Here's a little more information on our guests for our upcoming "Family Reunion Concert".  Keep visiting the website!  Each day this week we'll add a new biography.

Stewart Kershaw

(Music Director 1980-1989)
Stewart Kershaw was born in England and began his musical life as a chorister at Chichester Cathedral. After studies at London's Royal Academy of Music and the Conservatoire Nationale in Paris, he was engaged by the Royal Ballet and, in subsequent years, held permanent posts at the Paris and Lyon Opera Houses in France, as well as the Munich and Stuttgart Opera Houses in Germany. In Japan, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Kyoto Symphony and led the Japan Philharmonic in a series of concerts.

Since 1980, Mr. Kershaw has lived in the United States. Mr. Kershaw was Music Director to the Evansville Philharmonic for nine seasons from 1980-89 and was at the helm during the EPO's fiftieth anniversary season in 1984-85. He recently retired from Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle after 25 years as Music Director and continues to lead the Auburn Symphony Orchestra (WA) which he founded in 1997.

In a long and successful career, Mr. Kershaw has conducted some 75 orchestras in 20 different countries including Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa, and South America. In 1989, he was made a Fellow of London's Royal Academy of Music in recognition of his conducting throughout the world. 

John Macfarlane

(Concertmaster 2003-2007)

John Macfarlane has served as Concertmaster of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra, the Breckenridge Music Festival, the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, and the National Repertory Orchestra and was recently featured as a soloist with the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra Iowa. He has performed with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, IRIS Orchestra and the Aspen Music Festival Orchestras, and served as the first violinist of the Eykamp String Quartet. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Violin from Northwestern University and a Master of Music in Violin from the University of Maryland.  He recently joined the Lyric Opera Orchestra as Assistant Principal Second Violin. John lives in Chicago with his wife, violinist Karyn Macfarlane.

Micheal Jinsoo Lim

(Concertmaster 1995-2000)

Praised by Gramophone for playing with "delicious abandon," and described as "bewitching" by the Seattle Times, violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim enjoys a dynamic musical career as concertmaster, soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and teacher. Recently named concertmaster of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra in Seattle, Lim is also widely known for his work as co-founder of the renowned Corigliano Quartet. In demand as a chamber musician and as a performer of new and experimental music, he is a member of Open End, a New York City-based ensemble specializing in contemporary music and improvisation.
    
As a member of the Corigliano Quartet (www.coriglianoquartet.com), Lim has enjoyed critical acclaim across the U.S. and abroad and has won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and the ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming. Called "musicians who seem to say, ‘Listen to this!'" by the New York Times, the Corigliano Quartet has performed in the nation's leading music centers, including Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, and the Kennedy Center. The group's most recent CD was named by the New Yorker as one of the top ten Classical recordings of 2007.

Lim was born in Lafayette, Indiana and began playing the violin at the age of four,
studying with his mother, Sun Boo Lim. He went on to study with Vartan Manoogian before
beginning his formal training at Indiana University, where he was a pupil of the legendary
violinist and teacher Josef Gingold. Lim received Bachelor's and Master's degrees from
Indiana University, where he won First Prize in the school's Violin Concerto Competition. He
also held a faculty position at Indiana as a Visiting Lecturer. Later, he taught chamber music at
the Juilliard School as an assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet. He has served as Musical
Artist in Residence at Dickinson College and on the faculty of the New York Youth Symphony
Chamber Music Program. He currently serves on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts,
where he teaches violin, viola, and chamber music. Lim also maintains a private studio of violin
and viola students.

Lim appears on numerous television and film soundtracks, including the Oscar-winning score to Brokeback Mountain. He has performed live on WFMT-Chicago's Live From Studio One and has been heard on NPR programs such as Performance Today and All Things Considered. Lim has made radio and television appearances in the U.S., Spain, Costa Rica, and Korea.

Lim currently lives in Seattle with his wife, violist Melia Watras. For more information on Michael Jinsoo Lim, please visit http://www.michaeljinsoolim.com/.

Brennan Sweet

(Concertmaster 1989-1994)

Born in New York City, Brennan Sweet began violin studies at two years of age in Edmonton, Alberta.  In 1977 he studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary.  Beginning his college education as an engineering student, Brennan earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Indiana University, serving for three years as teaching assistant to Josef Gingold and then joining the faculty for another two years as Lecturer.  Concertmaster of several orchestras including the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra and Owensboro Symphony Orchestra, Brennan was also a founding member of the Evansville String Quartet.  He performed two seasons as Assistant Concertmaster of the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder.  He joined the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in 1994 as Associate Concertmaster and subsequently led the orchestra as Acting Concertmaster for three seasons under Zdenek Macal.  Sweet is a founding member of the Mostly Mozart at Monteux Festival with the Ensemble Tremblay in Hancock, Maine, and has performed several recitals with acclaimed pianist Jenny Lin in the New York metropolitan area. In 2007 he joined the faculty of Kean University as a Concert Artist.