Featuring Rita Porfiris, viola, Anton Miller, violin, and Scott Holden, piano
May 10, 2023, 7:30 PM, Brigham Young University, Music Building, Choral Hall
The Primrose Memorial Concert this year will feature Rita Porfiris and her duo partner, Anton Miller, Professor of Violin, performing with pianist Scott Holden. The performance will include a world premiere of the Niege Eternelle for Solo Viola (2023) by Veronique Vaka as well as the Toch Divertimento, made famous by Primrose and Heifetz. The concert will take place May 10, 7:30 in the Choral Hall of the new Music Building at BYU. Free admission.
Violist Rita Porfiris has performed in major concert halls across the globe as a chamber musician, orchestral musician, and soloist.
Currently the Co-Principal Viola of the Iceland Symphony, she has also been a member of the Houston Symphony, and played with the Chicago Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony and others, working with conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Sergiu Celibidache, Kurt Masur, Michael Tilson Thomas, Claudio Abbado, and Christoph Eschenbach.
Ms. Porfiris is a member of the Miller-Porfiris Duo and QuartetES. She received Austria’s Prix Mercure, was a prize winner in the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and the Primrose International Viola Competition, and a laureate of the Paolo Borciani International Quartet Competition.
Formerly Professor of Viola, Chair of Strings and Chair of Chamber Music at The Hartt School, she has also been on faculty at New York University, University of Houston Moores’ School of Music, Florida International University, and the Harlem School for the Arts in New York. She has given master classes, lectures and clinics worldwide.
Ms. Porfiris received her BM and MM in Viola Performance from The Juilliard School. Teachers and mentors included William Lincer, Paul Doktor, Norbert Brainin, and Harvey Shapiro.www.ritaporfiris.com
Anton Miller, violin made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut in 1992, and has appeared throughout the United States and abroad as a soloist, chamber musician, recitalist and pedagogue. He has performed over fifty violin concertos with a number of orchestras on four continents. His most recent solo release on Naxos features the Kurt Weill Concerto for Violin and Wind Ensemble.
Anton is on the violin and chamber music faculty at the Hartt School; he previously has been on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory, Lawrence University, Swarthmore College, and New York University. He and his wife Rita Porfiris are the members of the critically acclaimed violin and viola ensemble, Miller-Porfiris Duo.
Anton completed his Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School studying violin with renowned pedagogue Dorothy DeLay and chamber music with Felix Galimir and members of the Juilliard Quartet. He received his Bachelor of Music Degree from Indiana University as a student of Franco Gulli.
Scott Holden, piano, debuted in Carnegie Hall after winning first prize in the 1996 Leschetizky New York Debut Piano Competition. He has performed in over forty states including at the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Moscow’s Svetlanov Hall, Asia and throughout Europe. He has been broadcast on NPR, NBC, CBC, as well as numerous local networks.
Holden holds degrees from the University of Michigan (BM), The Juilliard School (MM) and the Manhattan School of Music (DMA). He studied at the Liszt Academy in Budapest as a Fulbright Scholar. He is on the piano faculty at Brugham Young University where he was chair of the piano division for 14 years. He is also a faculty member at Juilliard’s “Summer Performing Arts with Juilliard” in Geneva, Switzerland, here he has taught since 2017.
