Chamber Music Madness

Karen was named by Chamber Music America as the national winner of Award for Excellence in Chamber Music Teaching for 2002.

In February 2008, The American String Teachers Assocation of Washington named Karen as the "Outstanding Studio Teacher" for 2008 for Washington.

She plays everything from Beethoven quartets, to Indonesian gamelan music, to fiddle tunes. She also loves young people, and has been mentor to many a teenager in Washington and around the Northwest. Her annual all-night sight-reading party is considered a must by young string players.

She spent the 1997-98 year teaching in China with Roger Nelson. They taught at Qufu Teacher's University in the Shandong Province where Karen taught violin, chamber music, and even introduced the Chinese students to American fiddling and contra-dancing. Their then 4-year old daughter Ariana became fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

The August 1999 edition of Strad Magazine features an article by Karen about her dramatic musical transformation from the year spent in China. Karen and Roger produced a CD entitled "Fiddling on the Yangtze", which features Chinese and America folk and classical music. These are both available by request, or click on Merchandise page.

Karen established her reputation as the first violinist of the Philadelphia String Quartet, and with the quartet performed an average of 80 concerts each year, including many college residencies. They made two major international tours, to India and South America, and performed extensively around the Northwest. The Philadelphia Quartet brought hundreds of new listeners to chamber music with their Olympic Music Festival, now a renowned summer concert series in a barn on the Olympic Peninsula.

She later became a tenured professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham where she was on the faculty for 12 years. Karen developed outstanding string and chamber music programs, and founded the Preparatory Music Program for kids in the community. Through her music appreciation classes, she organized hundreds of college students in field trips to Seattle Opera performances.

He was a member of the St. Louis and Philadelphia Orchestras. With members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he founded the Philadelphia Quartet, including Karen’s father, violist Alan Iglitzin. The quartet played annually in Carnegie Hall, made frequent tours to Europe, and also to India, South America, USA. In 1966, the quartet moved to Seattle to great acclaim. They served as quartet-in-residence at the University of Washington from 1966-1982, and developed the chamber music culture of the Pacific Northwest. The quartet founded the Olympic Music Festival near Quilcene. Irv directed the summer Chamber Music Institute there for many years, drawing students from around the USA and Europe.

He lives in Seattle with artist/wife Teresa Malinowski, plays with the Pacific Northwest Ballet orchestra and is a dedicated private teacher and chamber music coach. In February of 2004, the Washington State division of the American String Teachers Association named Irv “Studio Teacher of the Year”.

Leslie grew up in Bellevue, WA. She received her B.A. from Western Washington University where she became a chamber music protégée of Karen. She had intensive studies in chamber music at WWU including two years as a finalist at the national MTNA Chamber Music Competition, and performing for the Washington State Governor Booth Gardner. Her Masters and Doctorate degrees are from the University of Washington with Raymond Davis.

Leslie is a specialist in Baroque dance as it relates to the cello suites of J.S. Bach, in fact, her Doctoral degree is on this subject. She wrote the title article for the May 2001 edition of “The Strad” magazine of London. “Inspired by Dance” explores the deep connection between the cello suites of J.S. Bach and the art of dance at the time. She was a faculty member at Seattle Pacific University for 7 years; Leslie lives in Bellevue with bassist/husband Patrick and daughters Olivia and Charlotte.

Paul began studying the violin in 1962 at age nine. He soon was drawn to fiddling, bluegrass and western swing. While continuing to train classically, majoring in music in college, his real passion has always been popular, jazz and folk music. In 1976 Paul met jazz violin legend Joe Venuti, who took a liking to Paul, giving him private lessons in Joe’s Seattle home. Paul auditioned with country music legend Merle Haggard; Paul was hired on the spot. As a member of Merle’s prestigious band, The Strangers, Paul toured the U.S. and Europe in 1977. In 1980 Paul joined Asleep at the Wheel, and enjoyed playing their eclectic mix of music on the road for almost four years. From 1984-87, he worked in the band of Larry Gatlin and his brothers, then joined Loretta Lynn’s band, the Coal Miners, for two years. He returned to his native Pacific Northwest in 1992, where he has been teaching, recording and performing with his own band, the Swing Cats. Paul and his wife Claudia also own Swing Cat Enterprises, a small recording label. Paul is also a music historian of popular music, and and teacher as well, with close to 40 years’ researching the role of the violin in American popular music. He has studied and performed with the top fiddlers in popular music, including not only Joe Venuti but western swing and country legends Joe Holley, Cliff Bruner, Johnny Gimble and Buddy Spicher. Paul has taught at over a dozen of the nation’s top music camps. For the past ten years, Paul has also been deeply immersed in the study of the folk violin music of the southwestern Mexican states of Guerrero and Michoacán. Each year he travels south of the border to study and record the pasodobles, waltzes, sones and gustos of the Hot Lands with a half-dozen elderly teachers. Paul’s discography, with sound bites, can be found on the Web at www.SwingCatEnterprises.com.

Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola, is principal violist of the Seattle Symphony. She enjoys a varied career as an orchestral player, chamber musician, soloist and teacher. She received her Bachelor of Music in 1988 from The Curtis Institute, where she studied with Michael Tree and Karen Tuttle. Before assuming her current position with the Seattle Symphony in 1992, she served as principal violist of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. Ms. Gulkis Assadi was a founding member of the Seattle-based Bridge Ensemble.

Meg Brennand "Stunning" (Seattle Weekly) "Exemplary musicianship and true flair" (The Journal American). Meg is known for her work on both modern and baroque cello. She is currently the cellist of the Onyx Chamber Players, an ensemble based in Seattle and Chicago that recently completed a Beethoven cycle at Town Hall and will begin a Mozart cycle in 2007. Meg Brennand serves on the cello faculty at Seattle Pacific University and she is a member of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra. For ten years she performed with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra. She is also one of the founding members of Gallery Concerts, performing chamber music of the 18th century on period instruments. Meg is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music.

Violinist Tom Dziekonski studied violin with Vilem Sokol at the University of Washington, where he graduated with honors in Music, Arts and Electrical Engineering. He also studied with Daniel Majeske, the late concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra. He was concertmaster of the Seattle Youth Symphony, where he received the inspirational award and returned as a guest soloist.

Tom is the first violinist in the Metropolitan String Quartet, which premiered “In The Penal Colony”, the chamber opera by Philip Glass, in Seattle, Chicago and New York. They have performed with famed soprano Frederica von Stade, and on the Governor’s Chamber Music concert series. He also plays first violin with the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra and plays occasionally with the Seattle Symphony and with Seattle Opera, where he also performed on-stage roles in costume. Tom also plays electric violin: a 70’s vintage Barcus Berry, airbrushed in Day-Glo acrylics.

Tom’s backyard fence is covered with more than 1,000 license plates from 120 countries A 14-1/2 foot tall fluorescent drug store sign dominates the backyard. He and his wife Virginia own 12 cars, ranging from a 1959 Edsel to 3 AMC Gremlins. They live in Seattle with daughter Lana.

Walter Gray is in his 28th season as a member of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and has been featured several times as a soloist, most recently in the world premier of a new concerto by David Kechley. Mr. Gray attended the Curtis Institute of Music and was a founding member of the Kronos Quartet. He has been on the faculty of Western Washington University, Cornish College of the Arts and in 1998-99 he spent a highly successful year as a member of the Artist Faculty at the University of North Texas.
Mr. Gray has recorded for Delos, CRI, New Albion, Klavier and Mode. He has also served as Recording Producer for the London Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, and the New Performance Group. As a founding member of the new music ensemble Quake, Mr. Gray produced and performed on the CD Seven Mirrors, music of Chinary Ung, on New World Records. Quake was featured last spring in a performance at the Zagreb Biennale, Zagreb, Croatia. During the summer Mr. Gray has performed at the Santa Barbara Chamber Music Festival. He has been Principal Cello with the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra for 22 years and recently premiered Voice of the Wood, a concerto for cello quartet and orchestra by Russell Peck. He has also participated in the Marrowstone, Waterloo, Mostly Mozart, Mt. Gretna, Olympic, Cabrillo, and Tidewater Music Festivals.

Roxanna Patterson began her professional career at age 16 as a member of the Fort Worth Symphony and the Forth Worth Opera Orchestras. She later attended the Shepherd School of Music (Rice University) and played in the Houston Symphony, Houston Opera Orchestra and served as Concertmaster or the Houston Ballet Orchestra. In 1979 she moved to Monte Carlo with her husband Concertmaster Ron Patterson. There she changed from violin to viola and the couple formed the violin/viola ensemble Duo Patterson.

Roxanna has recorded for the Ante Aeternum, CRI, and VOX labels, and appeared on European and American television. She has also appeared in recital and as soloist with orchestras in France, Italy, Germany, England, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, and the U.S. She is the violist of the Rainier String Quartet and Principal Viola of the New Hampshire Music Festival. She and Ron have three children and reside in Seattle, Washington.

Cellist Joshua Roman began playing at the age of three. Since his first solo recital at the age of ten, he has concretized extensively, with a wildly varied repertoire. He has toured many cities in the United States and abroad.

As a concerto soloist, he has performed with the Seattle Symphony, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, and the Wyoming Symphony. Joshua also regularly performs in venues such as clubs in the Seattle area and other cities, where the repertoire is as likely to be collaboration with a rock group or singer as it is to be a performance of a solo sonata by Zoltan Kodaly or J.S. Bach.

Since winning the Principal chair in the cello section of the Seattle Symphony at the age of 22, he has performed frequently around the city. Joshua has worked with many composers, and has had a wealth of new music written for him. Among the classical composers he has worked with are Samuel Adler, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Syd Hodkinson. He has premiered music including concertos, sonatas, solo pieces and some of his own works as well.

Joshua is a frequent chamber music performer and has played with such musicians including Sergei Babayan, Earl Carlyss, Franklin Cohen, Desmond Hoebig, Paul Kantor, William Preucil, Lynn Ramsey, Marta Garcia Renart, Ann Schein, Joaquin Valdepenas, Virginia Weckstrom, and Christopher Zacharias.

He received his Bachelor of Music Degree in Cello Performance in 2004 from the Cleveland Institute of Music where he studied with Richard Aaron. In 2005 he also received his Masters at CIM with Desmond Hoebig, Principal Cellist of the Cleveland Orchestra. Previous teachers include Lacy McLarry, Peter Spurbeck, and Gregory Sauer.

Joshua has won top prizes in many competitions, including the Cleveland Institute of Music Concerto Competitions, Cleveland Cello Society and National Federation of Music Clubs. Joshua frequently performs on cellos from the collection of David Fulton.

Rachel Swerdlow has been a member of the Seattle Symphony's viola section since 1987. She has a BA in Music History and Theory from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, studying viola with John Graham. She received a Masters Degree from the San Francisco Conservatory where she studied with Isadore Tinkleman. She studied chamber music at The Quartet Program in Troy, NY, at Tanglewood (where she performed with Karen Iglitzin in 1981!) and at the Taos School of Music. She enjoys raising her triplet boys.

Olympic Music Festival

The most unique chamber music concert series in the Northwest is the Olympic Music Festival. This festival was founded in 1984 by Karen Iglitzin's father, Alan, when they were playing together in the Philadelphia String Quartet. It was also the home of Karen's original "Chamber Music Institute" summer camp. Please click here for Olympic Music Festival.