About Sylvan Winds

Mr. Schondorf began his professional career at the Juilliard School, where he pursued a performance degree and graduated in 1995.

He later served as Associate Principal Horn with the Haifa Symphony and Principal Horn with the Israel Symphony/Opera Orchestra.

After returning to New York City in 2001, Mr. Schondorf joined the American Symphony Orchestra as Associate Principal Horn and was appointed Principal Horn in 2012.

He also serves as Principal Horn with the Westchester Philharmonic and Co-Principal Horn with American Ballet Theatre and Orchestra Lumos. He maintains an active career performing in studios and on stage with numerous international, regional, and local orchestras and ensembles.

Notable appearances include the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Harrisburg Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Charlotte Symphony, The Knights, Norwegian Arctic Philharmonic, Encores!, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Greenwich Symphony, Riverside Symphony, New York City Ballet, and more.

For his performance of Auf dem Strom at the 2014 Bard Music Festival, he was hailed as “the star” by Harry Rolnick of ConcertoNet.com.

A former member of Zephyros Winds and current member of Sylvan Winds, Mr. Schondorf has held chairs on many Broadway shows, including Spamalot, The Little Mermaid, Fiddler on the Roof, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, The Phantom of the Opera, Camelot, and more.

Isabel Lepanto Gleicher (also known as Izzy) is an acclaimed flutist, composer, and visual artist, lauded by The New York Times as “excellent,” with composer John Zorn describing her as “inspiring” and “stunningly musical.” As a member of several new music ensembles, including the International Contemporary Ensemble, Wild Up, and Ensemble Échappé, Isabel has made a significant impact in the contemporary music scene. She is also a member of the conductorless orchestra One Found Sound, woodwind quintet Sylvan Winds, and the hip-hop band ShoutHouse, and works with Project Music Heals Us, a nonprofit bringing music to people in hospitals, prisons, and isolated communities.

Her performances span prestigious events such as the MET Gala with Lizzo, NPR’s Tiny Desk, Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City, and festivals including Big Ears, the Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process series, TME:SPANS, SONIC MATTER, and Sacrum Profanum. She also performed in the orchestra for the premiere of season five of the television series Power. Her repertoire includes premieres of works by Missy Mazzoli, Nathalie Joachim, Du Yun, Steve Reich, Jon Batiste, Beat Furrer, and John Zorn. She can be heard on numerous recordings, including Wild Up’s Grammy-nominated Julius Eastman Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Aequa, Infinity Shred’s Shred Offline, and San Fermin’s The Cormorant and Jackrabbit.

Isabel’s compositional style blends composed and improvised elements through graphic and text notation, reflecting the synergy between her musical and visual arts practices. She has curated solo performances for Miller Theatre’s Pop-Up series, the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, Experimental Sound Studio, and the ChamberQUEERantine Virtual Festival, and contributed to Metropolis Ensemble’s live-streaming installation Flame Keepers.

Active as an educator, Isabel is the flute professor at SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music. She has worked with Bridge Arts Ensemble in the Adirondacks and the American Composers Orchestra at Brooklyn’s Fort Hamilton High School, and held a one-year position as a teaching artist with New York Philharmonic Education. She has led masterclasses and workshops in flute, chamber music, and experimental music at institutions including Florida International University, Florida State University, University of Kansas, DePauw University, University of Nebraska, SUNY Purchase, University of Massachusetts, and the Texas Flute Festival. She has also collaborated with composition programs at Third Street Music School Settlement, Face the Music, Luna Composition Lab, Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program, and the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program. Alongside her colleagues in the International Contemporary Ensemble, she serves as guest faculty at the Walden School Music Camp.

Isabel holds an MM in Contemporary Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, an MM from the Yale School of Music, and a BM from SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music. Her primary teachers include Tara Helen O’Connor, Ransom Wilson, and Tanya Dusevic Witek.

In the summer of 2023, Izzy appeared on the 25th season of the CBS reality television show Big Brother, where she was evicted on day 44. In the spring of 2025, she competed on the 38th season of The Amazing Race alongside her wife, Paige Seber; they finished in fourth place, becoming the highest-placing lesbian couple in the show’s history.

Bassoonist Gina Cuffari is a dynamic and versatile musician who performs a variety of roles in the New York City area as orchestral musician, chamber musician, soloist, new music advocate, and educator. Praised for having a "sound that is by turns sensuous, lyric and fast moving" (Palm Beach Daily News), Gina is the Bassoonist of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She is also the Principal Bassoonist of the American Symphony Orchestra, Principal Bassoonist of the Riverside Symphony, and a guest performer with Orchestra of St. Luke's, The Knights, American Composers Orchestra, and many more. An avid musical theater fan, Gina has performed in Broadway productions of Fiddler on the Roof, Sunset Boulevard, My Fair Lady, Into the Woods and Camelot as a substitute bassoonist.

Gina’s passion for chamber music has led her to collaborate with many outstanding musicians and ensembles over the years. She is a regular guest performer with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, a member of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players and Sylvan Winds, and a member of the newly formed American Wind Soloists. Favorite guest appearances include making music with the Boston Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach (FL), Camerata Pacifica in Santa Barbara, CA, and the Portland Chamber Music Festival in Maine.

Gina has always had a keen interest in new music, and has endeavored to support composers throughout her career. She has been a longtime collaborator with Alarm Will Sound- performing as bassoonist, vocalist and keyboardist- and has worked with many composers over the years, premiering a plethora of new works with the group. In an ongoing personal project, Gina has commissioned solo works that combine her two passions- singing and playing the bassoon- into one performing experience. Composers who have written for her include Jenni Brandon, Gregg August, Sunny Knable and Allison Loggins-Hull. 

A passionate educator, Gina joined the faculty of Stony Brook University in Fall 2023 as the Bassoon Professor (Artist-in-Residence) and is an Adjunct Professor of Bassoon at New York University. She is also a frequent guest clinician at Bard College for The Orchestra Now, has taught masterclasses at universities such as Yale and Manhattan School of Music, and has coached chamber orchestras at the National Orchestral Institute + Festival. In a desire to share her unique perspective as a singing woodwind player, Gina presents “Singing Through Your Instrument” workshops/masterclasses at schools throughout the country. During the summers, she teaches and performs at the Mostly Modern Festival in Saratoga Springs, NY and the Bard Summer Festival.

Kathy Halvorson is one of the most versatile oboists working today, both as an improviser and an accomplished classical musician. She was principal oboe with the Symphony Orchestra de Minería in Mexico City, and previously performed as oboist in the Broadway musicals Illinoise and On the Town in New York City, as well as the 2017 North American tour of Les Misérables.

She has performed frequently with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Argento Ensemble, and Alarm Will Sound, and has served as principal oboe with the Westchester Philharmonic and the Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic. She has been a member of Sylvan Winds since 2008 and has recorded two CDs with the ensemble. She has also recorded twelve CDs as principal oboe with the Toronto Chamber Orchestra under Kevin Mallon and Nicolas McGegan.

In 2011, Kathy founded the West Side Chamber Orchestra in New York City, which presented three concerts and recorded for the Naxos label in 2012. Her arrangements and improvisations on pop, jazz, folk, and world music can be heard on the albums Unraveled and Palette with her oboe trio Threeds, as well as on the 2023 release A Strange Day in June by the group Folklorkestra, of which she is a member.

She studied at the New England Conservatory and at Rutgers University with Jonathan Blumenfeld, and received an Artist’s Diploma from the Royal Conservatory in the Netherlands, where she studied with Bart Schneemann. While in the Netherlands, she performed regularly with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Calefax Reed Quintet, Netherlands Ballet Orchestra, and others. She has also collaborated with the Mingus Epitaph project, jazz bassoonist Michael Rabinowitz, and Björk, and recently joined the group Oboe Fusion.

In addition to her freelance career, Kathy teaches oboe at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights. She also owns and operates a vacation home in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico, called “Casa Cangrejos,” designed and built by her husband, artist Humberto Delolmo. Outside of music, she enjoys options trading, caring for her rescue dog Jacinta, cooking Mexican food, and exploring astrology, tarot, and Eastern philosophy.