The Four Seasons: North Meets South
Saturday, November 22, 2025
Tickets
Performers:
Sarah Pratt Parsamian, violin
Mia Laity, violin
William Hakim, viola
Robert Burkhart, cello
Barbara Podgurski, piano
Guest composer: Clarisse Valbon
Originally from Listowel, ON, and currently based in New York, NY, acclaimed violinist Sarah Pratt-Parsamian enjoys a diverse and exciting musical career. She has been a prizewinner at the Jeunesses Musicales International Violin Competition, and Silver Medal winner in the Canadian National Music Competition. At the age of 14 she made her solo debut with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra at the Guelph Spring Festival in Ontario, and since has performed as soloist with orchestras in Canada and the U.S., including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa. Recently highlights include a riveting performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Stratford Symphony Orchestra, (Stratford, ON).
An avid chamber musician and recital artist, Sarah has performed across Canada and the United States, including Stratford Summer Music Festival, the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society, the Arts and Letters Club, Heliconian Club (Toronto), the British Art Museum (New Haven, CT), Bargemusic (New York, NY), the Detroit Institute of Art (Detroit, MI), Clefworks (Montgomery, AB), and others.
Sarah is a temporary member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, having joined the company for the current season. She also performs as a substitute with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, with whom she has traveled on tours across the United States, Europe and Asia. She is a member of the New York City Opera Orchestra, a position she has held since 2006.
Sarah holds a Bachelor in Performance Degree from the University of Toronto, Master’s Degree and Artist Diploma from Yale University, and Doctor of Musical Arts from SUNY Stony Brook. When her violin is resting, Sarah can be found jogging on park trails, climbing trees with her children, hiking with her camera, or curled up on the couch with a good book and a glass of wine.
An adaptable artist known for her engaging musicianship, Mia Laity joined the violin section of the New York City Ballet Orchestra in the 2023-2024 season. Mia studied with Grigory Kalinovsky, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Laurie Smukler at the Manhattan School of Music as the recipient of the L. John Twiford Scholarship, receiving the Helen Airoff Dowling award for the outstanding violinist graduating from the BM program. She received her Master’s of Music degree as a student of Grigory Kalinovsky at Indiana University, where she also taught violin as an Associate Instructor. Before joining the NYCB orchestra, she was a tenured core member of the Sarasota Orchestra’s violin section. During the summer, Mia performs as assistant concertmaster of the Charlottesville Opera, and in Steamboat Springs Colorado as part of the Strings Festival orchestra. She is also the Events Manager for Perlman Music Program Suncoast, and the Executive Director of Soundbox Ventures, a new arts organization that serves as a platform for artist curators and recently created the Listen Hear! series at the Sarasota Art Museum.
William Hakim, violist, has performed extensively throughout the United States and abroad. Praised for his "warmth of tone and musicality" (Leipziger Volkszeitung), he enjoys playing, writing and arranging music in many styles. He has recorded for Albany Records, Decca, and Nonesuch for various artists including Renee Fleming, served as Billy Joel's violist for his Madison Square Garden residency, had numerous TV appearances with Josh Groban, toured the country with Branford Marsalis and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.
Mr Hakim is a member of the Iris Orchestra in Memphis and the le Poisson Rouge Ensemble as well as serving as principal of the New York Symphonic Ensemble and the Glens Falls Symphony. A former member of the Hyperion String Quartet, he studied with John Graham at the Eastman School of Music, Samuel Rhodes at Juilliard, and with Paul Neubauer at the Graduate Center of CUNY where he is pursuing a doctorate and researching improvisation methods for classically trained musicians. Mr. Hakim served on the faculty at Brevard Music Center and is on the faculty of Seton Hall University and Skidmore College.
Cellist Robert Burkhart combines a deep commitment to the existing cello repertoire with what the New Yorker magazine calls an “adventurous” spirit in new music. With performance credits at Alice Tully Hall, Bargemusic, Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall, and The Rose Studio at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Robert has also appeared as a soloist throughout Japan as a member of the New York Symphonic Ensemble, and been featured in recital on WQXR’s “Young Artist Showcase.”
At the center of new music in New York, Robert has performed with the American Modern Ensemble, Argento New Music Project, Fireworks Ensemble, Newspeak, and SONYC. Recent collaborations include Uri Caine, Georg Friedrich Haas, Aaron Jay Kernis, Steve Mackey, Joan Tower, Charles Wourinen, and Chen Yi. He has performed the New York premiere of John Harbison’s Abu Ghraib for cello and piano, and was the soloist in Augusta Read Thomas’s Passion Prayers for cello and chamber ensemble at the New York Times Center.
Robert’s major teachers include Paul Tobias at The Mannes College of Music and Uri Vardi at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he has worked with Timothy Eddy, Aldo Parisot, and Janos Starker at festivals and masterclasses. Robert has taught at Juilliard Pre-college, Mannes Prep, Syracuse University, and Music Conservatory of Westchester, and been artist-in-residence at Yale University and the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. His recent CD “20/21: Music for Cello and Piano from the 20th and 21st Centuries,” features pianist Blair McMillen and the premiere of a work for cello and piano by composer Andrew Waggoner. Robert’s recording of solo Bach on the American Express commercial “Don’t Take Chances. Take Charge.” has garnered national attention.
A native of New York, pianist and teaching artist Barbara Podgurski holds a DMA in piano performance from The Graduate Center (CUNY) as well as a BM in piano performance and an MM in both piano performance and music theory from the Mannes College of Music. Dr. Podgurski has performed as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean and Europe, including a number of performances at Carnegie Hall. She has been featured in television and radio broadcasts which include appearances on WQXR, WNYC’s “Soundcheck”, NPR, WPLN, WQED and numerous others. Dr. Podgurski was featured on a television documentary for NHK in Japan with her touring partner violinist Elizabeth Pitcairn and the famed “Red” Mendelssohn Stradivarius. She was also a past special guest performing for the National Association of Broadcasters with Grammy-nominated violinist Jenny Oaks Baker and was invited with her colleagues to perform at a private ceremony for Pope Francis and members of the United Nations in an interfaith prayer service during the last Papal visit to NYC.
A former faculty member at The Mannes College of Music, Hunter College and Mercy College, she is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at BMCC (CUNY), Staff Pianist for the Strings Department at NYU, and is on the faculty of the RiverArts Music Program in Hudson Valley. Barbara is a consultant for the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs as well as for the Board of Education in both NYC and NYS. By invitation in 2014, Dr. Podgurski became a Steinway Teaching Artist. She has performed with rock band Evanescence on their 2017/18 Synthesis Tour and with legendary vocal group Il Divo on their 2019 “Timeless” Tour and 2022 Greatest Hits Tour. Barbara recently completed a project with Alison Cook Beatty modern ballet company in NYC, performing Bartok 2nd Sonata for Piano and Violin and Shostakovich Preludes live on stage during performance. Barbara is currently a contributing writer to Cambridge’s Nineteenth Century Music and has been an Arts Commissioner Advisor for the Queens Council on the Arts and is Chief Advisor on the advisory board of NY Sound Circuit. Barbara is the organist and music director at Trinity St. Andrews Evangelical Lutheran Church in Maspeth, Queens. Barbara is featured in a documentary titled “A Taste of Chamber Music” which will be released in Spring 2026 on PBS.org and allarts.org. Barbara is the Associate Director of KIISS – The Krakauer Institute for Intensive Summer Study in Vaison-la-Romaine, France. Barbara is the Assistant to the Conductor and pianist for The Oratorio Society of Queens.
Guest composer:
Clarisse Valbon is a classical music composer. She was born in France and currently resides in New York City. She studied composition with Dennis Bosse ("Champs de l’Inaudible", "La Lettre Volée") at the Conservatoire Regional de Cergy-Pontoise, as well as harmony with Alain Besson, and violin with Nathalie Klein Saint-Arroman and Nicolas Fromageot. In parallel she graduated from Sorbonne University Paris IV with a Maîtrise in Musicology, then graduated from Inseec Business School with a Master’s degree in Arts and Cultural Management. Clarisse Valbon developed interest in composition in her childhood which later led her to start writing the melodies that resonated in her head. Her pieces have been performed in France and most recently in New York at Carnegie Hall and the New York City Bar Chamber Music Association.