Maurycy Banaszek

Maurycy Banaszek was born in Warsaw, Poland. He has performed at the Marlboro, Seattle, Santa Fe, Aldeburgh, Moritzburg, Mozart, Kingston, Martha's Vineyard, Warsaw Autumn festivals. He regularly tours with the Musicians from Marlboro and appears at the Barge Music in New York.

As a founding member of The Elsner String Quartet he has played in such prestigious venues as the Carnegie Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, among others. In August 1998 he was invited by the members of the legendary Amadeus String Quartet to perform at the Amadeus Quartet 50th Anniversary Gala Concert in London.

He was recently invited to be the soloist with the New Jersey Lyric Orchestra at their Carnegie Hall debut performance and with the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra in Jordan Hall, Boston. He was also chosen by Gidon Kremer to participate in Chamber Music Connects the World Festival in Kronberg, Germany where he performed with the Guarneri String Quartet.

He holds a position of Principal Viola at the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra. He is also a founding member of ECCO - the new conductor-less chamber orchestra. He is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music in New York where he studied with Michael Tree. He plays a viola made by Hiroshi Iizuka in Philadelphia in 1997.

Kyle Armbrust

Described as "assured, brilliant, and stylish" by the New York Times, violist Kyle Armbrust made his New York debut in Avery Fisher Hall in 2002, performing the Bartok Viola Concerto with the Juilliard Orchestra under the direction of Kurt Masur. He was awarded first prize in the Chicago Viola Society, Midwest Young Artists, and Rembrandt Chamber Players Competitions, and the Faber Prize at the 2003 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition.

In May 2005, Mr. Armbrust was invited to perform with Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma at the Neue Gallery in New York City, and in December 2005 he performed the J.S. Bach Viola Concerto with The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in Bern, Switzerland. Since being accepted onto the A level of the orchestra's substitute viola list in January 2006, he has performed regularly in the viola section of the Philadelphia Orchestra, joining the orchestra for a U.S. tour in March 2007.

An active chamber musician, Mr. Armbrust is a founding member of the Phaedrus String Quartet, which performed recitals in the Aix en Provence (FRA), Schleswig Holstein (DEU), and Verbier (CHE) Festivals in July 2006. Formed in 1999, the Phaedrus Quartet has collaborated with Nicholas Angelich, Yuri Bashmet, Joshua Bell, Dimut Poppen, and Yevgeny Sudbin, and has performed extensively in Europe. Mr. Armbrust has participated in the Ravinia and Marlboro music festivals and recently went on tour with Musicians from Ravinia. Mr. Armbrust also plays with the Xtreme Trio, a string trio that specializes in performing new music; and with the Knights, a chamber orchestra based in Brooklyn, which recently performed the premiere of a work entitled Harmony, with the violinist and composer Mark O'Connor.

Mr. Armbrust received his Bachelor and Master Degrees from the Juilliard School where he studied with Misha Amory, Heidi Castleman, and Michael Tree. He is currently enrolled in the Artist Diploma Program, and will finish his studies at Juilliard in April 2008.

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Eric Nowlin

Violist Eric Nowlin has performed extensively throughout the United States as well as abroad. He has been described by the Springfield (MO) News-Leader as "having a full, warm tone, expressive phrasing, and effortless technical command that suggest an artist twice his age" and by the Santa Cruz Sentinel as "displaying the remarkable capabilities of the viola, with a rich tone and sensitive interpretive skills." Past accomplishments include receiving second prize in the Walter W. Naumburg Competition, first prize in the 2003 Irving Klein International String Competition; first prize in the 2002 Hellam Young Artists Competition; grand prize in the 2001 Naftzger Young Artists Competition; and winner of the 2001 Juilliard Viola Concerto Competition, which led to a performance of Hindemith's Konzertmusik with Roberto Minzcuk conducting the Juilliard Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall.

Performances have included solo engagements with the Springfield Symphony in Missouri, Santa Cruz Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, and the Kumamoto Symphony in Japan, as well as recitals in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Mexico. Mr. Nowlin has been featured on NPR, WQXR in New York, WGBH in Boston, WFMT in Chicago, as well as television programs in Wisconsin and California. He is an active chamber musician, participating in festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont and the Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia. He is a regular member of the Jupiter Chamber Players in New York City, and also tours with Musicians from Marlboro and Musicians from Ravinia's Steans Institute. In addition to solo and chamber music performances, Mr. Nowlin performs regularly as a substitute in the viola section of the New York Philharmonic.

Mr. Nowlin was chosen as the recipient of a Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation Grant in 2004, an award intended for the advancement of young artist's performance careers. An active advocate of contemporary music, Mr. Nowlin is a founding member of a dynamic new music series in New York City, Elastic Arts Room, which presents programs that explore the philosophical and cultural contexts of music today through performance and discussion.

Mr. Nowlin received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from The Juilliard School, as a scholarship student of Samuel Rhodes. He plays on a 1700 Matteo Goffriller viola on generous loan from the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation.

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Jay Julio

Originally from Uniondale, New York, 25-year old first-generation Filipino-American Jay Julio (they/them) is a multi-instrumentalist, teacher, and composer-arranger currently based in NYC. Jay is the Assistant Principal Violist of the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra, a section member of the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra, the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, and Symphony in C, substitute violist with the Phoenix, Memphis, Virginia, Fort Worth, and Dallas Symphony Orchestras, and has been invited to play with the American Composers Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, PROTESTRA, and the Metropolis Ensemble. They have shared the stage with Broadway singers, pop stars, and classical music’s hottest young talents in performances from Washington D.C. to the Philippines, and can be heard on Captured Tracks, Fiendish Endeavor, and Broadway Records. They appeared in the official collaborative music video for Major Lazer & Marcus Mumford’s single, Lay Your Head On Me, released as a fundraiser for COVID-19 research efforts, recently performed with Nigerian artist Burna Boy in his Hollywood Bowl debut, and have been invited by British icons Foreigner to join their California orchestral performances. Their compositions and arrangements have been heard at the Cannes Film Festival and at New York Fashion Week and performed by soprano-double bass duo confluss. 

Jay has attended the Music Academy of the West, Orpheus@Mannes, the New York String Orchestra Seminar and the Aspen, Pacific, Thy, Spoleto and Lake Tahoe music festivals; they have also spent summers at the Yellow Barn Young Artists Program and the National Symphony Orchestra’s Summer Music Institute as a Young Artist of Color. They have served as a Teaching Fellow at the Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, instructed at Interlochen Center for the Arts, and worked as substitute viola & chamber music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division. They have coached the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, have been on faculty at the Stony Brook University Chamber Strings Camp, and teach strings privately online.

A prizewinner in national competitions held by the National Federation of Music Clubs and the Music Teachers National Association and recipient of a 2019 Juilliard Career Grant, Jay is indebted to the Virtu Foundation and the American Viola Society for their past support through instrument and bow loans. They were recipient of a 2020 Music Academy of the West Fast Pitch Award for their music-meets-prison-analysis organization Sound Off: Music for Bail, which was also recently awarded a 2021 Juilliard Career Grant to further an upcoming recording project highlighting string quartet music of Florence Price, George Walker, Yaz Lancaster, and Dorothy Rudd Moore.

After taking their first viola lesson at age 14 at the Mannes Preparatory Division, Jay graduated from theInterlochen Arts Academy at 16 studying with Renee Skerik with their highest musical honor, the Young Artist Award, received their BM in Viola Performance from the Manhattan School of Musicunder Karen Ritscher on full scholarship, and received their MM at the Juilliard School on a full-tuition Susan W. Rose Fellowship under the tutelage of Heidi Castleman and Misha Amory. Other important mentors include Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti and Lina Bahn. For rhythm, Jay studies poetry.