The Saint Paul Conservatory of Music and the Friends of the SPCO are honored to have these nationally acclaim chamber music professionals serve as our Preliminary Judges and Final Competition Judges! Preliminary Judges will judge all video submissions due on January 20, 2023 while Final Competition Judges will judge finalists on February 25, 2023 and determine the winners of the Saint Paul Chamber Music Competition.

Preliminary Judges

Karla Donehew Perez

A founding member of the Catalyst Quartet, Karla Donehew Perez maintains a busy performance schedule throughout the United States and around the world. Born in Puerto Rico, Donehew Perez began playing the violin at age three and made her solo debut with the Puerto Rico Symphony at 9 years old. At age 12, her family moved to California where she continued her studies with Anne Crowden, director and founder of The Crowden School.

Donehew Perez completed her bachelors and masters degrees at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying performance with the heralded violin teachers Paul Kantor, David Cerone, and William Preucil. She has performed as featured soloist with the Berkeley Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, Sphinx Chamber Orchestra, and the New World Symphony among others. As a chamber musician, she has performed with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and collaborated with artists such as Joshua Bell, Zuill Bailey, Awadagin Pratt, Anthony McGill, Stewart Goodyear, Fredericka Von Stade, Garry Karr, and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Takács quartets. Donehew Perez has been guest concertmaster at the Tucson Symphony and spent two years as a fellow at the New World Symphony, where she was often concertmaster or principal second violin.

Donehew Perez performs on a violin made in 2013 by renowned German luthier Stefan Peter Greiner, supported in part by a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant, and a fine violin bow by Victor Fetique on generous loan from the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation.

Adrian Morejon

Praised for his "teeming energy" and "precise control" by the New York Times and having "every note varnished to a high gloss" by the Boston Globe, New York-based bassoonist Adrian Morejon has established himself as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician.

As a soloist, Morejon has appeared in New York, Boston, Vienna, Prague, Memphis, and Miami with the Talea Ensemble, IRIS Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), and the Miami Symphony. Morejon will be featured in recordings of Harold Meltzer's Full Faith and Credit, double concerto for two bassoons and string orchestra, and Joan Tower's Bassoon Concerto, Red Maple, to be released by BMOP/Sound.

An active chamber musician, Morejon is a member of the Dorian Wind Quintet, Talea Ensemble, and Radius Ensemble. He has appeared with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Imani Winds, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, Slee Sinfonietta, and the Sinfonietta of Riverdale, and as a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Boston Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Essex Winter Series.

An experienced orchestral musician, Morejon is co-principal of IRIS Orchestra (now the IRIS Collective) and has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, The Knights, and others.

Morejon was a recipient of Theodore Presser Foundation Grant, 2nd prize of the Fox-Gillet International Competition, and a shared top prize at the Moscow Conservatory International Competition. During the past summers, he has participated in many festivals, including the Composer's Conference at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Sebago-Long Lake Music Festival, Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music Summer Music Festival, Bay Chamber Concerts, the Portland Chamber Music Festival, and the Monadnock Music Festival.Morejon completed graduate studies at the Yale School of Music while studying with Frank Morelli. Prior to this, Morejon studied bassoon with Bernard Garfield and harpsichord with Lionel Party at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Morejon is currently on faculty at SUNY Purchase College Conservatory of Music, CUNY Brooklyn College and CUNY Hunter College.

Gareth Zehngut

Violist Gareth Zehngut joins The Cleveland Orchestra after previously serving as a member of the Minnesota Orchestra and San Diego Symphony viola sections. In the Twin Cities, Mr. Zehngut was principal violist of the Minnesota Bach Ensemble, with whom he also appeared as soloist. He was a member of The Musical Offering, performed regularly on the Minnesota Orchestra chamber music series as well as with The Isles Ensemble and Music on the Hill.

Mr. Zehngut has served as guest principal violist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and during summers, acts as principal viola for the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra. Other festival appearances include the Sun Valley Music Festival, Mainly Mozart, Festival Mozaic, La Jolla SummerFest and the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival. He has also performed and taught at the Campanile Music Festival and Luzerne Music Center.

A native of Pennsylvania, Mr. Zehngut earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School. His teachers include Heidi Castleman, Hsin-Yun Huang, Misha Amory, Steven Tenenbom, Jeffrey Irvine and Melinda Daetsch.

Final Competition Judges

Richard Belcher

New Zealand cellist Richard Belcher joined the SPCO in 2019 after a twenty year career as founding cellist of the Grammy-nominated Enso String Quartet. With the quartet he earned highly critical accolades from recording and concertizing in many of the world’s major concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Kennedy Center in the United States, as well as abroad in Europe, South America, Australia and New Zealand.

Richard is the Artistic Director of Music on the Hill in Mankato, Minnesota, and since 2008 has been Principal Cellist of River Oaks Chamber Orchestra in Houston, Texas. He has taught and performed at many festivals including St. Bart’s, Festival d’Aix en Provence, Prussia Cove, Madeline Island, Campos do Jordao International Winter Festival, SummerFest La Jolla, and the San Miguel de Allende International Chamber Music Festival.

In demand as a teacher and chamber music coach, Richard has previously served as Adjunct Faculty at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and has given numerous masterclasses around the world.

Richard moved to the United States in 1998 to study with Aldo Parisot at Yale University, and it was while there that he founded the Enso String Quartet. Richard’s other principal teachers include Norman Fischer, Marc Johnson, and Alexander Ivashkin. He plays an N.F. Vuillaume cello made in 1856, and is married to Cecilia Belcher, Assistant Principal 2nd Violin of the Minnesota Orchestra.

Julia Bogorad-Kogan

The New York Times called Julia Bogorad-Kogan "a wonderful flutist — her playing is graceful,virtuosic, and always full of interest." Grammy award-winning flutist Bogorad-Kogan, who became the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's principal flutist at the age of 22, combines an orchestral career with regular recital and solo performances. She has performed worldwide, including at New York's Merkin Concert Hall, the Schubertsaal of the Vienna Konzerthaus, Washington, D.C.’s Phillips Collection, in San Jose, Costa Rica and Xiamen, China. A frequent soloist with the SPCO, she also performed the Mozart Concerto in G with the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, where she is principal flutist. She has appeared on numerous Saint Paul Sunday radio shows, on Performance Today, and at the Marlboro and Ravinia festivals. Bogorad-Kogan has served as guest principal flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, the National Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra. She serves on the faculty of the University of Minnesota, and was an interim faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory and at the University of Michigan. Her two latest CDs, on the Full Harmonic label, are “Flute Music of the Paris Conservatory” and “Handel Flute Sonatas,” the latter of which Flute Talk magazine wrote, "Were you to have only one Baroque CD, it should be this one." Her husband, Peter Kogan, is a jazz drummer, composer and designer of baroque and classical-era timpani. Bogorad-Kogan is a student of ballet. Bogorad-Kogan attended Oberlin Conservatory, Indiana University and Yale University, and studied with Marcel Moyse, Robert Willoughby, James Pellerite and Thomas Nyfenger.

Sarah Grimes

Violinist Sarah Grimes joined the Minnesota Orchestra in 2016, where she is a member of the first violin section. Before her appointment in the Minnesota Orchestra, she performed as a full-time guest musician with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra from 2015-16, and as a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in 2014.

Raised in the Twin Cities, Grimes began studying the violin at the age of four. She received a bachelor of music degree from the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, where she was concertmaster of the Symphony Orchestra, and worked as a freelance musician in the greater Chicago area.

Grimes appeared as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra in 2005 and 2010 and with the Minnesota Sinfonia in 2012, and now performs annually as a soloist with the Mississippi Valley Orchestra, where she currently serves as concertmaster. An active chamber musician in the Twin Cities, she has recently been featured in the Minnesota Orchestra Chamber Series, Liquid Music Series, the SPCO Chamber Music Series, Outpost, Bakken Trio, The Musical Offering, and at festivals around the world including Kneisel Hall Chamber Music, Chamber Music Festival of the Black Hills, Lakes Area Music Festival and Astona International.

Her principal teachers include Sarah Kwak and Almita Vamos.

2023 Saint Paul Chamber Music Competition Judges