Ava Pakiam joins Symphony Parnassus as soloist for the season finale on May 31, 2026.

San Francisco Classical Voice has called Ava Pakiam "a rising star," and at 16, it's easy to see why. A Bay Area native, she studies with violinist Simon James at the SF Conservatory of Music Pre-College Division. In 2025, she received the Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant; her gala performance in New York was live-streamed by the Violin Channel and recorded for WQXR's Young Artists Showcase.

Pakiam made her solo orchestral debut at eight with the Fremont Symphony in Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 2 — and that same summer performed Vivaldi's Winter Concerto with the Sempre Musik Orchestra and New York Sinfonietta in Boston and New York, making her Carnegie Hall debut at the same age. At eleven, Seattle Symphony named her Young Artist for the 2021–22 season, where she performed Saint-Saëns's Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso on a season concert. The following year, she was chosen for a live-streamed solo recital at the Sounding Point Academy at the Colburn School in Los Angeles.

Her recent seasons have included solo concerto appearances — Bruch, Mendelssohn, Barber, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Prokofiev — alongside recitals on both coasts with pianist Cole Anderson. She has worked in master classes with James Ehnes, Vadim Gluzman, Hilary Hahn, Nathan Cole, Simone Porter, Sirena Huang, and others.

A Strumenti artist since 2022, Pakiam plays an 1874 J.B. Vuillaume violin. Her artistic advisor is Edna Landau, former head of IMG Artists.

Pakiam performs Beethoven's Violin Concerto with Symphony Parnassus on Sunday, May 31, 2026 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Tickets and details →

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For Symphony Parnassus's Spring Concert on April 19, the centerpiece of the program is Saint-Saëns's La muse et le poète — a single-movement work for violin, cello, and orchestra that the composer himself described as "a conversation between the two instruments instead of a debate between two virtuosos." The soloists performing it bring that conversational spirit a personal dimension: violinist Stefan Hersh and cellist Alexander Hersh are father and son.

Alexander Hersh, cello

A top laureate of the Naumburg International Cello Competition, Alexander Hersh is widely recognized as one of the most creative and versatile cellists of his generation. Praised for his 2022 Carnegie Hall debut recital, he has appeared as soloist with major orchestras including the Houston Symphony, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Dallas Chamber Symphony, and Boston Pops, and received top prizes from the Pro Musicis International Award, Astral Artists National Auditions, and Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant.

An avid chamber musician, Hersh has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and performed at leading festivals including Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Ravinia, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, Lucerne, and IMS Prussia Cove. He is co-Artistic Director of NEXUS Chamber Music, an artist-led collective dedicated to breaking down barriers in how classical music is experienced, through intimate performances, multimedia projects, and new commissions.

His debut album ABSINTHE (2023) received critical acclaim, and he was recently featured on PBS's Now Hear This series in an episode exploring the music of Boccherini. A fourth-generation string player, his grandfather Paul Hersh taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for 49 years. He plays a G.B. Rogeri cello courtesy of Guarneri Hall NFP and Darnton & Hersh Fine Violins. In his spare time, he composes original music and creates short films that marry classical music with narrative — you can find them on his YouTube channel at @AlexanderHersh.

Symphony Parnassus audiences may remember Alexander from his 2019 appearance with the orchestra, when he performed Bloch's Schelomo to an enthusiastic response.

Stefan Hersh, violin

Violinist Stefan Hersh has a diverse background, having served as Principal Second Violin of the Minnesota Orchestra, Associate Concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony, and as a member of the Callisto Ensemble, the Chicago String Quartet, and the Chicago Chamber Musicians. He has appeared as a featured guest artist and soloist in venues across North and South America, Europe, and Asia.

Stefan is the founder and Artistic Director of Guarneri Hall NFP, a Chicago organization that produces a curated mix of live performances, original music videos, and digital content. He is also a partner at Darnton & Hersh Fine Violins, where he appraises rare antique string instruments and bows worldwide. He served as Associate Professor at DePaul University before joining the faculty of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in 2003.

Pablo Estigarribia is a Latin Grammy winner tango pianist, arranger and composer. Like many artists of this genre, he began his training as a classical musician and soon branched out into the world of tango. He studied at the National Conservatory in Buenos Aires, where he won the Bienal Juvenil National Competition for Young Artists. After graduating, he spent several years on the frenzied performance circuit in Argentina, collaborating with the Congress Chamber Orchestra, the National Radio Orchestra, and the Chaco Symphony, among many others. Seeking to broaden his musical horizons beyond the classical realm, Estigarribia took a brief detour through jazz and then discovered tango in 2005. He quickly won the Orquesta Escuela de Tango scholarship and performed with this superb ensemble under the direction of Maestro Emilio Balcarce. Estigarribia continued working with Balcarce shortly thereafter when he first toured Europe.

Estigarribia rapidly established himself as a nuanced and masterful tango performer in Germany, France, Belgium, Japan, Russia, Finland, Canada, the United States and Cuba. He has been featured in over a thousand concerts, joining Argentine tango legends like Maria Graña, Victor Lavallén, Leopoldo Federico, Nestor Marconi, Horacio Cabarcos, Emilio Balcarce and many others. Estigarribia’s album Tangos Para Piano (EPSA) won the prestigious 2015 Gardel Prize for Best Tango Album by a New Artist. After receiving wide acclaim for this album, he earned coveted recognition from the Argentine tango industry as an expert in the art of tango music. He is a recipient of the Argentine Tango Society’s Medal of Honor for his educational forays at the Stowe Tango Music Festival (Vermont, USA) in multiple years. Estigarribia’s ascendancy brought him to Japan in 2016 where he was lauded in the Tokyo press following his performances. He then became sought after in the United States, where he played in New York’s famous Blue Note Jazz Club. He has made performance and interview appearances on NBC, Univision, Telemundo, and The Huffington Post.

After enjoying the privilege of 13 years of mentorship by legendary Osvaldo Pugliese arranger and bandoneonist Victor Lavallén, Estigarribia is proud to assume the role of teacher and transmitter of the tango tradition. He is delighted to showcase and share the beauty of tango's rich lineage, and gladly invites both the experienced and uninitiated to study the unique, seductive flair of tango. New generations of students and seasoned enthusiasts alike can advance their technical knowledge with Estigarribia’s compositions and arrangements. Above all, he seeks to reopen the passage of tango music repertoire to musicians who may not know where to start, so they too can delight in the genre's legacy. With that goal in mind, Estigarribia published his original compositions and arrangements of traditional pieces, Tangos de Concierto, and teaches, judges, and performs regularly at tango festivals and events all over the world.

Estigarribia splits his time between his native Buenos Aires, Argentina, and New York City.

See Pablo Estigarribia perform his Tres Tangos Concertantes for Piano and Orchestra with Symphony Parnassus on Sunday, June 11, 2023 at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He returns to SFCM for a special Solo Recital on Saturday, June 17, 2023.

Hélène Wickett, piano

Hélène Wickett, piano

Hélène Wickett has regularly appeared as soloist with major orchestras and in solo recital throughout Europe and the Americas as well as being active as a chamber musician. Her London Wigmore Hall debut took place in 1985, Kennedy Center in 1986, Paris Opéra Comique and Rome Villa Medicis in 1993.

Ms. Wickett has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Göteborg Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Residentie Orchestra of the Hague, Pittsburgh Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Graz Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, National Chamber Orchestra, Marseilles Opera Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Alabama Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, National Chamber Orchestra, New Mexico Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Reno Chamber Orchestra, Aalborg Symphony and the Irish Radio Television Orchestra among many others, with conductors Raymond Leppard, Paavo Berglund, Christoph von Dohnányi, Hans Vonk, George Cleve, Edo de Waart, Nicholas McGegan, Joseph Silverstein, Peter Erös, Eduardo Mata, Bernhard Klee, Mehli Mehta, Janos Fürst, Murry Sidlin, Michael Lankester and Michael Tilson Thomas. 

She has played solo recitals in virtually every major western musical capital. Winner of the Pro Musicis Foundation Award, she made her New York debut under their auspices in 1980. Through the Pro Musicis Foundation she also has played in many non-traditional venues such as hospitals, maximum-security prisons, drug rehabilitation centers and mental institutions for diverse audiences with limited access to live classical music. 

Born in Palo Alto, California to an American father and Austrian mother, she began piano and violin lessons at age 4, played her first solo recital at 6, made her orchestral debut at 8 and won the San Francisco Symphony Youth Auditions at age 11, making the first of numerous solo appearances with that orchestra. She entered Stanford University at age 16, after having lived in Paris for several years to study theory and composition with Nadia Boulanger. Her piano teachers were Alfred Brendel, Robert Casadesus, Elena Hitchcock, Benjamin Kaplan, Abram Chasins and Geneviève Joy. 

Ms. Wickett has performed some 70 concertos with orchestra as well as most of the chamber music repertory. A violin student of Henryk Szeryng, Stuart Canin, Jacob Krachmalnick, and Naoum Blinder, she also plays viola and harpsichord. She is principal violist for Symphony Parnassus. She has also studied voice in Vienna and is fluent in six languages.