Michelle LaCourse is a viola player and string department chair on the faculty of the Boston University College of Fine Arts. [1]
LaCourse began her musical studies in the Traverse City (Michigan) School System. She has studied with David Holland at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Robert Swan at Northwestern University, and Karen Tuttle at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. During her time at Peabody, she won the first Peabody Concours, a recital competition open to all Peabody students. LaCourse served as a longtime teaching assistant to Karen Tuttle and currently serves as a faculty member of the annual Karen Tuttle "Coordination" Workshop.
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] Ms. LaCourse often performs with composer and pianist Martin Amlin, who is also on faculty at Boston University; this collaboration is featured on this recording. She performs on a viola made for her in 2000 by Steven Keller of Keller and Son in Philadelphia.
Pamela Frank is an American violinist, with an active international career across a varied range of performing activity. Her musicianship was recognized in 1999 with the Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists. In addition to her career as a performer, Frank holds the Herbert R. and Evelyn Axelrod Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she has taught since 1996, and is also an Adjunct Professor of Violin at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music since 2018.
Kim Kashkashian is an American violist. She has spent her career in the U.S. and Europe and collaborated with many major contemporary composers. In 2013 she won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. She is recognized as one of the world's top violists.
Augusta Read Thomas is an American composer and University Professor of Composition in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago, where she is also director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition.
Karen Tuttle was an American viola teacher, most famous for developing the Karen Tuttle Coordination Technique, which emphasizes being comfortable while playing the instrument. She began performing on violin at the age of sixteen before switching to viola in 1941. Tuttle actively performed and taught at a number of institutions until her retirement in 2005.
Steven A. Ansell is an American violist whose career involves work as a chamber musician, solo artist, and orchestral musician. He is the principal violist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since September 1996. Prior to his appointment, Ansell had already appeared with the orchestra as a guest soloist. He also teaches at the Boston University College of Fine Arts and is a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. He is a founding member of the Muir String Quartet.
Sharon Hall Robinson is an American cellist. She has had a highly successful performing career, both as a concert solo artist and as a member of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, and has recorded extensively.
Kathleen Butler-Hopkins is an American violinist and Professor Emerita of Violin, Viola, and Chamber Music at University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).
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.
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.
Martha Strongin Katz is a violist and member of the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) in Boston, Massachusetts, where she teaches viola and chamber music. She was a founding member of the Cleveland Quartet, along with her former husband, Paul Katz (cellist), and Peter Salaff and Donald Weilerstein (violinists). From 1969 until her departure from the group in 1980, she performed more than 1,000 concerts, including appearances at the White House, the Grammy Awards, on the NBC Today Show, and in the major concert halls of five continents.
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.
The Missouri Chamber Music Festival and Adult Chamber Music Intensive (ACMI) was founded in 2010. The goal of the MOCM Festival concerts is to present the fine art of small ensemble music to a wide audience through an accessible, community-based festival. The ACMI workshop is the educational portion of the festival, placing adult instrumentalists in chamber ensembles with Festival artists for coaching and performance.
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.
Pamela Harrison was an English composer, pianist and music teacher.
Marcy Rosen is an American cellist who is a member of the Mendelssohn Quartet, Los Angeles Times music critic Herbert Glass has called her "one of the intimate art's abiding treasures.".
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.
Jane Austin Coop is a Canadian pianist and music pedagogue. An internationally recognized concert pianist, she has appeared as a recitalist and as a soloist with major symphony orchestras throughout the world. She has performed at such venues as the Bolshoi Hall in Saint Petersburg, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Roy Thomson Hall, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, the Beijing Concert Hall, and the Salle Gaveau in Paris. From 1980 to 2012 she taught on the faculty of the University of British Columbia’s School of Music in Vancouver. In December 2012, she was appointed a member of the Order of Canada. In May, 2019 she was appointed to the Order of British Columbia (O.B.C.)
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.
Jonathan Leshnoff is an American classical music composer and pedagogue.