THE MUSICIANS OF THE LASQ
Gregory Vitale has a professional performance career that affords him many diverse opportunities. As concertmaster of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, he has been featured as a soloist on Boston’s Esplanade on many occasions. He has also appeared as guest soloist with the New England String Ensemble, Nashua Chamber Orchestra, Brookline Philharmonic, and Wellesley Symphony orchestras. Greg leads an active freelance life in Boston, playing regularly with the Boston Pops and substituting with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Greg was a Fellowship recipient at the Aspen Music Festival, has performed as part of the Salzburg Music Festival and was first prize winner in the New England Conservatory solo competition in his youth. His past teachers include Josef Gingold, Charles Castleman, Stephanie Chase and Roman Totenberg. He is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and Phillips Exeter Academy. Greg led the life of a financial analyst on Wall Street following college, before turning his attention to music. He is the son of Michael Vitale, a prodigious violinist himself and a highly esteemed retired Boston Symphony member, and of violinist Sheila Vitale, who is still an active member of the Boston Ballet Orchestra. Greg also deals in antique violins and bows.
Gregory Vitale, violin
Praised by critics for playing that is “as exciting as it is beautiful,” and for “livewire intensity” that is both “memorably demonic” and “delightfully effective,” violinist Katherine Winterstein enjoys a wide range of musical endeavors as a chamber musician, orchestral musician, soloist, and teacher. Ms. Winterstein is the concertmaster of the Vermont Symphony, the associate concertmaster of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and co-concertmaster of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. In recent seasons, she has performed as concertmaster of the Palm Beach Opera, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and also performs regularly with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, and A Far Cry. She is a member of the Hartt String Quartet, the Providence-based Aurea Ensemble, and the summer of 2017 was her 16th season with the Craftsbury Chamber Players of Vermont. She has also performed with Boston-based Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Radius Ensemble, and Dinosaur Annex. She has appeared as soloist with several orchestras including the Vermont Symphony, the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra, the Charlottesville Symphony, the Champlain Philharmonic, and the Boston Virtuosi. She served on the performance faculty of Middlebury College in Vermont from 2002-2015, joined the faculty of the Hartt School of Music in September of 2011, and began teaching at Brown University in September of 2015. Ms. Winterstein plays on a 1779 J.B. Guadagnini violin, on generous loan to her from Mr. William P. Herbst of Montpelier, VT. Her bow was made in 2006 by Benoit Rolland.
Katherine Winterstein, violin
Donald Krishnaswami, viola
Praised by the Boston Globe as “noteworthy among the solo voices” and as giving his instrument “a soulful workout,” LiveARTS String Quartet Founder Donald Krishnaswami is active in the Boston area as a performing musician and teacher. He has collaborated in chamber music with current and former members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, including as a founding member of the LiveARTS String Quartet, as guest artist with the Walden Chamber Players, with former BSO principal second violinist Marylou Speaker Churchill, and former BSO cellist Ronald Feldman. He has been a core member of the Art of Music Chamber Players, and was a founding member of the South Coast Chamber Music Series of New Bedford, and of the Persichetti String Quartet. As an orchestral player, Mr. Krishnaswami has performed with orchestras from Boston to New York City to Philadelphia, including, among others, the Boston Pops, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Lyric Opera Orchestra, Boston Ballet Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Krishnaswami holds a Master of Music degree in viola and a Bachelor of Music degree in composition from The Juilliard School.
Jan Müller-Szeraws’ musical journey has taken him over three continents as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. Since his early debut with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Concepción he has performed frequently as a soloist with orchestras in Chile, Germany and the United States. He has been a guest artist at many festivals including the Cape & Islands, Rockport, El Paso Pro-Musica, Strings in the Mountains (Steamboat Springs, CO), Delaware, Music at Gretna, Florida Arts, Sebago Long Lake and Kingston Chamber Music Festivals, the Garth Newel Music Center and the European Chamber Music Association. He is cellist of the contemporary music ensemble Boston Musica Viva as well as founding member of Trio Tremonti. He has appeared on radio and TV broadcasts on radio and TV stations in the United States, Chile and Germany. Müller-Szeraws was artist and teacher in residence at the Jornadas Musicales Internacionales de Invierno in Concepción, Chile and taught master classes at the Garth Newel Music Center, Columbus State University and Academia de Música Antonio Vivaldi, Concepción. He was a guest lecturer at the Universidad Católica de Chile in 2007 and 2008 and currently teaches at the Phillips Academy Andover and College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA.
A prize-winner at the Washington International Competition he is a grant recipient of the Saul and Naomi Cohen Foundation, which is generously lending him a cello by David Tecchler (1717). He studied at the Musikhochschule Freiburg, Germany and holds a Bachelor and Master of Music Degree from Boston University. His teachers include Andrés Díaz, Christoph Henkel, Arnaldo Fuentes, Javier Santamaría and Christiane Gleisner.
