Atar Arad

From 1980 through 1987 this Israeli violist was a member of the esteemed Cleveland Quartet, touring throughout the United States, South America, Europe, Israel, and Japan. The ensemble recorded for labels such as RCA, CBS, and Telarc. Arad is considered a master of "bel canto" viola and regularly performs works by Paganini, Fauré, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms. Like many other violists, Arad began his musical education by studying violin. In 1968, he was selected from a group of young virtuosi invited to study under the patronage of the Queen of Belgium in the renowned Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth. Four years later, he was continuing to shine brightly, winning the City of London prize as a laureate of the Carl Flesch Competition and awarded a first prize at the International Viola Competition in Geneva. His career as a professor ran in tandem with his involvement with the Cleveland-based ensemble. During that time he was a professor of viola at that city's Eastman School of Music. In 1987 Arad joined the music faculty at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, TX. He headed back east in 1991 at the behest of Indiana University in Bloomington, which appointed him a professor of music. He maintains a busy career as soloist and has been a regular guest artist with Houston's Da Camera Society, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, his native land's Upper Galilee Chamber Music Days, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. He is an artist-faculty member at the Aspen Music School and performs frequently in that institution's festival programs. He is also a composer and has created a series of published works including his String Quartet. He performed his composition for solo viola in 2001 at the University of Indiana. Other contemporary works he has performed include the Song of Praise, Concerto for Viola and Orchestra No. 1 by the Israeli composer Oedoen Partos, and the Viola Concerto by Indian colleague Don Freund.