Performer, Violist
WILLIAM FRAMPTON, VIOLA, has been praised by critics for his “impressive” performances (The New York Times) and “a glowing amber tone” (The Boston Globe). Since his New York recital debut in 2009 at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, William has enjoyed a career of performances around the world as a chamber musician, soloist and orchestral player. Highlights include over 100 performances with a string quartet led by Midori Goto in tours of Asia and North America, appearances as guest artist with Escher Quartet and Johannes Quartet, and world premieres of chamber music by J. Mark Stambaugh and a concerto by Peter Homans. William is Principal Viola of American Symphony Orchestra, Associate Musician with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and member of Harlem Chamber Players String Quartet. He performs in the Broadway orchestras of Hamilton, Wicked, and The Lion King, and on film scores including The Joker, West Side Story, The Greatest Showman, The Girl on the Train, and many others.
William is Artistic Director of Music at Bunker Hill, a chamber music series in southern New Jersey he co-founded in 2008 that brings five professional chamber music performances to Gloucester County, New Jersey every year. The community built as a result of Music Bunker Hill has brought regular collaborations with schools, libraries, orchestras, and civic organizations, contributing to the cultural life of Southern New Jersey. He has performed at festivals including Bard Summerscape, Verbier, and IMS Prussia Cove, and as soloist with conductors including Joseph Silverstein and David Hoose. He holds degrees from New England Conservatory and the Juilliard School, and studied with Kim Kashkashian, Samuel Rhodes, Choong-Jin Chang, and Byrnina Socolofsky. William teaches viola and chamber music at The College of New Jersey.
Performer, Violist
Born into a family of musicians, Greek violist Krystalia Gaitanou started playing the violin under the tutelage of Dimitri Semsis. At the age of 16 she switched over to viola, studying with Natassa Anana at the Musical Horizons Conservatory in Athens. Upon her graduation she received a viola diploma and a first prize, while at the same time she was honored with a gold medal for excellence (a superior distinction awarded for the first time to a violist). She earned the “Alexandra Trianti” Scholarship from the Athens Megaron Concert Hall and pursued further studies in Paris with Vincent Aucante in CNR of Rueil-Malmaison and Isabelle Lequien in CNR of Boulogne. She also holds a bachelors degree in musicology from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Ms. Gaitanou has been awarded the Special Distinction of the Pan-Hellenic Competition for orchestral instruments as well as the “Musical Prize” of the Athens College. As a recipient of the Alexander Onassis Foundation Scholarship and the Greek State Foundation Scholarship, as well as the Helen F. Whitaker Fund String Initiative Scholarship, Ms. Gatanou earned the master’s degree and the professional studies certificate in the orchestral performance program at Manhattan School of Music in the studio of Karen Dreyfus.
As an orchestra player, she has appeared in some of the world’s leading concert halls and has collaborated with such orchestras as the Tanglewood Music Center orchestra, European Youth Orchestra, World Youth Symphony Orchestra, Mediterranean Youth Orchestra, State Orchestra of Athens, Greek Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Colors, Orpheus Institute Chamber Sinfonia and the Kurt Masur MSM Seminar Orchestra, among others. She has also attended international festivals and master classes given by Yuri Bashmet in Accademia Chigiana in Italy, Hartmut Rohde in Pablo Casals Festival in France, Wilfried Strehle in Salzburg’s International Summer Academy “Mozarteum”, and with Michael Ouzounian and Steven Ansell in New York and Boston. She has performed extensively as a chamber musician and has been a founding member of the “Consonance” string quartet. Ms. Gaitanou was selected to participate as a fellow in the Tanglewood Music Center 2009, the Athens Festival, and has been a regular guest in the Santo Domingo Music Festival.
Performer, Violist
Samuel Rhodes is a consummate artist, well known as recitalist, soloist with orchestra, recording artist, composer and teacher. His artistry has become well recognized and his playing has received international critical acclaim. The New York Times has called him “a remarkably sensitive violist”; the Washington Post has described him as a “master of the viola fit to stand with the instrument’s greatest”; the Boston Herald wrote, “the texture of his sound is in itself a wonder”; in London they praised his “stunning range of color”; and in Paris he was called “a violist of the very first rank.”
Mr. Rhodes is celebrating his 34th year as a member of both the Juilliard String Quartet and the faculty of the Juilliard School. He serves, along with Karen Tuttle, as co-chair of the viola department.
He also has been a participant of the Marlboro Music Festival since 1960 and is a faculty member of the Tanglewood Music Center.
His solo appearances have included several recitals at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC and an unaccompanied recital at the Juilliard School highlighted by world premieres of works by Milton Babbitt and Arthur Weisberg. In 1985, he supervised and performed in a recital series at Weill Hall, New York City, celebrating the 90th birthday of Paul Hindemith. In 1996, he organized and performed in a similar recital series at Miller Theatre, Columbia University, commemorating Hindemith’s 100th anniversary.
In 1998, he gave the world premiere of Donald Martino’s Three Sad Songs for viola and piano with Thomas Sauer at the Library of Congress. In June, 2001, Mr. Rhodes was invited to play a recital consisting of the Babbitt, Play it Again, Sam and the Vieuxtemps Sonata at the 10th anniversary of the “Viola Space” series at Casals Hall, Tokyo, Japan.
Since 1998 Mr. Rhodes had the honor to be invited to join the late Isaac Stern to be a coach at his Chamber Music Workshops in Jerusalem, Israel; Miyazaki, Japan; and Carnegie Hall, New York.
Mr. Rhodes, a native New Yorker, studied the viola with Sydney Beck and Walter Trampler. He has a B.A. from Queens College of the City University of New York and an M.F.A. from Princeton University, where he studied composition with Roger Sessions and Earl Kim.
As a composer, he wrote a String Quintet for two violins, two violas and cello, which has been performed by the Blair, Composer’s, Galimir, Pro Arte and Sequoia Quartets. The quintet was recently recorded by the Pro Arte Quartet with the composer as guest.
As a member of the Juilliard String Quartet, Mr. Rhodes toured throughout Europe, North and South America, the Near East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand; has recorded an extensive catalogue of the string quartet literature on the CBS Masterworks, Sony Classical, Wergo, and CRI labels; has won three Grammy Awards for the Debussy and Ravel Quartets, the complete Schoenberg Quartets, and the complete Beethoven Quartets; has commissioned and performed the world premieres of works by Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Mario Davidovsky, Henri Dutilleux, Alberto Ginastera, John Harbison, Fred Lerdahl, Donald Martino, Morton Subotnick, Stefan Wolpe, and Richard Wernick. In 2002, the quartet gave the world premieres of newly commissioned works by Ralph Shapey and Gunther Schuller.
In 2003, the Quartet will celebrate 40 years of residency at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC by performing a Beethoven cycle combined with distinguished American works by Shapey, Schuller, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and including the world premiere of the Horn Quintet by Richard Wernick.
Mr. Rhodes has also been artist in residence at Michigan State University and has been awarded honorary doctorates by Michigan State, the University of Jacksonville, and the San Francisco Conservatory.
He has appeared as a guest artist with the Beaux Arts Trio, the Mannes Trio, the American, Blair, Brentano, Cleveland, Galimir, Guarneri, Mendelssohn, Pro Arte and Sequoia String Quartets.
