2024 Primrose International Viola Competition & American Viola Society Festival Program Book

2024 American Viola Society Festival Competition Jurors

Katherine Lewis Dr. Lewis has been Professor of Viola at Illinois State University since 2006 where she also serves as Master Teacher and Director for the ISU String Project. A passionate educator of a thriving multi - level college and pre - college studio, she was recently recognized by Illinois ASTA as the 2022 Outstanding Studio Teacher. Her current research involves studying the ways in which technology, including virtual reality, can help us conceptualize the bow arm. In addition to teaching, Dr. Lewis performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician and has premiered new works on recitals at several AVS festivals and congresses.

Gloria Lum Gloria Lum, a native of Berkeley, California, attended both the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, graduating from the latter institution magna cum laude. A student of Gabor Rejto and Ronald Leonard, she was a member of the Oakland Symphony and the Denver Symphony before joining the Los Angeles Philharmonic cello section in 1985. She currently holds the Linda and Maynard Brittan Chair. A frequent participant of the

LA Phil’s Green Umbrella series, Gloria has been involved in tributes to Elliott Carter, György Ligeti, and Witold Lutoslawski, and most recently appeared in a solo work by David Lang. On the Chamber Music series, she has appeared with André Previn, Emanuel Ax, Lars Vogt, and Joshua Bell. In the summer of 2015, she was a featured artist in the Cactus Pear Music Festival in San Antonio, Texas. Gloria currently teaches cello and chamber music at Occidental College.

Melissa Matson Meliisa is well known to Rochester audiences as the principal violist of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as a versatile chamber musician. She has been a frequent performer since 1987 with Chamber Music Rochester and the Skaneateles (NY) Festival. She is the artistic director of First Muse Chamber Music, a series of concerts at First Unitarian Church of Rochester (FirstMuse.org). Matson is a member of the Amenda Quartet (with violinists David Brickman and

Patricia Sunwoo, and cellist Mimi Hwang) whose “Project Ludwig” aims to study and perform all of the Beethoven string quartets (AmendaQuartet.org). After her tenure with the Quartet she joined the RPO and also the faculty of the Eastman School of Music. Her current duties as an associate professor at Eastman include teaching viola orchestral repertoire classes, for which she has written numerous guides to preparing orchestra excerpts. Matson presented two sessions on orchestral excerpts and audition preparation at the 2004 ViolaFest in Binghamton, NY. She also mentors the violists of the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra.

102