Alex has played violin for over a decade, and continues playing at MIT in the Chamber Music Society. She has played in symphony orchestras, string orchestras, quartets, trios, and duos, as well as solo. She enjoys teaching and sharing music, especially around the December holiday season. She grew up in New York, and currently lives in Boston.
A native of Scottsdale, Arizona, Austen Yueh has been featured as a clarinetist on NPR's From the Top, in addition to concerto soloist with the Phoenix and Chandler Symphony Orchestras. As a pianist, she has appeared as concerto soloist with the Four Seasons Orchestra and received awards at statewide competitions. Her collaborative background includes accompaniment, chamber music, and orchestral concerts. At MIT, Austen is currently involved as clarinetist and pianist in the Chamber Music Society. Although her time is now mostly spent on math and machines, she's even more passionate about keeping music alive and thriving. Having seen the power of music to unite communities and transform people--from benefit concerts to impromptu performances--she's really excited to be a part of Ribotones!
Sandy plays the violin in a pop music string quartet on campus called String Theory. Music, especially chamber music, has always been a part of her personal identity, and while she's planning to study neuroscience, she is also hoping to squeeze in a music minor. Besides classical music, she is also a fan of anything belonging to the electro, house, and alternative genres. Baymax, dinosaurs, and chubby animals are her weaknesses, and she is (not so) secretly in love with Benedict Cumberbatch. Finally, her most valuable asset is being able to wiggle her ears without touching them.
Steve comes from Foshan, which is known for many kung fu masters like Bruce Lee, Ip Man and Wong Fei-Hung. But sadly, Steve knows nothing about kung fu. As an exchange student from University of Oxford, he is currently working on microneedles drug delivery in Langer Lab for his Master’s thesis. Except for playing the piano and guitar, he also enjoys playing tennis and badminton matches in IMleagues. Steve is interested in group performance because he has been playing piano solo for many years and he wants more resonance from various instruments such as violin, flute, saxophone and cello. He is a big fan of Big Bang Theory, Roger Federer and Lang Lang and he won’t tell you that recently he managed to take a selfie with Maria Sharapova.
Coming from Beijing, China, Celia is currently a sophomore at MIT majoring in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. She has many roles besides being a student — musician, researcher, ancient Greek scholar, leader of an international development project and an experienced traveller. To her, music is a therapy and sharing it is a privilege.
Songela ("Angel of Song") is a sophomore from Pittsburgh who enjoys playing piano with Ribotones and flute/piccolo in the MIT Concert Band. She is most interested in computational and biological chemistry and serves as Co-Community Outreach Coordinator of MIT ClubChem. In her free time, she enjoys playing jazz covers and running with friends.
Pianist Sylvain Carpentier was born in Lille in the northern region of France. He did his undergraduate studies in Paris, at Ecole Normale Superieure and is currently a graduate student at MIT in the math department. Music has been part of his life from an early age, and after studying piano in Lille, he completed his musical formation with Eric Vidonne in Paris and David Deveau in Boston. He has given recitals in Reims, Paris, Milan, Washington and Boston. He played Chopin's Grande polonaise brillante with MITSO in March 2016.
Alice plays violin with MIT String Theory, so she loves fiddling around with pop music and other fun songs! Besides music and classes, she spend a lot of time swimming, reading, and doing random nerdy things :)
As the musical director of MIT String Theory, Pranam loves playing pop music on strings but also has a crazy diversity of interests at MIT. He spends a lot of time doing research, where he uses DNA as a building tool to construct cool new stuff, like nanostructures and molecular programming languages. Discussing religion and philosophy also sparks his interest as he leads the Addir Interfaith Dialogue Group on campus. Additionally, Pranam loves volunteering at the Margaret Fuller House in Cambridge, where he teaches 7-8 year old kids programming, robotics, and other fun STEM things. In his free time, he usually heads over to the Z Center to plays some pickup basketball. All in all, Pranam loves to have as much fun as possible (or at least how much MIT will allow him)!
Hailing from the western suburbs of Chicago, Linda is a senior at MIT majoring in biology and math and minoring in applied international studies. When she's not psetting or running experiments in lab, she's involved with MIT UNICEF, the MIT Women's Initiative, and the MIT Undergraduate Research Journal, in addition to the MIT Ribotones. She also loves playing piano, swimming, reading novels, and watching Game of Thrones (and speculating on Jon Snow's parentage!) with friends. She's excited to play with the MIT Ribotones and share her love of music with the Cambridge/Boston community!
Chamille Lescott is a senior majoring in biological engineering. When she’s not in lab creating catalysts for green chemistry out of viruses, she loves to spend her time singing numbers from her favorite musicals. She has been part of the MIT Musical Theatre Guild for the last 2 years and has gotten to play some incredibly fun roles like Gary Coleman in Avenue Q and Paulette in Legally Blonde: The Musical. She’s excited to join the Ribotones and looks forward to another music filled year.
Carl Lian, originally from Lexington, MA, is a pianist and former Emerson Fellowship student of Heng-Jin Park. He has performed extensively in the MIT Chamber Music Society, and additionally has been a member of the MIT Concert Choir and MIT Symphony Orchestra. While still partial to Bach and Beethoven, he has in recent years developed a passion for bringing music by living composers to new audiences, presenting works by William Bolcom and Elena Ruehr in solo recitals. Carl graduated from MIT in 2015 and is currently a graduate student in mathematics at Columbia University, studying topics in and around algebraic geometry. In his free time away from math and music, he may be found running, working on a crossword puzzle, or enjoying two of his favorite aspects of New York City life: bagels and jaywalking.
Chris is very excited to be a part of this new group of talented, kind-hearted people. While an undergraduate student at MIT, Chris was a member of the MIT Logarhythms and performed in musicals with the Musical Theater Guild and Next Act. He looks forward to forming close friendships and to sharing his love of music with the Boston/Cambridge community. When he is not singing or practicing the trombone, Chris enjoys practicing Japanese, doing Crossfit, and writing code.