Competition Composer

Peter Askim

Active as a composer, conductor and bassist, Peter Askim is the Music Director and Composer-in-Residence of the Idyllwild Arts Academy. He has been a member of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and served on the faculty of the University of Hawaii-Manoa, where he directed the Contemporary Music Ensemble and taught theory and composition.

As a composer, he has been called a “Modern Master” by The Strad and has had commissions and performances from such groups as the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Honolulu Symphony, the International Society of Bassists, the Yale Symphony Orchestra, the Idyllwild Arts Orchestra, the American Viola Society, the Portland Chamber Music Festival, and Serenata Santa Fe, as well as by performers such as flutist/conductor Ransom Wilson, Metropolitan Opera soprano Lauren Flanigan, Grammy-nominated soprano Judith Kellock, violist Roger Myers and violinist Timothy Fain. His compositions are published by Liben Music Publishers and the International Society of Bassists, and his music is recorded on the Gasparo and Albany labels. His compositions have been performed at the Aspen, Bowdoin, Music At the Anthology, June in Buffalo and Bang On A Can festivals, among others, and have frequently been broadcast on WNYC and Hawaii Public Radio. Mr. Askim won the 2002 International Society of Bassists Composition Competition for his "Eight Solitudes" and is a frequent recitalist for the International Society of Bassists, the Hawaii Contrabass Festival and the World Bass Festival in Wroclaw, Poland. He performed and recorded his bass concerto "Islands" at the International Society of Bassists convention under the direction of Ransom Wilson.

As a conductor, Mr. Askim has served as Music Director of the Branford Chamber Orchestra and makes frequent guest conducting appearances, including the Sewanee Philharmonia, the Oregon Festival of American Music, the Wroclaw (Poland) Chamber Orchestra Sotto Voce and the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. He has premiered numerous works, including compositions by composers Richard Danielpour, Christopher Theofanidis, Lawrence Dillon and Bruce Adolphe and has collaborated with such artists as the Miró String Quartet, Matt Haimovitz, Vijay Iyer, Melvin Chen, Eugene Drucker, Ian Swensen, Todor Pelev, Tony Arnold, Judith Kellock and John Walz. He conducted the World Premiere of eminent guitarist/ singer/songwriter Richard Thompson’s rock oratorio “Cabaret of Souls” and its European Premiere at Royal Festival Hall, London. This May, he will conduct a concert of all World Premieres, featuring the works of Rufus Reid, Jan Radzynski and Pierre Jalbert. He has also received critical praise as a jazz artist in such publications as Jazztimes, the New York Post and New York Newsday.

He studied at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna and holds bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees from Yale University, where he graduated with Distinction in Music. He also holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition from the University of Texas at Austin. He studied composition with Dan Welcher, Donald Grantham, Anthony Davis, Jan Radzynski, Syd Hodkinson and David Finko, and double bass with George Rubino, Diana Gannett, Donald Palma, Wolfgang Harrer and Ludwig Streicher.

Competition Luthier

Jardón Rico

Jardón Rico is a violin maker, born in 1969 in Avilés, a coast city in the region of Asturias in the North of Spain. He studied Science at High School and after completing his studies in Philosophy at the University of Oviedo, he decided to dedicate his professional life to his childhood passion: lutherie. He spent his formative years in the workshop of the now deceased maestro Pavel Schudtz, where he learnt the profession in the traditional manner as it was transmitted for centuries. After a decade he opened his own workshop in his native town of Avilés, where he carries out all kinds of restoration jobs and alternates them with violin and viola construction. His instruments are conceived trying to blend a traditional approach with a scientific concern for acoustical behavior.

Jardón Rico has taught the subject Lutherie Fundamentals from 2001 to 2008 at the Superior Conservatory of Music Eduardo Martínez Torner, in Oviedo and has given courses and talks on this subject in many music schools and institutions throughout Spain. He is a member of the GLAE (Spanish Gremio of Violin and Bow makers) and is a registered artisan of the Principality of Asturias. Jardón Rico is one of the founder members of the Spanish Viola Association. He has also written articles for some music publications and participated in several acoustic experiments and research as “Structural Modifications in the Viola and its Repercussion into the Resulting Sound” (International Symposium of Musical Acoustics 2007).


Competition Pianists

Jui-Ling Hsu

A native of Taiwan, pianist Jui-Ling Hsu came to the United States in 2003 and since then has established a career as a collaborative pianist working with instrumentalists, singers and large ensembles. She toured with the University of New Mexico symphony orchestra to Mexico City in 2004 and premiered several new works, including Region III – Refuge by Richard Cameron (2008) and the song cycle Insomnia by Tom Cipullo (2009), premiered at the renowned Songfest festival in Los Angeles. She was one of only 8 pianists chosen to attend the prestigious Music Academy of the West collaborative piano program in 2010, working with notable artists such as Donald McInnes, Zvi Zeitlin, and Jonathan Feldman. She has participated in numerous master classes for leading musicians, including Martin Katz, Kathleen Winkler, Margo Garrett, Ralph Sauer, and Mark Lawrence. Ms. Hsu is an active freelancer in New Mexico and Arizona and is currently one of the staff pianists at Arizona State University, where she is completing her DMA in collaborative piano.

Eric Malson

Eric Malson is an active soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician whose activities have taken throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. As soloist, he has appeared with the North Carolina Symphony, Columbus (Ohio) Symphony, Manhattan Mozart Orchestra, Orquestra da Fundação Gulbenkian, Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, Oak Ridge Symphony, and Prince William Symphony orchestras. As a collaborating pianist with the Steans Institute for Young Artists, he has appeared frequently at the Ravinia Festival, as well as the Tanglewood, Norfolk (Conn.), Wexford (Ireland), Caramoor (N.Y.), Scotia (Halifax), Chautauqua, Évora (Portugal), and Verso il Millennio (Riva del Garda, Italy) festivals. He has served on the opera faculties of the Juilliard School of Music and the Mannes College of Music, as well as the accompanying and chamber music faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music. Mr. Malson has served as official accompanist for various competitions, including the Eurovision Young Musicians Competition, Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition, and the Metropolitan Opera National Council District Auditions. He has appeared in concert with sopranos Eva Urbanová, Deborah Voigt, tenors Thomas Studebaker and Charles Reid, baritone Christophorèn Nomura, and bass-baritone Alfred Walker among many others.

Charles Tauber

Since 2002 Charles Tauber has been Staff Pianist at Rice University Shepherd School of Music and at the Aspen Music Festival and School. A graduate of The Juilliard School, where he studied with the eminent pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Joseph Kalichstein, Mr. Tauber has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad in such distinguished venues as the La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Dumbarton Oaks, Vancouver Recital Society, and the Kammermusiksaal der Berliner Philharmonie. As a proponent of modern music he has performed at the FOCUS! Festival at Juilliard, Summergarden at the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Guild of Composers in Merkin Hall, and the Charles Ives Center for Contemporary Music, where he participated in the premieres of six new piano trios. Prior to his current appointments, Mr. Tauber worked as Staff Pianist at The Juilliard School, The Quartet Program, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.

Guest Artists

Claudine Bigelow

Dr. Claudine Bigelow is head of viola and chamber music studies at the Brigham Young University School of Music. Recital appearances have taken her around the United States, Europe and New Zealand. She has been privileged to collaborate with Manahem Pressler, Orli Shaham, Ralph Matson, Paul Katz, Brant Bayless, the Fry Street and Avalon String Quartets. Claudine has played with the viola sections of the National and Utah Symphonies, Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, and the National Chamber Orchestra. Every summer she performs with the Grand Teton Music Festival. Her articles have appeared in The Strad, Journal of the American Viola Society, American String Teacher and Strings Magazine. Claudine served on the executive board of the American Viola Society for six years. In 2005 she served as director of the Primrose International Viola Competition.

Karen DeWig

Karen DeWig has been a certified instructor of the Alexander Technique since 1997, when she graduated from the Urbana Center for the Alexander Technique. A professional flutist, Karen began a series of lessons in 1991 and never looked back. Karen has been the AT teacher in residence at the Las Vegas Music Festival and several Keith Underwood Flute Masterclasses, as well as maintaining private studios in Urbana, IL, Portland, OR, and Albuquerque, NM, where she now resides. She has also served as flute instructor at Millikin University, Portland State University, and interim instructor at the University of Illinois.

Gabriel Gordon

Gabriel Gordon is a graduate of the Performing Arts School in New York City. He has served as Music Director of the Greater Newark Youth Orchestra, The New Jersey State Youth Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra at Tower Hill.
As one of the founding members of the DaPonte String Quartet, he spent ten years honing his musical craft in the art of Chamber Music. "I am a much better conductor for having spent those years in a string quartet. Rather than just beating time and giving orders, I feel a conductor is much more like a chamber music partner with the orchestra. This creates an amazing connection between the conductor and the players, says Gordon. New Jersey's Star Ledger confirms this by writing, "Mr. Gordon has a wonderful rapport with his musicians.

Originally from New York City, Gabriel Gordon made his professional conducting debut with the Orchestra of St. Peter by the Sea in 1998, and soon formed the Chamber Orchestra at Tower Hill with players from the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New Jersey Symphony.

Also a violinist, he currently plays with both the Santa Fe Symphony and the New Mexico Symphony, and has performed on the Placitas Artist Series, as well as with Serenata of Santa Fe, The Church of Beethoven, and Chatter, a Chamber Ensemble. Mr. Gordon has also guest conducted the Santa Fe Symphony and Chatter.

He has studied with some of the great luminaries of conducting including Kenneth Kiesler, Gustav Meier, Harold Farberman, David Gilbert, and Jonathan Strasser.

Kimberley Fredenburgh

Kimberly Fredenburgh is Associate Professor of Viola at the University of New Mexico where she teaches private viola students, classes in orchestral audition preparation and chamber music ensembles. Ms. Fredenburgh has served as assistant principal viola of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra for the past 10 years.. She performs regularly with the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra and appears as principal viola with the Santa Fe Pro Musica Orchestra. She was previously associate principal viola of the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra and also taught on the faculty at Arizona State University

Ms. Fredenburgh was a co-principal violist with the New World Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas and has appeared in Carnegie Hall with Sir Georg Solti conducting. She has been featured as a concerto soloist with orchestras such as the Phoenix Symphony and the New Mexico Symphony. She has taught master classes and performed in recitals across the US as well as in Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Monaco. Ms. Fredenburgh has delivered pedagogical papers at several National ASTA conferences and has also performed at the 2008 International Viola Congress.

James Holland

James Holland began his cello studies at the age of nine in his hometown of Pensacola, Florida. He earned degrees in cello performance from the University of Alabama and the Eastman School of Music, where his primary teachers were Carlton McCreery and Pamela Frame, respectively. James spent two years in the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, FL, under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. In 1996, James was appointed the Principal Cellist of the Charleston (SC) Symphony, and was a frequent soloist with that orchestra over an eleven-year tenure.

James relocated to Albuquerque, NM with his wife Megan in 2007. He has performed regularly with the Albuquerque Chamber Soloists, Chatter, the Church of Beethoven, the Placitas Artists Series, the Santa Fe Symphony, and the Santa Fe Pro Musica, among others. Since 1998, he has been Principal Cellist of the Breckenridge Music Festival under the baton of Gerhardt Zimmermann. His travels as a cellist have taken him to Mexico, Italy, Japan, and most of the US. He shares the directorship of the strings program at Sandia Preparatory School with Megan and maintains a large and active private teaching studio. James was named the 2011 Teacher of the Year by the New Mexico chapter of ASTA.


Benjamin Loeb

Benjamin Loeb, a native Texan, is an accomplished conductor, accompanist, soloist, arranger, educator, and administrator. He has been hailed in El Paso as “a walking genius of unique ideas for making concerts fun to perform and hear, as well as subtly exposing youngsters to the pleasures of good music, [El Paso, Inc.]” while his recent performance with the Greater Bridgeport (CT) Symphony Orchestra as a “double-threat” both playing and conducting Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was called “a total triumph that triggered a well-deserved, spontaneous standing ovation.[Connecticut Post]”.

He currently serves as both the Executive Director of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony and the Music Director of the 2011 New Hampshire Music Festival. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the International Conducting Workshop and Festival, now in its tenth year, hosted by orchestras around the world. He has also served as Director of Orchestras at the Music Institute of Chicago.

Benjamin Loeb’s projects have shown his tremendous range. In El Paso he has conducted the El Paso Symphony in Young Peoples’ Concerts, Family Concerts and Christmas Concerts. With the Pueblo (CO) Symphony, he both played and conducted Beethoven Emperor Concerto. A frequent guest conductor in China, he often leads all-American programs while giving master classes and performing recitals with Chinese instrumentalists on his off days. He has been asked by Yo-Yo Ma to create and conduct arrangements of 16th century madrigals for his Silk Road Project, and he has toured with his sister Lisa Loeb leading orchestral accompaniments to her rock music.

As a pianist, Benjamin Loeb has been praised by the Boston Globe: “[his] vigorous, cogent playing signaled the kind of equally weighted partnership, plus competition, plus mutual quest, etc. that [makes] this music live.” Recent season highlights include three performances of the Beethoven Emperor Concerto including one in which he both conducted and performed as soloist. As concerto soloist, he has collaborated with many conductors including Alan Gilbert, JoAnn Falletta, and Carl St. Clair. His concerts have taken him around to world to major venues and on radio and TV in New York City, San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Berlin, Seoul, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Panama City, Helsinki, St. Petersburg and tours across the United States.

He has served three times as an official pianist for the Joseph Joachim/Hanover International Violin Competition, as well as for the Walter Naumberg Violin Competition, Marlboro Music Festival and Concerts Artist Guild auditions. He served as staff pianist for the Steans/Ravinia Festival and SMU Summer Conservatory among others.

He can be heard on many labels having recorded CD’s with violinists Joseph Lin (Korngold and Busoni), Takako Nishizaki (Mozart), and Livia Sohn (Opera Fantasies) on Naxos, Judy Kang for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, and with soprano Allison Charney on the DSCLabel. He also has a recently released solo album on Naxos of Joplin Rags and has two recordings in production of Christmas and Children Songs with soprano Katrina Swift.

He holds a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Conservatory in Conducting, as a student of Gustav Meier, a Master in Music from the Curtis Institute and a Doctor in Musical Arts from the Juilliard School in Accompanying and a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University.

Loeb’s far-ranging interests do not limit him to music; he has directed plays, cooked gourmet meals for 65, tutored over 500 people in test preparation for the Princeton Review, and played and enjoyed almost every sport. He is also an active member of the Rotary Club of El Paso. Moreover (or most important), he is a lifetime Dallas Cowboys fan.


Kenneth Martinson

Kenneth Martinson, assistant professor of Viola at University of Florida, received his M.M. (Viola Performance) from the Eastman School of Music (1994) as a student of Martha Katz, and his B.M. (Viola Performance/Music Composition) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1993), where he was a student of Yizhak Schotten. He is currently serving as President of the International Viola Society, and he is the founding President of the Florida Viola Society. He has also founded Gems Music Publications, a company devoted to promoting rare and previously out of print or unpublished viola scores to help broaden the available viola repertoire. Ken had an early success in becoming the principal violist of the Interlochen World Youth Symphony. He was formerly the violist of the Julstrom String Quartet, the Potsdam Piano Quartet, the Artaria Quartet of Boston, and the Rackham String Quartet and has taught at Western Illinois University, the Crane School of Music- SUNY Potsdam (Potsdam, NY) and Viterbo College (LaCrosse, WI). As a chamber musician, he has won numerous awards such as first prize at the Coleman, Carmel, MTNA, and Yellow Springs Competitions. He was also a winner of the 1993 Cleveland Quartet Competition as well as a prizewinner at the Bucchi International Competition (Rome) and the WAMSO Competition (Minneapolis), and was the winner of the 1995 Richardson Awards (Lansing, MI). Mr. Martinson has held principal chairs in the Orlando, Toledo, Peoria, Lansing, Dubuque, and Santa Cruz Symphonies. Ken is a frequent recitalist and has performed intensely challenging programs such as the 4 solo sonatas of Paul Hindemith, and the complete sonatas of Darius Milhaud, also on his CD released by Centaur Records [CRC 2479]. He also has two other discs released by Centaur; viola chamber music of Rebecca Clarke [CRC 2847], and Bohuslav Martinů [CRC 2852]. His article "The Viola Music of Milhaud" was published by the American Viola Society Journal, vol. 15, no. 1. Mr. Martinson has been serving as an assistant editor of the Journal for the American Viola Society where he has his own column for reviewing new viola compositions and publications. The Toledo Blade has described his sound as being "rich and tawny, and one would like to hear it even more". Ken has performed throughout the United States and Canada as well as Brazil, England, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Russia, South Africa, and Switzerland, and was a featured guest artist at the 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2010 International Viola Congresses.

Dimitri Murrath

First prize winner at the 2008 Primrose International Viola Competition, Belgian violist Dimitri Murrath has given recitals in Jordan Hall (Boston), Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room and Royal Festival Hall (London), and Palais des Beaux Arts (Brussels).

Born in Brussels in 1982, Dimitri began his musical education at the Yehudi Menuhin School studying with Natalia Boyarsky, and went on to work in London with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He graduated last year with an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory as a student of Kim Kashkashian.

He has won numerous awards, including the Prize for the best interpretation of the commissioned work at the 2008 Munich ARD Viola Competition, Verbier Festival Academy's Viola Prize, New England Conservatory's Presidential Scholar Award, and a fellowship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation.

With repertoire extending from Bach to contemporary music by Ligeti, Kurtag and Sciarrino, Dimitri is particularly keen on performing new works. He has taken part in the Park Lane Group New Year Series in London to great critical acclaim, as well as commissioned and given the world premieres of several solo viola works.

As a chamber musician, Dimitri has collaborated with violinist Gidon Kremer, who invited him to his festival in Lockenhaus, Austria and to the Kronberg Academy's Chamber Music Connects the World project. Other artists with whom he has worked with include Menahem Pressler, Donald Weilerstein, Laurence Lesser, Paul Katz and Kim Kashkashian. In the spring 2008, he was invited to be part of the Ravinia Rising Stars Chamber Music Tour with violinist Miriam Fried.

Other festivals include IMS Prussia Cove, Ravinia's Steans Institute for Young Artists, Verbier Festival Academy, Gstaad Festival and Marlboro Music Festival.

Nokuthula Ngwenyama

Featured as this year’s “Face to Watch” in the Los Angeles Times, Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s performances as orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician continue to garner great attention. Gramophone proclaimed Ms. Ngwenyama’s playing as providing “solidly shaped music of bold, mesmerising character,” and the Washington Post described her as playing "with dazzling technique in the virtuoso fast movements and deep expressiveness in the slow movements.”

Ms. Ngwenyama came to international attention when she won the Primrose International Viola Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions at age 17. Plaudits followed her debut recitals in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center and in New York at the 92nd Street ‘Y’, and in 1998 she received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.

This season Ms. Ngwenyama was chosen for the coveted Duncanson Artist-In-Residence at the Taft Museum. She also appears in Washington D.C. at the Cosmos Club, at Symphony Space in New York, and at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, amongst others. Past seasons include appearances with the Cincinnati Symphony, the Nurnberg Philharmonie and world premiere performances of Andrew Norman’s Sabina in Washington D. C.’s Kennedy Center and Merkin Hall in New York. She also performed with the Charlotte, Austin, Jackson and Memphis Symphonies, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Additionally, she “fascinated on viola and violin during recital” (Washington Post) at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D. C. and with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

Ms. Ngwenyama has performed throughout the United States and abroad. Domestic appearances include performances with the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Indianapolis Symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra. She has been heard in recital at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, the Louvre, the Ford Center in Toronto, and the Maison de Radio France. Summer festival appearances include Green Music, Vail, San Diego’s Mainly Mozart, Chamber Music Northwest, Marlboro Music Festival, and Spoleto USA.

Ms. Ngwenyama is no stranger to television and radio appearances. Her performance at the White House, commemorating the 10th anniversary of NPR’s Performance Today, also featured artists Wynton Marsalis, James Galway, and Murray Perahia. A vivid portrait of Ms. Ngwenyama was televised nationally on CBS Sunday Morning with cultural correspondent Eugenia Zukerman. She was featured on the Emmy Award-nominated PBS program Sound of Strings in the Musical Encounter Series, hosted by cellist Lynn Harrell. A dedicated advocate for the arts, she has testified before Congress on behalf of the National Endowment for the Arts. As an artist recording on the EDI label, she has collaborated with pianist Mihae Lee on Grieg and Debussy and guitarist Michael Long on Bach Partitas as well as Corella’s Che! A Musical Biography. Her recent collaboration with pianist Jennifer Lim on the Rubinstein viola and violin sonatas was released in 2009 to excellent reviews.

As an educator Ms. Ngwenyama has served as visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame and at Indiana University. She has been director of the Primrose International Viola Competition since 2005 and assumes presidency of the American Viola Society in July. Born in California of Zimbabwean-Japanese parentage, Ms. Ngwenyama graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music. As a Fulbright scholar she attended the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris, and received a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard University.


Dwight Pounds

Dwight Pounds received his Ph.D. from Indiana University where he studied viola with William Primrose and Irvin Ilmer. He is a native of West Texas where he was one of the founding members of the Midland-Odessa Symphony and Chorale. He is Professor of Music (Emeritus) at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, having taught there for 33 years before retirement in 2003. He currently serves as consultant to the editor, Journal of the American Viola Society (JAVS), and is a frequent contributor of articles, reviews and photographs. Some thirty photographic images he has taken at viola congresses are on permanent exhibit at the Primrose International Viola Archive (PIVA). His recognitions from the American and International Viola Societies include the AVS Distinguished Service Citation (1985), Maurice W. Riley Award (1997), the IVS Silver Viola Key (1997), presented for international cooperation, and the AVS Founders Award for 30 years service as officer, Executive Board member, advisor, and historian. Additional service in behalf of the viola includes his appointment as first Executive Secretary of the International Viola Society for North America. He is author of The American Viola Society: A History and Reference and an acclaimed pedagogical book, Viola for Violinists: The Violin to Viola Conversion Kit, soon to appear in a German edition. His Viola for Violinists method has been presented and illustrated at the viola congresses in Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2009, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and at Michael Fernandez’ Violapalooza in Birmingham, Alabama, both in 2010. Dr. Pounds plays a 17.1” (435 mm) viola crafted by Nicholas Frirsz. When not directly involved in viola activities, he is an avid photographer, writer, and woodworker.

Christine Rutledge

Violist Christine Rutledge has appeared as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player throughout the United States and abroad. Her performances and recordings have been praised in such publications as “The Strad,” “Fanfare,” the “New York Times,” and “The New York Concert Review.” Recent solo performances and master classes have taken her to locales as diverse as Reykjavík, Iceland to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She performs many of her original transcriptions of Baroque compositions on both modern and Baroque viola, including the Bach Cello Suites and Sonatas for viola da gamba. As a champion of new works she has commissioned many new compositions including “Chimera” for Viola and Harpsichord by C.P. First, “Nudged Along on Time’s Notched Stick” for Flute, Viola, and Guitar by Zae Munn, "Hamadryad" for alto flute, viola, and guitar by Jeremy Dale Roberts, and a duo for viola and percussion by Claude Baker. Currently Rutledge holds the position of Professor of Viola at the University of Iowa. She serves on the executive board of the American Viola Society, and was president of the Iowa Viola Society. Rutledge is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music as a student of Karen Tuttle and Michael Tree, and the University of Iowa with William Preucil, Sr. She is also a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy, where she studied with David Holland. She has studied baroque viola with Stanley Ritchie, Marilyn MacDonald, and Robin Stowell. Rutledge’s most recent CD, “The Blissful Viola,” works by Bridge, Bliss, and Clarke, is released on the Centaur Label. Rutledge is founder and editor of Linnet Press Editions, which is dedicated to publishing high-quality performance editions of Baroque music for viola and works written for the late English viola virtuoso Lionel Tertis. Her Violist’s Handbook, a compilation of technical studies, has been sold to violists around the world.

Andy Simionescu

Romanian-born violinist Andy Simionescu is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where he completed his studies with Szymon Goldberg. He was awarded the Silver Medal and the Prize for the Commissioned Work at the 1987 Montreal International Violin Competition and was a first prize winner in the Concert Artists Guild and the Washington International Competitions. Andy's solo appearances have taken him to the stages of Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Vienna's Musikverein, Tokyo's Casals Hall, and throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Recital highlights include performances at the White House, Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, New York's 92nd Street Y, and Alice Tully Hall, as well as a six recital series at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. A prolific chamber musician, he is a member of the Raphael Trio and Artistic Director of Performers of Westchester.