Michael McHale, pianist

One of Ireland’s leading pianists, Belfast-born Michael McHale studied at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music and has developed a busy international career as a solo recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician.

Michael is a founding member of the Wigmore Soloists and plays with them regularly at Wigmore Hall in London and on tours.

Michael has performed and recorded as a soloist with the Halle Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, London Mozart Players, BBC and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestras, Moscow Symphony Orchestra and all five of the major Irish orchestras. In the summer of 2024 he performed at the Clandeboye Festival in Northern Ireland along with pianist Barry Douglas.

In the United States, Michael has performed with Camerata Pacifica, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Jacksonville Symphony, the Fort Smith Symphony, and on several occasions with Mid-Atlantic Symphony, most recently in 2022 under the baton of Grammy winner Michael Repper.

In September of 2014, Michael, along with Demarre McGill, principal flute of the Seattle Symphony, and Anthony McGill, principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic, founded the McGill/McHale Trio. They have performed live on WQXR Radio, as well as New Yorks 92nd Street Y, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the National Gallery in Washington DC, to name a few. A 2024 tour took them to Charlottesville VA, the US Virgin Islands and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC.

His large discography includes the McGill/McHale Trio on Cedille Records, concerto and chamber music recordings for Chandos and solo piano albums for RTE lyric FM, Grand Piano and Ergodos. Recent
releases include clarinet trios for BIS with Michael Collins and Isabelle van Keulen.

Michael McHale regularly gives master classes internationally, is a lecturer in piano at Irelands MTU Cork School of Music and until recently served on the faculty of Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester UK.

Michael lives in London with his wife, a violinist in the London Symphony Orchestra, and their young son.

See www.michaelmchale.com for additional information.

Kresley Figueroa, soprano (with pianist)

Puerto Rican soprano Kresley Figueroa, a recent graduate of Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artist Program, has been critically acclaimed for her expressive voice and commanding stage presence.

As a 2025 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition National Semifinalist, she is thrilled to return to The Metropolitan Opera in 2026 to make her official debut in El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego. Additionally, Kresley is delighted to return “home” to WNO this upcoming season to sing Mary Warren in The Crucible.

Debut highlights from her residency as a young artist with WNO include performances as Chrisann Brennan in The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs and as Partenope in Handel’s Partenope, as well as having appeared in concert alongside Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, Ana María Martínez, Denyce Graves, and Susan Graham. Past highlights include Nannetta in Falstaff opposite Bryn Terfel with the Aspen Music Festival, Zerlina in Don Giovanni with OPERA San Antonio, and Adina in L’elisir d’amore with Music Academy of the West.

Figueroa holds vocal performance degrees from The Juilliard School and Rice University, and continues to distinguish herself as an exciting and versatile presence on the operatic and concert stage.

Pedro Giraudo Quartet (Tango)

Latin GRAMMY Award winner Pedro Giraudo and his renowned Tango Quartet. Hailed as one of the leading tango ensembles of our time, the group brings a fresh, electrifying perspective to this timeless Argentine art form—seamlessly blending tango with classical sophistication and the improvisational spirit of jazz.

Based in New York City, the quartet has performed on world-class stages including Lincoln Center, the MET Museum, and BAM, and regularly collaborates with major orchestras and universities across the country.

The Embassy String Quartet

As the first Quartet in Residence of the Embassy Series in Washington, D.C, The Embassy String Quartet is devoted to the highest level of music making. The current members of the quartet, Nikita Borisevich, Luke Wedge, Adelya Lindsay and Jacques-Pierre Malan. The members of the Embassy String Quartet collectively performed on the world renowned stages such as Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, the Kimmel Center, the Walt Disney Hall, Manuel de Falla Auditorium in Spain, Mozarteum University in Austria, Grand Hall of Moscow Conservatory among others.

In addition to working with the Embassies in Washington, D.C., the Embassy String Quartet also performs as quartet in residence at the recently established “Made Group” in Washington DC operated by Wendy and Charles Ma (since 2024), Virtuosi@Grace Chamber Music Series in Kilmarnock, North Virginia (since 2023). They have performed at the Academy Art Museum, for the Bloomberg Foundation, on the Chapel Concert Series, the Baltimore Union Square Concert Series.

Quartet Statement

The Embassy String Quartet’s mission is to use music to promote understanding and respect between cultures, crossing barriers and building bridges between people from different countries. We curate programs that spotlight the unique cultural heritages of global nations by using the universal language of music as a conduit for peace and camaraderie amongst all human beings.

Britton René Collins, marimba

Hailed as an “Astounding Virtuoso” and “Exhilarating” performer, Britton-René Collins is an award-winning concert percussionist, composer, and educator. She is a recipient of the prestigious Princeton University Hodder Fellowship, and a winner of the 2020 Concert Artists Guild Competition. She was awarded CAG’s Ambassador Prize for her exceptional musicianship and passion for generating social change.

A Grand Prize winner of the 2025 Elizabeth Loker International Competition, the 2022 Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition, and the 2021 Chicago International Music Competition, Britton-René has performed hundreds of concerts as a soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Canada, and Europe, in venues including Carnegie Hall. She has soloed with over a dozen orchestras, including the Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Her recent season included performances alongside the Mid-Atlantic Symphony, the Battle Creek Symphony, the Greenwich Village Orchestra, the Central Oregon Symphony, the Lincoln Symphony, and the Johns Creek Symphony. Her past seasons included performances alongside the Rogue Valley Symphony Orchestra, the Western Piedmont Symphony, the Albany Symphony Orchestra (GA), the Marquette Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Iowa, the Meridian Symphony, and the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra. In addition to her active solo career, Britton-René enjoys life as a chamber musician and co-director with her New York City-based groups “Excelsis Percussion Quartet” and “Vision Duo.”

As an advocate for new music, Britton-René’s current projects involve generating new solo and chamber works for multi-percussion and marimba. Most recently, she became the first percussionist to ever be awarded the prestigious Princeton University Mary Mackall Gwinn Hodder Fellowship (2024-2025). During her fellowship year, she conducted research and commissioned new works by underrepresented composers as part of her 10-month appointment, “Sphygmology— Cultural Exchange for Solo Percussion,” at the Lewis Center for the Arts, which culminated with her debut performance installation centered on desegregating Western Classical Music spaces.

Britton-René’s recent highlights include being appointed to the Chicago College of Performing Arts percussion faculty, receiving an Individual Artist Grant in Music Composition from the Mid-Atlantic Arts organization, performing alongside members of the New York Philharmonic, attending the soundSCAPE new music composition and performance exchanges in Switzerland and Italy, and premiering three new works at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention since first making her PASIC Artist debut in 2021. As an Artist Endorser, Britton-René proudly performs using Vic Firth sticks and mallets, Zildjian cymbals, Marimba One instruments, and Remo drumheads.

Born in the United States, Britton-René began playing the piano at age five. She discovered percussion at eight years old when she became intrigued by the drum set. She quickly fell in love with playing rock, jazz, and pop music on the drum set, which ignited her enthusiasm to explore various percussion instruments and styles of music. She received her B.M. from the University of Toronto with Aiyun Huang, Beverley Johnston, and John Rudolph, where she won the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition and performed the Canadian premiere of Sergei Golovko’s first marimba concerto alongside the UTSO. Britton-René received her M.M. from the University of Michigan, where her primary instructors were Doug Perkins and Ian Antonio.

Michael Kannen & Friends (Peabody)

I have enjoyed a long, varied and extremely gratifying career in music. I am a musician because it connects me to people through music – whether audiences, collaborators or students – and, happily, my career has afforded me abundant opportunity to do so.

A pinnacle for me was my time in the Brentano String Quartet. I was a founding member of Brentano and making music with the three other magnificent musicians in that group was the essential experience of my career. During my time in the group we received several awards, including the first Cleveland Quartet Award and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award. We played in some of the most beautiful concert halls in the world, including Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and the Sydney Opera House.

Currently I am in the Cooperstown Quartet – another group of beloved colleagues with whom I not only play concerts, but also teach each summer at the Taos School of Music.

Teaching chamber music has been at the very center of my musical life. For twenty-two years I was the Director of Chamber Music at the Peabody Conservatory, where I continue to teach to this day. Perhaps my proudest accomplishment was being awarded the Johns Hopkins Excellence in Teaching Award in 2019.

Most musicians will tell you that it is the extraordinary people with whom you collaborate that forms the richest part of a life in music. Three great artists must be singled out for their outsized influence on my music making: flutist Paula Robison, violinist Sergiu Luca and the legendary pianist Leon Fleisher. But even a partial list of artists with whom I have played speaks for itself in showing how fortunate a musical life I have led: Jessye Norman, Itzhak Perlman, Hilary Hahn, Daniel Phillips, Donald Weilerstein, Pamela Frank, Mitsuko Uchida, Kenneth Cooper, David Krakauer, Jörg Widmann, and Steven Isserlis.