As part of Viola Day 2016 festivities, the Utah Viola Society is pleased to present a recital by our special guest artist and world renowned viola soloist Patricia McCarty with pianist (And University of Utah grad!) Aram Arakelyan!

Ms. McCarty’s recital will feature works by Pietro Locatelli, Sergei Prokofiev, Joseph Joachim, and Arthur Benjamin.

From Bach to Keith Jarrett, PATRICIA McCARTY’s  performances on five continents have been acclaimed for communicating “a dark tone analogous to the quality of a fine tawny port” [Strad], & “the fine blue-flamed torch of her mind” [Ottawa Citizen]. Her recordings featuring works by Clarke, Bach, Telemann, Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Fuchs, Joachim, Jarrett, Bliss, Harrison and Benjamin have won international accolades, LShe has appeared as soloist with the Detroit, Houston, Kyoto and Shinsei Nihon symphonies, Boston Pops, Orchester der Beethovenhalle Bonn, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Turiae Camerata of Valencia, and in recitals including  New York, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Valencia, Geneva, Caracas, five International Viola Congresses, and a debut at London’s Wigmore Hall hailed by the Times to be “an outstanding exhibition of string playing of the highest American class.”  Winner of the First Silver Medal and Radio Prize in the Geneva International Competition when she was eighteen, Ms. McCarty graduated the following year magna cum laude from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Francis Bundra. She has also been awarded two National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Grants and the John Knowles Paine Award for performance of new American music.

As chamber musician Ms. McCarty has performed at festivals including Aspen, Marlboro, Tanglewood, Sarasota, Bay Chamber Concerts, Bowdoin, Aria (Canada), Hokkaido (Japan), and the Australian String Academy. Former member of the Lenox Quartet, she has also toured with Music from Marlboro, Boston Chamber Music Society, and Boston Symphony Chamber Players, with whom she has recorded works by Brahms and Dvorak. Other collaborations include musicians as diverse as composer Lou Harrison and his gamelan ensemble, contralto Maureen Forrester, violinist Joseph Silverstein, and jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, whose work Bridge of Light for viola and orchestra Ms. McCarty commissioned, premiered and has recorded for ECM.

She has performed numerous world premieres, and her research of viola repertoire and pedagogy has been published in Strad, Symphony Magazine, Strings, American Viola Society Journal, American String Teacher and the book Playing & Teaching Viola, published in 2005 by American String Teachers Association. She has given master classes throughout the U.S., as well as in Canada, Venezuela, Australia and Spain, and her translated articles have appeared in Korean and Dutch string teaching publications. Former assistant principal violist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Patricia McCarty presently is faculty member of the Meadowmount School of Music, where she teaches viola, chamber music, and professional orchestral audition preparation. Her former students are employed in professional orchestras, chamber ensembles, university and pre-college faculties worldwide

Armenian pianist, ARAM ARAKELYAN performs as a collaborator throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Aram wears many hats, from collaborative partner to a chamber musician, to an orchestral and choral keyboardist, an arranger, a class ballet pianist, and sometimes even a graphic designer.

Aram has been an official pianist for the 2014 Primrose International Viola Competition and the 2015 International Horn Symposium. He has also been on staff at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, and the Meadowmount School of Music in upstate New York. He has been one of the primary pianists in the viola studio of Donald McInnes. And for the past three years, Aram was the pianist for the USC Thornton Chamber Singers, under the direction of Jo-Michael Scheibe, with whom he performed at the 10th World Symposium on Choral Music in Seoul, Korea, and 12th China International Chorus Festival in Beijing, China. Among the conductors Aram has worked with are Gerhardt Zimmermann, Jerry Junkin, Larry Livingston, Barlow Bradford, Maria Guinand, In-Gi Min, Scott Yoo, Robert Spillman and Helmuth Rilling.

Aram holds degrees from the University of Utah, the University of Texas at Austin, and recently completed a Doctoral Degree in Musical Arts at the University of Southern California, where he held a teaching assistantship in the area of Keyboard Collaborative Arts. His mentors have included Susan Duehlmeier, Anne Epperson, Norman Krieger and Alan Smith. Aram is currently a member of the faculty of new Collaborative Piano program at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Utah Viola Society Viola Day 2016 will take place on October 15 and 16, 2016 at the University of Utah School of Music. Patricia McCarty’s recital will be Sunday, October 16 at 7 pm at Dumke Recital Hall. The recital admission will be free for Utah Viola Society members, and University of Utah students and employees; $10 suggested donation for the general public.