Michelle LaCourse is a viola player and string department chair on the faculty of the Boston University College of Fine Arts. [1]
As a soloist and chamber musician, LaCourse has performed throughout the United States and Europe and in South America, including recent performances in Italy, Spain, and Brazil. LaCourse was formerly a member of the Lehigh Quartet, the Delphic String Trio and the Aeolian Trio. As an orchestral musician, she has performed with the Baltimore Symphony, and was formerly principal violist of the Chamber Orchestra of Grenoble France and of the Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. [2] LaCourse has commissioned a body of work for both solo viola as well as viola and piano from composer James Grant. [3] Her recording of these works, "Chocolates: Music for Viola and Piano by James Grant" was released by MSR Classics (MS1335). [4]
Alfred Whitford (Fred) Lerdahl is an American music theorist and composer. Best known for his work on musical grammar, cognition, rhythmic theory and pitch space, he and the linguist Ray Jackendoff developed the Chomsky-inspired generative theory of tonal music.
John Harris Harbison is an American composer and academic.
James Ehnes, is a Canadian concert violinist and violist.
Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler's musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards including Germany's Order of Merit – Officer's Cross.
Jaime Laredo is an American violinist and conductor. He was the conductor and music director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and began his musical career when he was five years old.
Paul Seiko Chihara is an American composer.
Ralph Henry Kirshbaum is an American cellist. His award-winning career combines the worlds of solo performance, chamber music, recording and pedagogy.
Roberto Sierra is a Puerto Rican composer of contemporary classical music.
Kathleen Butler-Hopkins is an American violinist and Professor Emerita of Violin, Viola, and Chamber Music at University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).
Marcus Thompson is a violist and viola d'amore player known for his work as a recitalist, orchestral soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and educator. Thompson is a founding member and is currently artistic director of the Boston Chamber Music Society, and is Institute Professor at MIT and a faculty member at the New England Conservatory of Music.
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.
Reza Vali is an Iranian musician and composer.
David Serkin Ludwig is an American composer, teacher, and Dean of Music at The Juilliard School. His uncle was pianist Peter Serkin, his grandfather was the pianist Rudolf Serkin, and his great-grandfather was the violinist Adolf Busch. He holds positions and residencies with nearly two dozen orchestras and music festivals in the US and abroad. His choral work, The New Colossus, was performed at the 2013 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.
Kenji Bunch is an American composer and violist. Bunch currently serves as the artistic director of Fear No Music and teaches at Portland State University, Reed College, and for the Portland Youth Philharmonic. He is also the director of MYSfits, the most advanced string ensemble of the Metropolitan Youth Symphony.
Martin Amlin is an American composer and pianist. He was born in Dallas, Texas.
Kevin Kwan Loucks is a Korean–American classical pianist, arts entrepreneur, and nonprofit executive. In September 2021, he was appointed chief executive officer of Chamber Music America in New York City. He previously served as Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, a presenting organization in residence at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA, and also served as Director of Innovation and Program Development at Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California. He co-founded Chamber Music | OC, an arts organization headquartered in Lake Forest, California, and is a founding member and current pianist of the award-winning piano trio, Trio Céleste.
Charles Clement Fussell is an American composer and conductor of contemporary classical music. He has composed six symphonies and three operas. His symphony Wilde for solo baritone and orchestra, based on the life of Oscar Wilde and premiered by the Newton Symphony Orchestra and the baritone Sanford Sylvan in 1990, was a finalist for the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Music. He received a citation and award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1992.
Andrea Clearfield is an American composer of contemporary classical music. Regularly commissioned and performed by ensembles in the United States and abroad, her works include music for orchestra, chorus, soloists, chamber ensembles, dance, opera, film, and multimedia collaborations.
Oleg Vyacheslavovich Bezuglov – is a Russian violinist, chamber musician and teacher, co-founder of the violin and piano duo Class&Jazz. The Honored Worker of the Russian Musical Society since 2010.
Paul Reale was an American composer, pianist, and Professor of Music at the University of California, Los Angeles.