2025 Festival

MIKE BLOCK

Mike Block is a multi-style cello player, composer, singer, and educator, with a passion for cross-cultural collaborations. Hailed as “one of the bravest, most intriguing musicians on the American fusion scene.” (Gramophone), he was acclaimed by the New York Times for his “vital rich-hued solo playing”, and “a true artist… a sight to behold” by Salt Lake City Desert News. In addition to solo performances, Mike’s touring bands include Biribá Union, Mike Block Trio, duo with Indian tabla player Sandeep Das, and a West-African fusion band with Balla Kouyaté. Since 2005, Mike has been a member of the Silk Road Ensemble, founded by Yo-Yo Ma, with which he earned a 2017 Grammy® Award.

As an innovator, Mike is among the first wave of cellists to adopt a strap to stand and move while performing using his own patented design, The Block Strap, and is the Musical Instrument Consultant for Forte3D, the world’s first 3D-Printed carbon fiber cello. In 2020, Mike founded Play For The Vote , which organizes musical performances at polling locations across the country on Election Days, with the goal of creating a more positive voting experience. 

As an educator, Mike is dedicated to creating transformative experiences, and is the Founder/Director of the Mike Block String Camp in Vero Beach, FL, Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop in Boston, MA and Hangzhou, China, and teaches over 400 cello students online through his Multi-Style Cello School at ArtistWorks.com. Since 2018 he has been on faculty at the New England Conservatory.

Yi-Mei Templeman aka Yeemz (Los Angeles, USA)

Yi-Mei is a cellist, singer-songwriter, and composer from Santa Monica, California who aims to creatively fuse genres in order to welcome people of all backgrounds into her distinctly intimate and emotive storytelling. She is the founding member of internationally acclaimed classical piano trio, Trio Gaia – the most recent trio-in-residence at New England Conservatory. She has been writing music on the piano from a young age, but only began experimenting with singing and playing her cello like a guitar in 2018.

Since then, Yi-Mei (under the artist name, yeemz) has quickly established the roots of a uniquely multi-faceted career, performing and producing her own music, recording and arranging strings for other artists, and scoring music for film, all while performing around the world as a classical cellist, and teaching cello students of all ages.

She has music out on all streaming platforms, which have been featured on multiple Spotify editorial playlists. She is currently releasing her debut album.

Hey, You

CHRISTOPHER HOFFMAN

He is a member of ensembles led by Henry Threadgill, Anat Cohen, Anna Webber and Darius Jones. He appears on numerous recordings, including Threadgill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning In for a Penny, In for a Pound, Cohen’s Grammy-nominated Triple Helix, and James Brandon Lewis’ Jesup Wagon.

Hoffman has toured extensively throughout Europe and America, performing with artists such as Yoko Ono, Jack Antonoff, Iron & Wine, Marianne Faithfull, Ryan Adams, Marc Ribot, John Zorn, Tony Malaby, and Michael Pitt.

He has contributed to films such as Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and performed on Broadway productions including Spring Awakening and Groundhog Day.

As a bandleader, he has released several records, most recently Vision Is The Identity and Asp Nimbus. His upcoming solo album, Rex, reflects his time living in the painter Rex Brasher’s house and features his work on both acoustic and electric cello.

THERESA WONG

Theresa Wong is a composer, cellist, vocalist, and intermedia artist active in the field of experimental music. Her work encompasses improvisation, composition, song forms, just intonation, and new forms of intermedia art. Her primary interest lies in the transformative potential of performance for both the artist and receiver alike. Wong has forged a unique vocabulary on the cello and voice through extensive explorations in new playing techniques, extreme detuning, and the timbral merging of singing and playing together. Wong is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition, and her works include Fluency of Trees, for cello and voice, which premiered at the Other Minds Festival in 2022, She Dances Naked Under Palm Trees, commissioned by pianist Sarah Cahill, and The Unlearning, 21 songs inspired by Goya’s Disasters of War etchings. 

Wong’s long-standing collaboration with Long String Instrument inventor Ellen Fullman includes Harbors, included in The Wire’s top 50 releases of 2020, and Soundless, presented at MOCA Los Angeles in 2024. Other commissions include works for San Francisco Girls Chorus, Peninsula Women’s Chorus, NakedEye Ensemble, Long Beach Opera, Del Sol Quartet, and Splinter Reeds. She has shared her work internationally at venues including Fondation Cartier in Paris, Cafe Oto and Barbican Centre in London, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Sydney Festival, and Roulette and The Stone in New York City. 

Originally active in the field of design, she embarked on her current artistic path after encountering experimental music while working as a designer in Venice, Italy. Wong is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

TAKÉNOBU

Atlanta based cellist and composer Nick Takenobu Ogawa has released 8 studio albums using his Japanese middle name Takénobu. Classically trained as a cellist, his music incorporates modern effects and loops to create driving cinematic soundscapes and beat driven ethereal harmonies. Joined on stage by his talented violinist and vocalist wife, Kathryn Koch, Takénobu is an orchestral dynamic duo. The new album Cosplay Karaoke コスプレカラオケ is Takénobu’s first all Japanese album, featuring 10 original songs with Japanese lyrics, and is available on limited edition vinyl.

Jake Charkey

Jake Charkey is a pioneering cellist and one of the few practitioners of Indian music on the cello. He has developed innovative techniques to adapt the cello to Hindustani music, blending the expressive depth of Indian classical music with contemporary genres. His performances bridge these two musical traditions, creating a hybrid sound that explores the space between them. Composer Clinton Cerejo aptly describes him as someone who “redefines the sound of cello.”

Since returning to the U.S. in 2016, Jake has been a leading advocate for new music for solo cello, actively commissioning works that merge Hindustani music with contemporary compositions. In 2023, he received an award from the New Music USA Creator Fund for his upcoming double album Rasika: Beyond the Bounded Territories. Due in 2025, the album will explore the intersection of Indian classical music and modern cello works, with collaborations from noted composers. He is also set to premiere a new piece by Michael Harrison in 2025, supported by a major grant from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA).

Jake’s unique sound has been featured in over 100 Bollywood soundtracks and songs, making a lasting impact on the Indian music industry. His music can also be heard on the title theme of the Emmy-nominated Netflix series Sacred Games, season 2 of MTV’s Coke Studio, and multiple episodes of MTV Unplugged. In India, Jake became the most in-demand touring and studio cellist, collaborating with some of the country’s most celebrated musicians, including Zakir Hussain, Hariharan, Arijit Singh, Kailash Kher, and Stephen Devassy.

Jake has performed as a soloist at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and the MET Museum, and as an ensemble member at Spoleto Festival, The Rubin Museum, National Sawdust, and Classical Next Festival. His radio appearances include performances on WQXR’s Meet the Composer podcast, WYNC’s New Sounds Live, and KEXP, where his performances have introduced his unique approach to a wide audience.

As an educator, Jake has taught at Marlboro College and serves as Education Director for Brooklyn Raga Massive. His work as an educator focuses on bridging Western and Indian classical music. He holds a B.Mus from Rice University and an MFA in North Indian Classical Music from California Institute of the Arts, where he studied under renowned musicians like Aashish Khan and Swapan Chaudhury. As a Shastri Indo-Canadian Arts Fellowship recipient, he trained with legendary violinist Dr. N. Rajam in Mumbai.