A Masterclass with Misha Amory, Viola

Since winning the 1991 Naumburg Viola Award, Misha Amory has been acclaimed as one of the leading American violists of his generation. He has performed with orchestras in the United States and Europe, and has been presented in recital at New York’s Tully Hall, Los Angeles’ Ambassador series, Philadelphia’s Mozart on the Square festival, 

Boston’s Gardner Museum, Houston’s Da Camera series and Washington’s Phillips Collection. He has been invited to perform at the Marlboro Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Vancouver Festival, the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center and the Boston Chamber Music Society, and he released a recording of Hindemith sonatas on the Musical Heritage Society label.

Mr. Amory is a founding member of the Brentano String Quartet, which enjoys a distinguished concert career in the United States and abroad. Winners of the inaugural Cleveland Quartet Award and the 1995 Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the Quartet was also the inaugural group for the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center’s new program, Chamber Music
Society II.  Touring worldwide, the Quartet has appeared in Wigmore Hall, London; the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; the Konzerthaus, Vienna; the Opera House, Sydney; Suntory Hall, Tokyo; and at home in Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, New York, as well as at many other distinguished venues.  The Quartet has recorded music of  Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Charles Wuorinen, Bruce Adolphe, and Steven Mackey.  The Quartet was in residence at Princeton University from 1999 to 2014, and since 2014 has been Ensemble-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music.

Mr. Amory holds degrees from Yale University and the Juilliard School. His principal teachers were Heidi Castleman, Caroline Levine and Samuel Rhodes. Himself a dedicated  teacher, Mr. Amory serves on the faculties of the Juilliard School in New York City and the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.

Donna Weng Friedman — Award winning pianist Donna Weng Friedman enjoys a varied

career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, curator, producer and app developer. Her

album Heritage and Harmony: Silver Linings, featuring exclusively AAPI/BIPOC artists, was

intended as a response to the wave of violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander

(AAPI) individuals, and aims to promote understanding and tolerance among people of all

backgrounds. Recorded and released during the pandemic, the album was presented with

two Silver Medals at the 2022 Global Music Awards.

In collaboration with WQXR, Donna created and produced Heritage and Harmony, a virtual

concert series in celebration of Asian Pacific Heritage Month. Her story was featured on

Asian Americans of New York & New Jersey | WLIW21, a segment of which has been aired

on PBS numerous times.

Donna was awarded a 2022 New York Women Composer’s grant. She is the co- creator and

co-host of HER/MUSIC;HER/STORY with soprano Allison Charney, a mini- series on WQXR

as well as a concert series that shines a light on women composers, past and present. She

was the guest speaker on TEDx Santa Barbara’s series Making Waves: Conversations with

Influencers and Disruptors. Donna is the Artistic Advisor of Ariel Rivka Dance, an all-female

dance company.

Donna was the featured guest artist on the National Women’s History Museum’s series

NWHM Presents: Sundays@Home, honoring women whose activism and talents serve to

inspire others. On March 8th, 2022, she launched a virtual education program in

collaboration with the National Women’s History Museum called Heritage and Harmony: Her

Art, Her Voice, featuring leading female BIPOC role models in the arts who share their

stories of heritage, their challenges and their triumphs, as they seek to inspire and empower

future generations of groundbreaking young women.

Donna has performed in concert halls worldwide, and appeared as soloist with major

symphony orchestras, including the Atlanta, Philadelphia and Shanghai Symphony

Orchestras. She has collaborated with world-class artists including Carter Brey, Anthony

McGill, Elizabeth Mann, Ani Kavafian, David Shifrin, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Paul

Neubauer, and Kelly Hall-Tompkins.

The curator of the Donna Weng Friedman ’80 Master Class Series at Princeton University,

she is also a member of Princeton University Music Department’s Advisory Council. Donna is

currently serving as Vice Chair to the Friends of Thirteen Advocacy Board/WNET. She

received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University where she was a University

Scholar and a Master’s of Music Degree from the Juilliard School where she was a winner of

the highly coveted Gina Bachauer Piano Competition as well as the William Petschek full

scholarship award. Donna had the honor and privilege of studying with the great pedagogue

Nadia Boulanger and the inimitable pianist Radu Lupu.