RICHARD FLEISCHMAN, violist, has received numerous honors in his 25-year career, most notably the Windsor Prize, personally awarded to him by Leonard Bernstein, and the Edward Steuermann Memorial Prize, the highest award bestowed by The Juilliard School. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School. His teachers included William Lincer, Joseph de Pasquale, Feliz Galimir, Vincent Persichetti and Max Rudolf. Fleischman has appeared as viola and viola d’amore soloist with orchestras such as the Miami Symphony, Colorado Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and San Francisco Concerto Orchestra. Highlights of his career include a concert for the President and First Lady of Germany; as conductor of New World Chamber Orchestra for vice-president Al Gore; as viola soloist on live German television, and performances as principal violist with Leonard Bernstein conducting, one which was a televised concert at the 1988 Proms from Royal Albert Hall. Professor of Viola at Miami’s New World School of the Arts since 1996, his viola students have achieved great success as soloists, chamber musicians and teachers. He currently performs as violist of the Delray String Quartet and, since 1990, as principal violist of the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. He is a former member of the San Francisco Symphony, performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra and was guest principal violist of the Hong Kong Philharmonic for several years. He plays a viola made for him by Hiroshi Iizuka in 2008.

Acclaimed as a passionate and virtuosic performer, Emilio Colón is highly sought after as a solo cellist, chamber musician, conductor, composer and pedagogue. An extensive international career has taken him to Canada, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Malta, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. In the coming year, concert engagements will take him throughout Europe, North and South America, and Asia.

Most recent appearances include guest conductor and soloist of the Classical Symphony Orchestra of Guatemala, The Texas Festival Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, the Orquesta de Camara Concerto in Puerto Rico, Barge Music in New York City; concerts at the Casals Festival of Prades and recital tours of Malta, Italy, Holland, Korea and Japan. His recordings are featured on the Enharmonic, Centaur, Zephyr, and Lyras labels. Colón currently records for Klavier as solo cellist, chamber musician, conductor, and composer under the label.

As the second youngest faculty member to be appointed in the history of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, Colón has since established himself as one of the leading pedagogues in the country. He has offered courses at the Paris Conservatoire, the Geneva Conservatoire, the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea and Toho Gakuen in Tokyo, Japan. He is also on faculty at the International Festival-Institute at Round Top in Texas, Chamber Music Unbound at the Mammoth Lakes Music Festival in California and resident cellist for the Fundación Musical de Ponce “Serie de Grandes Interpretes” in Puerto Rico.

Colón’s debut as a recorded composer took place with his ta”N”go for piano trio as featured on Trio Amadé’s recording “Obseción.” Recent performance highlights of his compositions include the premiere of Recuerdos de Tata for cello & orchestra with Colón as soloist as well as the premieres of Colón’s 2007 commissions, Dana la Colorá’ for Double bass & Piano, Los Niños y las Minarets for Piano Trio, and Los Jolgoriosos for Violin & Piano. Colón’s arrangements, editions and original compositions are published by Masters Music Publications and H.P. Music Publications.

An active chamber musician, Colón played with the Emile Beaux Jeux Piano Trio, which won a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a sponsorship from Chamber Music America for two consecutive residencies. Colón was a member of the faculty at the New World School of the Arts in Miami, where he performed throughout Florida as a member of the string trio, Trio Vizcaya. He was also the cellist of Trio Amadé, the resident ensemble at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, where he was a Dorothy F. Chandler Schmidt Eminent Scholar in Music.

A native of Puerto Rico, Colón received a bachelor’s degree from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music as a student of Joaquín Vidaechea, where he won the Pablo Casals Medal upon graduation. As a student and teaching assistant to the distinguished cellist and pedagogue Janos Starker, Colón earned a master’s degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He won first prize at the Las Americas Festival Solo Competition as well as the Indiana University’s Concerto Competition. Colón plays on a J.B. Vuillaume Cello from 1844 and a Dominique Peccatte bow.

www.emiliocolon.com

ANDREJ KURTI was born in 1971 in Belgrade, Serbia, where he completed his elementary and high school education in the studio of Professor Djula Tesenji. He continued his studies in Moscow “Tchaikovsky” Conservatory in studios of professors Levon Ambartsumian and Zorya Schikmurzaeva. Kurti finished his graduate studies in the University of Georgia, where he received doctorate degree in violin performance.

He was a recipient of five first prizes in competitions in Yugoslavia, four first prizes in competitions in Georgia and Florida, and a finalist of the MTNA (Music Teacher National Association) Competition in 1998.

In 2000, Kurti became a recording artist for classical label Blue Griffin Recordings, for which he later recorded Six Sonatas for Violin Solo by Eugene Ysaye, op.27. These sonatas were the topic for his doctoral dissertation.

In 2004, Kurti became a professor of violin at Northwestern State University of Louisiana, where he teaches students from several countries.

He appeared as a soloist with many symphony orchestras in the United States, Serbia, Montenegro, Italy, Greece, and Russia. He also appeared as a chamber performer in Spain, France, Latvia, Canada, and South Korea.

Kurti appeared as a performer and arranger on more than forty albums of popular and modern music, which he recorded for many different music labels in the United States.

Since 2007, Kurti has been invited to several international music festivals where he most often performed music written for solo violin.

DR. ELIZABETH MORROW holds the position of Full Professor of Cello in the Department of Music at the University of Texas Arlington. She was awarded the degree Doctor of Musical Arts in Cello Performance from the University of Southern California under Eleonore Schoenfeld. As a recitalist, Dr. Morrow has concertized extensively in Europe and North America and she has a special interest in and commitment to performing newly-commissioned and lesser-known works in the cello repertoire. In support of that mission, Dr. Morrow released her solo compact disc, Soliloquy: Contemporary Works for Unaccompanied Cello, with Centaur Records. As a dedicated pedagogue, Elizabeth Morrow has been an active presenter at ASTA conventions, a contributor to the ASTA journal and is founder/director of the Texas Cello Academy, an annual summer course and festival held at the University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Morrow was recently inducted as a member of the UT Arlington Academy of Distinguished Teachers, and in summer 2009 was awarded the UT System’s Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award.

JAVIER PINELL is Assistant Professor of Violin and chairperson of the String Studies Area at Sam Houston State University. With a broad teaching experience he also serves on the violin faculty at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.

As a recipient of the prestigious Theodor Presser Award, Dr. Pinell has done pioneer research on compositions for the violin by contemporary Bolivian composers. The release of the groundbreaking compact disc recording Bolivia: The Unknown Sounds in 1998, which includes much of this newly discovered repertoire, was recognized by the Ministry of Education of the Bolivian Government. Other scholarly endeavors include the recording of works by German composers Felix Draeseke and Arnold Krug (2005). A first of its kind, this historical recording was made using the originally intended type of string instruments; a matching set of violins, viola, violotta, cello, and cellone designed by physicist Alfred Stelzner.

As a performer he has traveled extensively including appearances with orchestras in Bolivia, Venezuela, Japan, Germany, Luxemburg, Peru, and throughout the U.S. As a chamber musician, Dr. Pinell is a founding member of the Lindsayan String Quartet, an ensemble that held two prestigious residencies in Kentucky (Western Kentucky University, 1995-1997) and Texas (Midland-Odessa Symphony and Chorale 1998-2002). Recent international chamber music concerts include appearances in the German cities of Manheim, Heidelberg, Markneukirchen, Speyer, and Coburg; Ebensee, Austria; Shanghai, China; and the Bolivian cities of La Paz, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, Sucre, and El Alto. Appearances at festivals include the Echternach Festival in Luxembourg, the Mosel Musikfestival in Germany, the Festival Internacional de la Cultura in Sucre, Bolivia, the Festival Internacional de música COFES in Bolivia, the Festival de Música deTrujillo in Peru, among others. In addition, he represented Bolivia in the World Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli) in Tokyo, Japan; and in the Simon Bolivar Orchestra in Caracas (José Antonio Abreu), Venezuela.

Dr. Pinell has been actively involved in collaborating with developing music programs in Latin America. He was recently in Cuenca, Ecuador (May 2009) teaching and performing in association with the FROM-A Conservatory (Fronteras Musicales Abiertas, Open Musical Frontiers); in Leon, Mexico (December 2008) in association with the program “Música, Esperanza de Vida,” Music, Hope for Life; and in Santa Cruz, Cochabamba and El Alto, Bolivia (May 2008) in association with the Plan 3000 Orchestra, the Laredo Institute, and the El Alto Municipal Orchestra. In March of 2007, Dr. Pinell was largely responsible for bringing the University of Wyoming Symphony Orchestra, 75 musicians, to the Bolivian cities of La Paz and El Alto as part of a cultural exchange project with the El Alto Municipal Youth Orchestra. This trip included historical concerts of both orchestras performing jointly in the ancient ruins of Tiwanaku (in the Andean high plateau), and the town of Viacha.

Among Dr. Pinell’s students are winners and finalists in prestigious concerto competitions including the Interlochen Concerto Competition, The National Young Artists Competition (Texas), and the Dorothy Jacoby Concerto Competition (Wyoming).

Principal teachers include Karen Clarke, Eliot Chapo, Hal Grossman, Emmanuelle Boisvert, Geoffrey Applegate and Peter Michalica. Degrees: DM Florida State University (1999), MM Miami University, Ohio (1992), BM Wayne State University (1989).