After his immigration to the United States in 1975, Mr. Markov made his sensational debut with the Houston Symphony in May 1976, prompting a New York Times reviewer to write, “The audience roared approval, coming to its feet for three standing ovations, Mr. Markov vowed them with dazzling pyrotechnics.” Following performances with symphonies and solo appearances at Carnegie Hall in New York, Markov performed at the Kennedy Center and played to great media acclaim in concert halls in Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, Houston, Toronto, Montreal and other cities of North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. He appeared with such conductors as James Conlon, Neeme Järvi, David Zinman, Andrew Litton, Lukas Foss, Sixten Ehrling, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Sergiu Comissiona, Sir Charles Groves, and others. After almost twenty years of absence from the Russian concert stage, Markov entered the music scene again in Moscow. His recordings are on the Sunrise, Melodia, and Musical Heritage Society labels. His compositions, which have been published by G. Schirmer (USA) and Muzyka (Russia), are Sonatas for Solo and Duo Violins, Three Rhapsodies, and Caprices. His recent works are the Viohn Concerto, Formosa Suite for Violin and Orchestra (both recorded by Mr. Markov with the Russian National Orchestra on the Sunrise label) and the symphony Kinnor David, premiered in Moscow.
Markov is the music director of the Rondo Chamber Orchestra, appearing both as a soloist and conductor. Markov teaches at Manhattan School of Music. Among his students are prizewinners of international competitions and members of leading orchestras. Mr. Markov's Viohn Technique and Little Violinist (G. Schirmer, USA) are violin methods that are recognized around the world.
Manhattan School of Music College faculty since 1981.
Manhattan School of Music Precollege faculty since 1986.
Precollege surcharge applies.
Todd Phillips
Violinist Todd Phillips enjoys a varied career that harkens back to the traditions of previous generations of musicians who were in equal demand as soloist, chamber musician, orchestra leader/conductor, and teacher. Since making his solo debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony at the age of thirteen, he has appeared with many orchestras throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, including the Brandenburg Ensemble, the Jacksonville Symphony, Camerata Salzburg, Honolulu Symphony, Sejong Soloists, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1982 with the New York String Orchestra and conductor Alexander Schneider. Return engagements at Carnegie Hall soon followed, as well as solo performances in Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Boston Symphony Hall, and the Frankfurt Opera House.
He can be heard as soloist and chamber music artist on the Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, RCA Red Seal, Koch International, Delos, Arabesque, Bridge Records, Albany, Finlandia, NY Philomusica Records, and Marlboro Recording Society labels.
Mr. Phillips is a founding member of the highly acclaimed Orion String Quartet, along with his brother Daniel Phillips, violist Steven Tenenbom, and cellist Timothy Eddy. The Orion String Quartet has the been the quartet-in-residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Mannes College of Music, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Isaac Stern invited the quartet to take part in a special chamber music concert celebrating Carnegie Hall’s Centennial and also to participate as coaches at the prestigious Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop. The Quartet’s television appearances have included PBS’s Live from Lincoln Center, three performances on ABC’s Good Morning America, and A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts.
Mr. Phillips’s other extensive chamber music activities have included performances at the Marlboro, Spoleto, Santa Fe, Aspen, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Chamber Music Northwest, and Lockenhaus festivals, the Great Mountains Music Festival (Korea), the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the 92nd Street Y. He has collaborated with such renowned artists as Rudolf Serkin, Jaime Laredo, Pinchas Zukerman, Richard Stoltzman, Peter Serkin, Richard Goode, and Andras Schiff and has participated in eighteen tours with Musicians from Marlboro.
His experience as a member of the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has led to his being in great demand as a frequent leader of that group worldwide. This has prompted further invitations to lead/conduct the Brandenburg Ensemble, Haydn–Mozart Chamber Orchestra, the New World Symphony, Camerata Nordica of Sweden, the Tapiola Sinfonietta of Finland, Mannes Sinfonietta, and the festival chamber orchestras from Steamboat Springs, Colorado and Risor, Norway.
Todd Phillips also serves on the violin and chamber music faculties of the Mannes College of Music and the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
Mr. Phillips began studying the violin at the age of four with his father, Eugene Phillips, a composer and former violinist with the Pittsburgh Symphony, and later studied with Sally Thomas at the Juilliard School and with Sandor Vegh at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He also studied the piano with his mother, Natalie Phillips, a professor in piano at the University of Pittsburgh.
Mr. Phillips lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, violinist Catherine Cho, and is the father of four children, Lia, Eliza, Jason, and Brandon.
Maria Radicheva
Violinist María Radicheva has met with critical acclaim as recitalist, guest soloist, and chamber musician, appearing in major concert halls throughout Europe, the United States, Mexico, Israel, Japan, and Asia. Her summer music festival appearances have included Aspen and Marlboro. Ms. Radicheva was presented in her New York recital debut as the winner of the National Federation of Music Clubs Award and cited by Musical America as a “young artist of the year” and a “talent to watch.” Ms. Radicheva has made numerous radio and television appearances, including on WQXR, Radio France International, and BRT. She has recorded for Balkanton and Musical Heritage Society, including an album of all four sonatas for violin and piano by Bulgarian composer Parashkev Hadjiev. She gave the world premiere of his third and fourth sonatas, which were written for and dedicated to her.
Ms. Radicheva is the recipient of the Premiere Prix Diploma from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and The Dame Myra Hess Trust Award. She received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School. Ms. Radicheva studied with Dorothy DeLay, Felix Galimir, and Yfrah Neaman and through the years has had the guidance of Lord Yehudi Menuhin. A noted pedagogue, she is invited regularly to adjudicate competitions and to conduct violin and chamber music master classes in the U.S. and abroad. Many of her students are top prize winners of international and U.S. competitions. Ms. Radicheva’s affiliations have included Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Montclair State University-John J. Cali School of Music, and N.Y.U. Steinhardt School of Music. She has been described by Yehudi Menuhin as “an artist of outstanding and exceptional talent.”
Ms. Radicheva is awarded with the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts, Honoris Causa, the highest academic award, given by the National Music Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria.
She has been a member of the Manhattan School of Music college faculty since 2005 and of the precollege faculty since 2001.
Nicholas Mann
Nicholas Mann, Chair of the String Department, grew up surrounded by music and musicians, collaborating from an early age with such noted artists as Itzhak Perlman, Lynn Harrell, and his father Robert Mann. Mr. Mann has performed extensively as a recitalist and soloist throughout the United States and Canada. In New York he has appeared on the Great Performers Series at Alice Tully Hall, performed with Chamber Music at the “Y,” and served as concertmaster of the Jupiter Symphony.
Mr. Mann was a founding member of the Mendelssohn String Quartet, which began its career in 1979 and spanned 31 years. The MSQ was a frequent guest at virtually every major music series in the U.S. as well as performing in Canada and Europe. The MSQ commissioned numerous composers, including Mario Davidovsky, Bernard Rands, Augusta Read Thomas, Shulamit Ran, and Tobias Picker. The quartet’s discography includes recordings for Musical Heritage, Nonesuch, Bis, and Newport Classic.
After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Dorothy Delay, he made his debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1983. His participation in summer music festivals includes ten years at Yellow Barn and the Santa Fe Music Festival, several seasons at Ravinia, Aspen Music Festival, and frequent engagements with San Francisco’s Chamber Music West and Colorado’s Baca Ensemble. Mr. Mann has also performed over one hundred duo concerts with his father.
Mr. Mann has a long distinguished career teaching, He taught at the University of Delaware (1989–1998), Harvard University (1992–2001), North Carolina School of the Arts (1997–2003), and the Hartt School of Music (2000–2003). Currently, Mr. Mann is also on the faculty of Juilliard.
Nicholas Mann has been a member of the Precollege faculty since 2013.
Laurie Carney
A founding member of the American String Quartet, Laurie Carney comes from a prodigious musical family. Her father was a trumpeter and educator, her mother a pianist, and her three siblings all violinists. She began her studies at home and at the age of 8 became the youngest violinist ever to be admitted to the Preparatory Division of the Juilliard School. At 15 she was the youngest to be accepted into Juilliard’s College Division. Ms. Carney studied with Dorothy DeLay and received both BM and MM degrees from Juilliard. She has shared the stage with many of the world’s leading artists, including Isaac Stern, Yefim Bronfman, Pinchas Zukerman, and Frederica von Stade, and been featured in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with the Bournemouth Symphony and the Basque (Spain) Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Carney frequently performs duo recitals with Guarneri Quartet violist Michael Tree. She was featured in the New York premiere of Giampaolo Bracali’s Fantasia.
A member of the Manhattan School of Music faculty and the faculty of Aspen Music School, she has held teaching positions at the Mannes College of Music, Peabody Conservatory, the University of Nebraska, and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Her frequent master classes have taken her to California, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, and New Mexico. Ms. Carney performs the duo repertory with her husband, cellist William Grubb. Her nonprofessional interests include animal rights and environmental concerns. Her violin is by Carlo Tononi (Venice, 1720).
Glenn Dicterow
Former New York Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow has established himself worldwide as one of the most prominent American concert artists of his generation. His extraordinary musical gifts became apparent when, at age 11, he made his solo debut in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (where his father, Harold Dicterow, served as principal of the second violin section for 52 years). In the following years, Mr. Dicterow became one of the most sought-after young artists, appearing as soloist from coast to coast.
Mr. Dicterow, who has won numerous awards and competitions, is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Ivan Galamian, and where he has been a faculty member since 1987. In 1967, at the age of 18, he performed as soloist with the New York Philharmonic under Andre Kostelanetz in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. In 1980 he joined the Orchestra as concertmaster, the Charles E. Culpeper Chair, and has since performed as soloist every year in works by composers as varied as Bach and Mozart, Brahms and Bruch, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Korngold and Menotti, and Aaron Jay Kernis and Karel Husa. He will conclude his Philharmonic tenure this June with a performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, with pianist Yefim Bronfman and cellist Carter Brey. Prior to joining the New York Philharmonic, he served as associate concertmaster and concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Mr. Dicterow, who frequently appears as a guest soloist with other orchestras, has made numerous recordings. His most recent CD is a solo recital for Cala Records entitled New York Legends, featuring John Corigliano’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing, the premiere recording of Leonard Bernstein’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, and Martinů’s Three Madrigals for violin and viola, in collaboration with violist Karen Dreyfus and pianist Gerald Robbins. His recording of Bernstein’s Serenade, on Volume 2 of the American Celebration set, is available on the New York Philharmonic’s website, nyphil.org. Mr. Dicterow can also be heard in the violin solos of the film scores for The Turning Point, The Untouchables, Altered States, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and Interview with the Vampire, among others.
Chair of Manhattan School of Music’s Graduate Program in Orchestral Performance, and a faculty artist at the Music Academy of the West, in 2013 Mr. Dicterow also became the first to hold the Robert Mann Chair in Strings and Chamber Music at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music.
Koichiro Harada
Born in 1945, Koichiro Harada studied violin, chamber music, and conducting at the Toho Gakuen School of Music and the Juilliard School under Hideo Saito, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Dorothy DeLay, and Ivan Galamian. In 1969, Mr. Harada founded the renowned Tokyo String Quartet, in which he played first violin for 12 years. Highly acclaimed for his talent, technique, and musicality, he later began teaching overseas at major music learning centers including the Cleveland Conservatory and Aspen Music Festival.
Mr. Harada returned to Tokyo in 1983 and went on to form several other notable chamber music ensembles, among them NADA and Mito Quartet. He has performed at numerous music festivals, including Aspen Music Festival, Nagano-Aspen Music Festival, the Ishikawa Music Academy, and Kurashiki Music Festival.
Also an acclaimed conductor, Koichiro Harada often appears with the New Japan Philharmonic, Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, Kyushu Symphony Orchestra, and Kioi Sinfonietta, Tokyo, among many others.
In addition to his concert activities, Mr. Harada is a professor at the Toho Gakuen School of Music and has been invited to serve as a jury member for many international competitions: Concours Music International Reine Elisabeth de Belgique, International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, Concorso Internazionale Di Violino Premio N. Paganini, and Concours International de Violin Henryk Wieniawski. In 2005, he was president of the jury of the Concours International Long-Thibaud.
Burton Kaplan
Burton Kaplan, a member of the string faculty at Manhattan School of Music, is also professor of violin and viola at New York University. During his continuing thirty-year tenure at Manhattan School of Music, he taught the courses Practicing for Artistic Success and Orchestral Excerpts and conducted the Manhattan Chamber Sinfonia. In addition, he is director of Performance Power, an organization dedicated to teaching a system for harnessing and integrating the powers of mind, body, and spirit in the practice room and on the stage. In these capacities, he has influenced the growth of several thousand preprofessional and professional musicians. As conductor and music director of the Manhattan/Downeast Chamber Orchestra and the Empire State Youth Orchestra, he has performed at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall to exceptional reviews: "Mr. Kaplan has fashioned the orchestra into a disciplined, precisely honed ensemble, one that plays with a crisp biting attack and an obvious relish of making music in a vigorous extroverted manner." (New York Times) In addition, the orchestra under his direction has performed at the White House and won the American Symphony Orchestra League's National Youth Orchestra Competition. In 2000, he was the conductor of the All-State Symphony Orchestra of the New York State School Music Association.
During more than three decades, Mr. Kaplan has served on the faculties of The City University of New York and the State University of New York and as director of education of the Downeast Chamber Music Center and the Third Street Music School Settlement in New York City. His career includes international appearances as a lecturer on instrumental pedagogy, sight-reading and practicing; and he was the first instrumental teacher in the world to use video feedback in teaching (1967). He has patents on devices for learning stringed instruments and a unique tone-enhancing “shoulder horn” for violin and viola. Mr. Kaplan is the author of The Complete Music Sight-Reader series and The Musician's Practice Log. His latest book is Practicing for Artistic Success: The Musician’s Guide to Self-Empowerment in the Practice Room. In addition, he served as a member of the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell and the Pittsburgh and American Symphonies under William Steinberg and Leopold Stokowski.
Manhattan School of Music faculty since 1982.
Lisa Kim
Lisa E. Kim is one of the youngest members of the New York Philharmonic, which she joined in September 1994. Previously, she was with Chicago's Grant Park Symphony Orchestra as the youngest member. In February 1998 she was promoted to the third chair second violin of the Philharmonic. She performs and teaches frequently in South Korea and the United States. She is very active in chamber music concerts throughout the world, including the Merkin Concert Hall Series, the Avery Fisher Hall Chamber Music Series, and the Hofstra Chamber Ensemble Series.
Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1970, Ms. Kim began studying the violin at age seven. She attended the North Carolina School of the Arts on a Stanford Governor's Scholarship, where she was a pupil of Elaine Richey. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees from The Juilliard School, where she was awarded several scholarships and studied with Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow.
Ms. Kim has performed with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra, and the Durham Symphony Orchestra, appearing as a soloist in concertos by Bruch, Mendelssohn, Khachaturian, and Mozart. She has won prizes in the Arts Recognition and Talent Search, the Bryan Young Artists String Competition, the Winston-Salem Young Talent Search, and the Durham Symphony Young Artists Competition. Ms. Kim has also performed chamber music throughout Europe under the International Music Program and has participated in Jordan's Jurash Festival at the invitation of the late King Hussein. She has appeared in numerous chamber music festivals including those of Meadowmount, Bowdoin, and Saugatuck.
Manhattan School of Music faculty since 1999.
Patinka Kopec
Bio:
PATINKA KOPEC (violin and viola), who, joined the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music in 1987, teaches in the Precollege and Upper School Divisions. Since 1993 she has been the Co-Director and Co-Teacher of the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at MSM. She was a Co-Founding Artist of the Perlman Music Program (1995) where she continues to teach. She is the Director of the Young Artists Programme at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada (since 1999).
Ms Kopec completed her MM and BM at The Julliard where she studied with Dorothy DeLay, Ivan Galamian, Lillian Fuchs, and William Lincer. Ms Kopec was a Teaching Assistant to Dorothy DeLay and Ivan Galamian. She has performed at Aspen Music Festival, Carnegie Recital Hall, Town Hall, Down East Festival (NY), Killington Music Festival, and the Southern Vermont Festival. She was formerly artist in residence with the Andreas Quartet (viola) for 10 years and was on the faculties of the Queens College, Aspen Music Festival, Interlochen Arts Academy, Sarah Lawrence College, SUNY Purchase, Thurnauer School of Music at the JCC of the Palisades (NJ), and Hoff-Barthelson Music School. She has given Master Classes in Tel Aviv, Prague, Shanghai, Miyazaki (Japan), Ottawa, and conservatories in the United States.
Her students have soloed with major orchestras and play in many professional chamber ensembles and orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, and the Berlin Orchestras. Her students have also placed in prestigious international competitions, including the Menuhin, Stolberg, and the Young Concert Artist and are under management. Many of her students now hold teaching positions in conservatories.
Manhattan School of Music College faculty since 1993.
Manhattan School of Music Precollege faculty since 1987.
Curtis Macomber
Violinist Curtis Macomber is considered one of today’s most versatile soloists and chamber musicians, equally at home and committed to works from Bach to Babbitt, with a discography ranging from the complete Brahms String Quartets to Roger Sessions’s Solo Sonata to the complete Grieg Sonatas. His playing has been praised by the New York Times for its “thrilling virtuosity.” Recognized as a leading advocate of the music of our time, he has performed in hundreds of premieres, commissions, and first recordings of solo violin and chamber works by, among others, Carter, Davidovsky, Perle, Wuorinen, and Mackey. In 2008 he premiered and recorded the Martin Boykan Violin Concerto with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. As first violinist of the award-winning New World String Quartet from 1982 to 1993, Mr. Macomber performed throughout the United States and Europe, and, with the Quartet, recorded 14 discs and was appointed Artist in Residence at Harvard. A founding member of the Apollo Piano Trio, Mr. Macomber has been violinist of the Da Capo Chamber Players since 2007, joined the Manhattan String Quartet in fall 2011, and is a member of the New York Chamber Soloists. He was for many years the violinist of Speculum Musicae and has appeared with the New York New Music Ensemble, Group for Contemporary Music, and Sea Cliff Chamber Players in chamber music series. He is a regular participant at La Musica in Sarasota and at the Monadnock Music Festival. He has recorded for Nonesuch, Koch, Bridge, Arabesque, Naxos, and Musical Heritage; CRI recently released his third solo recording, Casting Ecstatic. Mr. Macomber has been a member of the violin faculty of Manhattan School of Music since 1994 and of the chamber music faculty of the Juilliard School since 1998. He has taught at Tanglewood, Taos, and Yellow Barn. He holds his BM, MM, and DMA degrees from the Juilliard School, where he was a scholarship student of Joseph Fuchs and winner of the Loeb and Naumburg prizes.
Isaac Malkin
Isaac Malkin received his training in Russia. His exceptional background derives from the rich tradition of the Russian violin school founded by Leopold Auer. This noble tradition encompasses technical perfection, beautiful tone, and passionate music making. Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, and Misha Elman are among the outstanding performers whose virtuosity represents this heritage. Mr. Malkin has achieved recognition as a successful and highly sought-after violin teacher in Russia, Israel, and the United States. He has taught at the Israeli conservatory in Tel Aviv, the University of California at San Diego, and the State University of New York at Purchase, among other schools. He has given numerous master classes in many different countries. Mr. Malkin’s students have become teachers, soloists, and members of chamber ensembles and orchestras. He has been highly praised by internationally known violinists and teachers such as Felix Andrievsky, Boris Belkin, Joseph Gingold, Henry Roth, Vladimir Spivakov, and Isaac Stern. He is also on the faculty of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, CUNY. Isaac Malkin is the author of a violin method which emphasizes ways of correcting specific technical problems. He founded the Academy of Strings at UCSD, and is founding director of the Academy of Music Festival at Ramapo College, New Jersey.
Manhattan School of Music College faculty since 1989.
Manhattan School of Music Precollege faculty since 1988.
Precollege surcharge applies.
Robert Mann
Robert Mann, at 93 years of age, has been a driving force in the world of music for more than seventy years. As founder and first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet, and as a soloist, composer, teacher, and conductor, Mr. Mann has brought a refreshing sense of adventure and discovery to chamber music performances, master classes, and orchestral performances worldwide. He is, in the words of Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe, “one of the country’s most admired and deeply loved musicians.”
Born in Portland, Oregon in 1920, Mr. Mann began studying violin when he was eight, and at age 13 was accepted into the class of Edouard Hurlimann, concertmaster of the Portland Symphony. In 1938, he moved to New York City to enroll in The Juilliard School, where he studied violin with Edouard Dethier, composition with Bernard Wagenaar and Stephan Wolpe, and conducting with Edgar Schenkman. Mr. Mann won the prestigious Naumburg competition in 1941.
In 1946, at the invitation of Juilliard’s president, William Schuman, Robert Mann founded the Juilliard String Quartet serving as the ensemble’s first violinist for 51 years until his retirement from the Quartet in 1997. The quartet, which celebrated its Golden Jubilee during the 1996-97 season, had played approximately 5,500 concerts and performed more than 500 works including some 100 premieres. Its discography includes recordings of more than 100 compositions. The Juilliard String Quartet received three Grammy Awards, and in 2011, the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award.
Mr. Mann is a prolific composer and has composed more than 30 works for narrator with various instruments that he performs with his wife, the actress Lucy Rowan. He has also composed an Orchestral Fantasy performed by Dimitri Mitropoulos with the New York Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, and at the Salzburg Festival; a Duo for Violin and Piano that was premiered at Carnegie Hall by Itzhak Perlman; and a String Quartet that was included in the repertoires of both the La Salle and the Concord String Quartets. His other works include a Duo for Cello and Piano written for Joel Krosnick and Gilbert Kalish, a Concerto for Orchestra, and “Lament” for two solo violas and orchestra. His work “Dream Time” was recently recorded by violist David Carpenter.
Robert Mann has conducted throughout his professional career, leading ensembles such as the New York Chamber Symphony, Manhattan School of Music Symphony, and ensembles at the Ravinia, Tanglewood and Aspen music festivals. In addition, at the invitation of Seiji Ozawa, he has been in residence at Japan’s Saito Kinen Music Festival as a conductor, teacher, and performer. He also serves as head teacher at Seiji Ozawa’s International Academy for String Quartets and Chamber Ensembles in Rolle, Switzerland. Robert Mann is a mentor to younger generations of string quartets including the Alexander, American, Concord, Emerson, LaSalle, New World, Mendelssohn, Tokyo, Brentano, Lark, St. Lawrence, and Colorado string quartets.
Mr. Mann continues to actively perform as a violinist recently performing concerts in New York, Los Angeles, San Franciso and Houston. He is on the faculty at Manhattan School of Music and for the past two years MSM has presented the Robert Mann String Quartet Seminar which brings the country’s most talented young string quartets to the school for intensive week-long coachings with Mr. Mann. Since 1971, Mr. Mann has been President of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation and his wife, Lucy Rowan Mann, is the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s Executive Director. Speak the Music: Robert Mann and the Mysteries of Chamber Music, a film by Allan Miller, is soon to be released.
Robert Mann has been married to Lucy Rowan Mann for 62 years. They have two children, Nicholas and Lisa.
Lucie Robert
Violinist Lucie Robert has received enthusiastic praise from audiences and critics alike for the expressive lyricism and tonal beauty of her playing. Allan Kozinn, writing in the New York Times, lauded her “melting tone” and “wonderfully supple approach to phrasing.” Ms. Robert carries on the great violin tradition of her teacher and mentor, the legendary Josef Gingold.
Ms. Robert has appeared as recitalist and chamber musician throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Far East in major music centers including New York, London, Chicago, Washington D.C., Vienna, Beijing, Seoul, Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa. She has performed over thirty different works as violin soloist with major orchestras throughout North America. Ms. Robert has also collaborated in chamber music with artists such as Menahem Pressler, Philippe Entremont, Claude Frank, and Isidore Cohen. As a recording artist, she has performed for National Public Radio, the CBC Radio Network, Radio Canada, and Radio France and received critical acclaim for her recording of violin sonatas by Fauré and Saint-Saëns. An active participant in the summer music festival scene, Ms. Robert has been guest artist or faculty member at festivals such as Bowdoin, the American Conservatoire at Fontainebleau, Musicorda, Meadowmount, Orford, Waterloo, Busan Music Festival, and the Hida-Takayama Festival. She is currently on the faculties of the Texas Music Festival at the Moores School of Music, the MusicAlp Academy in France, and the Duxbury Music Festival. Ms. Robert is the artistic director of “Mannes in Unison,” a new concert series in New York which will have its premiere season in 2014–15.
Highly sought after as a violin pedagogue, Ms. Robert has served for over twenty-five years as violin professor at Manhattan School of Music and the Mannes College of Music. She has given master classes throughout the world at prestigious institutions such as Seoul National University, the Central Conservatory in Beijing, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, the Glenn Gould School, and the Conservatoire de Musique de Montreal. Her students have won prizes in major international competitions, including the Indianapolis, Young Concert Artists, Paganini, Sendai, China, and Szigeti International Violin Competitions. Ms. Robert has served as an adjudicator for many competitions, including the Montreal International Violin Competition, the International Fritz Kreisler Violin Competition, the József Szigeti International Violin Competition, and the 2014 China CCTV Violin Competition. Ms. Robert will be a member of the jury of the 2015 Seoul International Violin Competition in March 2015.
Manhattan School of Music College faculty since 1988.
Manhattan School of Music Precollege faculty since 1990.
Sylvia Rosenberg
Sylvia Rosenberg has performed throughout the United States and abroad with major orchestras, including the Chicago, National, and London Symphonies, the Royal Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, New Philharmonia, Berlin Radio, and all the BBC Orchestras, and at the most prestigious summer festivals, including the Edinburgh, Bath, Santa Fe Chamber, Banff Centre, Sarasota, Marlboro and Ravinia Music Festivals. A graduate of the Juilliard School, she studied with Ivan Galamian. Ms. Rosenberg worked withSzymon Goldberg and received a Fulbright scholarship for study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Ms. Rosenberg has been professor of violin at the Eastman School of Music, Peabody Conservatory of Music, Indiana University, and Stony Brook State University and an artist-faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1980. She has given numerous master classes worldwide at conservatories, music schools, and universities and frequently serves as juror for international competitions. A member of the Manhattan School of Music faculty since 1989, Ms. Rosenberg also gives annual master classes at London’s Royal Academy of Music, from which she recently received an honorary degree. Ms. Rosenberg was invited to give a series of three recitals in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in the spring of 2000 and has been invited back for every subsequent season. In 2009 she gave her eleventh concert there. Ms. Rosenberg joined the faculty of the Juilliard School in the fall of 2007 and has been a member of the Manhattan School of Music faculty since 1989.
Laurie Smukler
Active as soloist and recitalist, Laurie Smukler has established a reputation as one of the finest chamber musicians in the country. Growing up in Cleveland, she began her studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music with pedagogue Margaret Randall. She started performing early, winning local competitions and playing as soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra at the age of 14. She received a Bachelor of Music degree from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Ivan Galamian. Other teachers who had a powerful influence on her development were Donald Weilerstein, Robert Mann, Rudolf Serkin, and Menahem Pressler.
As the founding first violinist of the Mendelssohn String Quartet, Ms. Smukler spent eight years traveling and performing internationally with them. She has performed and toured with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society. With her husband, violist Ira Weller, she directed and performed in the Collection in Concert series at the Pierpont Morgan Library. She has performed and toured as the first violinist of two school-affiliated string quartets, the Bard Festival String Quartet and the Purchase Faculty String Quartet. She collaborates frequently with esteemed colleagues in varied chamber ensembles, including recent trio performances with cellist Joel Krosnick and pianist Seymour Lipkin. She plays regularly at the chamber series, Da Camera of Houston.
Laurie Smukler is a member of the faculties of Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music, and the Conservatory of Music at Bard College. She spent 17 years as a professor of violin and chamber music at Purchase College Conservatory of Music, ten as Head of the String Department. Ms. Smukler also teaches and performs at the summer Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and School in Blue Hill, Maine. She has presented master classes at conservatories and music schools across the country, such as the Shepherd School of Rice University, Peabody Conservatory, University of Michigan, University of Tennessee at Memphis, and Oberlin College.
Ms. Smukler has been an invited guest at many summer festivals, including Kneisel Hall, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Marlboro Festival, Chambermusic Northwest, the Bard Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Skaneateles Festival, Music Mountain, and the Mount Desert Island Festival. She has a particular interest in contemporary music and has premiered works by Ned Rorem, Morton Subotnik, Steven Paulus, Shulamit Ran, and Bruce Adolphe, among other composers. She plays a Petrus Guarnerius violin made in Venice in 1738.
Sheryl Staples
Violinist Sheryl Staples was appointed Principal Associate Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic in 1998. She made her solo debut with the Philharmonic in 1999 with conductor Kurt Masur, performing the Tchaikovsky Concerto. Since that time she has been featured in over 25 performances, playing concertos of Mendelssohn, Mozart, Haydn, Bach, and Vivaldi with conductors including Alan Gilbert, Lorin Maazel, Yaap van Zweden, Kent Nagano, Jeffrey Kahane, and Sir Colin Davis. In addition, she has performed as soloist with more than 45 orchestras nationwide, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, Richmond Symphony, and Louisiana Philharmonic.
Praised in the New York Times as “a perceptive musician, who plays with great rhythmic integrity and a lucid sense of phrase structure. . . interpretive honesty and unmannered elegance,” she has been lauded for her “refinement and boldness, polish and fire. . . big, rich, sweeping tone, lacking nothing in warmth and evenness” (Los Angeles Times) and “aristocratic artistry coupled with violinistic mastery. . . pinpoint accuracy and daring that took the breath away” (Cleveland Plain Dealer).
An active chamber musician, Ms. Staples frequently performs in the New York area at venues including Avery Fisher Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, 92nd Street Y, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ms. Staples has performed chamber music for U.S. ambassadors in London, Paris, Berlin, Beijing, and Hong Kong and has toured Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. Recent summer festival appearances include La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest, Boston Chamber Music Society, and Salt Bay Chamberfest. She has also collaborated and performed at the chamber music festivals of Santa Fe, Mainly Mozart, Seattle, Aspen, Sarasota, Martha’s Vineyard, Strings Music Festival, and Brightstar. She appears on three Stereophile compact discs with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.
A native of Los Angeles, Ms. Staples’s major mentors were Robert Lipsett and Heiichiro Ohyama. Recognizing a passion for ensemble playing from an early age, Ms. Staples was appointed Concertmaster of the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra and other professional ensembles in Los Angeles before finishing studies at the U.S.C. Thornton School of Music. She then became Concertmaster of the Pacific Symphony while enjoying a varied career consisting of solo appearances, chamber music, private teaching, and Hollywood studio recording work for numerous major motion pictures. At the age of 26 Ms. Staples joined the Cleveland Orchestra as Associate Concertmaster, a position she held for three years. In addition, she taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Encore School for Strings, and Kent/Blossom Music Festival, and was a member of the Cleveland Orchestra Piano Trio.
In 2015 Ms. Staples joined the violin faculty at Manhattan School of Music as well as Juilliard Pre-College. She has served on the faculty at the Juilliard School in Violin Orchestral Repertoire since 2004.
Mark Steinberg
Mark Steinberg is first violinist and founding member of the Brentano Quartet, in existence since 1992. With the quartet he has performed throughout North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in Japan and Colombia. The quartet is ensemble in residence at Princeton University. Its many awards include the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the inaugural Cleveland Quartet award, and the Royal Philharmonic Society award for best debut in the UK. Mr. Steinberg is also an active chamber musician and recitalist. He has been heard in chamber music festivals in Holland, Germany, Austria, and France and participated for four summers in the Marlboro Music Festival, with which he toured extensively. He has also appeared in the El Paso Festival, on the Bargemusic series in New York, at Chamber Music Northwest, with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and in trio and duo concerts with pianist Mitsuko Uchida, with whom he presented the complete Mozart sonata cycle in London’s Wigmore Hall in 2001, with additional recitals in other cities. With Ms. Uchida he has also recorded a group of Mozart sonatas for Philips.
Mr. Steinberg has been soloist with the London Philharmonia, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Kansas City Camerata, the Auckland Philharmonia, and the Philadelphia Concerto Soloists, with conductors such as Kurt Sanderling, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the Juilliard School and has studied with Louise Behrend, Josef Gingold, and Robert Mann. An advocate of contemporary music, he has worked closely with many composers and performed with 20th century music ensembles including the Guild of Composers, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Speculum Musicae, and Continuum, with which he has recorded and toured extensively in the U.S. and Europe. He has also performed and recorded chamber music on period instruments with the Helicon Ensemble, the Four Nations Ensemble, and the Smithsonian Institute. Currently on the violin faculty of the Mannes College of Music, he has taught at Juilliard’s Pre-College division, at Princeton University, and New York University. He has taught often at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Aspen Festival, and the Taos School of Music and has given master classes at the Eastman School of Music and Cleveland Institute of Music, among many other schools.
Peter Winograd
Peter Winograd joined the American String Quartet, Artists in Residence at Manhattan School of Music, in 1990. He gave his first solo public performance at the age of 11, and at age 17 he was accepted as a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School. Recognized early as an exceptionally promising young artist, Winograd was a top prizewinner in the 1988 Naumburg International Violin Competition. He then made his New York debut to critical acclaim and has since appeared as a guest soloist with numerous orchestras and in recital across the country and abroad, including annual collaborative performances with cellist Andrés Díaz at the Florida Arts Chamber Music Festival. In 2002 Winograd performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Hartford Symphony; his father, Arthur Winograd, was the featured guest conductor. Peter Winograd has been a member of the violin and chamber music faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music School (where the American is Quartet in Residence) since 1990. Born into a gifted musical family, Winograd began his studies with his parents. His mother was a professional pianist, and his father was the founding cellist of the Juilliard Quartet and a conductor of the Hartford Symphony in Hartford, Connecticut, where Winograd grew up. He holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Juilliard. His wife, violinist Caterina Szepes, is a regular participant in the Marlboro Festival and a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. His violin is by Giovanni Maria del Bussetto (Cremona, 1675).
Pinchas Zukerman
Pinchas Zukerman has remained a phenomenon in the world of music for four decades. He is equally respected as violinist, violist, conductor, pedagogue, and chamber musician for his musical genius, prodigious technique, and unwavering artistic standards.
Pinchas Zukerman’s 2011–2012 season included over 100 worldwide performances, bringing him to multiple destinations in North America, Europe, and Asia. Mr. Zukerman is currently in his fourteenth season as Music Director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. In his third season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, he lead the ensemble in concerts throughout Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom, as well as on an East Coast tour of the United States and Canada. Additional orchestral engagements include the New York and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras and Chicago, San Francisco, Oregon, and San Diego Symphonies. Guest appearances with international orchestras include the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Budapest Festival Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, OSESP Brazil, Miyazaki Festival Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony, and Orchestra Giovani Luigi Cherubino. His chamber ensemble, the Zukerman Chamber Players, appears at the Ravinia, Schleswig-Holstein, and Tuscan Sun Music Festivals and later tours to Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Croatia, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, United States, and Canada.
Over the last decade, Pinchas Zukerman has become as well regarded as a conductor as he is as an instrumentalist, leading many of the world’s top ensembles in a wide variety of the orchestral repertoire’s most demanding works. A devoted and innovative pedagogue, Mr. Zukerman has chaired the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program since 1993 at Manhattan School of Music, where he has pioneered the use of distance-learning technology in the arts. In Canada, he has established the NAC Institute for Orchestral Studies and the Summer Music Institute encompassing the Young Artists, Conductors and Composers Programmes.
Born in Tel Aviv, Pinchas Zukerman came to America in 1962, where he studied at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian. He has been awarded a Medal of Arts and the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence, and was appointed as the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative’s first instrumentalist mentor in the music discipline.
