Strings Faculty

Alan Black

Alan is in his 19th season as Principal Cellist with the Charlotte Symphony and 9th season as founder and Artistic Director of Chamber Music at St. Peter's.

His performance experience covers the complete spectrum of music; from classical music including chamber music, solo recitals, and concertos with the Charlotte Symphony, to appearing on stage as a soloist with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Bobby McFerrin, Van Cliburn Gold Medallist Jon Nakamatsu, and fiddler Mark O'Connor.

A graduate of UCLA, Alan earned a Masters Degree from Indiana University. Notable teachers have included principal cellists of major orchestras such as Ronald Leonard and David Hardy as well as Gary Hoffman and Jeffrey Solow. He has appeared in master classes with such outstanding musicians as Leonard Bernstein, James Buswell, Bernard Greenhouse and Janos Starker.

Awards include the $5,000 Arts and Science Council Fellowship in 1997 and the 2001 Spirit Award given annually by the Mint Museum and Royal and Sun Alliance. The Charlotte Observer honored Alan in its 2001 year-end review for his contribution to the arts community.

Alan has served as a panelist for several Arts and Science Council grant programs and was Chairman of the Regional Artist Projects Grants in 2000 and 2001.

When not performing and teaching, Alan can be found either at home with his wife Donna, teenage son Gordon, four-year-old Phillip, or wishing he had time to track down errant golf balls on the golf course.

Hsiao-Mei Ku

Hsiao-mei Ku has won merit as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher in the US and her native China. She performed widely in China where she gave her first live performance on National TV when she was 11 years old, and later won the Government Award of Best Performance. At Indiana University in this country, she received her Master of Music degree with distinction, and was awarded the Performer's Certificate by the School of Music, where she studied and worked with Franco Gulli, Rostislav Dubinsky, Gary Hoffman, and Jano Starker.

Formerly Associate Concertmaster of North Carolina Symphony, Ms. Ku joined the Ciompi Quartet in 1990. She is in demand as a teacher on two continents, serving on the faculty at Duke University and Guangzhou Xinghai Conservatory. She is a founding member of the Chirusca Trio; has taught master classes and appeared as a soloist with Eastern Music Festival; and has collaborated with pianist Ann Schien and cellist Steve Kates.

Her recent recording of three violin solo pieces, released on CD by China Records, is part of a Chinese composer Zheng Qiu-feng's celebration. She performs on a violin made by J.B.Vuillaume.

Doris Powers

A freelance violinist and violist in the Triangle for 20 years, Dr. Powers has performed chamber music with members of the Ciompi Quartet, the Carolina Baroque in Salisbury NC, the Durham Symphony Chamber Music series, and the Hutchinson (Kansas) String Quartet. She was also a Kansas Arts Council touring artist for children's concerts, and, in addition to teaching history and theory at Sterling College (Kansas), presented recitals in central Kansas.

She currently teaches violin and viola privately, with an emphasis on tone, expression, and interpretation in which she draws on her specialties in eighteenth-century performance practices and musical rhetoric.

Dr. Powers has published a monograph, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: A Guide to Research (New York: Routledge, 2002), and is currently working on an edition of the C. P. E. Bach violin and keyboard sonatas for publication in Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works (Packard Humanities Institute). For four years, she has written a monthly column on classical music in the Chapel Hill News.

Her degrees include B.A., Univ. of Washington, M.M. in Violin, Kansas State University, and Ph.D. in musicology from Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Eric Pritchard

Eric Pritchard records and performs regularly as first violinist of the Ciompi Quartet of Duke University. He has appeared as soloist with orchestras such as the the Boston Pops and Indianapolis Philharmonic. Festival appearances include Mostly Mozart, Norfolk, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Monadnock Music, Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, and the Castle Hill Festival. Pritchard was the first prize winner of the National Federation of Music Clubs Award in Violin, the Coleman and Fischoff national chamber music competitions, and the London International String Quartet Competition. He was formerly the first violinist of the Alexander and Oxford Quartets.

His major teachers were Eric Rosenblith, Josef Gingold, Ivan Galamian and Isadore Tinkleman and he holds degrees from Indiana University and the Juilliard School.

more about Eric Pritchard

Fred Raimi

Mr. Raimi began his studies as a youth in Detroit at Cass Technical High School. This season he and Jane Hawkins will join forces with an old Detroit friend, Richard Luby, for a concert of Beethoven and Brahms trios for the Mallarmé Chamber Players.

Mr. Raimi joined the Duke faculty and the Ciompi Quartet in 1974, after graduating from the Juilliard School and receiving a Masters degree from State University of New York-Binghamton, where he performed as a member of the Amici Quartet.

Among his marks of distinction, Mr. Raimi has won the International Cello Competition in Portugal and was a participant in Pablo Casals' final master class. His instrument was made by Vincenzo Ruggieri in Cremona, Italy, in 1691.

In addition to his work with the Ciompi Quartet, Fred Raimi especially enjoys the opportunity to perform with his wife, Jane Hawkins. Jane has performed often with the Ciompi Quartet and its members, going back to recitals with Giorgio Ciompi in the 1970s.

Scott Rawls

Scott Rawls has appeared as soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Europe. Chamber music endeavors include performances with the Diaz Trio, Kandinsky Trio and Ciompi Quartet as well as with members of the Cleveland, Audubon and Cassatt String Quartets.

His most recent CD recording, released on the Centaur label, features the chamber music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and was released summer 2004. His recording of chamber works for viola and clarinet was released spring 2003 on the same label.

The ensemble Middle Voices will record another disc for Centaur featuring the chamber music of American composer, Eddie Bass. Additional chamber music recordings can be heard on the CRI, Nonesuch, Capstone, and Philips labels.

A champion of new music, Rawls has toured extensively as a member of Steve Reich and Musicians since 1991. As the violist in this ensemble, he has performed the numerous premieres of The Cave and Three Tales, multimedia operas by Steve Reich and Beryl Korot, videographer. And under the auspices of presenting organizations such as the Wiener Festwochen, Festival d'Automne a Paris, Holland Festival, Berlin Festival, Spoleto Festival USA and the Lincoln Center Festival, he has performed in major music centers around the world including London, Vienna, Rome, Milan, Tokyo, Prague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. He is a founding member of the Locrian Chamber Players, a New York City-based group dedicated to performing new music.

Dr. Rawls currently serves as Associate Professor of Viola and Chair of the Instrumental Division in the School of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Under the baton of maestro Dmitry Sitkovetsky, he plays principal viola in the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra. He is very active as guest clinician, adjudicator, and master class teacher at universities and festivals in America and Europe.

During the summers, Rawls plays principal viola in the festival orchestra at Brevard Music Center, where he also coordinates the viola program. He holds a BM degree from Indiana University and a MM and DMA from State University of New York at Stony Brook. His major mentors include Abraham Skernick, Georges Janzer, and John Graham.

Ervin Schiffer

Hungarian born Ervin Schiffer is one of Europe's most sought-after violists and pedagogues. He is Professor of Viola at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam, the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles and the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth. Professor Schiffer is a member of the Haydn String Quartet.

Kati Sebestyén

Kati Sebestyén, a native of Hungary, is the Professor of Violin at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles and at the prestigious Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth. Founder and director of the Sebestyén Strings, Ms. Sebestyén is an active concert artist and performs as a member of the Haydn String Quartet.