Praised by audiences and critics alike for its brilliant virtuosity and expressive depth, the Zéphyros Winds is recognized as one of the nation’s leading chamber ensembles.  With appearances across the country at major concert venues, including Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, The Library of Congress, Wolf Trap, and the “Great Performers Series” at Lincoln Center, Zéphyros made its concerto debut with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and Louis Langrée conducting the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante, K. 297b, to open the festival’s 2004 season.  During the 2003-2004 season, The Philadelphia Museum of Art engaged the Zéphyros Winds to create a program complimenting their recent exhibition, “Manet and the Sea.”  They have toured with the renowned pianist and chamber musician Charles Wadsworth, and have performed as guests of the New York Woodwind Quintet at Alice Tully Hall and at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.  At the invitation of the French Embassy in Washington, DC, Zéphyros performed a gala concert celebrating the centenary of Francis Poulenc’s birth.  Radio broadcasts include “Performance Today” for National Public Radio, Public Radio International’s “Music from Chautauqua,” and WNYC’s “Around New York.”  The Zéphyros Winds has performed residencies at colleges and universities around the country and has given master classes at The Juilliard School and The Yale School of Music.  Their recording of Irving Fine’s “Partita for Woodwind Quintet,” is on Bridge Records.

Taking its name from the Greek god of the West Wind, the group first gained distinction in 1995, when, one year after its formation, it won both the First and Grand Prizes at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition becoming the first wind quintet in the competition’s 22-year history to do so. Their New York debut soon followed at Merkin Concert Hall in 1997.  Formed as a wind quintet, Zéphyros now performs in additional combinations, making possible a range of pieces from wind trios to Mozart's timeless serenades for wind octet.

Comprising graduates of the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale School of Music, Eastman, and The Juilliard School, the Zéphyros Winds is now based in Manhattan, where its members are energetic contributors to New York’s musical community. Individually, members of Zéphyros  have performed at the Marlboro, Tanglewood, and Caramoor Music Festivals, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, as well as for Broadway shows, television, movies, and with popular performing artists.  The members of Zéphyros are fortunate to play together constantly in various ensembles, strengthening  the bonds of out friendship and of our musical.


“Zéphyros is a virtuoso group.  No doubt its vigorous and enthusiastic approach to music—and the lively banter with which it entertains an audience between numbers—has something to do with its popularity.”  —The Washington Post

“This young musical ensemble deserves such superlatives as “brilliant,” “stunning,” “masterful.  Szervánszky created an exuberant and impressive work which Zéphyros presented with brilliance and precision.” —The Shelter Island Reporter

“This brilliant young ensemble could convince you that the sound of music in heaven is a delicately blended and balances ensemble of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon.” —The Washington Post

“The ensemble created a near-symphonic sound.” —The New London Day

“The Zéphyros Quintet played with impeccable precision and rapt lyricism that is a hallmark of chamber players who truly listen to each other.” —The Chicago Sun Times
 

INDIVIDUAL BIOGRAPHIES
 

Jennifer Grim, flute 

Hailed by the New York Times as “a deft, smooth flute soloist,” Jennifer Grim has performed across the United States as an active solo and chamber musician of both the classic literature and contemporary music. A recent first prize winner in several national chamber music competitions, Ms. Grim has performed with such groups as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble. She is the flutist in the award winning ensemble, the Zéphyros Winds, a woodwind quintet based in New York.  With Zéphyros, she has performed at prestigious venues such as Lincoln Center, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC and Da Camera of Los Angeles. She is the principal flutist of the Vermont Mozart Festival and has appeared at the Aspen and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festivals. As a soloist, she has been featured numerous times at the Vermont Mozart Festival, performing all of the Mozart flute concerti and quartets.

In addition to the standard repertoire, Ms. Grim is a strong advocate of contemporary music. She has performed with some of the leading contemporary groups in New York City, including Speculum Musicae, Ensemble Sospeso, ensemble 21 and the American Festival of Microtonal Music. She is a founding member of the award-winning contemporary ensemble Proteus, which performed a sold-out New York debut concert at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and received top prizes at the Chamber Music Yellow Springs and Fischoff National Chamber Music competitions. She is also a member of FIREWORKS New Music Ensemble, a rock-based chamber group whose recent performances included Weill Recital Hall and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Highlights of recent seasons included a series of all-French solo recital programs at Yale University and Saint Francis College, and concerto performances in Washington DC, and Los Angeles. Upcoming concerts include chamber performances at Lincoln Center, a concert of Bach’s Brandenburg concerti in Philadelphia, and solo recitals in New York and Pennsylvania.

A native of Berkeley, California, Ms. Grim attended Stanford University, earning two Bachelor of Arts degrees. She went on to study with Ransom Wilson at the Yale School of Music, receiving several honors and awards. At Yale, she earned her Master of Music and Master of Musical Arts degrees, and recently graduated with the Doctor of Musical Arts degree. Ms. Grim is currently professor of flute at The University of Las Vegas.

To email Jennifer- jen @ zephyroswinds.com                                                Return to the top of the page
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JAMES ROE  is immersed in a wide spectrum of New York City's diverse musical and cultural life. In great demand for his orchestral playing on both oboe and cor anglais, Mr. Roe appears as guest-principal oboe with many of New York's finest orchestras, including those of the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, and New York City Ballet, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. During the 2004-2005 season, he served as Principal Oboe of the Houston Grand Opera and the previous season as Assistant Principal Oboe of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Solo engagements include The

Manchester Music Festival, the Brandenburg Concerti both with Anthony Newman and at New York City's celebrated Bargemusic New Year's Eve concerts, and recordings of Alec Wilder's "Air for English Horn, Strings and Percussion," and Seymour Barab's "Dances for Oboe and Strings," which Fanfare Magazine praised as "glowing and utterly captivating." Additionally, he has recorded for the Sony, Atlantic, Nonesuch, Koch, Varese Sarabande, and Vox labels. Festival appearances include the Caramoor, Bard, and Tanglewood Music Festivals, the Mt. Desert, and Crested Butte Chamber Music Festivals, The Zankel Hall Opening Festival, The Lincoln Center Festival, Mostly Mozart, Downtown NYC River to River Festival, and BAM Next Wave Festival. As a touring musician, he has performed on four continents and extensively throughout the United States, in chamber, orchestral, opera, and ballet settings.

In the popular music world, Mr. Roe has performed with Sir Elton John, James Taylor, Tony Bennett, Metallica, Vanessa Williams, Andrea Bocelli, and Audra McDonald. He has performed on Saturday Night Live, and appears in a music video of Shania Twain. In 2006 he appeared in Carnegie's Zankel Hall with Canadian singer-song writer, Jane Siberry, making his New York improvising debut.

A native of Northern Michigan, Mr. Roe comes from a family comprising four generations of small-town preachers. For ten summers, he worked on a 500-acre cherry farm to buy his oboes and put himself through music school. Eventually moving to New York City, he earned his Masters degree from The Juilliard School as a student of Elaine Douvas. While there, he studied chamber music and performance practice with renowned harpsichordist, Albert Fuller. He also holds a Bachelors of Music with High Honor from Michigan State University, where he studied with Daniel Stolper and was a Presser Scholar.

Noted as an insightful programmer, Mr. Roe is the Artistic Director of The Helicon Foundation, where he has produced and presented numerous concerts, recordings, and educational events featuring chamber music performed on period instruments. Through Helicon, he has been privileged to create programs with such artists as Anonymous 4, The Brentano String Quartet, Jennifer Frautschi, Paul Groves, Charlotte Hellekant, Bejun Mehta, Pedja Muzijevic, Mary Nessinger, Geoff Nuttall, and Mark Steinberg.

An avid collector of contemporary art, Mr. Roe holds oil paintings, works on paper, books, photographs, ceramics, and sculptural works by established, emerging, and "outsider" artists.

Marianne Gythfeldt, clarinet

Clarinetist Marianne Gythfeldt, a native of Norway and Scotland, has distinguished herself in chamber music, orchestral, and contemporary music performance on the international stage.  Her formative years were split between Oslo, marching in parade bands; Paris, studying electro-acoustic music at IRCAM; and Morristown, New Jersey, playing in All-State bands and orchestras.  She went on to receive Masters and Bachelors degrees from the Eastman School and SUNY at Stony Brook, respectively, under the tutelage of mentors Stanley Hasty and Charlie Neidich.

As a resident of New York City, Marianne quickly became involved in its musical world.  She is an original member of Naumburg award-winning New Millennium Ensemble, and is the clarinetist of Ensemble Sospeso, and Kristjan Jarvi’s Absolute Ensemble.  She also enjoys playing with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and as a guest performer with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Ms. Gythfeldt is a dedicated proponent of great new music, seeking out and creating projects that have an unflinching commitment to exploring new territory.  She acted as project director and fund-raiser for the first recordings of three of Morton Feldman’s ensemble works on Koch records, and has been awarded a Fromm grant to commission a piece by Harvard University faculty composer, Joshua Fineberg, who composes in the “spectral” tradition, using micro-tones to further divide the natural harmonic scheme.  Ms. Gythfeldt participated in the 2004 Buffalo Festival, collaborating with composers Tristan Murail, Roger Reynolds, and Lars Graugaard.  In May 2005, she will work with Pierre Boulez on his anniversary concert at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall.

Highlights of the 2003-4 season included an appearance at the Bremen Festival in Germany, multi-media productions of Frank Zappa’s music at the Adelaide Festival in Australia, and the Barbican in London with the critically acclaimed Absolute Ensemble, a recording of Robert Morris’ solo pieces for clarinet and computer-generated sounds, and a 95th Birthday Celebration concert for Elliott Carter with Ensemble Sospeso. Ms. Gythfeldt is on the faculty at William Paterson University, and the Chamber Music Conference of the East, where she teaches clarinet and chamber music.  She currently lives in Newark, Delaware with her husband, professor of biophysics at the College of Staten Island, and daughter Maude.

Douglas Quint, bassoon

Bassoonist Douglas Quint is well known as a versatile performer, recording artist and teacher. He has performed with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the New York City Opera and Ballet Orchestras and the Chamber Music Society of the Lincoln Center. He is a member of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston. Mr. Quint has also been a concerto soloist with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, performing Mozart's Sinfonie Concertante K 297b at Avery Fisher Hall. He has worked with many of our era's greatest conductors, and with pop icons including Bryan Adams, Stephin Merritt, Bono, and Quincy Jones. He has concertized throughout the US, and in such diverse locations as Bermuda, Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, and the Virgin Islands.

Douglas Quint holds degrees from The Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School. He is currently working towards his Doctorate of Musical Arts degree at the CUNY Graduate Center. He was a finalist for the coveted Naumburg Award. Since 1997 he has been a member of the award winning Zephyros Winds, with whom he has given masterclasses at schools including Yale, Juilliard, Chautauqua, and Idyllwild.

Mr. Quint can be heard on numerous records, movie soundtracks, and on many television cartoons. His writing and photography have been published by The Village Voice.

Zohar Schondorf, horn

Born in Haifa, Israel, Mr. Schondorf served in the Israeli Army Band from 1989-92. With an Israeli-American Cultural Foundation Scholarship from 1986-1992, Mr. Schondorf continued his studies in New York at the Juilliard School of Music. Graduating in 1995, he was appointed Associate Principal horn in the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, a position he held until 1997 when he was appointed Principal horn in the Israeli Symphony/Opera Orchestra. While in Israel, he won an Oreq Communication award for his performance as Principal Horn in the Classical Winter in Jerusalem Music Festival in 1993 and also played with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta. Mr. Schondorf relocated to New York in 2001 and is now Associate Principal Horn of the American Symphony Orchestra, and performs with ACO, the Stamford Symphony and Westchester Philharmonic Orchestras and the Bard Music Festival. In 2004, Mr. Schondorf was invited to perform with the Bavarian Radio Symphony under Loren Maazel on their highly acclaimed tour of the United States. Formerly a member of the “La Boheme on Broadway” and the 2005 Tony and Grammy award winning “Spamalot” orchestras, he currently performs in the new Disney show “The Little Mermaid".