Violinist Dawn Posey, cellist Sarah Rommel, and pianist Michelle Huang will dazzle the audience with a thoughtfully curated program from the whimsical Mozart Trio in B-flat Major, to the elegant and intensely romantic Queen of Hearts by Kati Agócs, and ending with the monumental Mendelssohn D minor Trio.
About the Musicians
Dawn Posey
Dawn Posey maintains an active and varied performing, teaching, and coaching career. She is currently Concertmaster of the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra in Bellingham, WA and Assistant Concertmaster of the Northwest Sinfonietta in Tacoma, WA. She also teaches violin and coaches musicians of all instruments.
Dawn has held the positions of principal second violin with the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra and Pittsburgh Ballet Orchestra. She has performed with the Boston Conservatory Honors Quartet, Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Dawn’s performances have taken her around the world, including Festival A Tempo in Caracas, Venezuela, the Chamber Music Festival of Amman, Jordan, Blossom Music Festival in Ohio, and Tanglewood Music Center in Boston. She has been featured as a soloist with orchestras in Washington, Missouri, Indiana, and England, and has worked with Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, and Lukas Foss in principal roles.
Dawn is a devotee of baroque performance practice and has been a frequent guest artist with Chatham Baroque, including tours to Ecuador and Los Angeles. In 2015, she participated in the world-renowned training program, Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute. Dawn continues to perform with baroque ensembles around the United States.
Dawn is a founding member of two chamber music ensembles, Kassia Ensemble and Jade Trio. Kassia Ensemble is made up entirely of female performers and seeks to empower women through quality performance, collaboration, diverse programming, and outreach.
Dawn currently lives in Seattle, WA where she is a frequent substitute with the Seattle Symphony. She also continues to perform with chamber ensembles in the pacific northwest. For more information please visit www.poseyviolin.com.
Michelle Huang
A native of Taiwan, pianist Michelle Huang enjoys a rewarding career as a dynamic soloist and chamber musician. She is equally at home performing music ranging from the esteemed masters to the novel voices. Since moving to Seattle in 2021, she has collaborated with musicians from the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Philharmonic, and Seattle Pro Musica to curate and present innovative programs. She is happiest when playing concerts that allow her to storytell, to make connections, and to create an expansive and imaginative listening experience for the audience.
She has appeared as a guest artist across the continents, giving concerts, lectures, workshops, and master classes. As a devoted educator, she held teaching positions at Lincoln Memorial University, Edward Waters College, and Virginia Commonwealth University. In addition to collegiate teaching, she maintains a vibrant private teaching studio in Seattle, where she works with a group of piano students with immense talent.
She holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Master of Music from the University of Tennessee, and Doctor of Music from Florida State University. Her mentors include Barbara Rowan, David Northington, and Read Gainsford.
Sarah Rommel
Emerging into a singularly creative career, Sarah Rommel is a cellist whose rare sincerity and honest musicianship has established her as a sought-after collaborator, educator, and curator. Sarah’s passion for unconventional programming that incites curiosity and her deep commitment to long-standing artistic and human values are branding her as a unique and quietly rising force in the musical landscape.
After capturing Third Prize at the 2014 George Enescu International Cello Competition in Bucharest, Romania, Sarah has given recitals at Caramoor’s Evnin Rising Stars Showcase, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and across the United States from Maine to Seattle. She has participated in classes at the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, Academie Musicale de Villecroze in France, and IMS Prussia Cove in Cornwall, England where she has worked closely with distinguished professors such as David Geringas, Gary Hoffman, and Frans Helmerson. Praised for her rich sound and colorful approach to the cello, Sarah’s performances have been reviewed as “dimensional and expansive” and “captivating.”
As a member of the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston, Sarah performs regularly in Boston in addition to having toured with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Musicians from Marlboro. Through chamber music collaborations, Sarah has performed on stages such as Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall in Los Angeles, the Kennedy Center, the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. International chamber music collaborations have found Sarah touring New Zealand with Chamber Music New Zealand and as an organizer and performer for the SOTA Resonance Festival in Hyderabad, India. Sarah has been invited to perform at festivals such as the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, Santa Cruz Chamber Players, Chamber Music Palisades, Chamber Music Sedona, as well as Caramoor’s Evnin Rising Stars Series, Yellow Barn, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, and Marlboro Music Festival. Memorable collaborations include working with composers John Adams, Sofia Gubaidulina, Jennifer Higdon, Steve Mackey, and Kaija Saariaho, pianists Jonathan Biss and Gil Kalish, violinists Lucy Chapman, Pamela Frank, Joseph Lin, and Don Weilerstein, and violists Atar Arad, Kim Kashkashian, and Nobuko Imai.
The coming year will see long-standing projects come to fruition, most notably Sarah’s forthcoming Arioso Project, which will culminate in the first commercial recording of a piece written in 1929. “Resurrecting” and accompanying this piece into the present will be five newly commissioned works that will be a reflection on themes of adversity and oppression and the distinct creativity that flows from such circumstances.
Sarah began her musical studies at age nine on piano and was later introduced to the cello through her public school at age twelve. She was accepted into the Curtis Institute of Music at eighteen years old where she pursued a Bachelor Degree with Peter Wiley. Previous teachers include Efe Baltacigil and Hans Jørgen Jensen. She received her Master’s Degree from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles studying under the
tutelage of renowned pedagogue and mentor Ralph Kirshbaum. Sarah recently completed three years as Artist-in-Residence and cello faculty at the University of Washington in addition to being guest faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for their 2025 Spring Semester.
Based in Seattle, Sarah is a passionate knitter and reader, and enjoys the mountain views with her partner Jonathan, their dog Rhubarb, and cat Laptop.