Andrew W. Jennings
Professor of Violin and Chamber Music and Chair of Strings
ajenning@umich.edu
734-764-5584
Office: 3026 Moore
His principal teachers were Ivan Galamian, Alexander Schneider, Pamela Gearhart and Raphael Druian. He was a founding member of the Concord String Quartet, a new ensemble that quickly gained international recognition by winning the Naumberg Chamber Music Award in 1972 and which performed more than 1200 concerts throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. Specializing in the performance of new works (with an emphasis on American composers), this Quartet gave more than 50 premieres and commissions; it also performed the standard repertory and 32 cycles of the complete Beethoven quartets and made numerous recordings, three of which were nominated for Grammy Awards. Mr. Jennings maintained his association with this Quartet until it disbanded in 1987. The Concord Trio, which Mr. Jennings subsequently formed with Norman Fischer and Jeanne Kierman, debuted in 1993.
Jennings' teaching career began at Dartmouth College where members of the Concord Quartet were engaged as artists-in-residence from 1974 to 1987. For 25 years he served on the faculty of Oberlin College and is currently chair of the String Department at Michigan. He devotes his summers to chamber music instruction at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts where he holds the Beatrice Proctor Master Teacher Chair. His recordings can be found on RCA, Nonesuch, Vox, Turnabout, Equilibrium, Danacord and MMO. A recording of Jennings performing George Rochberg's Caprice Variations for Solo Violin is currently available on YouTube.
Stephen Shipps
Professor of Violin
sbshipps@umich.edu
734-615-7353
Office: 3034 Moore
Stephen B. Shipps enjoys a varied professional career as violinist, teacher, editor, administrator, adjudicator and commentator. He serves as Professor of Violin and Senior Advisor to the Dean for International Study at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. He is Director of the International Music Academy Pilsen in the Czech Republic, now entering its seventh season.
Mr. Shipps is presently under contract with Naxos recordings for five CD’s and Lauren Keiser Publishing for a series of print editions of standard violin solo repertoire. An avid chamber musician, he is currently performing and recording with the Vorobiev-Shipps-Aaron Piano Trio. He serves on the Audition Panel for the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and is returning as Media Host of the 2010 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.
Mr. Shipps pursued violin studies with Josef Gingold at Indiana University, receiving a BM, MM and Performer’s Certificate. He also studied with Ivan Galamian and Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School and with Franco Gulli at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. He began his career as an orchestral performer, serving as a member of the Cleveland Orchestra, Associate Concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Concertmaster of the Dallas Opera and Omaha Symphony Orchestras. As a chamber performer, Mr. Shipps was a member of the Amadeus and Meadowmount Piano Trios. His recording career spanned all recorded genres and his solo and chamber recordings are available on Albany, American Gramaphone, Equilibrium, Melodiya/Russian Disc and Naxos. His solo work on the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas series has yielded over two-dozen gold and platinum records representing over 20 million copies sold. His print editions are available from Encore Press in Detroit, E.C. Schirmer in Boston, Editio Amos in Prague and Lauren Keiser Publishing in New York. Shipps has taught at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Banff Centre in Canada and the Prague Academy of Music. He is invited regularly for teaching residencies at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe and the Hochschule für Musik Dresden.
In service capacities, he has served on the Board of Advisors of the Sphinx Organization and Competition since its inception. Mr. Shipps currently co-chairs the Committee for Studio Instruction for the American String Teachers Association and is a long-standing member of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis Advisory Board.
Aaron Berofsky
Professor of Violin
berofsky@umich.edu
734-615-7358
Office: 3030 Moore
Violinist Aaron Berofsky has toured extensively throughout the United States and abroad, gaining wide recognition as a soloist and chamber musician. As soloist, he has performed with orchestras in the United States, Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada. He has performed the complete cycle of Mozart violin sonatas at the International Festival Deia in Spain and has appeared in such renowned venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Corocoran Gallery, Het Doelen, L'Octogone, the Teatro San Jose and the Museo de Bellas Artes. Mr. Berofsky has been featured on NPR's Performance Today and on the Canadian Broadcasting Company. His acclaimed recordings can be found on the Sony, New Albion, ECM, Audio Ideas, Blue Griffin and Chesky labels.
Mr. Berofsky has been the first violinist of the Chester String Quartet since 1992. The quartet has been acclaimed as "one of the country's best young string quartets" by the Boston Globe, and as having "irrepressible energy and unflagging good taste" by the Los Angeles Times. Tours have taken them throughout the Americas and Europe and the quartet members have collaborated with such artists as Robert Mann, Arnold Steinhardt, Franco Gulli, members of the Alban Berg quartet, Andres Diaz, Eugene Istomin and Ruth Laredo. Some notable projects over the years have included the complete cycles of the quartets by Beethoven and Dvorak, and numerous recordings by such composers as Mozart, Haydn, Barber, Porter, Piston, Kernis and Tenenbom. The Chester Quartet has served as resident quartet at the University of Michigan and at Indiana University South Bend.
An alumnus of the Juilliard School, Mr. Berofsky was a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay. Other important teachers have included Robert Mann, Felix Galimir, Glenn Dicterow, Lorand Fenyves and Elaine Richey. Mr. Berofsky is known for his commitment to teaching and is Professor of Violin at the University of Michigan and visiting Professor at the Hochschule fur Muisk in Detmold, Germany. He taught at he Meadowmount School of Music for many summers and now teaches at the Chautauqua Institution. He has also taught at Oberlin, Interlochen, the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival and the Conservatorio Palma Mallorca.
Mr. Berofsky's interest in early music led him to perform with the acclaimed chamber orchestra Tafelmusik on period instruments, and he has recorded with them for the Sony label. With a strong dedication to new music as well, he has worked extensively with many leading composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, performing, commissioning and recording music by John Cage, William Bolcom, Zhou Long, Michael Daugherty, Aaron Jay Kernis, Susan Botti and Bright Sheng.
Aaron Berofsky is the concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony. He has served as concertmaster for the Orkestra Sinfonica Bilbao, the Juilliard Orchestra and the Lansing Symphony as well. He performs frequently with the Camerata Adriatica as soloist and continues to appear regularly in recital and at festivals throughout North America and Europe.
David Halen
Professor of Violin
dhalen@umich.edu
734-615-7353
Office: 3034 Moore
David Halen, concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony (SLS), is the newest member of the Department of Strings, where he begins work in the fall 2012 semester as professor of violin. Halen earned a BM from Central Missouri State University and a MM from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he studied with the late Sergiu Luca. He joined the SLS in 1991 and was named concertmaster in September 1995, serving under music directors Leonard Slatkin, the late Hans Vonk and, currently, David Robertson. He has soloed with the orchestra in much of the major concerti in the violin repertoire and has also soloed with the Houston, San Francisco and West German Radio (Cologne) symphonies. Prior to joining the SLS, Halen was assistant concertmaster with the Houston Symphony Orchestra.
Born in Bellevue, Ohio, Halen grew up in Warrensburg, Missouri. His father, the late Walter J. Halen, was also his violin professor at Central Missouri State University, where Halen earned his bachelor’s degree at the age of 19. In that same year, he won the Music Teachers National Association Competition and was granted a Fulbright scholarship for study with Wolfgang Marschner at the Freiburg Hochschule für Musik in Germany, the youngest recipient ever to have been honored with this prestigious award.
During the summer, Halen teaches and performs extensively, serving as concertmaster at the Aspen Music Festival and School under Robert Spano. He has also soloed, taught and served as concertmaster extensively at the Orford Arts Centre in Quebec, the Manhattan School of Music, Indiana University, the National Orchestra Institute at the University of Maryland, the Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and the New World Symphony in Miami Beach. In 2007 he was appointed Distinguished Visiting Artist at Yale University and at the new Robert Mcduffie Center for Strings at Mercer University in Macon Georgia.
As cofounder and artistic director of the Innsbrook Institute, Halen coordinates a weeklong festival, in June, of exciting musical performances and an enclave for aspiring artists. In August, he is artistic director of the Missouri River Festival of the Arts held in one of the oldest opera houses in the mid-United States in Boonville, Missouri. His numerous accolades include the 2002 St. Louis Arts and Entertainment Award for Excellence, and an honorary doctorate from Central Missouri State University and from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis.
Danielle Belen
Associate Professor of Violin
dbelen@umich.edu
734-615-7351
Office: 2308 Moore
Newly appointed in September 2014 as associate professor and full-time Violin Faculty at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance in Ann Arbor, Danielle Belen is already making a name for herself as a seasoned pedagogue with a strong studio of young artists. While she was part of the violin faculty at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, California, her students won national and international competitions including the Stulberg and Klein competitions, as well as being accepted into major conservatories and universities across the country.
Winner of the 2008 Sphinx Competition, Belen has appeared as a soloist with major symphonies across the U.S., including the Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Nashville and San Francisco Symphonies, the Boston Pops, and the Florida and Cleveland Orchestras. Zachary Lewis from the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote "Violinist Danielle Belen... captivated every ear with an assured, impassioned performance of Ravel's Tzigane, knocking off the daunting showpiece as if it were a trifle." She has recently enjoyed working with conductors such as Franz Welser-Mostt, Robert Spano, Keith Lockhart, Yehuda Gilad and Carl St. Clair.
Belen released her debut Naxos recording of works by living composer Lawrence Dillon in 2009 to much acclaim. Soon after, she commissioned Multiplicity, a piece by Dillon for six virtuoso violins, which was premiered along with her students at the Colburn School.
A graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music and the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles, where she studied with Robert Lipsett, Belen joined the faculty of the Colburn School in 2008. In addition to maintaining her own violin studio, she was also the teaching assistant to Lipsett for over five years, working with talent of the highest caliber from around the world. Additionally, she served as the director of the Ed and Mari Chamber Music Institute in the Colburn pre-college division. Belen frequently enjoys teaching master classes and leading community engagements across the country in conjunction with her professional performance appearances. She served as Concertmaster of the New West Symphony and performed as soloist with the orchestra numerous times.
In 2010, Belen founded Center Stage Strings, a summer camp and performance festival for gifted young musicians in Three Rivers, California that has gained national attention. As artistic director and string faculty chair, she has attracted students and seasoned artists from around the world. Artists, including Lynn Harrell, James Ehnes, Arnold Steinhardt, Sarah Chang, and Stefan Jackiw have joined to perform in support of Center Stage Strings. More information can be found at Center Stage Strings website.
Belen plays on a 1709 Alessandro Gagliano violin from the Mandell Collection of Southern California.
Yoonshin Song
Lecturer of Violin
yoonsong@umich.edu
"A wonderfully talented violinist... [whose] sound and technique go well beyond her years," Yoonshin Song was recently appointed concertmaster of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Winner of the Stradivarius International Violin Competition, Song has earned many prizes in other prestigious international competitions including the Lipizer (Italy), Henry Marteau (Germany), Wieniawski (Poland) and Ima Hogg (the United States). In her native South Korea, she has won virtually all major national competitions.
Song has been sought after as a charismatic soloist and imaginative chamber musician performing throughout Korea, the United States, and Europe to great acclaim. She has appeared with many orchestras around the world such as the Utah Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, among many others, and has participated in numerous music festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Perlman Music Program, and Miyazaki Chamber Music Festival.
Song earned her master's degree and graduate diploma under the tutelage of Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory of Music, and completed the artist diploma and professional study programs at Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Robert Mann and Glenn Dicterow.
Song plays on a 1707 Vincenzo Rugeri violin on loan to her by a generous sponsor in Michigan.
Kathryn Votapek
Lecturer of Violin
kvotapek@umich.edu
734-615-7358
Office: 3030 Moore
A member of the Chester String Quartet for 15 years, violinist Kathryn Votapek now maintains an active career as a soloist and guest artist at chamber music festivals throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. She has participated in numerous commissioning projects and premieres and can be heard with the Chester Quartet on the Koch International Classics and New Albion labels. Along with pianist Ralph Votapek and clarinetist Paul Votapek, she performs as violinist and violist with the Votapek Trio. She has also given numerous duo performances with her husband, violinist Aaron Berofsky.
Votapek has been on the faculty of the Meadowmount School of Music, the Interlochen Arts Camp, the Madeline Island Music Camp, the Las Vegas Music Festival, the Quartet Program, the Banff International Festival, the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival (Italy), and the Peter de Grote Summer Academy (Holland), as well as performing at the Klosterkammerfest (Germany), Speedside Festival (Canada), the International Deia Festival (Spain), the Garth Newel Festival, the Fontana Festival, and with the Chicago Chamber Musicians.
Votapek is currently on the faculty at University of Michigan and is the associate concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. In prior years she was associate professor of violin and artist-in-residence at Indiana University South Bend.
Votapek received her bachelor of music degree at Indiana University and master's degree from the Juilliard School. Her teachers were Robert Mann, Franco Gulli, and Angel Reyes.
