Sonja Vasic grew up in Apatin Serbia, where she studied as a child with Rade Ivanichevich at the Stevan Hristich Music School. She attended secondary music school in the city of Valjevo, and graduated with a Master’s degree in Flute at Belgrade’s University of Arts. She has won several awards spanning regional and international competitions including the Antonin Reicha Award during the International Summer Academy of the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, and the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe Scholarship. Sonja has been fortunate to work with many world-class musicians such as Aurelio Nicolet, Silvia Careddu, Emmanuel Pahud, Koffler Martin, Matej Zupan, Felih Renggli and many others. 

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As soloist and part of chamber ensembles, Sonja performed across Serbia and Europe including several years with the Simphoniko Flute Quartet and Madlenianum Opera and Theatre where she performed classics such as Madame Butterfly, La Traviata and others. From 2009 until 2014, Sonja played Flute and Piccolo in the Serbian National Television Orchestra, and worked as an associate performer in the Montenegrin Symphony Orchestra. Sonja’s teaching spans both group and private lessons with many students excelling as award recipients across both regional and international competitions. Very devoted to pedagogy, Sonja continued to improve her teaching skills by attending seminars and specialization courses on teaching, preparing young students for competitions, and improving individual music curriculum for children. 

Oshagan Merjanian completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Cello Performance at Cal State University, Northridge (CSUN), a Master’s in Cello Performance from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the Certificate in Music Performance at the University of Houston (UH). His primary teachers include Diane Roscetti, Antonio Lysy, Anthony Kitai and Eunghee Cho. He has participated in masterclasses with Daniel Rothmuller, Robert DeMaine, Chris French, Norman Fischer, the Formosa Quartet and Quatour Modigliani. He has also played for Ron Leonard and Desmond Hoebig. His awards include the CSUN Arts Council Scholarship for Extraordinary Achievement in Music, the Gluck Foundation Scholarship, and the Mangasar M. Mangasarian Fellowship. He was principal cellist for the CSUN Symphony Orchestra as well as the UCLA Opera Orchestra. He was chosen to be cellist for the competitive Samuel Goldberg Honors String Quartet at CSUN, the UCLA Gluck Cello Quartet, and most recently at UH the highly selective AURA Contemporary Ensemble, an innovative and professional-caliber ensemble dedicated to the performance of chamber music composed in the last two decades.

Theresa Ronan was raised in Brockton, Massachusetts, where she displayed signs of musical talent at a very early age. Her parents nurtured this talent, and she became a pupil of the late Mrs. Helen Starr. As she grew, she became involved in many musical groups in and around her school, participating as an accompanist from the time she was in 6th grade. At Brockton High School, she was the accompanist for the Concert Choir, and played piano in the orchestra for the yearly musicals. It was there that she developed a love of Broadway Musicals.

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Upon graduation, Ms. Ronan attended the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. She was a student of Mr. Thomas Stumpf, and completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Education. Ms. Ronan worked for the Stoughton, Massachusetts school system for several years, during which she taught General Music grades K-8; directed Middle and High School Choirs, and the SHS Show Choir, “Knight Moves”. She continued to perform and work in various ensembles in the Brockton area, and also both directed and performed for many Community Theatres, earning 3 Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theatre (EMACT) awards for her musical direction.

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In 2000, Ms. Ronan began a Master’s Degree in Piano Performance at UMass Lowell, once again studying with Mr. Thomas Stumpf. She had the distinction of performing as a pianist for a performance of Orff’s Carmina Burana with the University under the direction of Dr. Christopher McGahan. She also took a job as a Music Director at Holy Family Church in East Taunton, and then St. Colman’s Church in Brockton. There, in addition to performing on both piano and organ, she directed both adult and children’s choirs, and planned the music for all the liturgies. She also coached vocal soloists, and hired outside musicians for special events. She continued her studies with Ms. Ellie Perrone at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA.

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Later, Ms. Ronan fulfilled a long-time dream of performing in a classic rock band; first as a member of the band 24 South, then Moonstruck, performing keyboards and background vocals. In 2015, she joined Divas With a Twist (www.divaswithatwist.com), which performed music across many different genres. She also has contributed to several of their arrangements, and appears on their recordings. 

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Ms. Ronan moved to the South Bay Area in 2021, and has been teaching here since then. She is also a member of the Santa Clara Chorale.

Axel Schmitt earned a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2004; a Master of Music from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2001; and a Bachelor of Arts from University of California, Los Angeles in 1999.

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Born in Germany, Axel Schmitt received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance as a student of the renowned Russian Pianist Prof. Vitaly Margulis at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2004. At UCLA, Dr. Schmitt taught both private studio lessons and keyboard proficiency classes for undergraduate music majors. Before coming to the bay area, he served as a faculty at Southwest Music Conservatory and a staff pianist at Biola University in the Los Angeles area. As the first prize winner of the Los Angeles Liszt Competition and the national German competition Jugend musiziert, he has performed as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber-musician throughout the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Hungary, and Russia. Press reviews describe him as “a great pianistic talent” of an “amazing artistic range with a singing sound quality, tasteful power, noblesse, and calmness.” He is an “artist of mature, extremely rich ability of expression” who possesses “virtuosity, temperament, but also a great sense of melody and poetry.” In 2007, he was granted permanent residency by the United States government as an artist of extraordinary ability.

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Axel Schmitt received his first piano lessons at age eleven and already one year later had his first public performances. In 1991, he became a private student of Mrs. Leontina Margulis in Freiburg and in 1992 won the first prize at the nationwide German piano competition “Jugend Musiziert” with the highest possible score. He was awarded the “Edwin Fischer Stipendienfonds” Scholarship and made his orchestral debut in his hometown Titisee-Neustadt with Mozart’s Piano Concerto in E-flat Major, K 482. In the same year, he was invited to perform at the Goethe-Institutes in Rome, Naples, and Tarquinia, Italy. In 1993, he was chosen as a guest soloist of the “Landesjugendorchester Baden-Wuerttemberg” under the direction of Prof. Thomas Ungar and performed Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto in C Major on a tour that included several cities in South Germany. The final concert in Moessingen was broadcast on radio and later issued on CD. Critics wrote about a “great pianistic talent” of “technical perfection and a natural, convincing musical interpretation” (Schwaebisches Tagblatt.) In 1994, he played Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor in Titisee-Neustadt. From 1992 to 1995, he also had a piano trio, with which he performed frequently and won the second prize at the national German competition “Jugend Musiziert” in 1993 and was invited to perform at the Brahms-Festival in Baden-Baden in 1995.

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In 1995, Axel Schmitt moved to Los Angeles and became a student of Prof. Vitaly Margulis at UCLA where he received numerous awards and scholarships including the Sophia Guzik Scholarship, the Benno Rubyini Scholarship, the Atwater Kent Award, the Meyers Award, the Gluck Outreach Fellowship (three times,) the prestigious UC Regents Scholarship, the Dissertation Year Award, and the Graduate Recognition Award. In 1996, he returned to Germany to perform Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto in C-minor with orchestra. In 1996 and 1998, he won first prizes at the Los Angeles Liszt Competition and was invited by the American Liszt Society to perform a recital at the Liszt Museum in Budapest, Hungary. After a Solo-Recital for the “Rotary-Club Hochschwarzwald,” critics wrote about an “unforgettable evening” full of “virtuosity, temperament … and poetry” (Badische Zeitung.) He also won a third prize at the IBLA Piano Competition in Ragusa on Sicily and was a finalist in the Senigallia Competition for Young Pianists.

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In 1999, Axel Schmitt was invited by the Austrian Consulate General to play chamber-music recitals in Los Angeles and Washington DC. In 2000, he performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto in E-flat Major K482 with the Musik Zentral Festival Orchestra under Dr. Jon Robertson in Bad Aussee, Austria. In 2001, he was invited to the same festival to perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major “Emperor.” From 2000 to 2003, he also had a piano trio at UCLA and performed twelve concerts every year throughout Los Angeles as part of the Gluck Outreach Program. In 2002, he won the UCLA Concerto Competition and performed Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto in C minor with the UCLA Philharmonia Orchestra under the direction of Dr. Jon Robertson. A review in The Beverly Hills Outlook was titled “Ravishing Rachmaninoff” and praised a “brilliant soloist … in a stunning interpretation.” In 2002, he returned to his hometown in Germany to perform MacDowell’s Second Piano Concerto in D minor and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with orchestra. In the same year, he was invited to perform at the World Piano Pedagogy Conference in Las Vegas and, in 2003, performed at the International Conservatory Week in St. Petersburg, Russia.

In April 2004, Axel Schmitt was the piano soloist in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the UCLA Philharmonia Orchestra. In the same year, he was invited to perform with the Grammy-winning Southwest Chamber-Music. His final doctoral recital at UCLA, which was announced as a featured recommendation in the LA Times, was dedicated to the piano transcriptions and paraphrases of Franz Liszt and received a standing ovation from the audience. The program included Liszt’s transcription of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and the Don Juan Fantasy, which is the subject of his doctoral dissertation. In June 2004, he was the graduate student speaker for the commencement of the School of Arts and Architecture at UCLA. In 2007, he performed Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto “Emperor” in Germany for a sold-out audience and received rave reviews from the press. In the same year, the United States government declared him an artist of extraordinary ability and granted him permanent residency. At CSMA, he has performed solo and chamber-music in the faculty concert series in Tateuchi Hall to a sold-out audience.

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In addition to his studies with Prof. Margulis, Axel Schmitt has participated in numerous international piano master-classes of Natalia Antonova, Dimitri Bashkirov, Sergei Dorensky, Elza Kolodin, Vitaly Margulis, Victor Merzhanov, Murray Perahia, Robert Ward, and Martyn van den Hoeck. From 2000 to 2003, he received chamber-music coaching from Prof. Mark Kaplan at UCLA. Besides his solo activities, he has performed as an accompanist of singers, instrumentalists, and choirs. His extensive repertoire reaches from Bach to the 21st century and displays a special affinity for the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Liszt.

Isabella Göze has been teaching and performing for more than twenty years. Her career has spanned the Bay Area region and abroad including performances at the de Young Museum, Palace of Fine Arts, Le Petit Trianon, College of San Mateo, World One Festival, and Opera Workshop Tour (San Diego). She has also appeared regularly on national TV and radio shows including the prestigious TRT (Turkish Radio Television) Polyphonic Youth Choir. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from San Francisco State University in Vocal Performance with an emphasis in Opera and has studied teaching methods at Boston Conservatory’s Vocal Pedagogy Professional Workshop. Isabella is a versatile singer, continuing to expand her ability to fluently sing in thirty-five languages within the styles of Western classical (arias, art songs, choral), jazz, world music, ethnic folk, devotional and more.