Nelson Lee

is first violinist of the Jupiter String Quartet which has performed extensively throughout North America and abroad.  The Jupiter Quartet was recently honored with an Avery Fisher Career Grant and won first prize at the 2004 Banff International String Quartet Competition.  The Quartet has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Bellas Artes in Mexico City.   Mr. Lee comes from a family of musicians.  His parents are both pianists (his father also a conductor) and his twin sisters play the cello and clarinet.  He grew up in Okemos, Michigan where he studied with Michael Avsharian and Roland and Almita Vamos, and played under the baton of Marilyn Kesler in the Okemos High School Orchestra.  The devotion of these teachers and his family ultimately inspired him to pursue music as a profession.  He then attended Yale University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the New England Conservatory, studying with Peter Oundjian and Donald Weilerstein.  He also served as Prof. Weilerstein's teaching assistant while at the Cleveland Institute of Music.  Nelson has won top prizes in numerous competitions including the Schadt International Violin Competition, Corpus Christi Young Artists Competition, Cleveland Institute of Music Concerto Competition, Yale University William Waite Competition, and Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra Young Artists Competition.  This has given him the opportunity to perform with the Cleveland Institute Symphony Orchestra, Yale Symphony Orchestra, Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, Ann Arbor Symphony, and Birmingham-Bloomfield Symphony Orchestra.  Nelson has also participated in numerous festivals including the Yellow Barn Music Festival, Taos School of Music, Aspen Music Festival, Encore School for Strings, and the Quartet Program.  He performs frequently with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), and has also performed with the Boston Chamber Music Society and the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra.  He has a deep passion for baseball, having been a devoted Boston Red Sox fan his whole life. 

 

Rebecca Gitter

Born in Toronto in 1978, Rebecca Gitter began Suzuki violin studies at the age of seven and viola studies when she was thirteen. In May 2001 she received her bachelor of music degree from The Cleveland Institute of Music where she was a student of Robert Vernon, having previously studied in Toronto with May Ing Ruehle, Katherine Rapaport, and Daniel Blackman. While at CIM, she was recipient of The Institute's Annual Viola Prize and the Robert Vernon Prize in Viola, and twice received honorable mention in the school's concerto competition resulting in solo performances.

Rebecca has been a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since August 2001.  Among other honors, she was the 2000 recipient of Toronto's Ben Steinberg Jewish Musical Legacy Award, and she was offered a position in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra prior to accepting her current position in the BSO. During the summers she has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival, Taos School of Music, Ravinia's Steans Institute for Young Artists and The National Academy and National Youth Orchestras of Canada.  An avid chamber musician, Rebecca appears regularly as a guest artist with local chamber music groups, including the Boston Artists’ Ensemble, the Walden Chamber Players, Inside Out and the Hawthorne String Quartet.  She can also be heard regularly in BSO community chamber music concerts.  Rebecca lives in Brookline, MA with her husband, Aaron, and their cats Diega and Hogan.  In her spare time she enjoys biking, hiking, reading chamber music and entertaining friends with her husband's wonderful cooking.

Denise Djokic

Cellist Denise Djokic has been praised worldwide for her sincere, powerful interpretations, and her bold command of the instrument. Instantly recognized by her "arrestingly beautiful tone colour" (The Strad), she moves audiences with her natural musical instinct and her remarkable combination of strength and sensitivity. 

An acclaimed soloist with many principle orchestras, she has appeared with the Toronto Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Portland Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, and Mexico City's Orquesta Filharmonica UNAM, as well as the symphony orchestras of Vancouver, Omaha, Montreal, Winnipeg, Syracuse, Missoula, Santa Cruz, Brazil's Amazonas Philharmonic, and many others across the continent. She has performed with such renowned conductors as Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Darko Butorac, Bernhard Gueller, Andrew Litton, Grant Llewellyn, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Charles Olivieri-Monroe, Avi Ostrovsky, Jung-Ho Pak, and Kenneth Schermerhorn, among others. 

As a recitalist, Denise performs with her long-time musical partner, pianist David Jalbert. They have performed together in Washington, D.C. at the Phillips Collection and Museum of Women in the Arts, in San Francisco, Cologne, Mexico City, Vancouver, at Chicago's Dame Myra Hess series and New York's Bargemusic, as well as many other cities throughout North America. Denise and David also tour with Piano Plus, an organization which brings performances to rural communities in Canada. Denise's love of chamber music brings her to many festivals each year, including the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, Caramoor, Park City, Ravinia, San Miguel de Allende, and the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival. She also performs with New York's Omega Ensemble and the Jupiter Chamber Players. 

Immediately following the release of her debut recording on the Sony Classical label, Denise was a featured performer at the 2002 Grammy Awards. The self-titled CD won great critical acclaim and received a 2002 East Coast Music Award. Her following recording, "Folklore", (Allegro/Endeavor) received a JUNO nomination as well as an ECMA, and hit the Billboard Chart's top 15 Classical CD's. "Folklore" was also featured on NPR's "All Things Considered". Denise has recently recorded the complete Britten Solo Suites for the ATMA label. 

Denise has been the subject of a BRAVO! TV documentary entitled "Seven Days, Seven Nights", which followed her through a week-long recital tour. She has also been a speaker at IdeaCity in Toronto, and was a keynote speaker at the Queen's Women In Leadership Conference. Denise was named by MacLean's Magazine as one of the top "25 Canadians who are Changing our World", and by ELLE Magazine as one of "Canada's Most Powerful Women". 

Having grown up in a large musical family, Denise first began to learn the cello with her uncle and aunt, cellists Pierre Djokic and Michelle Djokic. Her parents, Lynn and Philippe, as well as her brother, Marc, are all musicians. Denise furthered her studies in Cleveland with Richard Aaron, and in Boston, where she studied with Laurence Lesser and Paul Katz. Denise gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.