Lila Brown is co-founder and artistic director of the chamber music festival, Music from Salem, founded in 1986. After graduating from the Juilliard School she joined the Boston Symphony. Pursuing a longtime goal of living in central Europe, she subsequently moved to Austria, where she studied with Sandor Vegh and became principal violist of the Camerata Academica Salzburg under his direction. As a member of the Ensemble Modern, the world renowned ensemble for new music, Brown premiered works by Ligeti, Kurtag, Adams, Reich, and Lachenmann, among others. A 25 year long association with the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England, has included tours and concerts at Wigmore Hall.

Brown has been an assistant professor at the Vienna Hochschule, professor at the Detmold Hochschule in Dortmund, Germany, and until 2009, was professor of viola at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule in Duesseldorf. Recently, she joined the faculty at the Boston Conservatory. Ms Brown has taught chamber music and viola at festivals in the United States, Sweden, Austria and Germany, and also devotes time to intensive workshops for children and teenagers as well as a lecture-demonstration series, "The Listening Club," for non-musicians.
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Dynamic and versatile violist Sheila Browne has concertized in many of the world's major halls as soloist, chamber musician, and as principal of several orchestras, including the Juilliard, Mainz, Freiburg, German-French, and Madrid's Queen Sofia chamber orchestras, the Kiev Philharmonic and the New World Symphony. She has performed extensively at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Schauspielhaus Berlin, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colon as well as the major halls of Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, St. Louis, Paris, Mexico, Australia, China, and Hong Kong. An active recitalist, she has given concerts and outreach performances across North America, Europe and Australia. The only viola solo finalist at Carnegie Hall in the 2004 Pro Musicis International Solo Awards, Sheila Browne has been a member of the internationally prize-winning Arianna and Gotham string quartets the last featured in a cover story for Chamber Music America magazine in an article titled “Quartets of the Future.” Ms. Browne collaborates with great artists such as James Buswell, Nicholas Chumachenko, Miriam Fried, Paul Katz, Gilbert Kalish, David Krakauer, Anton Kuerti, Ruth Laredo, Ransom Wilson, Richard Stolzman and the Vermeer Quartet, and has recorded for Nonesuch with Audra MacDonald. As principal of the New World Symphony she was featured by Michael Tilson–Thomas in the PBS documentary "Beethoven Alive!" Ms. Browne has worked closely with many living composers, including Krystof Penderecki at the Banff Centre for the Arts as part of a solo residency. She has been featured on CBC radio, heard on NPR and classical radio stations across South America, Canada and Europe and in Philadelphia, New York City, Albany, Buffalo, Chicago, Houston, St Louis, Seattle, North Carolina, California, Tennessee, and Vermont. Ms. Browne has appeared in the Banff, Donaueschingen, Evian, Great Lakes, Green Mountain, Jeunesses Musicales, Music Academy of the West, Port Townsend, Sun Valley, Tanglewood, and Texas Music festivals. A proponent of new music, she has premiered many contemporary composers’ works, several of which have been recorded. These include Arthur Gottschalk's Politically Correct. written for soprano and the Gotham Quartet, and Anthony Iannoccone's Clarinet Quintet for the Arianna Quartet, which also released a compact disc of the Brahms and Mozart Clarinet Quintets on the Urtext label. A Centaur CD of viola and cello duos featuring Ms. Browne receiving critical acclaim includes a duo written for her by fellow Juilliard alumnus Dan Coleman, along with a previously unrecorded work by Witold Lutoslawski. Composer Kenneth Jacobs has written a major concerto for Ms. Browne titled Approaching Northern Darkness, which has been premiered in Australia. This work has also been recorded with the Kiev Philharmonic and is scheduled for release this year on the ERM label. A passionate and dedicated teacher, Ms. Browne was Karen Tuttle's teaching assistant at The Juilliard School with a Naumburg scholarship for four years, and was awarded a German Academic Exchange Grant (DAAD) for studies with soloist Kim Kashkashian at the Freiburger Hochschule. She also was Karen Ritscher's teaching assistant at Rice University's Shepherd School while in Paul Katz’s quartet residency program. She has taught at the universities of Missouri and Tennessee before joining the faculty of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and has also served on the faculty of New York University. Her most recent invitations to give master classes and/or recitals have been at Oberlin, Eastman, Queens and McGill universities. She serves on the executive board of the American Viola Society.

Susan Dubois was the sole viola winner of Artists International's 23rd Annual Auditions and was presented in her solo New York recital debut at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall. She also was selected as a prizewinner and recitalist at the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition in the United Kingdom. Dubois has extensive experience as a chamber musician, performing and coaching throughout the Australia, South America and the United States as a faculty member of the American Festival for the Arts and a former member of the Rackham String Quartet. Through appearances at music festivals such as Marlboro and La Jolla, she has performed with such notable artists as Lynn Harrell, David Soyer, David Finkel, Donald Weilerstein, Menahem Pressler and Carter Brey.

Susan Dubois holds bachelor and master of music degrees from the University of Southern California, and a doctorate of musical arts from The Juilliard School. A former viola teaching assistant for Karen Tuttle at Juilliard, she is currently professor of viola at the University of North Texas in Denton.
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Kathryn Lockwood has been hailed as a violist of exceptional gifts in reviews around the country. The Cleveland Plain Dealer proclaimed: "Lockwood played the vociferous viola cadenza with mahogany beauty and vivid character." Ms. Lockwood is the violist of the internationally renowned LARK Quartet / Chamber Artists, and of duoJalal, a unique viola and percussion duo with her husband Yousif Sheronick. Additionally she performs with numerous other prestigious groups including Jupiter Chamber Players, Trio Solisti, Triple Helix, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

Kathryn Lockwood moved from her homeland of Australia to the United States in 1991 and captured some of the most sought-after awards in the country including the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, Grand Prize at the Coleman Chamber Music Competition, Concert Artists Guild Management Award, and awards at solo competitions such as the Primrose Competition, Washington International Competition, and the Pasadena Instrumental Competition.
Before relocating to New York in 2001 Ms. Lockwood had held the position of violist of the Pacifica Quartet since its inception. As a member of the Pacifica Quartet, she was heard live on National Public Radio's Performance Today and on the stages of Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Ravinia's Bennett Gordon Hall, Corcoran Gallery, St. Lawrence Center, and University of Thessaloniki / Greece. Ms. Lockwood collaborated with violist Michael Tree on an all Dvorak CD and composer Easley Blackwood on recordings released by Cedille Records. 2005 marked the release of Kathryn's solo recital CD of Viola Music by Inessa Zaretsky, "Fireoptics", for which Strad declared her "absolutely inside the music's idiom finding appropriate tonal shadings".

Currently on faculty at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Ms. Lockwood was previously on the faculty at Rutgers University in NJ, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, Music Institute of Chicago, and National Music Camp in Australia. Ms. Lockwood earned her Master's Degree with Donald McInnes at the University of Southern California, and her Bachelor of Music Degree from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music with Elizabeth Morgan.
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Roger Myers enjoys an impressive record of performing and teaching both here and abroad. He has traveled widely presenting critically acclaimed concerts and master classes in countries on four continents including Austria, Norway, Scotland, China, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico, as well as the US. At the University of Texas at Austin he is Professor and head of the string division, and was the recipient in 2007 of the School of Music Teaching Excellence Award.

Mr. Myers has been associated with some of the nation's most prestigious summer festivals including the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival in Maine, the International Festival Institute at Round Top, Texas, and the Marrowstone Music Festival in Washington. In June of 1997 he served as the youngest ever artistic director and host chairman of the 25th Silver Anniversary Viola Congress, an event praised by the Strad magazine as a "joyful and instructive week. . . a mixture of edification and entertainment." He has served seven summers on the faculty of the Idyllwild Arts Summer Music Program in California and taught at the Beijing International Music Festival and Academy, and at the International School for Musical Arts in Canada. He regularly performs at the Festival de Musique on the French West Indian island of St. Barthelemy, at the Sunflower Festival in Topeka, Kansas, and at the Buzzards Bay Musicfest in Marion, Massachusetts. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Blanton Chamber Music Series at the Blanton Museum in Austin. In 2009 he held a visiting professorship at the University of Southern California.

Roger Myers was born in Sydney, Australia, where he played with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra while still a student. He has lived in the United States since 1987, when his Sydney Conservatorium String Quartet was invited to become the international quartet in residence at Michigan State University. Later he studied on scholarship with Donald McInnes at the University of Southern California where, on completion of his Masters degree, the string faculty named him its most outstanding graduate of the year.

Presenting solo and chamber performances hailed internationally, the Toronto Star described his playing as "spirited" and the New Zealand Evening Post proclaimed him "a fine violist" whose playing was "various and entertaining." Roger Myers has given chamber music performances with such artists as Lynn Harrell, Jean Barr, Martin Canin, Steve Doane, Sidney Harth, Suren Bagratuni, Yehonatan Berick, Norman Fischer, Jorja Fleezanis, Daniel Heifetz, Mark O'Connor, Ronald Leonard, Martin Lovett, Donald McInnes, Felicia Moye, Kurt Nikkanen, James Parker, Tsuoshi Tsutsumi, Kathleen Winkler, Zvi Zeitlin, the Brentano, Cavani and Miro String Quartets and the Dorian Wind Quintet. He has performed with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as principal violist with the Santa Fe Pro Musica, and as principal viola with the New West Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles on tour with Andrea Bocelli. Chamber performances include concerts with the Camerata Pacifica chamber music organization in California, at the Niagara International Chamber Music Festival in Canada and most recently with the Da Camera of Houston. In 2004 Mr. Myers had the honor of performing as a featured soloist on the 100th birthday tribute concert to the great violist William Primrose at the XXXII International Viola Congress in Minneapolis, and in 2005 enjoyed a successful Carnegie Hall debut with the newly formed Texas Piano Quartet. Recent important world premieres he has performed include the Piano Quintet by Kevin Puts with the Texas Piano Quartet in 2006, and most recently in 2008, the world premiere of Michael McLean's Suite for Viola and Orchestra. In the summer of 2009 he played in the mid-west premiere of violinist Mark O'Connor's Third String Quartet with the composer.

Mr. Myers plays a beautiful and rare J.B. Guadagnini viola from Parma made in 1763.

Paul Reynolds has performed as principal violist with the National Chamber Orchestra in Washington, DC, and with the New World Symphony of Miami, with whom he also appeared as soloist. He has been heard in numerous festivals including Sun Valley, Mainly Mozart, Tanglewood, Spoleto, Music Academy of the West and the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. As soloist he has performed with the National Repertory Orchestra, New World and the Burlington Chamber Orchestra. As chamber musician he has appeared at the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston, Steamboat Springs, and in Monte Carlo, Monaco, among many other venues. Paul Reynolds has served as associate professor of Music at George Washington University, and given master classes at the Caine School of Music at Utah State University, West Texas A&M, George Washington University and Georgetown University. Mr. Reynolds has also taught on the faculty of several summer music schools and festivals including Point Counterpoint, Arts for the Soul, Green Mountain Youth Symphony and the Vermont Youth Orchestra. Recent guest performances include concerts with the Fry Street Quartet, the Harrington String Quartet, and the Chamber Players of Sarasota. Currently Reynolds holds the position of principal violist with the Burlington Chamber Orchestra and the Green Mountain Opera Festival. Mr. Reynolds also performs with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Vermont Mozart Festival, Eleva Chamber Players, and is frequently heard live on Vermont Public Radio. He is a founding member of the Sky Meadow Chamber Players and is currently on the faculty of the Monteverdi Music School and Middlebury College. Paul Reynolds studied viola with Roberto Diaz, Robert Vernon and Martha Katz.

Karen Ritscher is recognized internationally as a leading pedagogue and performer. She was appointed associate professor of viola at the Oberlin Conservatory in 2005, after serving in a similar post at Rice University beginning in 1999. She has also served on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, the Mannes College of Music, the Eastman School of Music and the University of Massachusetts. As a master class clinician, she has been invited to Canada, Mexico, Spain, Korea, Taiwan and China. Summer residencies have included the Aspen Festival, the Heifetz Institute, Musicorda, the Bowdoin Music Festival, the Beijing International Music Festival, the Texas Music Festival, the Quartet Program at Bucknell and the Karen Tuttle Coordination Workshop.

Ms. Ritscher recently recorded her first CD, the complete viola works of Ernest Bloch. Premieres and commissioned works in which she has performed include compositions by Bruce Adolphe, Linda Bouchard, Wendy Mae Chambers, Bright Sheng, Alice Shields and Chen Yi. She performs regularly with the Azure Ensemble, has been a member of the Aureus Piano Quartet, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Steve Reich Musicians and St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, and has appeared at four International Viola Congresses as featured soloist and presenter.
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Renee Skerik, recently appointed to the faculty of Texas Tech University and 2004-2005 recipient of the McKnight Foundation Award for Performing Artists, has led an active and varied career as performer and pedagogue. Former violist of the award-winning Artaria String Quartet, she has also been violist in the Mendota String Quartet and the Nidon String Quartet, with whom she gave a four-month tour of Japan which included nationally televised concerts. Her chamber music collaborations include performances with Janos Starker, Raphael Hillyer, Charles Castleman and Arnold Steinhardt. She is a four-time recipient of the prestigious Orchestral Fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival, and has also performed in the Spoleto, New Mexico , and National Repertory Orchestra festivals. A highly regarded teacher, she has served on the faculty of the MacPhail Center for the Arts in Minneapolis, Carleton College, The Quartet Program at Bucknell University, and was an artist/teacher for two summers at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Renee Skerik holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the Eastman School of Music. Her major teachers include Heidi Castleman, Jeffery Irvine, Yizhak Schotten, Ellen Rose and Korey Konkol.

Born in Toronto, Canada, of Estonian parentage, Ms. Veskimets received both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she was a student of Robert Vernon. She is a faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music's Preparatory Department and Young Artist Program, the Cleveland Music School Settlement and the Encore School for Strings. She has also served as a chamber music and section coach for the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and has given master classes at the Baldwin-Wallace College (OH) and the University of Oklahoma.