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

2024 American Viola Society Festival Competition Finalists

Collegiate Solo Competition Finalists

Alice Ford Bloomington, IN Student of Atar Arad

Alice Ford is a violist from Bloomington, Indiana, and a recent graduate of the IU Jacobs School of Music, where she studied with Atar Arad. During her time at IU, she won the principal position of the school’s Philharmonic and Chamber orchestras, and pursued chamber music studies with members of the Pacifica Quartet and Emile Naoumoff. In recent summers, she has attended Madeline Island Chamber Music’s fellowship quartet program, the Heifetz International Music Institute, Festival Del Lago, and Domaine Forget International Music Academy.

This fall, she will begin her graduate studies at the Juilliard School with Steven Tenenbom.

Seth Goodman Lexington, MA Student of Philip Kramp and Katherine Murdock

Seth Goodman is passionate about chamber and orchestral music and has been a chamber musician since age 11. In high school, he wrote “I am a Viola” – an essay about the match of his personality with the instrument. Seth finds inspiration in musical collaboration. He has performed with the Apollo Orchestra, Annapolis Opera Company, and Great Falls Philharmonic, and played at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music for years. He studied with Katherine Murdock and Philip Kramp at the University of Maryland and will begin his master’s under

Wesley Collins at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

April Kwon Maryland Student of Elias Goldstein and Loretta Kitko

April Kwon, a 20-year-old Korean American violist from Maryland, started playing the viola at age 10 and was self-taught for 5 years. She was principal violist in the Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestra and was the first in her high school to be accepted in the NAfME All-Eastern Orchestra. She has also won multiple state competitions throughout high school and college. This summer, April is studying at the Round Top Festival Institute. April currently attends the University of Delaware, where she is studying under Elias Goldstein with a full tuition music merit while pursuing a dual

degree in cognitive science and a minor in neuroscience.

Grace Leonard Murrells Inlet, SC Student of Jeffrey Irvine, Renee Skerik, and Clark Spencer

Grace Leonard, age 20, is a violist currently studying at the Cleveland Institute of Music under the tutelage of Jeffrey Irvine. She has graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy as a Dr. Scholl Foundation Scholar and was a Young Artist Award recipient. Grace won 3rd prize of the 2022 AVS Youth Competition Senior Division and was the winner of the 2020 Long Bay Youth Symphony Concerto Competition. She is a member of the

Long Bay Symphony and a guest musician of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. She has participated in the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Castleman Quartet Program, and the Kinhaven Young Artist Seminar. Previous teachers include Renee Skerik and Clark Spencer.

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