Our Artists in the 2025-26 Concert Season

Craig Combs

Pianist, Craig W. Combs, performs chamber music with like-minded artists who agree that great music is a reflection of the human condition. In his forty years as a performer, Dr. Combs has appeared in hundreds of performances in a wide array of venues and repertoire. His stage appearances include Merkin Hall, CAMI Hall, the Kennedy Center as well as Yale, Cornell, and Stanford Universities. From 2004-2017, Combs lived in London pursuing a chamber music career performing in Ireland, Scotland, England, Spain, Lithuania and France. Reviews of his playing comment on “. . . the exceptional pianism of Craig Combs” and that “No praise is too high for his contribution.”

Combs trained at the Eastman School of Music where he earned his masters and doctorate in piano performance and literature. Early in his career, he taught at Shenandoah Conservatory of Music and George Mason University. In the mid 90’s, he was a visiting artist at several NYC community music schools - Turtle Bay, Third Street Settlement as well as the PS 7 Elementary School in the Bronx. Additionally, he worked in arts administration at the New York Foundation for the Arts and Chamber Music America.

In 2021, he co-founded and co-directs Red Door Chamber Music, a community ensemble dedicated to bringing chamber music to Provincetown and the communities of the Outer Cape. He is a member of the Provincetown Cultural Council and the Advisory Council of Great Music on Sundays at 5. In addition, Craig is the founder and Emeritus Director of The Paramount Chamber Players, an ensemble in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. In 2007, he released the CD, Forbidden Voices: Songs by Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis with soprano, Judith Sheridan.

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Jeff Thurston

a graduate of Indiana University School of Music, has been an active free-lance violinist in the DC metro area since 1994. As an orchestral musician, he has performed most frequently with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra and the National Gallery Orchestra. As a theater musician, he is most often heard (if not necessarily seen) at Signature Theatre, where he has had the good fortune to work with several leading composers of musical theater (including John Kander, Michael John La Chiusa, and Joseph Thalken), as well as many distinguished orchestrators (including Jonathan Tunick, Bruce Coughlin, and Josh Clayton). He has also played for productions at several other theaters in the area, including Arena Stage, Ford’s Theater, and The Shakespeare Theater.

By day he pushes numbers around in the Finance Department at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Tyler Michael James

Lauded as performing “like a gladiator” and with a “phenomenal color palette” (Radda), cellist Tyler Michael James stands out as an ebullient artist of his generation. He is a top prize winner at the Radda International String Competition and regularly performs as an international soloist and chamber musician. A champion of new music, Tyler just released the official recording of Jessie Montgomery’s “Loisaida, My Love” on the Monday Music Label. He is currently assistant Faculty of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Cello Workshop. For more details: https://www.tylermichaeljames.net/

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Thomas Lee Cooper

“… Thomas Lee Cooper took up the tune and suspended time with his absolute conviction and glimmering silver thread of tone.” - Lee Eiseman, The Boston Musical Intelligencer

American violinist Thomas Lee Cooper’s passion for music and the violin began at an early age, studying piano with his mother alongside his sister, before subsequently taking up the violin. Since then, Cooper has performed in several countries across continents, including Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. He is an active soloist and chamber musician, performing with the Colorado College Festival Orchestra, the Coeur D’Alene Symphony Orchestra, the Credo Baroque Orchestra, the Bar Harbor Music Festival Orchestra, and the Middlesex Chamber Orchestra among others. Cooper is concertmaster of the Du Bois Orchestra, and has appeared as concertmaster with the Boston Chamber Symphony and the Apollo Ensemble of Boston.

Cooper is a laureate of several prizes and competitions, such as the Naftzger, Washington, and Coeur D’Alene Competitions and most recently the Cremona International String Competition in July 2019, at which he received the First Prize.

As a chamber musician, Cooper has had the fortune of sharing the stage with such groups and individuals as the Oberlin Trio, the Jupiter String Quartet, David Bowlin, Amir Eldan, and Evgeny Sinaiski. He is a founding member of the Tristan Trio, alongside pianist Aljoša Jurinić, and cellist Tyler James.

With a love of conductor-less ensemble playing, Cooper has appeared as a guest musician with many of the finest chamber orchestras in the country, including the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and A Far Cry. He has spent his summers performing at Keshet Eilon in Israel, the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, Nagold Sommermusik in Bavaria and Festival Orford Musique in Quebec. In the 2024 - 2025 season, Cooper appears regularly in concert as a soloist and chamber musician, with engagements to include appearances at the Bar Harbor Music Festival, Red Door Chamber Music, Museo Stradivari in Cremona, and Scena Amadeo in Zagreb.

A native of the Boston area, Cooper received his early training from the late Hungarian violinist and musicologist, Stephen Erdely. He received his formal training through scholarships at the New England Conservatory and Oberlin Conservatory. Cooper performs on a 1751 Gennaro Gagliano violin on generous loan from a private collection.

Aljoša Jurinić

Hailed as “a startlingly subtle and visionary pianist” with “a rare blend of charm and mastery”, Croatian pianist Aljoša Jurinić [al-yo-sha YOO-ri-nich] has established himself as a laureate of the world's most prestigious piano competitions. Following his win at the 2012 International Robert Schumann Competition in the composer’s hometown of Zwickau, he was a laureate at the 2016 Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition and the 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition, as well as a finalist at the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw.

Aljoša has appeared as a soloist and with orchestras at prominent venues in around 40 countries across five continents, including New York's Carnegie Hall, Wiener Musikverein, Salle Cortot in Paris, Gasteig in Munich, Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Osaka Symphony Hall, La Sala Verdi in Milan, BOZAR in Brussels, Lisinski Concert Hall in Zagreb, and many others. Further highlights include a 35-day solo recital tour across China and five sold-out performances in a row of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in Croatia.

His music is featured on six albums, including three solo releases: Chopin Alive (CristoforiumArt, 2016), Correspondances (KNS Classical, 2020), and Chopin: Sonatas No. 2 and No. 3 (Longplay Classical, 2025). A sought-after chamber musician, Aljoša has collaborated with world-renowned musicians such as Kian Soltani (cello), Luka Šulić (cello), Petrit Çeku (guitar), and Krešimir Stražanac (bass-baritone), to name a few. In 2019, the president of Croatia awarded him the Order of the Morning Star for outstanding achievements in culture and the international promotion of his country.

Aljoša holds a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree from the University of Toronto and a Konzertexamen from the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar. His artistic development has been shaped by renowned pianists and pedagogues across Croatia, Austria, Italy, Germany, and Canada. Currently based in Boston, USA, he is a Visiting Artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Immersion Lab, where he collaborates on research projects investigating the biomechanics of piano playing.