ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Megan conley

Megan Conley grew up in Austin, Texas, and began playing harp when she was five years old. By age 15 she had performed on the Grammy Award-winning album 'Los Super Seven.' She was awarded a Fulbright Grant to study music in Paris, France, and in 2012 she won First Place in the International Ima Hogg Concerto Competition, performing to a sold-out crowd of over 2,000 people.

Megan served as Principal Harpist of the Houston Symphony from 2015-2022. Since 2019 she has served as harpist of the NYC-based orchestra, The Knights. She has performed with the New York City Ballet, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, and the Bang On a Can All-Stars, and for the Broadway show The Fantasticks.

In 2021, Megan founded Ocean Music Action, a nonprofit that uses music to build community and promote action for ocean conservation. In 2023 Megan was awarded a New Music USA Creator grant. She lives in Honolulu with her husband, bassist
Shawn Conley, and their young son, a budding pianist.

Learn more at meganconleyharp.com.

shawn conley

Hawaiian born bassist and composer Shawn Conley grew up loving all types of music. He is a member of the Silkroad Ensemble and the The Knights orchestra. He recently released his first solo album, entitled Uncharted. Other projects include Silkroad’s Grammy Award-winning album Sing Me Home, an album with Gil Shaham and The Knights, the world premiere tour of Osvaldo Golijov’s Falling Out of Time, as well as an international tour of the performance-art piece The Head and the Load created by William Kentridge.

As a studio musician, he has performed on soundtracks including True Grit, Moonrise Kingdom, The Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns, and the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Shawn joined the Hawaii Symphony as Principal Bass in 2022.

CLARA KIM

photo by Christopher Brown

Clara Kim is a creative who believes in fostering curiosity, empathy and expressive freedom through music. The art of listening to others - and of being heard - fuels her work as a collaborative violinist. A champion for the voices of our generation, Clara has commissioned and premiered countless works by established, emerging, and student composers alike. Her significant engagements include performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, and Jordan Hall, and her work has generously been supported by organizations such as Chamber Music America, The Koussevitzky Foundation, and Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts. A recipient of the St. Botolph Club Foundation Artist Award and a first prize winner of the Cremona Solo Violin Competition, Clara is also a first prize winner at the MPrize Chamber Arts and Concert Artists Guild Competitions as a former member of the Argus Quartet. 

Nawahine Lanzilotti

moderator

Nawahineokalaʻi Lanzilotti is a musician and director from Mānoa, Oʻahu whose performances and collaborations feature cello, voice, sound objects, electronics, and movement. Her work explores energy shifting through land, sky, ocean, and the body.

Nawahine founded and runs the nonprofit Pulse Oceania. Pulse Oceania is an indigenous performance incubator dedicated to advancing health equity and economic independence in Hawaiʻi through experimental creative practice rooted in aloha ʻāina, focusing on Pacific Island collaboration. 

Nawahine is a 2026 First Peoples Fund Native Performing Arts Fellow and a 2026 Wehiwehi Fellow–for Kānaka Maoli artists at the intersection of indigenous identity and contemporary performance.

CHRISTOPHER STARK

photo credit: Virginia Harold

Christopher Stark, whose music The New York Times has called, "fetching and colorful," has been awarded prizes from the American Academy in Rome, Guggenheim Foundation, Chamber Music America, Barlow Endowment, and Fromm Foundation at Harvard. Named a "Rising Star" by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his works have been performed by ensembles such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, Mivos Quartet, and Detroit Symphony. Stark has created orchestral arrangements for producers Nineteen85 (the producer of Drake’s “Hotline Bling”) and Luis Resto (the producer of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”) and is a Creative Partner of the St. Louis Symphony where he curates their contemporary chamber music series at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Stark has held residencies at Civitella Ranieri in Umbria, Copland House in upstate New York, AiR Bergen in Norway, and the Bogliasco Foundation in Liguria where he was the Aaron Copland Fellow in Music. His film score for the feature-length film Novitiate starring Margaret Qualley premiered at Sundance and was theatrically released internationally by Sony Pictures Classics. His most recent album, Fire Ecologies, was released on New Focus Recordings in 2025 and was described as "compelling" and "deliciously crunchy" by BBC Music Magazine.