ARDORA TRIO
ABOUT ARDORA TRIO
Jessica Ryou has cultivated a versatile musical career as an orchestral violinist, chamber musician, educator, soloist, and studio musician. She was appointed to the first violin section of the North Carolina Symphony in 2022.
Jessica is a founding member of the Ardora Trio, a piano trio based in the Triangle. She is a regularly featured artist at Bargemusic, New York City’s floating concert hall, where she performs chamber and solo works ranging from classical music to contemporary premiers, collaborating with a diverse group of talented artists. She maintains a private studio in Raleigh as a violin instructor, and enjoys working with local young musicians as a coach at the North Carolina Chamber Music Institute. During the summers, Jessica teaches and performs as a faculty artist at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Before her time in North Carolina, Jessica was the adjunct violin professor at East Tennessee State University and served as the assistant concertmaster of the Symphony of the Mountains. She performed as a regularly featured artist with the Paramount Chamber Players in Bristol, Virginia.
As part of her orchestral training, Jessica spent two years as a violin fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida. During her fellowship, she served as concertmaster under conductors such as Stéphane Denève and Pablo Heras-Casado, and worked with renowned composers such as John Adams and Steve Reich. Before her time in Florida, Jessica was a member of the violin sections of the Akron Symphony Orchestra and the Canton Symphony Orchestra. She has served as concertmaster for numerous orchestras and summer festivals including the Symphony of the Mountains, the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, the National Orchestral Institute, and the National Repertory Orchestra. Jessica was featured as a soloist with the National Repertory Orchestra for two years, performing the Dvořák Violin Concerto and the Moszkowski Suite for Two Violins.
Equally at home in the recording studio as in the concert hall, Jessica has collaborated extensively with Grammy award-winning crossover cellist Dave Eggar to record for film studios and record labels such as Netflix, Dreamworks, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group. She has recorded solo violin tracks for acclaimed artists like John Legend, Lewis Capaldi, and the Stone Temple Pilots. You can hear Jessica and Dave replicate the sounds of a full string orchestra on hit songs such as John Legend’s “Stardust”, Lewis Capaldi’s “Any Kind of Life”, and Ricky Montgomery’s “Talk To You- strings”.
Jessica earned her Master of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music and her Bachelor of Music from the University of Southern California. Her primary instructors were William Preucil, Margaret Batjer, and Henry Gronnier. During her free time Jessica enjoys traveling, eating new foods, hiking, and backcountry camping.
Sean Hawthorne has gained international recognition for his achievements as a chamber musician, orchestral musician, soloist and educator. He was appointed as the Assistant Professor of Cello at East Tennessee State University in 2018 where he served until 2023. Sean received his DMA from Stony Brook University in 2018, after having earned a Bachelor’s Degree from The Juilliard School and a Master’s Degree from the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. His primary teachers were Richard Aaron, Michel Strauss and Colin Carr.
Sean has enjoyed an active and far-reaching orchestral career performing with orchestras such as the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada, the Royal Philharmonic in London, and the Residentie Orkest in The Hague. He served as principal cellist of the National Repertory Orchestra for two years, during which time he was featured twice as a soloist, performing Strauss’s Don Quixote and Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. In 2014, Sean was
selected as the Institute for Orchestral Studies cello apprentice with the National Arts Centre Orchestra under Maestro Pinchas Zukerman. He has also been a member of several renowned summer festival orchestras, including the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra and the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra.
As a chamber musician, Sean has collaborated with musicians such as Colin Carr, Arnaud Sussmann, Jennifer Frautschi, and members of the Emerson String Quartet. He has been a featured artist in venues such as Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Dr. Anton Philipszaal in The Hague, and Casa da Música in Porto. Sean regularly performs as a featured artist at Bargemusic in New York City. He has also served as a guest chamber artist/recitalist at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Ball State University, Middle Tennessee State University, South Texas College, and Carson Newman University.
As a teacher, Sean has held positions at Stony Brook University and Eastern Music Festival. He has given masterclasses at universities across the country including Shenandoah University, the University of Tennessee Knoxville, and Ball State University. Sean was also a sought-after teacher for young cello students in the New York area, serving as cello instructor at the Herald Music School, the Joyous Music School and the Music Academy of Long Island. Students of Sean’s have been accepted into acclaimed music programs, such as the Juilliard Pre-College program.
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Pianist Jean Park is active as a performer, adjudicator and teacher. She has performed in many cities in the United States as well as abroad in Norway, Sweden, Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic.
Jean Park is originally from Seattle, where she received her undergraduate degree in business and music from the University of Washington. She then moved to New York City where she received her Master’s in Music degree in piano performance from Manhattan School of Music and her Doctorate of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University, where she studied with Gilbert Kalish. Jean Park then served as piano faculty at University of Incarnate Word and San Antonio College from 2018-2023. Jean Park has newly moved to Cary, NC in summer of 2023 and she currently serves as piano faculty for the North Carolina Chamber Music Institute.
Jean Park has received accolades in competitions and won many scholarship awards to music festivals. Most notably, she received first place in the graduate division of the Schubert Club’s competition in solo piano. Jean Park has been a participant in many music festivals such as Icicle Creek Winter Piano Festival, Texas State International Piano Festival, Playing for the Gold 2015 in Stavanger, Norway as part of the international chamber festival, Aurora Chamber Music and Masterclasses in Trollhättan, Sweden, Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival, International Piano Masterclasses in Katowice, Poland, Round Top Music Festival, International Keyboard Institute and Festival, Hot Springs Music Festival, CCM Prague, Vienna Piano Festival and National Music Festival. Additionally, Jean has performed in many masterclasses for musicians such as Julian Martin, Emanuel Krasovsky, Nikolai Demidenko, Boris Slutsky, Christopher Harding, Rebecca Penneys, Robert Mann, and many others. Jean performed a live solo performance that was broadcast on air on WSMR RADIO and a recording of her playing is in the soundtrack for the film Don't Let the Night End available on Amazon prime video.
In demand as an adjudicator, Jean has served as an adjudicator for many events such as Texas State University's Concerto and Aria Competition, Texas Music Teachers Association Student Affiliate Performance Contest, Texas Music Teachers Association San Antonio Regional Performance Contest, Janice Kay Hodges Contemporary Piano Competition, Playful Piano Competition, and many other events. As a teacher, Jean has previously served on the boards of the Piano Teachers Congress of New York and San Antonio Music Teacher’s Association. Jean was selected as Rising Faculty Star for the Texas State International Piano Festival and taught piano masterclasses at Stony Brook University.