Boston Metrowest
About the Artists
2024
Ronald Lowry
Ronald Lowry is an active performer in many of Boston’s leading musical organizations. Called a “superb cellist” by the Boston Globe’s Richard Dyer, he is the principal cellist of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra and the Boston Ballet Orchestra. Former principal cellist of the National Symphony of Costa Rica, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Harvard Chamber Orchestra, Mr. Lowry performs frequently with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and with the Boston Pops. As a soloist, he has been featured with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra and the Boston Ballet Orchestra on several occasions as well as the Concert Arts Orchestra of Boston, the National Symphony of Costa Rica, the New England Symphony Orchestra, and several other orchestras in the greater Boston area. He has presented recitals in Jordan Hall, the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, the Worcester Museum of Art, on WGBH radio in Boston, and throughout the New England region. Mr. Lowry is heard frequently as a chamber musician. He has been a guest artist with the Boston Chamber Music Society, the Muir String Quartet, the Boston University Faculty Artists, and the First Monday concerts at the New England Conservatory. Mr. Lowry is currently the Artistic Director for the Needham Concert Society. He has premiered numerous compositions with contemporary ensembles such as Collage, Griffin Ensemble, NuClassix, Composers in Red Sneakers and with the Boston Musica Viva, with whom he was the cellist from 1990 until 2004. He is on the faculties of the New England Conservatory Extension Division, The Walnut Hill School for the Arts, and the Rivers School Conservatory. Mr. Lowry graduated with Honors from Indiana University and the New England Conservatory. His teachers include Janos Starker, Lawrence Lesser, Aldo Parisot, Ronald Leonard, Gabor Rejto, and Rodney Farrar.
Zenas Hsu
Zenas Hsu, violin, received early instruction at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and earned the Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and Master of Music and Graduate Diploma degrees from New England Conservatory. He is a founding member of Chamber Music by the Bay, a California-based interactive music series. In Boston, Mr. Hsu is a member of the Grammy-nominated orchestra A Far Cry, and he serves as concertmaster of Phoenix, a Boston orchestra that focuses on approachable concert experiences. He is a frequent guest artist of Bard Music West and the Wellesley Chamber Players and guest concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
Cara Pogossian
Armenian-American violist Cara Pogossian is an avid chamber musician having attended numerous summer festivals, including the Marlboro Festival, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, and Taos School of Music. In 2022, Cara was the winner of the Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award, and, more recently, her quartet was selected as a 2022-2023 Honors Ensemble at the New England Conservatory. She has also toured with the Curtis Institute on multiple occasions, performing Schubert’s Cello Quintet, as well as with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra as Principal Viola. Cara has had the privilege of collaborating and performing with many of the leading figures in classical music, such as Don Weilerstein, Ida Kavafian, Joseph Lin, Marcy Rosen, Peter Wiley, Daniel Phillips, Kim Kashkashian, and the Borromeo String Quartet.
Cara is the newly-appointed Principal Violist of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared as a guest artist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Boston Pops Orchestra. As an AGBU (Armenian General Benevolent Union) Scholarship recipient, she has performed at several high-profile concerts, including a joint recital with her brother, Edvard, at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Cara is lucky enough to have an entire family of musicians, with whom she frequently performs. During the pandemic, thePogossian/Manouelian Clarinet Quintet collaborated with composers Timo Andres, Ian Krouse, Artashes Kartalyan, and Aida Shirazi, premiering each of their works in a series of online concerts. Cara is a recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Hsin-Yun Huang and Misha Amory, and is currently continuing her graduate studies with Kim Kashkashian at the New England Conservatory of Music.
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Malcolm Barsamian
Mal Barsamian’s musical career began when he was four years old playing the dumbeg (hand drum) with his father, Leo Barsamian, at an Armenian picnic. Barsamian comes from a family of oud (lute) players across multiple generations.
He has gone on to become a sought-after oud player and clarinetist as well as on other instruments such as dumbeg guitar, bouzouki, and saxophone in Armenian, Greek, and Middle Eastern communities for over 35 years throughout the country. He performed with the late Esber Korporcu, an important figure in Boston’s Middle Eastern music community, and has also appeared with Mehmet Sanlikol’s Dünya organization.
Barsamian is a specialist in music written by Armenian composers active in Istanbul during the later years of the Ottoman Empire. Also trained as a classical guitarist, he obtained his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in classical guitar performance, studying with Robert Sullivan at NEC. Barsamian is also on the applied faculty at Tufts University's World Music Department teaching oud and clarinet.
B.M., M.M. in guitar, New England Conservatory.