Home of The Mira Trio

Georgia native GABRIELA DIAZ began her musical training at the age of five, studying piano with her mother, and the next year, violin with her father. Shortly before her sixteenth birthday, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease, a type of lymphatic cancer. She was treated with chemotherapy and radiation at Egleston Children's Hospital in Atlanta and the Medical Center in Columbus.

As a cancer survivor, Gabriela is committed to cancer research and treatment. She has lent her talents to a wide range of related programs and organizations, including the American Cancer Society, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Beth Israel Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, The Race for the Cure, OnCare, Inc., the Columbus Medical Center, and the Egleston Children’s Hospital at Emory University in Atlanta. In 2004 Gabriela was a recipient of a grant from the Albert Schweitzer Foundation. This grant enabled Gabriela to begin organizing a series of chamber music concerts in cancer units at various hospitals in Boston called the Boston Hope Ensemble.

Gabriela holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from New England Conservatory, where she was a student of James Buswell. Gabriela has attended the Aspen Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival, and has performed at the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, North Country Chamber Players, Vail Valley Bravo Music Festival, and Cactus Pear Festival, among others. In the summer of 2007 Gabriela acted as Concertmistress under Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival Academy in Lucerne, Switzerland. Devoted to contemporary music, Gabriela has been fortunate to work closely with many significant living composers on their own compositions, namely Pierre Boulez, Magnus Lindberg, Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Lucier, John Zorn, Osvaldo Golijov, Lee Hyla, and Helmut Lachenmann. In 2003 she won the BMOP/NEC concerto competition, playing Zorn’s Contes des Fees with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. She also became the youngest person to ever record the Ligeti Violin Concerto, recorded for Mode Records with New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Ensemble (not yet released). She is actively involved in contemporary music concerts at NEC, Harvard, and MIT, and it a member of the Callithumpian Consort, Radius, Firebird and White Rabbit Ensembles. Boston critics have mentioned Gabriela’s “miracles of color, texture and feeling,” “vibrant playing,” “polished technique,” and “elegant, accomplished playing.”

Recordings available: Mode Records, New World Records, BMOPSound

Cellist ALEXEI YUPANQUI GONZALES was born to Peruvian and German immigrants in Andover, MA in 1979. He began playing the cello at the age of 4 at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School. He continued his musical studies at the New England Conservatory with Laurence Lesser and Paul Katz. Alexei was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center for three consecutive summers and has also appeared in the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany, the International Music Arts Institute, Musicorda Festival, and the Banff Centre in Canada. In 2003, he won the 1st Prize at the 57th Coleman Chamber Competition as a founding member of the Azure Clarinet Trio. Alexei was also a recipient of the Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award in 2004. In addition, he received the National Foundation of the Arts Association Achievement Award, the Harvard Musical Association Achievement Award and the Samuel Mayes Memorial Prize at Tanglewood. Alexei’s reputation stands very high on Baroque music performance, where he has performed with the Emmanuel Music Orchestra under the late Craig Smith, the Bach Ensemble with harpsichordist John Gibbons at the New England Conservatory and the Bach Institute Seminar at Tanglewood.

He is currently the Principal Cellist of both the Rhode Island Philharmonic and Boston Lyric Opera Orchestra and a section member of the Boston Ballet Orchestra. He also performs frequently with the Boston Symphony and Pops Orchestra. Alexei is on the chamber music faculty of the New England Conservatory Preparatory School.

BYRON SCHENKMAN began his career as a harpsichordist and fortepianist. He quickly rose to the top of that field with dozens of critically acclaimed recordings as well as solo and chamber music appearances in North America, Europe, and Asia. Schenkman co-founded the Seattle Baroque Orchestra with violinist Ingrid Matthews in 1994 and served as its artistic director for ten years. In 1999 he was presented with the Erwin Bodky Award for "outstanding achievement" by the Cambridge Society for Early Music. Since 2001 he has been performing as a modern pianist, including solo recitals in Boston, Peterborough, Seattle, Vancouver, Winston-Salem, and on a Chilean tour sponsored by Partners of the Americas. Other highlights have included a guest appearance with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston, Mozart and Beethoven piano concertos with Philharmonia Northwest, solo and chamber music by Irving Fine and Martin Boykan at Brandeis University, and the Dvorak Quintet with the Daedalus Quartet. In 2006 Schenkman was voted “Best Classical Instrumentalist” by the readers of the Seattle Weekly. Schenkman is a graduate of the New England Conservatory and received the Master of Music degree with honors in performance from the Indiana University School of Music.