Ursus String Camp

Wesley Baldwin, Director

Cellist Wesley Baldwin holds degrees from Yale College, the New England Conservatory, and the University of Maryland. He performs throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician. As a soloist with orchestra he has recently appeared with the Laredo Philharmonic, the Oregon Mozart Players, the Symphony of the Mountains, and the Aberdeen, Bemidji, Bryan, Chattanooga, Florence, Germantown, Johnson City, Hot Springs, Knoxville, La Porte, Oak Ridge, Manchester, New River Valley, Salisbury, Wintergreen, and Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestras, among others. His passionate and charismatic performances have been widely lauded.

An advocate for great music from all eras, Mr. Baldwin is one of the only performers of several little known and new concerti for cello, including recently those by Sollima, Wagenseil, Jacob T.V., Behzad Ranjbaran, and Alan Shulman. His recording of music for cello by Alan Shulman, released by Albany records, enjoyed widespread critical acclaim. He has also recorded for the Naxos, Zyode, and Innova labels. His most recent CD release, his fourth on the Centaur label, features the chamber music of Arthur Honegger.

Matt Lammers, Violin

Violinist Matt Lammers earned his DMA at Rice University, where he was the Itzhak Perlman Fellow. He is on the violin faculty for both the collegiate and preparatory programs at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice, and is a coach, founder, and director of the Opus 1 Chamber Music School. During summers, he teaches privately and coaches chamber music at the Stringwood Chamber Music Festival. His teachers include Paul Kantor, Carolyn Huebl, Christian Teal, and Ray Shows.
Lammers is the newly appointed First Violinist of the Axiom Quartet. He also appears regularly with the Houston Trio, Kinetic Ensemble, Da Camera of Houston, Music in CONTEXT, Ventana Ballet, the Mercury Chamber Orchestra, Musiqa New Music Ensemble, and as a founding member of Austin Camerata. Active orchestrally, he is a substitute with the Minnesota Orchestra and was a Concertmaster of Rice University’s Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, where he led the Chamber Orchestra in its first unconducted symphonic performance.

Read more about Lammers on his website.

William Shaub, Violin

Violinist William Shaub was appointed Concertmaster of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra in May of 2017. Since his concerto debut with the Canton Symphony Orchestra at age 12, he has captivated audiences as a soloist, in recitals, and from the concertmaster chair. The winner of an inaugural Academy Fellowship with the New York Philharmonic and a graduate of the Juilliard School, he has been praised in the press as “a wonderful ambassador for music” (Cleveland Classical) and for performances “full of passion and energy, exquisitely rendered with refined details that escape one in recordings.” He made his recital debut in New York as one of ten “Exceptional Young Artists” at the 2013 Starling-DeLay Symposium at Juilliard.

In demand around the world as an orchestral leader, William Shaub has served as Guest Concertmaster of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Norwegian Arctic Philharmonic, the Phoenix Symphony, and as concertmaster of renowned festival orchestras, including Spoleto and the Music Academy of the West. In 2023, he served an extended period as Guest Concertmaster of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, leading the NZSO on tours in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. He has worked with many of the world’s most important conductors, with notable performances under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, Alan Gilbert, Xian Zhang, and Nicholas Collon. Read more about Shaub on his website.

Damian Kremer, Cello

Cellist Damian Kremer has been with the Charleston Symphony since 1997. A native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has performed throughout the world as a soloist and as a chamber and orchestral musician. Mr. Kremer studied cello at Michigan State University, Western Illinois University, and Boston University, and spent many summers at the Meadowmount Summer School of Music. His primary cello instructors include Owen Carman, Tanya Carey, and Leslie Parnas.

He has served as principal cellist of several orchestras, including the Chautauqua Music Festival Orchestra and the Lansing Symphony, and for three years played with the New World Symphony Orchestra. He has also been a member of the Metropolitan Orchestra of Lisbon, Portugal, where he was the cellist of the Fidelio String Quartet of Portugal. Kremer also served as cellist in the Honolulu and the Savannah Symphony Orchestras, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, and is currently with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. He also served for several years as adjunct music faculty at the College of Charleston. He now teaches cello privately at home, where he and his wife, CSO violinist Asako Kremer, are raising their three children. Kremer and his wife comprise the Kremer Duo, which performs recitals frequently in Japan, where the Kremer family enjoys much of their summer vacation time. Read more about Kremer on his website.

Kathryn Dey, Viola

Violist Kathryn Dey holds degrees in viola performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison the Eastman School of Music, where she served as teaching assistant to John Graham. Known for her innovative musicianship and her commitment to using music as a tool for social justice, Ms. Dey has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe and the Caribbean, as well as in such diverse venues as outdoor Haitian community centers, German prisons, and her own front yard. As a Surdna Foundation Fellow, Ms. Dey was awarded a grant to study and perform works for unaccompanied viola by Lillian Fuchs. She is an active supporter of the nonprofit BLUMEHaiti organization, and in addition to collecting over 3000 instruments for that organization, has been a instructor and mentor to countless Haitian musicians through workshops and residencies in that country.

With a unique emphasis on the interdisciplinary connections between music, creative writing and acting, Ms. Dey’s teaching has been recognized by Strings Magazine, the American String Teachers Association, the American Viola Society and Music Teachers National Association, among others. Students from her studio have been recognized at the state, national and international level and now perform and teach around the world. Ms. Dey regularly presents workshops to teachers and students throughout the United States and was a featured presenter at the 2023 International Viola Congress in Bangkok, Thailand. Ms. Dey is a long-time music faculty member at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities and is a co-founder and co-director of the Eastman Summer Viola Workshop in Rochester, NY.

Eric Wong, Viola

Described as possessing a “tone like toasted caramel” and “amazing” (Musical Toronto), Eric Wong is a member of the Blair String Quartet and assistant professor of viola at the Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. He has appeared on the world’s most iconic stages including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Severance Music Center, Kings Place, Koerner Hall, Roy Thomson Hall, the Banff Centre, and as a featured guest artist at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Wong received both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying violin with Paul Kantor and viola with Kirsten Docter and Lynne Ramsey. He previously served as principal violist of CityMusic Cleveland, Assistant Concertmaster of the Akron Symphony Orchestra, and Associate Concertmaster of the Canton Symphony Orchestra.

He is a frequent guest clinician and lecturer in festivals and institutions of higher learning around the globe that have included Yale University, the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings, American University, Montclair State University, the Royal Academy of Music of Århus, Middlesex University, Tongyeong International Music Festival, and the University of Toronto. During the summer season, he is on faculty artist rosters for Encore Chamber Music Institute’s Summer Academy, Pacific Crest Music Festival, Harpa International Music Academy, and Music at Port Milford and is a frequent guest artist at the Geneva Music Festival, Caroga Lake Music Festival, and Summer Music Vancouver. Read more about Wong on Vanderbilt University’s website.