Faculty Bios
CAF artist faculty from past years have included prominent performers and teachers including Peter Marsh (Director of String Chamber Music, University of Southern California), Yoko Matsuda (Formerly first violinist of the Yale and Sequoia String Quartets), Robert Becker (Principal Violist, Pacific Symphony), Margaret Parkins (Mojave and Eclipse Trios), and Myriam Cottin-Rack (Assoc. Concertmaster Stockton Symphony, Principal Second, Napa Valley Symphony).
Our 2009 instructors included:
William Fitzpatrick - Violin
WILLIAM FITZPATRICK, Founder and Director of ChamberArtsFest, is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he studied with Dorothy DeLay and was an assistant to Robert Mann and Claus Adam of the Juilliard String Quartet. From Founder and First violinist of the New York String Quartet to Director of Chamber Music at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, he has taught and helped develop many of today's leading chamber music performers and ensembles. He has served on the faculty at the Aspen Music Festival, Le Conservatoire Maurice Ravel, Le Conservatoire Americain de Fontainebleau, the Violin Camp (England/France), the University of California, Irvine, and the Juilliard School. He has performed with artists such as Gaby Casdesus, Elliot Fisk, Claude Franck, Itzhak Perlman, Emmanuel Ax, Ron Leonard, Patrice Fontanarosa, Karl Leiser, Noel Lee, Guy Deplus, Yoko Matsuda, John Graham, and Yair Kless. His musical experiences throughout Europe, Japan, and the United States have led him to positions as Conductor of the Nashville Chamber and Symphony Orchestras to Conductor (and founder) of L'ensemble des Deux Mondes in France, and collaborations with l'Orchestre Symphonique Francaise and The American Symphony Orchestra of New York. He is the founder and CEO of MusiShare, Inc.
Kathleen Carter - Violin
KATHLEEN CARTER is currently completing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Northwestern University and is Assistant Concertmaster of the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. She earned her M.M. Violin Performance at the Eastman School of Music, where she performed as a member of the Eastman Chamber Music Society, and also attended the University of California, Irvine where she earned a B.M., summa cum laude. A winner in the 2007 Thaviu String Competition, she has been a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago since 2006, and was previously concertmaster of the UCI Symphony and the Pacfic Symphony Youth Orchestra, principal second violinist of the Pacific Symphony Institute Orchestra, and principal violist of the South Orange County Chamber Orchestra in Aliso Viejo, California. Her chamber music coaches have included members of the Alexander, Cleveland, Guarneri, and Ying String Quartets. While attending Meadowmount, she served as teaching assistant to Gerardo Ribeiro, and is an alumna of the first ChamberArtsFest program in 2003.
Joseph Mendoes - Cello
JOSEPH MENDOES is currently on the faculty of The String Program in South Pasadena, and is a member of the San Bernardino Symphony. He began his studies in cello at the age of nine in his local public school program, and started lessons at the age of eleven with Doris Savery. Throughout high school he was a student of Richard Naill at the Colburn School of Performing Arts where he was a member of the Colburn Chamber Orchestra, and concurrently served as principal cellist of the Claremont Young Musicians Orchestra. His undergraduate studies took him to the University of Southern California where he studied cello with Ron Leonard and chamber music with Peter Marsh as a member of the Camden String Quartet. In 2003 his quartet won the Chamber Music Award at USC and in 2004 the First Prize in the Peninsula Music Festival Competition. He was selected to participate in the Naumburg International Cello Competition in 2008.
Gene Wie - Viola
GENE WIE appears internationally as a conductor, chamber musician, and educator, dividing his time equally between the classroom and concert stage. His performances on violin, viola, clarinet, and saxophone have taken him throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and the South Pacific. He is Music Director of the Community Youth Orchestra of Southern California, Orchestra Director at St. Margaret's Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano where he also teaches AP Computer Science, and instructor of Chamber Music and Music Technology at the Orange County High School of the Arts. He served for five years as First Violinist of the Elegie Quartet, Principal Clarinet with the South Orange County Chamber Orchestra, Concertmaster of the Blackbird Music Project, and recently as a viola substitute with the Pacific Symphony. During the summer he coaches at the Viola Workout in Crested Butte, Colorado, and has performed in every ChamberArtsFest since its inception in 2003. [www.genewie.com]