BELLA Bios
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JULIA OGRYDZIAK (violin) began playing the violin at the age of 3. She has performed throughout Europe and North America, at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Tanglewood, and Lincoln Center. She studied at the SF and New England Conservatories of Music, and in Paris. She holds a Master’s in Design with Distinction from Harvard and Music and Physics undergraduate degrees from MIT, receiving the AMITA award for most outstanding female graduate and the SF Conservatory Distinguished Prep Alumni Award.
A vocal proponent of modern music, Julia has been involved in contemporary music as both artist and composer. She has collaborated with many of the foremost composers of our time, including John Harbison and Evan Ziporyn, the Harvard Group for New Music and the “Hyperinstruments” group at the MIT Media Lab, including performances at Lincoln Center. She performed Steve Reich’s Grammy-award winning “Different Trains,” winning the Naess award. Her most recent projects include collaborations with Capacitor Dance, and shows combining live performance and immersive visuals, such as Dark Blue Sky Dream which premiered at the Chabot Planetarium in Oakland.
Julia is also an award-winning artist, Creative Director, and entrepreneur. She is the founder of Blacksquare, a digital media studio; winner of four Webby Awards, the Vera List Prize, and has had works exhibited at the MOMA. She is a Board Member of Women's Audio Mission and Capacitor, Chapter Head of Harvardwood SF.
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GABRIEL BEISTLINE (‘cello) has had the honor of collaborating with some of the most prominent and influential musicians of our time. He has toured with orchestras throughout the United States, Germany, Lithuania, Armenia, Russia and Japan with the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and various conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Yutaka Sado, Christopher Hogwood, Kent Nagano, Yakov Kreitzberg and Valery Gergiev. Gabriel holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music where he was instructed by Yeesun Kim, cellist in the acclaimed Borromeo String Quartet.
In 2009 he acquired his Master of Music degree from Rice University under the professorship of world-renowned cello soloist Lynn Harrell. One highlight of Gabriel's endeavors as a chamber musician was a recent collaboration performing Felix Mendelssohn's Illustrious String Octet with acclaimed violin virtuoso Cho Liang-Lin, along with James Dunham of the distinguished Cleveland Quartet, and Lynn Harrell among others, in a concert series commemorating the 200th birthday of the composer. Gabriel currently resides in San Francisco, performing and instructing a private studio.
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MIMI LEE (piano) Mimi's musical journey began in NYC at the Juilliard School of Music and continued while a student at Harvard University at the New England Conservatory of Music. She has had the privilege of being taught and coached by many renown musicians, including Kathryn Parker, Victor Rosenbaum, Martin Cannin, Manachem Pressler, Yo-Yo-Ma, Peter Wiley, Leon Kirchner, Earl Kim and Ani Kavafian and others. She has also had opportunities to participate in numerous chamber music endeavors, including at the Bowdoin Music Festival, the 92nd Street Y and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Mimi holds an AB in Chemistry and East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard, as well as a MD-PhD in Neuroscience from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She has served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesia at UCSF and as a Partner with the Anesthesiology Consultants of Marin as a Board-Certified Anesthesiologist.
She has always treasured her relationship with music. She feels lucky to have music and performance to accompany her through difficult and beautiful times alike. Her recent confrontation with breast cancer, after many years serving others as a physician, has finally persuaded her to follow her passion as a musician and to share it with her audiences.
Mimi hails from New York City and has lived in San Francisco since 2000. She is a co-Chapter Head of Harvardwood SF, and serves on the Boards of Arts4Good, and Capacitor Dance. She is an avid swimmer, runner, yogini, and amateur underwater diver and photographer.