“Listen for the inner voices,” violist David Samuel says, “and you’ll hear the soul of the music.” Together with his partner in crime and fellow Summerfest musician, violinist Yuri Cho, they founded the competition-sweeping Afiara String Quartet and spent years pursuing the most meaningful music making in ensembles from Scandinavia to New Zealand.

An explorer of a different way, someone who loves a good challenge, cellist Tanya Tomkins for the THIRD time around spent this past season electrifying listeners with her acclaimed interpretations of the complete Bach Cello Suites. Unique in this world, she is able to traverse between baroque and modern techniques with unusual ease. At the opposite end of the spectrum, for decades cellist Felix Fan has fearlessly taken on being the voice of new works being born, including contemporary legends like Terry Riley and Kaija Saariaho.

Wherever they have been and whatever kind of music drives their inspirations and explorations, these musicians have all planted roots in California in the past few years or decades, and are brought together to Sunkiss'd Mozart by founder and artistic director Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu. She, as many of you know, has taken the Monterey Peninsula by storm with her irresistible charming presence, affecting performance, and last but by far not the least, enlightening introductions about music at every program.