Team — Young Chamber Musicians

Our Team

Susan Bates, Founder & Director

Young Chamber Musicians is led by long-standing champion of chamber music education, Susan Bates with guest appearances by noted chamber music artists from near and far. Ms. Bates holds the 1992 award for "Excellence in Chamber Music Training" from Chamber Music America. Since 1982, she has guided numerous young musicians who are now pursuing careers as professional musicians and playing chamber music "for the love of it".

Ms. Bates' career includes the creation and direction of several chamber music education programs for highly talented musical youth in the San Francisco Bay Area: San Francisco Conservatory of Music Preparatory Chamber Music Program (1983-2000), California Summer Music (1996-2000), Lake Tahoe Music Festival Academy with the Miró Quartet (2000-2006), and Young Chamber Musicians (2008-present). She also served as an instructor of viola and chamber music in the Pre-college Division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (1982-2019). In 2002, Ms. Bates joined her colleagues of Midwest Young Artists, Chicago, Illinois to create the MYA Summer Chamber Music Program serving on its faculty until 2009. Ms. Bates joined the faculty of the San Diego Chamber Music Workshop (SoCal) in 1979 and remains a dedicated coach at the workshop each summer.

Susan Bates is a founding member of the New Age String Quartet that worked under the tutelage of the Paganini Quartet. She was for seven years instructor at San Jose State University serving as violist of the faculty ensemble, the San Jose String Quartet. The Quartet worked closely with composer Lou Harrison, giving the premier of his Quartet Set (1978). Ms. Bates also recorded Mr. Harrison's Threnody for Carlos Chavez (1979) for Solo Viola with Gamelan Sekar Kembar for CRI. In 2010, Susan Bates retired from the viola section of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra after 34 years. She is the recipient of the 2013 Tom Heimberg Viola Advocate Award from the Northern California Viola Society.

Director Susan Bates with YCM alumna Vivian Wang

Piano

Jeffrey LaDeur, piano coordinator

Violin/Viola

Praised for his "glowing sound”, “assured virtuosity" (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “dazzling pianism” (Sarasota Herald Tribune) Jeffrey LaDeur enjoys a busy career as soloist, chamber musician, and educator. Engagements at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Banff Centre, and other prestigious venues were followed by an invitation from the Naumburg Foundation to make his Carnegie Hall debut. LaDeur is a founding member of the acclaimed Delphi Trio, and Founder and Artistic Director of New Piano Collective, an artistic alliance between renowned pianists. LaDeur earned his M.M. in chamber music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music studying with Yoshikazu Nagai and completed additional studies with Robert McDonald. Jeffrey received his formative musical training from Mark Edwards and Annie Sherter, a student of Vlado Perlemuter and Alfred Cortot.

Violinist, Eric Chin, a founding member of the acclaimed Telegraph Quartet is equally passionate about performing and teaching. Captivated by chamber music, he founded the award-winning Nexus String Quartet in 2007 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. After the final season of the Nexus String Quartet, Mr. Chin accepted an invitation to join the Hausmann Quartet and the chamber music/string faculty at San Diego State University. In 2014, after relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, he co-founded the Telegraph Quartet, the 2014 Grand Prize winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and in 2016 the coveted Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. The Telegraph Quartet are Quartet in Residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Violinist and violist Jory Fankuchen has built a reputation as an engaging performer of many genres, as well as a passionate pedagogue. The San Francisco Examiner raved, Mr. Fankuchen’s “flamboyant” performance “created the illusion that Eugene Ysaye had been born in Argentina, possibly in a bed next to Jean Sibelius.” His ensembles include the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, the Magik Magik Orchestra, Squid Ink, the Musical Art Quintet, and he appears as a regular guest with the New Century Chamber Orchestra. He is a founding member of the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco. As first violinist of the Kailas String Quartet, he performed throughout North America, winning first prize in the Chamber Music International Competition, and Silver at the National Fischoff Competition in 2006. Jory serves on the faculty of the Crowden Music Center, the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and most recently as a visiting lecturer at Cornell University. He holds a B.M. from the San Francisco Conservatory, and an M.M. from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Ian Swensen and Lucy Chapman, respectively.

Debra Fong, violinist, is a Lecturer in Violin and Chamber Music at Stanford University, and she maintains a private violin studio in Palo Alto. She is Concertmaster of the Peninsula Symphony, Principal Second Violinist of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and she spends her summers performing as a first violinist with The Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. In Fall 2016, Ms. Fong was guest conductor of Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra’s Preparatory Ensemble. An active chamber musician, Ms. Fong has performed at numerous festivals, including Toronto Summer Music; Bay Chamber Concerts in Rockport, Maine; Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival; Grand Teton Music Festival; Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival; and Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Ms. Fong received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees with Honors and Distinction in Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she studied with Eric Rosenblith, James Buswell, Eugene Lehner, and Louis Krasner. Ms. Fong plays a Guiseppe Rocca violin kindly on loan from Stanford University’s Harry R. Lange Instrument Collection.

Cellist Eric Gaenslen has performed as a chamber musician, recitalist and guest soloist in venues across North America and Europe. As cellist of the renowned Rossetti String Quartet, Eric performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Berlin Konzerthaus and at the Maverick and Vail Bravo Music Festivals and Festival del Sole. Solo highlights include the world premiere of Siddartha for cello and string orchestra, by Laura Carnibucci, and a performance of Bloch's Shelomo at New York's Avery Fisher Hall. From 2009-2011 Eric held the position of Acting Principal Cellist of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. A devoted educator, Mr. Gaenslen has worked with students at the University of Missouri, Kansas City; State University New York at Purchase; California State Universities at Fresno, Northridge and Long Beach; the Brevard Music Center; Cornish College and the University of Western Washington He has held faculty positions at the Mannes College in New York and at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the University of Washington. Eric currently teaches privately in Burlingame and Palo Alto and also maintains a busy performing career. He is the cellist of the Röntgen Piano Trio. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University and a Master of Arts degree from the Juilliard School of Music. His teachers have included Joel Krosnick, Robert Mann, Aldo Parisot, William Pleeth and Irene Sharp.

Cellist Samsun van Loon studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Jean-Michel Fonteneau and has been critically praised by the San Francisco Chronicle as an artist who performs with "the rhetorical polish of a skilled storyteller." During his time at the conservatory he also received the M. Alan Neys Award for first prize at the Pacific Musical Society's annual competition as well as the conservatory's Chamber Music Honors Award.

Samsun is a founding member of the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco and performs regularly with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. Equally passionate about teaching and performing, he has recently served on the faculty of Zephyr Point Chamber Music Camp, Cazadero Music Camp, the Community Music Center in San Francisco, and the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra. And in this age of digital pivots he as also served as audio engineer for the Boston Chamber Symphony and the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco's digital projects.

Lisa Lee made her solo debut with the San Francisco Symphony at age 16 and has since appeared as soloist with the Pacific Symphony, Macau Youth Symphony, Shanghai Symphony, San Domenico Da Camera Orchestra, Fremont Symphony, and Opole Philharmonic of Poland. She has been invited to perform at such festivals as Ravinia, Marboro, Evian, International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, Caramoor, and Lucerne. Her chamber music partners have included Gary Graffman, Nobuko Imai, Andras Schiff, David Soyer, Yo-Yo Ma, Donald Weilerstein, Andres Diaz, and Arnold Steinhardt. Lisa continues to perform as founding member of The Lee Trio with her sisters, cellist Angela Lee, and pianist Melinda Lee Masur. The Trio’s “gripping immediacy and freshness” and "rich palette of tone colours" [The Strad] is marked by audiences and critics across the globe. The Lee Trio is devoted to working with and performing the music of living composers. Piano trios by composers including Nathaniel Stookey, Philip Lasser, Uljas Pulkkis, Laurence Rosenthal, Julian Yu and Sylvie Bodorova have been given their world, American and European premieres by The Lee Trio. Lisa is graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her mentors include Zaven Melikian, Arnold Steinhart, David Takeno, Donald Weilerstein, and Denes Zsigmondy. Her 1872 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume is on generous loan. In 2017, Ms. Lee joined the pre college faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Violinist Natasha Makhijani is a founding member of the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco, the Associate Concertmaster of the Oakland Symphony, a member of the Santa Rosa Symphony, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and the Magik Magik Orchestra, and performs regularly with the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet orchestras.

Equally dedicated to teaching as she is to performing, Natasha has held teaching positions at the Eastman School of Music, the San Domenico School Conservatory, and The Crowden Music Center, is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Pre-College Division, is a member of the chamber music and conducting staff of the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and maintains a private teaching studio.

Natasha holds a Bachelor of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music from the Eastman School of Music. Her principal teachers include Bettina Mussumeli, Zvi Zeitlin, and Charles Castleman.