What is your hometown?

Cleveland, Ohio

When did you join the Grant Park Music Festival?

2007

Where did you study?

Curtis Institute, Royal Academy of Music, Rice University, Cleveland Institute

What is you career highlight?

Playing a cappella at my father’s memorial service. Music can be such a profound way to simultaneously experience, accept and transcend pain.

What do you love most about your instrument?

Its range of expression. The violin has natural qualities that can depict heavenly serenity (such as in the concertmaster solo from Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and the slow movement of the Brahms Concerto) but it also has demonic and devilish tendencies (as in Stravinsky’s L’Histoire de Soldat, Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill” Sonata, and Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre).

Who is your all-time favorite performer?

Sinatra

What are  you reading at the moment?

“War and Peace” by Tolstoy and a book of shorts by D.H. Lawrence. Lots of magazines – Time, the New Yorker, Women’s Health, and GQ (for the articles).

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