Adina Vallandingham
Violin

Adina was born in Romania and began her musical education at the Music School for gifted children at age of 6. She travelled and played concerts throughout Europe from age 14. Later, she won a full scholarship to “Gheorghe Dima” Conservatory of Music in Cluj-Napoca, where she studied violin with Professor Maior Valeriu, a student of legendary violinist Leonid Kogan. At 18, she was one of the youngest violinists to win a position with a professional orchestra in Romania. After Conservatory, she moved to the United States where she was accepted as a full scholarship recipient to the Artist Diploma Program at the University of Washington where she served as the concertmaster of the Orchestra.
 
She has been a member of well-established groups such as the Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra, the International Orchestra of Holland, Spokane Symphony, Palm Beach Opera Orchestra, Florida Philharmonic in South Florida and the Florida Orchestra in Tampa. Her teachers included Maria Larionoff, Robert Davidovici, Erick Friedman, Kelly Farris and Maestro Stefan Ruha. She has performed internationally at numerous venues including; Filarmonica Transilvania Hall, Academia de Muzica Dima Hall, Romanian Opera Cluj, The Met in Spokane where she was radio broadcast performing solo, Stuttgard Academy, Lyon Conservatory Music Hall, Kravis Center for the Arts, Miami Center for the Arts, Gusman Center for the performing Arts, Strathmore Music Center, Kennedy Center and many others. She has performed with well-known conductors such as Peter Eros, Marco Armiliato, Emil Simon, Joseph Silverstein, Stefan Sanderling, Cristian Mandeal, Fabio Mechetti and Roberto Brignoli among many others.
In addition to playing with Kassia, she serves on the faculty at the College of Southern Maryland, play in the Langgaard Quartet, and runs a small private studio.

Bernard Vallandingham
Violin, Viola, & Composition

Bernard was a National Orchestra Youth Fellow before attending Oberlin and Manhattan School of Music. For years he played as concertmaster and in sections of various orchestras and chamber ensembles up and down the East Coast and was a member of the Florida Philharmonic and the Naples Philharmonic. He has also played in numerous chambers groups and has performed with many leading contemporary chamber musicians including David Geber, Julia Lichten, Anat Malkin, Bracha Malkin, Emmanuel Borok among many others. Bernard has participated as both a violinist and violist in many chamber music festivals. 

Bernard has performed all over the States—Carnegie Hall, the Gusman Center, the Kennedy Center—but his central passion has been music composition. He was fortunate enough to study music theory, counterpoint and composition with Warren Darcy, Allen Cadwallader and Mark Stambaugh (some of the greatest music theorists alive in his opinion) and subsequently continued a strict autodidactic regimen of renaissance counterpoint (following Knud Jeppesen) and musical form. Bernard has written pieces for many ensembles including recent premieres at the Academy of Music Summer Festival in New York and the Kennedy Center in DC.

Lauren Geist
Clarinet, Accordion, & Soprano

Lauren graduated from St. Olaf College in 2009. During her time there, she spent two summers working in the New York Philharmonic Archives, where she led a project preserving the score collection of Leonard Bernstein. After graduating, she attended Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, where she received a Master of Music degree clarinet performance. In 2010, Lauren was a founding member of the Chicago-based wind quintet, The City of Tomorrow, which won a gold medal at the 2011 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Later that year, her life took an exciting turn when she accepted a job as clarinetist in The U.S. Navy Band. As an accordionist, Lauren has been a guest artist at the Wintergreen Music Festival, with the Children’s Chorus of Washington, in the pit for Cabaret at Signature Theatre, and at the U.S. Capitol. She has always had a passion for singing and has remained active in the local choral community. Lauren has served as President of the Grammy Award–winning Washington Chorus been a soprano in the choirs at the Washington National Cathedral. She has sung with the National Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the Rolling Stones.

Sam Post
Piano & Composition

Sam Post is a versatile pianist-composer who has composed music for the San Francisco Symphony and Washington Performing Arts, recorded his own piano solo albums, and written hundreds of pieces for different instrumental configurations. The Washington Post has praised his abilities at the piano (“confident, sensitive...a pianist with drive and intelligence”), the Bay Area Reporter lauded his chamber symphony (“Post has created a breathtaking musical joy ride”), and luminaries such as Renée Fleming have commended his overall musicianship (“incredibly gifted”). 

Sam is the only five-time prizewinner of the Fidelio International Composition Competition for piano. He won two consecutive “New Rag” prizes at the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing contest in 2021 and 2022. Sam has received commissions from the San Francisco Symphony, Washington Performing Arts, Levine Music, the Palisades Virtuosi, and the Classical Arts Society of Washington.
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​Sam is on the piano and composition faculty at Levine Music. Find Sam on Spotify, Apple Music, other platforms, and at his website at sampostpiano.com.

Susanna Mendlow
Cello & Voice

Susanna was born to a family of music-lovers and sang her way through childhood. She discovered cello at the age of 6 and has been attached to it since. She plays in a wide variety of styles, including classical, world music, contemporary, and improvisation. Her unconventional musical interests have ushered her through the United States, Canada, Central & South America, and Europe. In 2011 she ventured to Central Asia as a member of Moyindau - a quartet that integrated experimental jazz, free improvisation, modern classical, and ethnic folk music. During her travels she broke bread with semi-nomadic Kyrgz tribes in the Pamir Mountains, danced the night away with children at a summer camp in Shymkent, and improvised with a Tajik didgeridoo player in Almaty. Upon returning to the States, Susanna pursued her DMA at SUNY Stony Brook, where she further nurtured her eclectic musical tastes, presenting a lecture-recital on the technique and art-form of singing while playing the cello.

Susanna serves on the faculty of Washington Adventist University in Takoma Park, Maryland and George Washington University in Washington, DC. She also plays in the multi-genre duo Cello, World. You can learn more about her at her website.

Erika Gray
Viola (2024-25 Season)

​D.C. based violist Erika Gray has been captivating audiences worldwide for two decades, praised for her rich sound and charismatic stage presence. She is a pre-pandemic graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where she received her Bachelor’s degree in music performance. She is a sought-after chamber player and orchestral musician, appearing as a frequent substitute with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, and the National Symphony. For the past three years, Erika has worked with Midori as a quartet participant in her International Community Engagement Program (ICEP) where they visited hospitals, schools, disability facilities, and detention centers in Japan and Cambodia to bring music beyond the concert hall. Erika performs on a 2011 Gary Garavaglia viola from the William Harris Lee shop in Chicago.