Meet the Distinguished Judges of the
2024 Lyra Music Competition Finals

MICHAEL KATZ, CELLO
Hailed by the press for his “bold, rich sound” (Strad Magazine) and “nuanced musicianship,” (The New York Times), Grammy-nominated cellist Michael Katz has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in venues such as Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, David Geffen Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Kimmel Center, Lucerne KKL, Tokyo’s Oji Hall, and Jerusalem's Henry Crown Auditorium. His musicianship has been recognized with many awards, among them all three prizes at the 2011 Aviv Competition, and first prizes at the Juilliard School’s 2010 Concerto Competition and the 2005 Turjeman Competition.

High in demand as a chamber musician, Mr. Katz has collaborated and performed with artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Midori, Anthony Marwood, Donald Weilerstein, Peter Frankl, Roger Tapping, Charles Neidich, and others.  As the cellist of the Lysander Piano Trio, Mr. Katz was a winner of the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Competition, and was awarded first prize in the 2011 Coleman competition and 2011 J.C. Arriaga competition.  His festival appearances include performances at Ravinia, Music@Menlo, Lucerne, Mostly Mozart, Chamber Music Northwest, Bravo! Vail, Bard, Copenhagen, Classical Bridge, Festival Mozaic, Yellow Barn, Sarasota, Malaga Clasica, and the Holland Music Sessions. Deeply committed to audience engagement and community outreach, Mr. Katz was a Fellow in Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect from 2014-16 and is a core member of Decoda since 2019. He is a regular cello and chamber music faculty at the Csehy Summer School of Music and the Chamber Music Institute for Young Musicians, and was an adjunct professor of cello at Nyack College from 2015-2017.

Born in Tel-Aviv, Mr. Katz began his cello studies at age seven, and his early teachers included Zvi Plesser, Hillel Zori and the late Mikhail Khomitzer. Mr. Katz received his Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory as a student of Laurence Lesser and his Master of Music from the Juilliard School where he studied with Joel Krosnick. He has completed a Doctor of Music degree at SUNY Stony Brook as a student of Colin Carr. 

SPENCER MYER, PIANO
Lauded for "superb playing" and "poised, alert musicianship" by the Boston Globe, and labeled "definitely a man to watch" by London's The Independent, American pianist SPENCER MYER is one of the most respected and sought-after artists on today's concert stage.

Spencer Myer’s orchestral, recital and chamber music performances have been heard throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa and Asia. He has been soloist with, among many others, The Cleveland Orchestra, Boise, Dayton, Evansville, Louisiana and Rhode Island philharmonic orchestras, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the Altoona, Baton Rouge, Bozeman, Canton, Chattanooga, Duluth Superior, Flagstaff, Grand Junction, Indianapolis, Juneau, Knoxville, Longmont, Macon, Missoula, New Haven, Phoenix, Ridgefield, San Juan, Santa Fe, Springfield (MA, MO, OH), Traverse, Tucson and Wyoming symphony orchestras, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Ohio’s ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, New York City’s The Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, Mexico’s Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco, South Africa’s Cape Town and Johannesburg philharmonic orchestras and Beijing’s China National Symphony Orchestra, collaborating with, among others, conductors David Bernard, Nicholas Cleobury, Kayoko Dan, David Danzmayr, Robert Franz, Neal Gittleman, Bernhard Gueller, Jacques Lacombe, Jahja Ling, Dirk Meyer, Elliot Moore, Timothy Muffitt, Maurice Peress, Kyle Wiley Pickett, Arthur Post, Kevin Rhodes, Lucas Richman, Matthew Savery, Alfred Savia, Klauspeter Seibel, Steven Smith, Gerald Steichen, Arjan Tien, Peter Stafford Wilson and Victor Yampolsky. His 2005 recital/orchestral tour of South Africa included a performance of the five piano concerti of Beethoven with the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa, followed by six return orchestra and recital tours.

Spencer Myer's recital appearances have been presented in New York City's Weill Recital Hall, 92nd Street Y and Steinway Hall, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center and London’s Wigmore Hall, while many of his performances have been broadcast on WQXR (New York City), WHYY (Philadelphia), WCLV (Cleveland) and WFMT (Chicago). An in-demand chamber musician, he has appeared multiple summers at the Lev Aronson Legacy Festival with cellists Lynn Harrell, Ralph Kirshbaum, Amit Peled, Tom Landschoot and Brian Thornton, and has enjoyed a recurring partnership for over a decade with the Miami String Quartet at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival. Other artistic partners include clarinetist David Shifrin, sopranos Nicole Cabell, Martha Guth and Erin Wall, the Jupiter and Pacifica string quartets and the Dorian Wind Quintet.

Spencer Myer's career was launched with three important prizes: First Prize in the 2004 UNISA International Piano Competition in South Africa, the 2006 Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship from the American Pianists Association and the Gold Medal from the 2008 New Orleans International Piano Competition. He is also a laureate of the 2007 William Kapell, 2005 Cleveland and 2005 Busoni international piano competitions. He enjoys an esteemed reputation as a vocal collaborator since winning the 2000 Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition. Mr. Myer was a member of Astral Artists' performance roster from 2003-2010.

A renowned pedagogue, Spencer Myer is currently Associate Professor of Piano at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Previously, has served as a guest faculty at the Oberlin and Baldwin-Wallace Conservatories of Music, and was a member of the piano faculty at Boston's Longy School of Music of Bard College from 2016 to 2022.

Spencer Myer's debut CD for harmonia mundi usa - solo music of Busoni, Copland, Debussy and Kohs - was released in the fall of 2007 to critical acclaim by Fanfare and Gramophone magazines. He can also be heard on a composer-conducted Naxos CD in performances of three concerti from Huang Ruo's Chamber Concerto Cycle and in a performance of Ravel's Chansons madecasses, included on "Intimate Masterpieces," a 2013 CD featuring faculty and alumni of the Oberlin Conservatory and issued by Oberlin Music. Since 2017, Mr. Myer has released four recordings on the Steinway & Sons label: Piano Rags of William Bolcom, and three discs with cellist Brian Thornton encompassing repertoire of Brahms, Debussy and Schumann. In the Fall of 2022, Steinway Classics released “Chopin: The Four Impromptus”; the album is available worldwide through all download and streaming services.

Spencer Myer is a Steinway Artist.

DANBI UM, VIOLIN
Praised by The Strad as an “utterly dazzling” artist, with “a marvelous show of superb technique” and “mesmerizing grace” (New York Classical Review), violinist Danbi Um captivates audiences with her virtuosity, individual sound, and interpretive sensitivity. A Menuhin International Violin Competition Silver Medalist and winner of the prestigious 2018 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, she showcases her artistry in concertos, solo recitals, and in collaboration with distinguished chamber musicians. 


Ms.Um's recent and upcoming engagements include appearances with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (Kimmel Center) and her Washington D.C.'s recital debut at the Phillips Collection. This season will also see Ms. Um's return to the Rockport, Moab, Saratoga Performing Arts (SPAC), Santa Fe, and North Shore Music Festivals, as well as her debuts at Mostly Music, Newburyport, La Musica (Sarasota), and Chelsea Music Festivals. In addition, Ms. Um returns to the Perlman Music Program in Shelter Island this summer for a recital evening as part of the Stires-Stark Recital Series. 

An avid chamber musician, Ms. Um debuts this season with the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music San Francisco, and returns to the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for both national and international tours. She also embarks on a duo recital tour with guitarist Jiji in Delaware, Houston, New York, and Nova Scotia. Ms. Um's chamber music collaborators have included Anthony Marwood, Vadim Gluzman, Pamela Frank, Cho-Liang Lin, Paul Neubauer, Frans Helmerson, David Finckel, David Shifrin, Wu Han, and Gilbert Kalish.  A recording artist for Avie Records, Ms.Um's debut album, Much Ado: Romantic Violin Masterworks, will be released worldwide in fall of 2023. 

In 2018, Ms. Um made her New York recital debut at Lincoln Center presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. After winning the 2014 Music Academy of the West Competition, Ms. Um made her concerto debut in the Walton Violin Concerto with the Festival Orchestra, conducted by Joshua Weilerstein. Past concerto engagements include appearances with the Israel Symphony, Auckland Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony, and the Dartmouth Symphony. She also recently appeared in recital and in chamber music performances in such venues as the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Harris Theatre in Chicago, Wigmore Hall in London, and at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Born in 1990 in Seoul, South Korea, Ms. Um began violin lessons at the age of three. In the year 2000, she moved to the United States to study at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree. She also holds an Artist Diploma from Indiana University. Her teachers have included Shmuel Ashkenasi, Joseph Silverstein, Jaime Laredo, and Hagai Shaham.Ms. Um is a winner of Astral Artists’ National Auditions. She plays a 1683 “ex-Petschek” Nicolo Amati violin, on loan from a private collection.