“One of the most admired pianists of his generation” (The New York Times), Inon Barnatan has received universal acclaim for his “uncommon sensitivity” (The New Yorker), “impeccable musicality and phrasing” (Le Figaro), and his stature as “a true poet of the keyboard: refined, searching, unfailingly communicative” (The Evening Standard). A multifaceted musician, Barnatan is equally celebrated as soloist, curator and collaborator.

Cheryl Losey Feder was appointed principal harp of the Minnesota Orchestra in 2024. Winner of the Alice Rosner Prize at the Munich ARD International Competition, Feder is one of the leading harpists of her generation. She has performed as guest principal harpist with some the world’s premiere orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, and the St. Louis and Detroit symphony orchestras; and has held the position of principal harp with the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Sarasota Orchestra.

Violist Lydia Grimes joined the Minnesota Orchestra in September 2022. A native Minnesotan, Grimes grew up as a violinist and began studying the viola at 16 under the instruction of Sabina Thatcher. She recently received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in viola performance from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Hsin-Yun Huang, Misha Amory and Cynthia Phelps.

Violinist Sarah Grimes joined the Minnesota Orchestra in 2016, where she is a member of the first violin section. Before her appointment in the Minnesota Orchestra, she performed as a full-time guest musician with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra from 2015-16, and as a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in 2014.

Raised in the Twin Cities, Grimes began studying the violin at the age of four. She received a bachelor of music degree from the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, where she was concertmaster of the Symphony Orchestra, and worked as a freelance musician in the greater Chicago area.

American violinist Erin Keefe, who became concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra in September 2011, has established a reputation as an artist who combines exhilarating temperament and fierce integrity. At Sommerfest 2012 she made her concerto solo debut with the Orchestra, performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. She has since been featured as soloist in two concertos by Mendelssohn—the Violin Concerto and, in May 2022, the Double Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra—as well as the violin concertos of Brahms and Kurt Weill, and Dvořák’s Romance for Violin and Orchestra. In February 2023, she performed Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade, after Plato's "Symposium," for Solo Violin, Strings, Harp and Percussion. Keefe joined the violin faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music in 2022.

Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Pro Musicis International Award as well as numerous international competitions, she has appeared as soloist in recent seasons with the Minnesota Orchestra, New Mexico Symphony, New York City Ballet Orchestra, Korean Symphony Orchestra, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic, Sendai Philharmonic and the Gottingen Symphony and has given recitals throughout the United States, Austria, Italy, Germany, Korea, Poland, Finland, Japan and Denmark. 

Since joining the Minnesota Orchestra in 1990, Principal Flute Adam Kuenzel has regularly appeared as soloist at Orchestra Hall. In 2007 he gave the world premiere of Stanislaw Skrowaczewski’s Fantasies for Flute and Orchestra, Il Piffero della Notte, with the composer conducting. In 2009 he performed Bernstein’s Halil, earning acclaim from The New York Times and MusicalAmerica.com. He premiered Manuel Sosa’s Eloquentia: Espacio para Flauta y Orquesta in 2010; the work, which was written for Kuenzel, garnered the composer a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2011. In 2017 he was selected to premiere Laura Schwendinger's Aurora for flute and piano; commissioned by the National Flute Association for its annual convention, which was held in Minneapolis. He was most recently featured as a soloist in May 2022 on Carl Nielsen's Flute Concerto.

Natsuki Kumagai joined the Minnesota Orchestra second violin section in the 2017-18 season and won a position in the first violin section in 2019. Born and raised in Chicago, she has served in numerous concertmaster positions at orchestras including the New World Symphony, New York String Orchestra Seminar and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, where she was awarded the Jules C. Reiner Violin Prize. She was also a member of the Verbier Festival Orchestra. She is an active chamber musician, winning prizes at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, Saint Paul Chamber Music Competition and Society of American Musicians Competition. She was a member of the New Fromm Players, the quartet-in-residence for contemporary music at the Tanglewood Institute, performing world and U.S. premieres of works by world-renowned composers Marc Neikrug and Joseph Phibbs.

Illinois native Sonia Mantell joined the Minnesota Orchestra cello section in September 2020, and in fall 2024 took on the role of acting co-associate principal cello. She studied at New England Conservatory and DePaul School of Music under the tutelage of Natasha Brofksy and Brant Taylor, respectively. She was appointed co-principal cellist of the NEC orchestras and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. While attending DePaul, she won the Concerto Competition with violinist Ari Urban and performed the Brahms Double Concerto with the DePaul Symphony. She has attended summer festivals at Aspen, National Orchestral Institute, Music Academy of the West and Tanglewood Music Center.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, violinist Sophia Mockler earned her master’s degree from the Yale School of Music with Ani Kavafian. Her previous teachers include Catherine Cho at the Juilliard School, Carmit Zori and Itzhak Perlman. She has attended multiple summer music festivals including the Verbier Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Program, the Lakes Area Music Festival and the Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop. Recently she made her debut on the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society. In 2020 she toured throughout Europe with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under the direction of Iván Fischer, performing at the Concertgebouw, Elbphilharmonie and Carnegie Hall. She has served as the concertmaster for the Verbier Festival Orchestra as well as the Yale Philharmonia Orchestra. In addition to playing violin, she enjoys singing opera and sang the titular role in Dido and Aeneas at Princeton University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature.

Ben Odhner joined the Minnesota Orchestra in 2017, and won an audition to move to the first violin section in 2022. He previously held the position of fixed 4th chair in the first violin section of the Colorado Symphony. He has appeared as a soloist with the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, Ashland Symphony, Warminster Symphony Orchestra and other ensembles. In 2008 and 2009, he was selected to participate in the New York String Orchestra Seminar at Carnegie Hall. A fellowship recipient at the Aspen Music Festival and School, he has been concertmaster of the Aspen Sinfonia and the Aspen Concert Orchestra. He was also a member of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, which performed at Carnegie Hall in April 2009 as a part of the first international classical music summit brought together through the internet.

Australian-born Susie Park, the Minnesota Orchestra’s first associate concertmaster since 2015, will be featured as soloist with the ensemble in June 2023 in Brahms’ Double Concerto with Associate Principal Cello Silver Ainomäe. She has performed solos with numerous major orchestras in Europe, the U.S. and Australia, as well as Korea’s KBS Orchestra and Orchestra Wellington in New Zealand. She was the violinist of the Eroica Trio from 2006 to 2012, with which she recorded the ensemble’s Grammy-nominated CD of all-American repertoire, and toured internationally. Her interest in music of all genres has also led to collaborations with artists such as jazz trumpeter Chris Botti.

Alan Snow joined the Minnesota Orchestra in September 2022, and won the position of Associate Concertmaster in November 2022. He was previously the second associate concertmaster with the Omaha Symphony. Since his first performance with the Oistrakh Symphony Orchestra at age 13, Snow has performed solo and chamber works internationally, including appearances at Chicago’s Symphony Center, London Symphony Orchestra St. Luke’s, Sala Manuel M. Ponce in Mexico City and others. Previous concertmaster appointments include the Evansville Philharmonic, Birch Creek Symphony, Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, Terre Haute Symphony, Festival Napa Valley Music Academy, Britten-Pears Young Artists Program, Indiana University’s top orchestras, Carmel Symphony and Music Academy of the West.

Violist Sarah Switzer joined the Minnesota Orchestra in September 2022 and served as acting assistant principal viola for the Orchestra’s 2023-24 season. She earned her master’s degree from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music as a student of Ivo-Jan van der Werff. She holds a bachelor’s degree in the History of Art from Yale University, where she studied with Wendy Sharp. Recipient of the Yale Wrexham Prize for Music, the T. Whitney Blake Prize and the Sharp Prize for Music, Switzer served as principal viola of the Yale Symphony Orchestra and performed Béla Bartók’s Viola Concerto with the symphony orchestra in 2018 as a winner of the William Waite Concerto Competition. Her undergraduate thesis on French medieval manuscript illumination earned her the A. Conger Goodyear Fine Arts Award in 2019.