Ecor Quartet
The Ecor Quartet brings together four dynamic musicians—Sahada Buckley (violin), Trace Johnson (cello), Yujin Lee (piano), and Chadwick Thomas (clarinet)—as a vibrant and expressive chamber music ensemble. With its distinctive instrumentation, the ensemble explores a wide array of repertoire from twentieth and twenty-first century composers including Ned Rorem, Brian Raphael Nabors, and Peter Schickele.
The group met in 2022 at the Atlantic Music Festival as members of the AMF Contemporary Ensemble. Their musical camaraderie led to future collaboration and the founding of the quartet. Buckley and Johnson are founders and co-artistic directors of the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival, where the quartet performs each summer.
Sahada Buckley, violin
Trace Johnson, cello
Chadwick Thomas, clarinet
Yujin Lee, piano
Pianist Yujin Lee, who has the flexibility to create a variety of musical colors while being based on a solid foundation and technique, started her musical path in piano at five in Korea. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Seoul National University and came to the United States in 2013 to continue her musical journey, with early performances in the U. S., including a recital at the Hartford Musical Club, a finalist concert at the CT Young Artist Competition, as well as concerts featuring her as a winner of Hartford's Chopin International Piano Competition and The Hartt School’s Paranov Concerto Competition where she performed Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
She earned an Artist Diploma in Piano Performance and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at The Hartt School under David Westfall.
As an avid chamber music performer, Dr. Lee has enjoyed collaborating with numerous celebrated instrumentalists such as Steve Cohen, Leone Buyse, Michelle LaCourse, and Midori Goto. She has been a collaborative pianist at the Atlantic Music Festival and a guest artist at the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival in Fairhope, AL. She has been a piano faculty member at the Hartt Community Division and a collaborative pianist at the Hartt School since 2020. She has also regularly worked as a staff pianist at the Manhattan School of Music. Recently, she was selected as the pianist of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and began performing with the orchestra in the 2024-2025 season.
Sahada Buckley is a violinist and violist from Fairhope, Alabama. Sahada has collaborated with musicians such as Lina Bahn, Yvonne Lam, The Pro Arte Quartet, Rufus Reid and Helen Sung. She has worked with acclaimed composers such as David Ludwig, Michael Ippolito, Mason Bates, George Meyer and Will Healy. Sahada has earned a master's degree in violin performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in violin performance and bachelor's degrees from the University of Georgia in violin performance and music theory. At UW-Madison, Sahada was a member of the graduate string quartet, the Marvin Rabin String Quartet. She won first place in the University of Georgia Concerto Competition in 2018. Sahada is a Co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of The Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival in Fairhope, AL which will have its third season in 2025. She has performed during festivals such as the Midsummers Music Festival, Meadowmount School of Music, BUTI Tanglewood, Atlantic Music Festival, and Decoda Chamber Music Festival and at the 2022 New York City Electroacoustic Improvisation Summit. Sahada was recently appointed to the first violin section of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and plays viola in the Madison-based ensemble, The Ancora String Quartet.
Dr. Trace Johnson is a cellist known for his effortless musicality and fierce commitment to music-making of all styles and genres. Originally from Madison, WI, Johnson has appeared as a chamber musician, soloist, and orchestral musician in various settings in the United States and worldwide. Equally at home teaching in the studio or performing on stage, Johnson is a devoted and thoughtful communicator who enjoys a varied career as a cellist, teacher, and musician. Johnson currently holds cello positions with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and formerly, the Sarasota Orchestra. He has recently appeared with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Present Music, Florentine Opera, Candlelight, Madison New Music Festival, LunART, Arthaus Orchestra, Nu Deco Ensemble, and Artosphere Festival Orchestra. Trace is a regular performer and presenter at the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival in Fairhope, AL, where he is one of two co-artistic directors. Johnson is also a regular performer at the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, a critically acclaimed summer chamber music festival in Madison, WI.
Chadwick Thomas is a clarinetist and conductor based in Hartford, Connecticut. A passionate chamber musician, he has performed with artists such as Vadim Gluzman, Donald Palma, James VanDemark, Robert Black, Lucy Shelton, and Ayako Oshima, among others. Thomas has appeared as an orchestral musician with the Greater Bridgeport, Hartford, Ridgefield, and Wallingford Symphonies, and the Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra. He is a member of the Wa Sinfonietta in New York City for its debut season in Spring 2025. Additionally, Thomas performs as a recitalist, and in February 2023 he performed the Clarinet Concerto by Jean Françaix with the Hartt Orchestra.
Thomas teaches privately and has served as the Clarinet Teaching Fellow at Interlochen Arts Camp since 2023. He is an adjunct faculty member at The Hartt School, where he teaches the orchestra repertoire class for woodwinds and directed the Hartt Clarinet Ensemble for three years, leading to the ensemble's invitation to perform at the International Clarinet Association's ClarinetFest in 2025. In addition to performing as a clarinetist, Thomas is a conductor who has performed with the Hartt Orchestra and the Atlantic Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble.
Originally from Eastern North Carolina, Thomas holds degrees from The Peabody Institute (B.M.), the University of Michigan (M.M.), and The Hartt School at the University of Hartford (D.M.A.). His clarinet teachers include Ayako Oshima, Charles Neidich, Chad Burrow, Daniel Gilbert, Alexander Fiterstein, Deborah Chodacki, and Dr. Douglas Moore-Monroe. He studied conducting with Glen Adsit and Edward Cumming.
chadwickthomas.com