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 | Anthony Elliott
Maestro Elliott was first encouraged to pursue conducting by the late Karel Ancerl, of the Czech Philharmonic. His conducting studies were under the direction of Vilem Sokol and Derrick Inoyue. He has participated in conducting master classes sponsored by the American Symphony Orchestra League under the direction of Pierre Boulez and Andre Previn. Mr. Elliott was also invited to give a workshop for conductors at the Midwestern Conference of Music Education at the University of Michigan. He also conducted the Plymouth Symphony and the Washington, Texas, North Carolina, Alaska and North Dakota All State Orchestras. His activities as a conductor also include choral works, ballet and collaborations with Pinchas Zukerman, Nathaniel Rosen and Alice Neary. He has worked with the Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra and served as Assistant Music Director of the Marrowstone Music Festival and Music Director of the Houston Youth Symphony and Ballet. Mr. Elliott was the Grand Prize winner of the Feuermann International Solo Cello Competition in 1987 and has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Institute Symphony Orchestra and the CBC Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He is a Professor of Music at the University of Michigan and a member of the performing artist faculty at the Aspen Music Festival.
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 | Pamela Frank
American violinist Pamela Frank has established an outstanding international reputation across an unusually varied range of performing activity. The recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize, Ms. Frank has appeared with such orchestras as the Baltimore Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, the Orchestre National de France, the Houston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the National Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the San Francisco Symphony and the Vienna Symphony. She has performed under many esteemed conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Leonard Slatkin and, most regularly, Yuri Temirkanov and David Zinman. In addition to her partnership with her father, pianist Claude Frank, she works regularly with pianist Peter Serkin. Her other frequent collaboratorsinclude Yo-Yo Ma, Tabea Zimmermann and Alexander Simionescu. Ms. Frank has also participated in several of the Isaac Stern chamber music seminars at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Centre as part of a group of performer-colleagues assisting Mr. Stern. A champion of contemporary music, she gave the 1998 world premiere of a new concerto by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich commissioned for her by Carnegie Hall with Hugh Wolff and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. She has also premiered and recorded two works by Aaron Jay Kernis. Born in New York City, Pamela Frank is the daughter of noted pianists Claude Frank and Lilian Kallir. She began her violin studies at age 5 and after 11 years as a pupil of Shirley Givens continued her musical education with Szymon Goldberg and Jaime Laredo. She is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Pamela Frank is married to violinist Alexander (Andy) Simionescu, and they make their home in the New York area.
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 | Diane Monroe
As seen in the film, Music of the Heart, starring Meryl Streep, Diane Monroe was one of the original Fiddlefest soloists, appearing at Carnegie Hall, sharing the stage with Arnold Steinhardt, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Ida and Ani Kavafian, Mark O’Connor, and others. Prior to an invitation from Josef Gingold to study at the Curtis Institute of Music, Ms. Monroe studied with Charles Castleman at the Philadelphia Musical Academy and was Second Violinist of the Beaumont String Quartet of Michigan State University, where she performed with her teacher Walter Verdehr and cellist Peter Rejto. While studying at the Curtis Institute with Ivan Galamian and David Cerone, she was Concertmaster of the orchestra under legendaries such as Oscar Shumsky, Paul Paray, Walter Susskind, Calvin Simmons, and Joseph Silverstein. Ms. Monroe was Assistant Professor of Violin at Oberlin. As guitarist/songwriter and jazz pianist, she joined the Max Roach Double Quartet and the Uptown String Quartet as an improvising First Violinist, recording on the Philips/Soul Note label, and appearing on The Cosby Show and CBS News Sunday Morning. Currently, Ms. Monroe concertizes and educates, including work with Strings for Schools, Young Audiences, Opus 118 - We Want Music! and Temple University.
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 | Yizhak Schotten
Professor Schotten (viola) was brought to the United States by the renowned violist William Primrose, with whom he studied at Indiana University and the University of Southern California. Other studies were with Lillian Fuchs at the Manhattan School of Music. His solo appearances with orchestras have included performances with conductors Seiji Ozawa, Arthur Fiedler among others. He has concertized in Israel, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Holland, Austria, Mexico, England, Canada and throughout the United States at Town Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Merkin Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, among others. He has appeared at Bargemusic, the Library of Congress, at Symphony Hall in Boston, and the Concertgebouw. Mr. Schotten has also had numerous broadcasts on National Public Radio. Formerly a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he has been principal violist of the Cincinnati and Houston symphony orchestras. Mr. Schotten’s has been on the faculties and performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Banff, Meadowmount, Interlochen, Tanglewood, Chamber Music Northwest, Montreal Skaneateles, and the Juneau Festivals and abroad at the Taipei Philharmonic Festival, the Festival Internacional de Musica Clasica, the Festival de Musique de Chambre de Montreal, and the Amsterdam Kamermuzik Festival. He is also Music Director of the Maui Classical Music Festival in Hawaii, Strings in the Mountains Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and SpringFest in Ann Arbor. Mr. Schotten was the Artistic Director of the XIV International Viola Congress and has been a featured artist at six other international Congresses. He has recorded for Crystal Records, C.R.I., and Pearl Records. He taught at Rice University and the University of Washington. He was also on the American Federation of Musician’s Congress of Strings faculty. He is very active giving master classes throughout the United States and abroad.
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 | Marcus Thompson
Marcus Thompson, Violist, has appeared as soloist and recitalist, and in chamber music series throughout the Americas, Europe, and the Far East, with the orchestras of Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, the National Symphony, the Boston Pops and the Czech National Symphony in Prague. He performed the West Coast Premiere of the Harbison Viola Concerto with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Chicago Premiere with the Chicago Sinfonietta, and recently gave the Boston Premiere with the New England Conservatory Honors Orchestra. This season he received critical acclaim for performances of the Penderecki Viola Concerto with the MIT Symphony Orchestra in Boston and London, U.K. Mr. Thompson has been a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society since 1982. He has been a guest of the Audubon, Borromeo, Cleveland, Emerson, Orion, Shanghai, and Vermeer String Quartets, and a frequent participant at chamber music festivals in Anchorage, Seattle, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, and others. Born and raised in The Bronx, NYC, Mr. Thompson earned a doctorate degree at The Juilliard School. He currently lives in Boston where, as Robert R. Taylor Professor of Music, he heads programs in chamber music and performance studies at MIT and is a member of the viola faculty at New England Conservatory of Music.
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