Yuri Abramovich Bashmet is a Russian conductor, violinist, and violist.
The Viola Concerto, Sz. 120, BB 128 was one of the last pieces Béla Bartók wrote. He began composing it while living in Saranac Lake, New York, in July 1945. It was commissioned by William Primrose, a respected violist who knew that Bartók could provide a challenging piece for him to perform. He said that Bartók should not "feel in any way proscribed by the apparent technical limitations of the instrument". Bartók was suffering the terminal stages of leukemia when he began writing the piece and left only sketches at the time of his death.
Rivka Golani is a world–renowned Israeli-born viola player. She has performed as soloist with many orchestras throughout the world including the Boston Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, BBC Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, Hong Kong Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan, Montreal Symphony and the Toronto Symphony.
Gilad Karni is an Israeli violist who has played in the New York Philharmonic and is currently principal viola in the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich as well as a soloist and player in chamber ensembles. A founder member of the Huberman Quartet, with which he made his debut at Carnegie Hall, he has since appeared there with the Guarneri Quartet.
Milton Katims was an American violist and conductor. He was music director of the Seattle Symphony for 22 years (1954–76). In that time he added more than 75 works, made recordings, premiered new pieces and led the orchestra on several tours. He expanded the orchestra's series of family and suburban outreach concerts. He is also known for his numerous transcriptions and arrangements for viola.
Tabea Zimmermann is a German violist.
Walter Hilgers is a German tuba player and conductor. He performs worldwide as orchestral musician, soloist, academic music teacher, arranger and conductor.
Glenn Dicterow, is an American violinist and former concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He is on the faculty of the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music where he holds the Jascha Heifetz Chair in Violin as well as serving as a faculty artist at the Music Academy of the West.
Nobuko Imai, is a Japanese classical violist with an extensive career as soloist and chamber musician. Since 1988 she has played a 1690 Andrea Guarneri instrument.
Cynthia Phelps is an American violist whose versatile career involves work as a chamber musician, solo artist, and orchestral musician. Phelps is currently the Principal Violist of the New York Philharmonic, a position to which she was appointed in 1992.
Dejan Lazić is a Croatian pianist and composer, and a naturalised Austrian citizen. He has appeared with such orchestras as the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony, Bamberger Symphoniker, Swedish Radio, Danish National, Helsinki Philharmonic, Australian Chamber Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra, working with such conductors as Iván Fischer, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Giovanni Antonini, Kirill Petrenko, Robert Spano and John Storgårds.
Sheila Browne is an American-Irish concert violist from Gladwyne, Pennsylvania with dual citizenship. She is a concert and recording artist and Associate Professor at the University of Delaware. For ten years she was on faculty and Associate Professor of Viola at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Named the William Primrose Recitalist of 2016 in conjunction with the Primrose International Viola Archive (PIVA), Ms. Browne has played solo, concerto and chamber music concerts and has played principal of orchestras on six continents, performing in major venues in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. She is in the Fire Pink Trio and principal of the New York Women's Philharmonic, making her Carnegie- Stern Hall concerto debut in 2011. Browne is the Director and faculty member of the January Karen Tuttle Viola Workshop, founder in 2015 and faculty member of the first European Karen Tuttle Viola Workshop at NYU- Prague 2016, and has served on the Executive Board of the American Viola Society Ms. Browne was the violist of the Gotham, Arianna, Pelligrini and Serafin string quartets. She has served on the faculties of Duke and New York universities, University of Missouri- St. Louis and of Tennessee- Knoxville, and Juilliard's Music Advancement Program.
Pál Lukács was a Hungarian viola virtuoso, concert and recording artist, and music educator.
Richard Fleischman is an American violist and viola d'amore player, conductor and pedagogue.
Mary Mei Loc Wu, also known as Mary Wu, is a Chinese classical pianist, now based in Hong Kong.
Andrew Ling (凌顯祐) is a Hong Kong violist. As of 2015, he is the principal violist of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. He has performed solo performances with the Hong Kong Philharmonic to critical acclaim. In the past, he had assumed the role of concertmaster at the Indiana University (IU) Concert Orchestra and the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra.
Emmanuele Baldini is an Italian violinist and conductor.
Brett Deubner is an American violist. He has performed as concerto soloist with over 70 orchestras on four continents.
Yang Jing is a Chinese violist, violinist, and five-string violinist.
Dénes Kovács was a Hungarian classical violinist and academic teacher, described as "pre-eminent among Hungarian violinists". He won the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition in 1955. In his career as a soloist and recording artist, he premiered and recorded the works of 20th-century Hungarian composers, and was also noted for his recordings of Bartók and Beethoven. From 1967 to 1980, he headed the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary's principal music college. He received many national awards including the Kossuth Prize (1963).
