The Musicians

Joel got his B.M. in oboe at the Cleveland Institute of Music as a student of John Mack in 1983.  He then studied oboe and orchestral conducting at The Juilliard School where he got his M.M. in 1986.  His conducting teachers included Roger Nierenberg, Jorge Mester, and Sixten Ehrling and he has also worked with Charles Bruck, Otto Werner Muller, Gunther Schuller, Leonard Bernstein, and Herbert Blomstedt.  After leaving school Joel was a freelance oboist and conductor in the Philadelphia and Boston areas and served on the faculty of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge.  He was the director of the Repertory Orchestra at the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras from 1989 until 2011.   He currently serves as Artistic Advisor and principal oboe for the Kendall Square Orchestra and frequently performs with the Apollo Ensemble of Boston and other local ensembles.  In April 2024 he made his second guest conducting appearance with the North Shore Philharmonic with Sayuri as soloist.

In 1989 he also began to pursue his interest in science more seriously, first at UMass Boston and then as a graduate student at Harvard.  After getting his Ph.D in biochemistry in 1999 working on muscarinic signalling with Ernie Peralta, he did a postdoctoral fellowship in x-ray crystallography with Andrew Bohm at the Boston Biomedical Research Institute where he solved the structure of yeast poly-A polymerase.  Since 2001 he has been working at Pfizer where he is currently focused on biotherapeutic informatics.

Richard Ranti had a 40-year orchestral career playing in the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra while making guest appearances in such orchestras as Toronto Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and many other ensembles in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan. He taught at New England Conservatory, Boston University, had many private students and taught master classes throughout North America. Since retiring from the BSO, Mr. Ranti performed chamber music and made several guest appearances playing in the Atlanta Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Grand Tetons Music Festival, and several other ensembles. His early music education was primarily from family music-making; his formal education was in such institutions as the Interlochen Arts Academy, Curtis Institute, the Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto and Marlboro festivals, and many other American and Canadian music organizations.

The cellist Joshua Gordon has won acclaim from audiences, critics, colleagues, and composers for his dramatic music making and rich tone. An experienced soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and educator who joined the Naumburg Award winning Lydian String Quartet and the music faculty of Brandeis University in 2002, he is also an artist member of the Worcester Chamber Music Society and resident cellist at the annual Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center led by Kurt Rohde. He is equally at home whether performing on stage in famous concert halls around the world, in an Australian limestone arch cave, or with dancers on a Boston housing project basketball court. He has been a guest of many ensembles and festivals including the Apple Hill, Cassatt, DaPonte, Juilliard, and Ying Quartets, Boston Baroque, Boston Chamber Music Society, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Emmanuel Music, Fromm Players at Harvard University, Lighthouse Chamber Players, Mistral Music, Monadnock Music, North Country Chamber Players, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Portland Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Speculum Musicae, and the UMass Bach Festival.

Joshua Gordon's duo with pianist Randall Hodgkinson has been described as "insightful and impassioned" by The New Yorker, and their New World recording Leo Ornstein: Complete Works For Cello and Piano was named one of the top 10 classical recordings of 2007 by the All Music Guide. As a Lydian, Gordon can be heard on critically acclaimed recordings of works by Martin Boykan, Mohammed Fairouz, John Harbison, Laurie San Martin, Vincent Persichetti, Kurt Rohde, and Beethoven in a set of his late quartets. He is also featured playing music ranging from Roger Sessions and Charles Wuorinen to Morton Feldman and Gerry Hemingway on recordings from Albany Records, CRI, Cala, Koch International Classics, Naxos, and Tzadik. His web site can be found at joshuagordoncello.com.

Born in Osaka, Japan, and raised in New Jersey, Sayuri Miyamoto holds degrees from Yale University, the Juilliard School, and Manhattan School of Music, where she received her doctorate. Her teachers have included Leonard Eisner, Donald Currier, Nadia Reisenberg, and Seymour Lipkin. She has concertized in solo and chamber recitals and as soloist with orchestras across the United States. Since moving to the Boston area in 1988, she has maintained a private teaching studio, served on the coaching staff of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, and been in much demand as an accompanist. Among the many artists with whom she has collaborated are the late Marylou Speaker Churchill, former principal second violinist of the Boston Symphony; violinist Stefan Jackiw, Avery Fisher Career Grant winner; and cellist Zlatomir Fung, gold medal winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Sayuri has made numerous chamber music appearances throughout the region: Sevenars Music Festival, West Stockbridge Chamber Players, Newton and Weston Library concert series, Music Mondays, Newton Lifetime Learning, and the annual Pan-Mass Challenge/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute benefit concerts she has been organizing with her husband, Joel Bard, since 2006. In 2024 she appeared as soloist with the North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra.