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 | Andres Diaz
Since winning the First Prize in the 1986 Naumburg International Cello Competition, Mr. Díaz has exhilarated both critics and audiences with his intense and charismatic performances. He has earned exceptional reviews for his “strongly personal interpretive vision” (The New York Times) and his “bold and imaginative” playing (The Boston Globe) and was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and a grant from the Susan W. Rose Fund for Music. His numerous orchestral appearances have included engagements with the Atlanta, American, Milwaukee, Seattle Symphonies, Rochester Philharmonic, the Boston Pops and Esplanade Orchestras, and the Chicago and National Symphony Orchestras. Among the highlights of his recent seasons are tours of Asia, South and Central America and Russia. Andrés Díaz frequently performed with the late pianist Samuel Sanders. His latest recording, in memory of his collaborator won The Classical Recording Foundation 2003 Award. Andrés Díaz is very active with the Díaz String Trio, featuring violinist Andres Cardenes and violist Roberto Díaz. Born in Santiago, Chile in 1964, he began studying the cello at the age of five. He graduated from the New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Laurence Lesser and Colin Carr, and currently plays an active role in chamber music performances with the Conservatory’s faculty. He served for five years as Associate Professor of Cello at the Boston University and Co-Director of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Quartet Program, resigning in 2001. Mr. Díaz now lives in Dallas, TX, with his wife, Julie, and sons Peter Manuel and Gabriel Andrés. Presently, he is Associate Professor at Southern Methodist University. Mr. Díaz plays a 1698 Matteo Goffriller Cello and a bow made by his father, Manuel Díaz.
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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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 | Kim Kashkashian
Violist Kim Kashkashian has established herself as one of the most accomplished artists of her generation. She has been hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “an artist who combines a probing, restless musical intellect with enormous beauty of tone.” The New York Times praised her “rich, mellow timbre and impressive artistry.” She has appeared as soloist with orchestras in New York, Berlin, Vienna, London, Milan, Munich and Tokyo. She has performed recitals at the Metropolitan Museum and the 92nd Street “Y” in New York City, in Boston, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Cleveland and Los Angeles. In her quest for new directions and forms, she has developed working relationships with such composers as Gubaidulina, Penderecki, Kancheli, Kurtág and Mansurian, Current chamber music partnerships include duos with pianist Robert Levin and percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky. She has performed with the Tokyo, Guarneri, and Galimir Quartets and toured with a unique quartet which included violinists Gidon Kremer and Daniel Phillips and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Ms Kashkashian’s discography on the ECM label encompasses modern composers to Bach, Brahms and Shostakovich, new works for viola and percussion, and transcriptions of ancient Armenian songs. She has taught at the University of Indiana, in Freiburg and Berlin, Germany, and since 2000, began teaching viola and chamber music at the New England Conservatory. Highlights of the 2007 -2008 season include recitals in Rome, Paris, Berlin, New York and Washington, DC, and concerto appearances with Cleveland Orchestra and at the Salzburg Festival , among others. Ms Kashkashian was trained at the Peabody Conservatory under the direction of Walter Trampler and Karen Tuttle.
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 | Patinka Kopec
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. Ms Kopec completed her MM and BM at Juilliard 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 appeared as soloists with major orchestras and play in many professional chamber ensembles and orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia, Cleveland Orchestras and the Berlin Philharmonic. Her students have also placed in prestigious international competitions, including the Menuhin, Stulberg, and the Young Concert Artist Competitions. Many of her students now hold teaching positions in conservatories.
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 | Awadagin Pratt
Born in Pittsburgh, Awadagin Pratt began studying piano at the age of six. At 9, he moved to Normal, IL, and began studying violin. At 16, he entered the University of Illinois to study piano, violin, and conducting. He subsequently enrolled at the Peabody Conservatory of Music where he became the first student to receive diplomas in three performance areas – piano, violin and conducting. Winner of the 1992 Naumburg International Piano Competition, Mr. Pratt was awarded a 1994 Avery Fisher Career Grant. He has appeared at the Lincoln and Kennedy Centers, and soloed with the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra and the Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Baltimore, St. Louis, National, Detroit and New Jersey Symphonies. Mr. Pratt is also the Artistic Director of the Next Generation Festival in Lancaster, PA. Recent and upcoming highlights include engagements at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and with the orchestras of Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Seattle, Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico and San Antonio. As a conductor, Mr. Pratt has participated in the National Conducting Institute, where he worked with Leonard Slatkin and conducted the National Symphony. He has also conducted the Toledo, New Mexico, Winston-Salem, Santa Fe and Prince George County Symphonies, and two orchestras in Japan. He has toured Japan, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Israel and South Africa. Featured in Newsweek, People Magazine, USA Weekend, New York Newsday, Emerge, Ebony, Mr. Pratt has performed on NPR’s Performance Today, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Sesame Street, CBS Sunday Morning, among others. He performed twice at the White House at the invitation of President and Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Pratt is currently an Associate Professor of Piano and Artist in Residence at the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati.
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