Summer Violin Institute

Blair Milton joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1975 and four years later became a founding member of the Evanston Chamber Ensemble. As the founder of the Winter Chamber Music Festival, now in its 23nd season, he has performed with Daniel Barenboim, Gil Shaham, Menahem Pressler, Yo-Yo Ma, Pinchas Zukerman, Lynn Harrell, Arnold Steinhardt and Janos Starker, among others. He has appeared on the Ravinia Festival Chamber Music Series and Chicago Symphony Orchestra Artist Series, as soloist with the Chicago String Ensemble and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Georg Solti. A member of Northwestern University’s violin faculty since 1984, Mr. Milton was director of the string program for Northwestern’s National High School Music Institute from 1998-2010.

In 2011, he established the Summer Violin Institute, which is held each summer.

He has given master classes across the United States as well as in South America, Germany, and Japan. A student of Josef Gingold at Indiana University, where he earned a master’s degree, Mr. Milton also studied with Ivan Galamian and former CSO concertmaster Sidney Harth.

Paul Kantor is currently the Sally Shepherd Perkins Professor of Violin at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University having previously served as the Eleanor H. Biggs Distinguished Professor of Violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard studying violin with Dorothy DeLay and chamber music with Robert Mann. For thirteen years he served as Chair of the String Department at the University of Michigan and has taught at the Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory, and Yale University. He continues as Artist in Residence at the Glenn Gould School of Music/ Royal Conservatory of Music since his appointment in 2008. Along with his son, violinist Timothy Kantor, he founded and directs the Gabriel Del Orbe Violin Program in the Dominican Republic.

Additionally, he has presented master classes at the Starling-Delay Symposium, Indiana University, the Eastman School, the University of Southern California and the New World Symphony, among others. His students consistently win major awards at important violin competitions including the Indianapolis, Montreal, Stulberg, Buenos Aires, Klein, and Fischoff.

For the past 37 years, he has been on the Artist/Faculty of the Aspen Music Festival & School where he has been concertmaster of both the Festival Orchestra and the Chamber Symphony. He has performed as soloist with numerous symphony orchestras as well as serving as concertmaster of the New Haven Symphony, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and the Great Lakes Festival Orchestra. Kantor was a member of The New York and Lenox string quartets, the Berkshire Chamber Players and the National Musical Arts Chamber Ensemble in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Kantor has performed the world premieres of Dan Welcher’s Violin Concerto, (subsequently recorded with Larry Rachleff and Symphony II) as well as John Corigliano’s “Red Violin Caprices”. His recordings can be found on the labels of Equilibrium, CRI, Delos and Mark Records. In 2014 he was honored with the Artist Teacher Award from the American String Teachers Association.

Violinist I-Hao Lee’s active teaching career has culminated in notable achievements by his students – top prizes at the Queen Elisabeth, Young Concert Artists, Sarasate, Tibor Varga, Cooper, Postacchini International Competitions, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and performances with major orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Mariinsky Orchestra. His former students are members of major orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Lee has given master classes throughout the U.S., China and Taiwan, and has taught violin and chamber music at Manhattanville College and the Great Mountains Music Festival and School. Lee is the artistic director of I-Hao Lee Program, a two-week music festival for young musicians, in Jiangsu, China.

Born in Yilan, Taiwan, Lee received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, and his Doctor of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University. His major teachers include Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang.

Lee has served on the violin faculty at The Juilliard School as well as Music Institute of Chicago. Currently, he is a faculty member at DePaul University, Meadowmount School of Music and Summer Violin Institute of Northwestern University.

Ilya Kaler is one of the most outstanding personalities of the violin today, with a career ranging from that of soloist and recording artist to chamber musician and professor. He is the only violinist in the world to win the Gold Medal at three of the world’s most prestigious international violin competitions: the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (1986), the Sibelius Competition in Helsinki (1985), and the Paganini Competition in Genoa (1981).

Praised by Gramophone magazine as "the magician, bewitching our ears," Kaler has earned rave reviews for his solo appearances with distinguished orchestras such as the Leningrad, Moscow, and Dresden Philharmonic Orchestras, the Montreal Symphony, the Danish and Berlin Radio Orchestras, the Moscow and Zurich Chamber Orchestras, and most major American orchestras. He has collaborated with a number of outstanding conductors, including Valery Gergiev, Dmitri Kitayenko, Mariss Jansons, and Jerzy Semkow. Kaler’s solo recitals have also taken him to five continents, where he received enthusiastic reviews.

Kaler performs across the globe as a member of The Tempest Trio with cellist Amit Peled and pianist Alon Goldstein, a constellation of internationally acclaimed soloists. The trio recently released their debut album for Naxos Records, featuring the complete set of piano trios by Antonin Dvorák. His musical versatility extends to the symphony orchestra, as well, and he has appeared as guest Concertmaster with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore Symphonies, and on tour with the World Orchestra for Peace under Valery Gergiev. Kaler also held the Concertmaster position with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in New York.

As one of the most sought-after teachers in the world, Kaler was recently invited to join the  violin faculty at the distinguished Cleveland Institute of Music, where he will begin teaching full-time in the Fall of 2018. He has also held professorships at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, IN, and at the DePaul University School of Music in Chicago, IL. Kaler regularly serves as a jury member at international violin competitions, including the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow, Russia, the Jean Sibelius International Violin Competition, the Henri Marteau International Violin Competition in Germany, the International Music Competition Harbin (IMCH), the Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition, and the Karol Lipinski International Violin Competition in Torun, Poland.

He received his education at the Moscow Central Music School under Zinaida Gilels and at the Moscow State Conservatory under Leonid Kogan and Victor Tretyakov. Further influence and inspiration came from his long-time mentor, superb violinist and pedagogue Abram Shtern.

Kaler records for Naxos Records and Ongaku Records. His highly acclaimed albums include Sonatas by Schumann and Brahms, Concertos by Paganini, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Schumann, Dvorák, Glazunov, Szymanowski, and Karlowicz, as well as the Taneyev Concert Suite, J.S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, and an album of works for solo violin.

An artist deeply dedicated to the range of violin and chamber music repertoire, violinist Violaine Melançon is sought after both as a performer and pedagogue. She brings a sense of authenticity, curiosity, exploration and discovery to her interpretations, and enjoys presenting unusual gems of the repertoire. Violaine teaches at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University where she is Associate Professor of Violin. She regularly gives masterclasses and guest teaches at major peer institutions like the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Glenn Gould School in Toronto.

She was a member of the violin and chamber music faculties of the Peabody Conservatory until 2019 and was during the ensemble’s entire life span the founding violinist of the Peabody Trio, ensemble-in-residence at the Peabody Conservatory until 2016. After winning the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the Peabody Trio established itself as an important presence in the chamber music world and as dedicated teachers and mentors to a generation of young musicians. As a member of the Peabody Trio, Violaine gave a New York debut at Alice Tully Hall and performed on the most important chamber music series in North America and abroad. Their reputation as champions of new music garnered them an invitation to the first Biennale of Contemporary Music Tempus Fugit in Tel Aviv, Israel, and the opportunity to commission and perform the music of many of today’s most inspired musical voices. After thirty years of music- making, the trio played its final concert in San Francisco, the city where it was formed.

Violaine is from Québec, Canada. After receiving First Prize in violin at the "Conservatoire de Musique" at the age of seventeen, under the tutelage of Claude Létourneau, she continued her studies with Ivan Galamian at the Curtis Institute of Music, with Isadore Tinkleman at the San Francisco Conservatory and with Arthur Grumiaux in Belgium. While at Curtis, she was a member of the Nisaika Quartet, prize winner of the 8th International String Quartet competition in Evian, France. Violaine is also the recipient of many awards for solo performance including the Prix d’Europe, after which she performed with orchestras in Canada, the USA and Belgium and toured across Canada for Jeunesses Musicales. As a result of having been appointed USIA Artistic Ambassador with the Knopp-Melançon Duo, she toured extensively in Europe, Asia and Africa and made a Washington, DC debut at the Kennedy Center. Since then, her activities as a chamber musician, soloist with orchestras, and teacher have taken her to major music centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East and Japan.

She has participated in many summer festivals as violinist, teacher and guest artist, including those of Tanglewood, Ravinia, Skaneateles, Rockport, Orford, the National Orchestral Institute and Festival, Music in the Vineyards and Yellow Barn. These days, Domaine Forget International Music and Dance Academy, Encore Chamber Music Institute, the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, and the Summer Violin Institute at Northwestern University Bienen School of Music in Chicago are where she teaches during the summer months.

Since 2020, her musical curiosity has led her to perform as well on baroque violin and she enjoys collaborating in concert with many Canadian and American early music performers.

Violaine’s performances can be heard on the Naxos, Artek, CRI, and New World Records labels.

Gerardo Ribeiro has appeared throughout the world as featured soloist with major orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon. His numerous awards in prestigious international competitions include first prizes at the Vianna da Motta in Lisbon and the Maria Canals in Barcelona. Prior to joining the Northwestern University faculty as professor of violin, Mr. Ribeiro was associate professor of violin at the Eastman School of Music. He records for the EMI and RCA labels, having released several concerto CDs; his RCA recordings include the Brahms Violin Concerto and Double Concerto, the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Radio Orchestras of Hannover and Berlin as well as the violin sonatas of Beethoven and Brahms. Ribeiro has earned high acclaim for his tours of the former Soviet Union, South America and China. He joined the Meadowmount School of Music faculty the summer of 2004, and has served as artistic director of the International Chamber Music Institute in Munich and has performed at the Marlboro and Lucerne International Music Festivals.

Mr. Ribeiro is also on the faculties of Midwest Young Artists and Music Institute of Chicago. He is currently Co-Chair of the Department of Music Performance at Northwestern University and Coordinator of Strings.