Comprised of the eclectic instrumentation of flute, cello and piano, the Sylvan Trio explores new music as well as pieces from the standard repertoire.

The group has performed throughout the Midwest, including concerts in Chicago, Cincinnati, Duluth, St. Louis, Toledo, and at Purdue University. Their studio and live recordings receive airplay throughout the U.S. and beyond, including multiple appearances on Performance Today (the nation’s most listened-to classical music program).

Adventurous and creative, the Sylvans will often adapt works from the traditional piano trio literature and other repertoire, breathing new vitality into pieces across the art-music spectrum from Purcell to Piazzolla.

The Sylvans are known for dynamic, engaging performances that blur the line between stage and audience by incorporating discussion, talk-back sessions, and demonstrations. They are enthusiastic presenters of new works, and eager collaborators with composers, presenters, educators, other musicians, and artists of all kinds.

The Trio is dedicated to making a positive impact through the power of musical outreach and education. They offer educational programming and engagement in the form of masterclasses, workshops, clinics, and lecture-demonstrations. The Sylvan Trio has performed and presented at universities, secondary schools, community music schools, performing arts centers, libraries, churches, nightclubs, and on live radio broadcasts.

The Sylvans recorded the eponymous piece on the 2018 album, Seasonal Breezes: Five Chamber Works by Rick Sowash. Sowash composed “Seasonal Breezes” for the Trio, a four-movement work depicting the seasons and inspired by poetry and song.

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Suzanne Bona, flute

Flutist Suzanne Bona is a native of Fairfield, CT. Her first private flute teacher, John McNeur, nurtured her growing interest and talent, eventually sending her to study in New York with Harold Bennett (Metropolitan Opera) and Andrew Lolya (NY City Ballet). After earning a Bachelor of Music at The University of Connecticut, where she studied with Martin Orenstein, Suzanne also pursued private studies with Thomas Nyfenger at Yale. She has performed with ensembles and as a soloist throughout Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. In November 2013, Suzanne and pianist Greg Kostraba gave the US premiere of the Sonata for Flute and Piano op.23 by British composer Ian Venables, and in March 2012 she was the soloist with the Guam Symphony in Tumon. She has also collaborated with pianists Sandra Rivers and Michael Chertock, and guitarist Richard Goering, with whom she performed on the 2014 CD Queen City Bach. Suzanne and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra members Rebecca Kruger Fryxell (violin), Stephen Fryxell (viola) and Susan Marshall Petersen (cello) will perform together on Radio Mozart, which will be released in spring 2015.

Suzanne is also host and executive producer of Sunday Baroque, a syndicated radio program of baroque and early music. Originated in 1987 by Suzanne and distributed nationally since 1998, Sunday Baroque is heard every week on approximately 160 radio stations and networks across the United States.

For more information visit the Sunday Baroque website: http://www.sundaybaroque.org/

Josh Aerie, cello

Josh Aerie is a cellist, symphonic conductor, music educator and arts advocate. Josh’s career highlights span a wide array of credits and accomplishments, including major-label recordings heard throughout the country, nationally syndicated television appearances, premier performances as both conductor and cellist, numerous awards and appointments to leadership positions in the arts.

As a cellist, Josh has performed throughout the country as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician. He is a founding member of the Sylvan Trio and the Gichigami Piano Trio. He has numerous recording credits, including on the United Artists, Innova, and Vitamin Records labels, and on film soundtracks. He has appeared on nationally syndicated television programs and national tours at venues such as the Kennedy Center, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Tanglewood, Strathmore Hall, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian museums. He is currently working with Cincinnati composer Rick Sowash to record an album of new music featuring the cello.

Josh is Music Director with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra in Columbus, Indiana. The CSO is the state’s oldest symphony, and Josh is honored to be the fifth Music Director in its nearly 100-year legacy. In addition, Josh frequently guest-conducts throughout the Midwest. Recent appearances as guest conductor include with the Elkhart Symphony, the University of Chicago Chamber Orchestra, the Notre Dame Symphony, Notre Dame Collegium Musicum and Third Coast Percussion.

Recently, Josh served as mentor for the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association, taught Advanced Conducting at Saint Mary’s College, was Music Director of the Hyde Park Youth Symphony in Chicago and Artistic Director of the Elkhart County Youth Honors Orchestra program at Goshen College.

In addition to performing and conducting, Josh is currently Executive Director of The Music Village, a community musical arts center and school. TMV celebrates music and cultural expressions rooted in the traditions of diverse local and global communities in the heart of downtown South Bend, Indiana.

In 2013, Josh relocated to South Bend from Duluth, Minnesota where he served on the music faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, the College of St. Scholastica, and Mesabi Range College. Previously, he was Artistic Director and Conductor of the Mesabi Symphony Orchestra, the Heartland Symphony Orchestra, the Red Cedar Symphony Orchestra, and the Duluth Community Orchestra. In 2010 he co-founded the North Shore Philharmonic, a summer festival orchestra, and in 2007 he founded the Woodland Chamber Music Workshop, an annual immersive opportunity for adult musicians of all abilities.

An outspoken proponent for music and arts in education and the community, Josh served as Chair of the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council Board of Directors and was Advisor to the Minnesota State Arts Board. In 2010 he was awarded a McKnight/ARAC Artist Fellowship Grant, and in 2009 he was selected as a Twenty Under 40 Award recipient in the Duluth News Tribune’s annual recognition of 20 community leaders under the age of forty. Similarly, in 2016 Josh was selected as a Forty Under 40 Award recipient in St. Joseph County, Indiana.

Josh received his Master of Music degree in Cello Performance from the University of Colorado where he was the cellist in the Graduate String Quartet, a fellowship program with the Grammy Award-winning Takacs Quartet. Josh completed his undergraduate work at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Oberlin College where he received both a Bachelor of Music in Cello Performance and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Anthropology.

For more information visit Josh’s website, http://www.cellistry.com

Greg Kostraba, piano

Greg Kostraba has successfully combined a career as a radio professional and concert pianist. At the Fourth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, Greg's performances were called “mesmerizing” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram) and “boldly hewn” (Dallas Morning News), and garnered him semifinalist status. He has also been featured twice on Performance Today, performing with violinist Paul Woodiel in their arrangement of Bix Beiderbecke’s In a Mist and with the Toledo Symphony, Chelsea Tipton II conducting, in Kaintuck’ by William Grant Still.

Currently Content Director at WBAA Public Radio from Purdue University, Greg Kostraba previously served as Classical Music Director and Senior Radio Host at WGTE Public Media in Toledo, where he received the 2007 Ohio Public Broadcasting Award for “Radio Producer of the Year” for the monthly in-studio performance program Live From FM 91, and produced nationally-distributed specials celebrating the lives and music of composers William Grant Still and Samuel Adler. He has also worked at KRPS in Pittsburg, Kansas and at WGUC in Cincinnati.

Greg has performed throughout the Midwest, including appearances with orchestras in Ohio (Toledo, Lima, Perrysburg, and University of Toledo Symphonies) and Indiana (Lafayette and Purdue Symphonies) Orchestras, as well as the Lafayette Master Chorale and the Monroe County (MI) Community College Band. He has given solo piano and chamber music performances at Chicago’s Blackstone Library, the William Grant Still Festival, the New Harmony Music Festival and School, Oakland University, Bowling Green State University, Wabash College, St. Joseph's College, Owens Community College, Adrian College, St. Roch (MI) Chamber Music Festival, Great Gallery of the Toledo Museum of Art, and three times on the Performing Arts Series at Firelands.

A performer of and advocate for chamber music, Greg founded and served as President & Artistic Director of the Tippecanoe Chamber Music Society and Chamber Music Toledo. He has also performed with the Sylvan Trio, Trio Quelque Chose, Tecumseh Trio and Trio Coronado, and can be heard on Kickshaw Records, Cambria Music, and the Rick Sowash Publishing Company.

Highlights of Greg’s 2018-2019 season include the release of a new album, Seasonal Breezes, with cellist Josh Aerie and the Sylvan Trio on the Rick Sowash Publishing Company label, the American premiere of Carnival 2 by Peter White with duo-pianist Owen Hartnett and the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra, performances of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Columbus (IN) Symphony and Traveler by David Maslanka with the Purdue Wind Symphony in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, a program with Josh Aerie and violinist Jinty McTavish on the Tippecanoe Chamber Music Society series, and hosting - and performing on - live radio broadcasts of the New Harmony Music Festival and School, distributed nationwide.

Dr. Kostraba holds masters and doctoral degrees in piano performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and a degree in international relations from American University in Washington, D. C. He has studied piano and chamber music with Dorothy Bolognini, Alan Mandel, Richard Morris, Sandra Rivers and Richard Fields, and participated in master classes with pianists Eugene Istomin, Michael Brown, and Ilya Friedberg as well as members of the La Salle, Audubon, and Tokyo String Quartets.

For more information visit Greg’s website, http://www.gregkostraba.wordpress.com/

sylvantrio@gmail.com