Stephen Geber
E-mail: sxg50@case.edu
Head, Cello Department, was principal cello and held the Louis D. Beaumont Chair for The Cleveland Orchestra from 1973 until 2003. He is also head of the cello department at the Kent/Blossom School. He is a faculty member of the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida; the National Orchestral Institute of the University of Maryland; the Round Top International Festival of Texas; and the Aspen Music Festival. He was previously a faculty member at the ENCORE School for Strings. Mr. Geber heads an annual cello festival in Carmel, California for gifted and advanced cellists. He graduated from the Eastman School of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree and a Performers Certificate. From 1973 to 2003, he was principal cellist of The Cleveland Orchestra. Prior to this position, he was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1965 to 1973, and a faculty member of the New England Conservatory of Music. Mr. Geber has been a soloist with leading orchestras, and has performed throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe with The Cleveland Orchestra. He has appeared extensively with the Emerson, American and Cavani String Quartets. In addition, he has recorded chamber music with Vladimir Ashkenazy and Franklin Cohen, as a member of The Cleveland Orchestra String Quartet for London/Decca Records. In August 2003, Shar Music Company released his CD recording of 18 prominent orchestral cello solos. He was appointed to the CIM faculty in 1974.
Melissa Kraut
E-mail: melissa_kraut@yahoo.com
Cello, Suzuki Pedagogy, is also a teacher and coordinator of cello for the Preparatory Division string department and the Sato Center for Suzuki Studies. Dr. Kraut is a highly recognized and sought-after pedagogue. In the summers, she is a faculty member at the acclaimed Meadowmount School of Music in upstate New York, where she teaches cellists from around the world. Prior to her appointment at CIM, Dr. Kraut served as associate professor of cello at the University of Central Florida (UCF). While in Orlando, she was the educational/artistic director for A Gift for Music, a string program that provides free instruments and instruction to 900 inner-city children. Dr. Kraut was on the summer faculty at the Interlochen Center Arts for nine summers and served as the area coordinator for strings for two years. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from CIM, a Master of Arts degree from the University of Iowa and a Doctor of Music degree from Northwestern University. Her principal instructors were Alan Harris and Hans Jorgen-Jensen. She was appointed to the CIM faculty in 2006.
Mark Kosower
Mark Koswoer is the newly appointed Principal Cellist of The Cleveland Orchestra (beginning in July 2010.) He is currently Solo Cellist of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in Germany under Music Director Jonathan Nott – a position equivalent to the American title of Principal Cello. His previous orchestral experience includes serving as guest solo cellist of the North German Radio Orchestra at the invitation of Christoph von Dohnányi and as guest principal cellist of the Seoul Philharmonic under Myung-Whun Chung. He was Professor of Cello and Chamber Music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 2005-07 and has given master classes around the world.
The recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2002, Mr. Kosower was the top prize winner in the Rostropovich Competition in Paris (2001) and the Pablo Casals Competition in Germany (2000). A native of Wisconsin, he holds a bachelor’s degree and artist diploma in cello performance from Indiana University and a master’s degree and artist diploma in cello performance from the Juilliard School. His major teachers were Joel Krosnick and Janos Starker.
Mr. Kosower has appeared internationally as soloist with many orchestras, including the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the China National Symphony Orchestra, the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in South Africa, and the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. In North America, he has appeared as a soloist with the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minnesota and Seattle, among others.
His solo recitals include appearances at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, Berlin’s Komische Oper, Belgrade’s Philharmonic Hall in Serbia, the Sala Cecília Meireles in Rio de Janeiro, Kumho Art Hall in Seoul, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Merkin Concert Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and on the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society series. As a chamber musician, Mr. Kosower has appeared with Bargemusic in Brooklyn, New York; with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and on the Ravinia Festival’s “Rising Stars” series. In 2010, he makes his Netherlands recital debut at the de Doelen in Rotterdam and joins the Juilliard Quartet in Nuremberg and Munich for performances of the Schubert String Quintet in C Major, D. 956.
Recently, Mr. Kosower released a recording of Ginastera’s complete works for cello and piano, and an album of Hungarian music with works by Popper, Dohnányi, Bartók, and others, on Naxos International. Both albums feature his recital partner and wife, pianist Jee-Won Oh. Of the Hungarian disc, Strings magazine said, “The music allows Kosower to showcase his stunning virtuosity, passionate intensity, and elegant phrasing.” Mr. Kosower also recently was the soloist in the world premiere recording of Miklós Rózsa’s Rhapsodie for Cello and Orchestra, recorded in Budapest for Naxos with the Budapest Concert Orchestra MAV.
Merry Peckham
Chamber Music; Cellist, Cavani String Quartet, is the host of CIM's radio program, Offbeat. She received a Bachelor of Music degree with distinction from Indiana University and a Master of Music degree from Eastman School of Music. Additional graduate studies were completed at The Ohio State University and Yale School of Music. Her teachers have included Gary Hoffman, Paul Katz, Aldo Parisot and Janos Starker. With the Cavani Quartet, she has won the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, Cleveland Quartet Competition, ASCAP Award for Adventuresome Programming, as well as the Governor's Prize from the Governor of Ohio; and has made numerous guest artist appearances with orchestras, chamber ensembles and acclaimed performing artists. She was the winner of numerous young artist competitions, including the biennial National Federation of Music Clubs Competition (top prize in both the cello and overall-string categories). Deeply committed to arts education, she has given master classes and lecture demonstrations at music festivals, universities, public and private schools in communities across the country and abroad, and has adjudicated and served as panelist for national arts-advocate organizations. She coached chamber music, gave master classes and led chamber music seminars at the Shanghai Conservatory for three weeks in 2002; is former artist-in-residence at the University of California/Riverside and visiting professor at the University of Texas; and performs and teaches during the summer at the Perlman Music Program. She previously served on the faculty of the and ENCORE School for Strings. Ms. Peckham was appointed to the CIM faculty in 1988
Sharon Robinson
E-mail: Sharon.Robinson@cim.edu
Winner of the Avery Fisher Recital Award, the Piatigorsky Memorial Award, the Pro Musicis Award, and a GRAMMY Nominee, cellist Sharon Robinson is recognized worldwide as a consummate artist and one of the most outstanding musicians of our time. Whether as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, or member of the world-famous Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, critics, audiences and fellow musicians respond to what the Indianapolis Star has called "A cellist who has simply been given the soul of Caruso.” Her guest appearances with orchestras include the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, National, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and San Francisco Symphonies, and in Europe, the London Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Zürich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, and the English, Scottish and Franz Lizst Chamber Orchestras.
Recipient of the 2012 Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts from the state of Vermont, Sharon Robinson divides her time between teaching, solo engagements, performing with her husband, violinist and conductor Jaime Laredo, and touring with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. As of fall of 2012, she has started teaching on the renowned instrumental and chamber music faculty of Cleveland Institute of Music. She previously taught at The Jacobs School of Music and Indiana University since 2005. Highly sought after for her dynamic master classes, she brings insight to her teaching from the rare combination of her lifetime experiences as member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Ciompi String Quartet of Duke University, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, plus countless solo recitals and concerto performances.
Committed to the music of our time, Sharon Robinson works closely with many of today’s leading composers, including Ned Rorem, Leon Kirchner, Arvo Pärt, Stanley Silverman, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Joan Tower, David Ludwig, Katherine Hoover, Richard Danielpour and André Previn. She is admired for consortium building, putting together multiple presenters as co-comissioners of both chamber music works and concertos with orchestra. For the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio’s 35th anniversary, she gathered twelve presenters to commission Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Quintet, and for the 35th anniversary of her marriage to Jaime Laredo, she has compiled eight co-commissions for Richard Danielpour’s “Duets.”
She joined the CIM faculty in 2012.
Alisa Weilerstein
American cellist ALISA WEILERSTEIN has been appointed Artist-in-Residence. She has attracted widespread attention for playing that combines a natural virtuosic command and technical precision with impassioned musicianship. She is a graduate of the Young Artist Program at CIM, where she studied with Richard Weiss.
At only 27 years old, she is already a veteran on the classical music scene, having performed with the nation’s top orchestras, given recitals in music capitals and at festivals throughout the U.S. and Europe.
In November 2009, Ms. Weilerstein was one of four artists selected to perform at a White House classical music event that included student workshops hosted by the First Lady, Michelle Obama, and performing in concert for guests including President Obama.
A dedicated performer of chamber music, she often plays with her parents, Donald and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, as the Weilerstein Trio, which is the Trio-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Her Cleveland Orchestra debut was in October 1995, at age 13, playing the Tchaikovsky “Rococo” Variations. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Youth Symphony in March 1997. In May 2004, she graduated from Columbia University in New York with a degree in Russian History. Last year, she made her debuts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra led by Hans Graf and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by Mark Elder. She also performed with the National Symphony Orchestra under Itzhak Perlman, the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel, the Houston Symphony Orchestra under James Gaffigan and the Pittsburgh Symphony under Manfred Honeck at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., among other orchestral engagements.
The New York Times has called her playing “staggering.” In 2008, Ms. Weilerstein was awarded Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal prize for exceptional achievement. She was named the winner of the 2006 Leonard Bernstein Award, which she received at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany, was the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2000 and was selected for two prestigious young artists programs in 2000-01, the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organization) “Rising Stars” recital series and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two.Ms. Weilerstein released an acclaimed recording on EMI Classics’ “Debut” series in 2000 including works by Paganini, Dvo řák, Ginastera, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Janáĉek, Saint-Saëns, Fauré and De Falla.
Richard Weiss
E-mail: rxw14@case.edu
Cello, is first assistant principal cellist of The Cleveland Orchestra, occupying the GAR Foundation endowed chair. Mr. Weiss is from Los Angeles. In high school, he represented California in the statewide and western regional contests of the Music Teachers National Association competition, going on to win the national first prize. At the Tanglewood Festival he was Young Artist contest winner and concerto soloist. While attending the Eastman School of Music on full merit scholarship, he won a position in the Rochester Philharmonic. During his senior year he was appointed to The Cleveland Orchestra, with which he has appeared as soloist many times. His concerto repertoire includes those by Beethoven (Triple), Brahms (Double), Dvorák, Lalo, Rôsza, Saint-Saëns (A Minor and D Minor), Schumann and Tchaikovsky. An active chamber music performer, he is a member of the Cleveland Orchestra Piano Trio. In the summer he teaches at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival. Mr. Weiss coaches the cello sections of the CIM Orchestra and the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida. He has appeared at several music festivals, including Aspen and Reno. Along with Cleveland Orchestra colleagues Joela Jones, Maximilian Dimoff and Donald Miller, he released a CD of Claude Bolling's Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio, available online at www.clevelandorchestra.com/html/store/MerchandiseByID.asp?TypeID=1&ID=3157. Mr. Weiss was appointed to the CIM faculty in 1985.
