Hans Jørgen Jensen, Professor of Cello at Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 2010 Artist Teacher Award from the American String Teachers Association (ASTA), the Presidential Scholars Program Teacher Recognition Award from the US Departmentof Education, and the Danish Music Critics Award in Copenhagen, one of Denmark’s most prestigious awards. Professor Jensen has performed and taught master classes across the United States, as well as in Canada, Australia, Brazil, Europe, Israel, Japan, and South Korea. Many of his students are first prize winners in numerous national and international competitions, as well as members of major US orchestras and leading music schools. Professor Jensen is also a faculty member of the Glenn Gould School in Toronto, Canada, and the Meadowmount School of Music in Westport, New York. Jensen has published the following books: Fun in Thumb Position, The Galamian Scale System for Cello: Volume I and Volume II, CelloMind, and ViolinMind, the latter two books published by Ovation Press. Jensen studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Denmark with cellist Asger Lund Christiansen and at the Juilliard School with Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins. 

Korean-American cellist Minna Rose Chung is Professor of Cello at the Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba (Winnipeg, Canada). In addition, she is co-author of the internationally acclaimed CelloMind: Intonation and Technique, a discerning pedagogy method praised for its “dense and fascinating treatise focusing not just on the left hand, but almost exclusively on the aspects underpinning the most minute gradations of intonation…it takes written pedagogy to a new level” (Strings Magazine, April 2018).Chung performs with the Borealis Piano Trio and the Nacka Duo, which tour extensively in recital and lecture performances at world music conferences with focus on the art of chamber music. Currently within Winnipeg, Minna performs regularly with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. International tours include Canada, the UK, Sweden, Germany, Serbia, Poland, Brazil, Asia and the USA.Since 2008, Chung has been the director of Project Rio, a multi-collaborative program that supports the Rio International Cello Encounter (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), the second-largest free music festival in the world through masterclasses and faculty performances in Brazil. To date, she has returned to perform across Brazil in over thirty-five recitals and concerto performances.She will be returning to Rio de Janeiro this August to celebrate the 30th anniversary of RICE.