Tobias was the cellist residence and co-artistic director at Garth Newel Music Center from 1999 until 2012. He is the music director at The Chamber Music Conference of the East, artistic director of VERGE ensemble, ensemble-in-residence at the Washington Conservatory of Music, teaches at Georgetown University, and is an Arts for the Aging (AFTA) teaching artist. He has performed at the Cape and Islands Chamber Music Festival, Villa Musica Mainz, the San Diego Chamber Music Workshop, the Vail Valley Bravo! Colorado Music Festival, the Maui Classical Music Festival, in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Strathmore Hall, the Phillips Collection, the Library of Congress, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and at Bargemusic. Tobias has appeared assoloist with orchestras in the US, France, Germany, and Romania, and recent performances have included the concertos of Dvorák, Elgar, Haydn, and Boccherini. He has recorded on the ECM, Darbringhaus & Grimm, Bayer Records, and Orfeo labels. Recent CD releases include Piano Quartets by Mozart, Brahms, Dvorák, and Martinu with the Garth Newel Piano Quartet, the Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by J.S. Bach, and the Sonatas for Piano and Cello by Beethoven with Victor Asuncion. Tobias studied at the Musikhochschule Freiburg in Germany, and at Boston University. His teachers have included Andrés Díaz, Christoph Henkel, and Xavier Gagnepain. He plays on an 1844 J.F. Pressenda cello.

Stephen Key is an Oboist, Composer, Arranger, and Pedagogue in the Washington DC Metro area. A member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Professor Key began his studies on piano and voice with his mother when he was only three. He landed on studying the oboe in the public school band program in Ada, Ok. Like many young oboists, at 11 he didn’t want to play an instrument that everyone else was playing.

Mostly an oboist, Stephen is the Principal Oboe for the New Orchestra of Washington, and is currently adjunct Associate Professor of Oboe at Shenandoah Conservatory. In addition to concerto performances with NOW, Key arranged and performed Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin about which New York critic, Oberon’s Grove, said, “gorgeous performance… terrific, notable solos… rich, warm tone.” As a soloist, he has performed with the New Orchestra of Washington, Washington Chamber Orchestra, Washington Master Chorale, University of Texas Symphony Orchestra, and Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra. Orchestral work includes regularly performing with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, but he has also played with the National Symphony, Austin Symphony (TX), Richmond Symphony, Maryland Symphony, Roanoke Symphony and Opera, The Washington Chorus, Choral Arts Society of Washington, Virginia Opera, the Chamber Orchestra of San Antonio, and the New World Symphony. Also, he has recorded with Grammy Award-winning studio Sono Luminus, the Centaur Label, DF-Recording in Switzerland, and Albany Records.

Other professional highlights include being the Principal Oboist for the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival since 2023, and joining the performance faculty for the Chamber Music Conference of the East where he holds the Patricia Stenberg Oboe Chair. Professor Key loves to collaborate with international artists, and recently toured in Switzerland, Germany, and France with award-winning Italian Pianist, Matteo Cardelli. This recital/master class/recording project involved producing adaptations of French Chanson for Oboe by Clara Schumann, Lilli Boulanger, and Olivier Messiaen.

Key studied at Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Texas at Austin. He has worked with Rebecca Henderson, James Caldwell, Rudolf Vrbsky, Carol Stephenson, James Moseley, Richard Killmer, Elaine Douvas, and Katherine Needleman.

Pianist Yejin Lee is an active soloist and chamber musician based in the United States. Yejin’s performances have been praised for her “coloristic and poetic expressions” and “compelling and thrilling rhythmic senses,” and she has been invited to perform in many prestigious venues, including her solo debut at Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall in New York. Her appearances include guest artist performances at the Cultural Art Center in Jaen, Spain, the Tyler Recital Hall in Florida, and the Seoul Arts Center in Seoul, Korea. Her performances have also been featured and broadcast live on WCLV 104.9 FM from the Cleveland Play House. Most recently, she performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Accord Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Julien Benichou at Atlas Theater in Washington, DC.

Claiming top awards at a number of international competitions, including the Dallas International Piano Competition, Kingsville International Piano Competition, and Wideman International Piano Competition, Yejin has also had the privilege of performing at leading music festivals and masterclasses such as the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg, Banff Music Festival, Gijon Music Festival in Spain, and Piano Texas International Academy & Festival. She has shared musical inspiration with great pedagogues and pianists of this century, including Richard Goode, Dmitry Bashkirov, Stephen Hough, John O’Conor, John Perry, and Karl-Heinz Kämmerling.

Yejin holds both piano performance and vocal accompanying degrees from Oberlin Conservatory with honors under Haewon Song and Philip Highfill, as well as master’s and doctorate degrees under Boris Slutsky from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

She currently serves as a piano faculty member at the Washington Conservatory of Music and as a professorial lecturer at George Washington University. As a staff pianist at Shenandoah University, she actively works with students in collaborative and solo performances. In addition to her roles in academia, Yejin maintains a private teaching studio and is dedicated to education as a member of MTNA and NVMTA.

An active performer in the greater Washington, DC area, Yejin frequently participates in local recital series, including the Epiphany Tuesday Series in Washington, DC, and the Emerson Avenue Salon Series in McLean, VA. As the founder and artistic director of Matinee-M, a house concert series in McLean, VA, she is also committed to bringing classical music into the community through intimate and engaging house concerts.