audience acclaim for his
penetrating and communicative musical interpretations.
Mr. Takács was born in Bucuresti, Romania and started his musical studies before his fourth birthday. After his debut recital at age seven, he was a frequent recitalist in his native city until his parents' request for emigration to the West, at which point all his studies and performances were banned. He continued studying clandestinely with his piano teacher until his family was finally allowed to emigrate to France, where, at age fourteen, he was admitted to the Conservatoire National de Paris.
Upon his arrival in the United States, his outstanding musical talents
continued to be recognized with full scholarships to Northwestern University and the University of Illinois, and a three-year fellowship for doctoral studies at the Peabody Conservatory, where he completed his artistic training with renowned pianist Leon Fleisher.
Mr. Takács has received numerous prizes and awards for his performances, including First Prize in the William Kapell International Competition, the C.D. Jackson Award for Excellence in Chamber Music at the Tanglewood Music Center, and a Solo Recitalist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has performed as guest soloist with major orchestras in the U.S. and abroad, as well as at important summer festivals such as Tanglewood, Music Mountain, Chautauqua Institution, ARIA International, Schlern Music Festival in the Italian Alps, Tel Hai International Master Classes in Israel, Sweden’s Helsingborg Festival, and Musicfest Perugia 2014. Since 2008, he has been a member of the faculty at the Montecito Summer Music Festival in Riverside, CA. He has performed and recorded the complete
cycle of Beethoven Piano Sonatas, which was released on the CAMBRIA
label in July 2011, as well as the complete Beethoven piano-cello works
with Robert DeMaine, released in 2022 on the Leaf Music label. In 2015, he was selected to inaugurate a new series in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall
entitled “Key Pianists”, presenting three recitals of Beethoven solo and
chamber music to critical acclaim. In 2020, an endowed fund was
established for The Peter Takács Beethoven Prize in Piano. He is Professor of Piano at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he has taught since 1976.
Learn more about Mr. Takács at https://www.petertakacspianist.com/
Peter Takács
FSMA 2027 Weeks 1-2
Thomas Hecht
FSMA 2027 Weeks 3-4
Renowned American pianist and pedagogue Thomas Hecht was the founding Head of Keyboard Studies and the Madeline Goh Professor of Piano at the Yong Siew Toh (YST) Conservatory in Singapore and has recently relocated back to his native Baltimore. Over the span of three decades he has appeared on five continents as concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. He was also a member of the internationally acclaimed duo-piano team of Hecht & Shapiro, winners of the Munich International Two Piano Competition, USA National Duo Piano Competition and Peabody’s coveted Young Maestro Award which honors distinguished alumni for their performing careers. He was the former head of Piano Studies and artist-in-residence at Victoria University in New Zealand, and prior to that served as professor of Piano and artist-in-residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music. During his graduate studies at Peabody he also became the first teaching assistant to his beloved mentor, the late Leon Fleisher.
Hecht has performed in many of the world’s cultural centers, appearing with leading orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Johannesburg Festival Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Artsakh Symphony Orchestra and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Career highlights include performances at the Lincoln Center in New York, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, and solo recitals in Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Germany, South Africa, and throughout all the major centers of Australia and New Zealand. He performed well over a dozen concerti while living overseas, including the Asian premiere of Thomas Ades’ Concerto Conciso.
Hecht enjoys a well-deserved reputation as one of the leading teachers of his generation, having produced a multitude of first prize winners in solo and two piano competitions throughout the United States, Europe and Australasia. He has given master classes at renowned institutions such as the Royal Academy, Royal Northern and Royal Welsh Colleges of Music, as well as at the Paris, Eastman, Oberlin, Peabody, Sydney, Beijing, and Sichuan Conservatories. Guest residency invitations have included the Conservatoire de Paris, Sibelius Academy, Guildhall College of Music & Drama, the University of Trossingen, and the Western Australia Academy for the Performing Arts. His highly sought after piano classes have produced concerto soloists with the Singapore, New Zealand, Christchurch, Lamont, Lima, Kaunas, Peabody, and Artsakh Symphony Orchestras, the Cleveland, Philippines, Singapore, and Dnepropetrovsk Philharmonic Orchestras, the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, the Melbourne and Wellington Youth Orchestras, and the Auckland Philharmonia. Two of his Singaporean protégés have been named Young Steinway Artists.
Hecht receives regular invitations to summer piano festivals, including performances in Sydney, Beijing, Wellington, Lausanne, Chethams, Taichung, Bavaria, Artsakh, and Brasov (where he is Honorary Professor of Piano at the University of Transylvania), and continues to be in demand for workshops and pedagogy conferences throughout the world. He currently coaches piano duos to great success at Peabody, where his pupils recently won first and second Prizes in the 2024 and 2026 MTNA Stecher & Horowitz National Two Piano Competition, respectively. Professor Hecht was also recently appointed to the piano faculty at the University of Maryland College Park. This past season he was featured convention artist and master class Teacher for the Maryland State Music Teachers Association and appeared in guest recitals at the Oberlin Conservatory and University of Maryland. In his free time he enjoys leading Bible Studies at the Christopher Place Employment Academy and the Weinberg Housing & Resource Center, and he volunteers weekly as a Therapeutic Mentor at the St. Vincent’s Villa for Children.
A rising talent of her generation, AiTong Zhang has been a prize winner at the Hong Kong International Piano Invitation Competition and the IAC International Piano Competition, and has been awarded first prize at the 2021 SAE National Youth Competition and the 2017 Franz Schubert International Piano Competition. As a member of the Fulton Chamber Players, Zhang has given masterclasses and recitals at universities such as Taipei National University of the Arts, Hansei University, Chinese Culture University, Fu Jen University, and Aletheia University. She has performed on stages across the United States, Mexico, Japan, Korea, and China, and upcoming performances this year are scheduled in Paris, Ho Chi Minh City, Guangzhou, Hawaii, Florida, and Wisconsin. She began her piano journey at the age of five and soon after joined the studio of Professor Li Qi. Zhang later earned admission to the prestigious High School attached to Guangzhou Xinghai Conservatory of Music. There, she continued to study piano under the guidance of Professor Zhu Qing and later with Professor Peter Takács at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She has attended the Gijón International Piano Festival, North Coast Piano Festival, Montecito International Music Festival and Fulton Summer Music Academy, where she is now Faculty Artist in Residence.
AiTong Zhang
张艾彤
Artist-In-Residence
Conductor
Ryan Tani
Now in his third season with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and his first as its associate conductor, Ryan Tani has earned a reputation for bold, insightful programming and a deep commitment to community engagement. At the MSO, he conducts a wide range of performances—including Education, Family, Pops, and Classics programs—while supporting Music Director Ken-David Masur and guest conductors. Highlights of his tenure include stepping in last-minute for Edo de Waart, as well as conducting sold-out performances in his official Classics debut in 2025. He has recently served as cover conductor for the Minnesota Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Colorado Symphony, and Bozeman Symphony.
A dedicated advocate for contemporary music, Tani served as Music Director of the Occasional Symphony in Baltimore, where he championed dozens of composers and commissioned over 20 new works. As Conducting Fellow of the Yale Philharmonia and Resident Conductor of the New Music New Haven series, he worked under the mentorship of Peter Oundjian and Aaron Jay Kernis, earning the Dean’s Prize for artistic excellence.
Tani is deeply committed to bringing music to local artistic ecosystems. During his time in Montana, he led a wide variety of ensembles, including the Bozeman Symphony as Chorusmaster and Assistant Conductor, the Montana State University Symphony Orchestra, and several community-based orchestras and choirs. His work there included founding and directing outreach concerts with amateur and student musicians, building curriculum for university-level conducting and appreciation courses, and facilitating meaningful collaborations between professional artists and the public. These experiences continue to shape his belief in the power of music to unite, uplift, and serve.
Tani holds degrees from Yale University, the Peabody Institute, and the University of Southern California, where he studied with Marin Alsop, Peter Oundjian, Markand Thakar, Larry Rachleff, and Donald Schleicher. In 2015, he was named winner of the ACDA National Undergraduate Conducting Competition.
He currently resides in Milwaukee, where he enjoys walking his dog, playing board games, reading at the library, or practicing his violin.
Each summer's faculty are subject to change.
