Members
Chili Ekman
A recent graduate of The Juilliard School, violinist Chili Ekman will be continuing his studies in the Masters of Music program with Professors Daniel Phillips and Stella Chen. Originally from Berkeley, California, Chili attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College and performed with organizations including the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and Young Chamber Musicians. Chili makes frequent returns to the Bay Area to perform concerts, last season with the San Francisco International Piano Festival in collaboration with Jeffrey LaDuer. In 2022, he made his solo debut with the Stockton Symphony, performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
An active chamber musician, Chili has worked with many of the world’s leading chamber musicians, performing alongside greats such as Paul Watkins, Philip Setzer, Julie Albers and David Shifrin.
Ekman has also been coached and mentored by many esteemed musicians including David Finckel, Paul Neubauer, Robert Levin, and Eugene Drucker, among others. In 2023, he founded the Candide Quartet, which has attended major chamber music residencies, won national competitions and performed in notable venues including Carnegie and Alice Tully Hall.
Vanny Hu
Canadian cellist Vanny Hu will begin her Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School this fall, where she studies with Zvi Plesser. She previously earned her Bachelor of Music at Juilliard under Richard Aaron after attending the Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where she studied with David Hetherington and Andrés Díaz.
Vanny has served as Principal Cello of the Juilliard Orchestra for the past three years, performing in Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall under internationally renowned conductors. She has also served as Principal Cello of the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.
Vanny has performed in masterclasses for acclaimed artists including Zuill Bailey, Zlatomir Fung, and Lluis Claret. As and avid chamber musician, her Quartet recently won First Prize at the Frances Walton Chamber Music Competition in Seattle and was named a finalist in the Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition.
Vanny has been invited to appear as a guest artist at Stratford Summer Music, Tianjin Juilliard Orchestral Symposium in China, and Music of Angel Fire, and has been a fellowship recipient with her quartet at Music in the Vineyards, Aspen Music Festival, and Great Lakes Chamber Music among many.
Vanny’s numerous honors include the Royal Conservatory of Music Gold Medal for excellence in piano, multiple theory distinctions, and Second Prize in the Ontario Provincial Finals for Lower Strings. She made her concerto debut with the Kitchener-Waterloo Youth Orchestra in 2019 after receiving its Demonstrating Strong Leadership Award, and most recently appeared as soloist with the Stratford Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major.
Beyond the concert stage, Vanny is deeply committed to education and community engagement. At Juilliard, she mentors students in the Pre-College Chamber Music and Orchestral programs. As both a Gluck Fellow and Morse Teaching Artist Fellow, she regularly presents interactive performances and educational programs for hospitals, public schools, charter schools, and community organizations throughout New York City.
Henry Rogers
Violinist Henry Rogers, 22, is pursuing his Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School under Joel Smirnoff. A native of Princeton, New Jersey, he first studied locally with Katarzyna Powichrowska and with Sally Thomas in New York City. He relocated to Cleveland at 15 to pursue intensive training and undergraduate coursework at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Artists’ Program, which he graduated from in 2021 under Joan Kwuon. Henry received his Bachelor of Music degree from Juilliard in 2025 with academic honors for extra studies in German at Columbia University.
Prior to joining the Candide Quartet, Henry attended festivals including Aspen, Sarasota, Brevard, Heifetz, and Meadowmount with mentors Alexander Kerr, David Halen, Jan Mark Sloman, and Gerardo Ribeiro. He gave a solo performance with the Brevard Music Center Orchestra under longtime Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart in 2022 after winning their annual Jan and Beattie Wood Concerto Competition. Henry has performed with Princeton Symphony Orchestra and New World Symphony, and held principal positions with the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra, Juilliard Opera Orchestra, and Aspen Festival Orchestra. Henry has given chamber performances in many venues across New York, including Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Bohemian National Hall, Lincoln Center’s Rose Studio, and St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University. As a violist, Henry has had past groups win top prizes at Chicago National Chamber and Coltman Competitions (2021), as well as second prize in Fischoff National Chamber Competition
Amelia Krinke
Amelia Krinke is a violist and conductor from New York City, studying with Steven Tenenbom and Misha Amory at the Juilliard School as a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship. She won the Juilliard Viola Concerto Competition in 2022, playing the Michael White Viola Concerto, and was an Honorable Mention winner of the National YoungArts Competition 2022. She performed Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with the Grand Junction Symphony in March 2024, and was a member of the Classical Tahoe Festival Orchestra in July 2024. Krinke has attended the Kneisel Hall Young Artists Program, the Castleman Quartet Program and the Heifetz International Music Institute, among others.
She was an Apprentice Conductor with the Philadelphia Ballet for two seasons, and has conducted in select performances of the Nutcracker in 2022 and 2023. As a conductor, Krinke also completed four years as a New York Youth Symphony Conducting Apprentice, and attended the National Orchestral Institute and the Conductor’s Institute of South Carolina. She acted as a cover conductor for the Orlando Philharmonic in 2025, and conducted the Music Advancement Program’s composers’ concerts in 2024 and 2025. She graduated from Juilliard Pre-College in 2022 with distinction for outstanding work in music theory and ear training, under the tutelage of Molly Carr and Yi-Fang Huang.
Harmonizing Tradition, Innovation, and Optimism
Beethoven
Mozart
Bartók
Schubert
Haydn
Shaw
Mendelssohn
Smetana
Bernstein
Shostakovich
Berg
Beethoven Mozart Bartók Schubert Haydn Shaw Mendelssohn Smetana Bernstein Shostakovich Berg
Formed in 2023, the Candide Quartet consists of violinists Chili Ekman and Henry Rogers, cellist Vanny Hu and violist Amelia Krinke.
Now in their third year as an ensemble, the Candide Quartet is even more committed to learning the chamber music repertoire and gaining performing experience. Having a shared love for Voltaire’s Candide and its philosophies, the group embodies the camaraderie and dedication that we feel are inherent in the story and string quartet playing. Our goal is to cultivate our music and share the fruits of our commitment with all of our audiences.
During the past summers, the Quartet held the title of Fellowship String Quartet in Residence at Music in the Vineyards in Napa, Madeline Island Chamber Music in Wisconsin, Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival and the PRISMA Quartet Fellowship. In the summer of 2026, the Quartet is holding fellowships at the Great Lakes Chamber Festival’s Shouse Institute, Music from Angel Fire, and the Barnebl Fellowship at Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, performing concerts with esteemed artists including David Shifrin, Philip Setzer, and Paul Watkins.
They recently won first prize at the Frances Walton Chamber Competition presented by the Ladies Musical Club of Seattle (LMC), as well as being finalists of the 2026 Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition and semi-finalists of the 2026 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
The Candide Quartet has been coached and mentored by many esteemed musicians including David Finckel, Daniel Phillips, Paul Neubauer, Zvi Plesser, Samuel Rhodes, Robert Levin, Eugene Drucker, Philip Setzer, Paul Watkins, Nicholas Mann, Joseph Lin, Areta Zhulla among several others. They have also worked with the American, Calidore, Harlem, Miro and the Pacifica Quartets, among others.
In 2025, the Candide Quartet worked with Caroline Shaw to give the Juilliard premiere of her work Plan and Elevation at Juilliard’s inaugural Fall Festival. They collaborated with Shaw again for the first Juilliard at Zankel Hall concert, where they performed Shaw’s Other Song alongside the composer. Deeply invested in community engagement, the quartet presented programs at various retirement homes, public schools, and ECE programs. Most recently, they presented a workshop entitled “Non-verbal Communication: in String Quartet and the Workplace” alongside Dr. Diane L. Levine at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.
The Quartet recently made their Alice Tully Hall debut as part of the Honors Chamber Program, and was invited to participate in the CMS masterclass series with Paul Neubauer. This past April, the Candide Quartet presented their Honors Chamber Project in collaboration with the Juilliard School and Lincoln Center for Earth Month, featuring an art galleria pairing local art with music.