Guest Artists

Richard Aaron, cellist, has been a member of the cello faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music since 1992; in 1998 he was a visiting professor at the New England Conservatory of Music. He is a teacher at the Encore School for Strings. Aaron has been a member of several major orchestras in Israel, Switzerland, England, and the United States, and continues to give frequent solo recitals throughout Europe. He founded the Tre Voce Piano Trio and Moore Quartet of Seattle, Washington, and he is currently a member of the Elysian Trio. He has attended many summer festivals, including the Marrowstone, Siena, Chautauqua, and Yellow Barn festivals. Aaron has led cello pedagogy workshops throughout the United States at dozens of universities and music schools. His students have won numerous national competitions and have appeared as soloists with the Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle symphonies. Aaron lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Brian Lewis, violinist, is a gifted performer and teacher who began at the age of four as a Suzuki violin student, studying with Eleanor Allen, Alice Joy Lewis, Tiberius Klausner, and Shinichi Suzuki. His career has included concerto debuts in New York’s Carnegie and Avery Fisher Halls, as well as performances with the Berlin, American Symphony, Wichita, Topeka, and Hartford orchestras. He has performed numerous solo recitals in the United States and abroad and has appeared on television on CBS’s "Sunday Morning" and WNYC/WFMT in Chicago, as well as on National Public Radio. Lewis has won several young artists’ competitions, including the grand prize in the Mid-America Violin Competition. He was awarded Juilliard’s Peter Mennin and William Schuman Prizes for outstanding achievement and leadership in music. He holds both bachelor and master of music degrees from the Juilliard School, where he was a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay, Masao Kawasaki, and Hyo Kang. When not touring Lewis divides his time between New York City and Kansas.