Michael Kannen, cello (Baltimore, MD), has devoted himself to the art of chamber music for forty years. He was a founding member of Brentano String Quartet and is currently a member of the Cooperstown Quartet. During his years with the Brentano Quartet, they were awarded the first Cleveland Quartet Award, the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, a Royal Philharmonic Award, and was the first participant in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center II. He plays on period instruments as apart of the Houston-based Context, and has performed at most major music festivals in the country. Michael has collaborated with Jessye Norman, Itzhak Perlman, Sergiu Luca, Pamela Frank, Leon Fleisher, Mitsuko Uchida, Paula Robison, and Steven Isserlis, and with jazz artists Michael Formanek and Uri Caine. Michael is Director of Chamber Music at the Peabody Institute where he holds the Sidney Friedberg Chair in Chamber Music. Previous Yellow Barn musician (since 2000)