Violin
Dr. Laura Kobayashi
Laura Kobayashi leads a varied career as a performer and pedagogue. She currently resides in Northern Virginia and performs as a member of the Main Street Chamber Players and the Kobayashi/Gray Duo. She is also a founding member of the Main Street Music Studios where she maintains a private studio of students.
With duo partner/pianist, Dr. Susan Keith Gray, Dr. Kobayashi performs regularly through the United States. The Duo has also performed abroad in Wales, Thailand, South Africa, Norway, Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad, and St. Lucia and has presented guest artist master classes, workshops and clinics in all of those countries. The Duo recently recorded its third CD of music by women composers which will all be world premieres in addition to two other CDs previously recorded of works by women composers--Feminissimo! Women Playing Music by Women (2008) and Boldly Expressive! Music by Women (2000) for the Albany Records label. Eight of the works on the two previous CDs are world premiere recordings, including Grande Sonate, Op. 8 by 19th century French composer Marie Grandval, which the Duo edited for Hildegard Publishing Company. Both of their previous CDs have been broadcast on national public radio throughout North America, in the European Union and Australia and have received rave reviews from The Strad magazine, Strings magazine and Fanfare magazine.
In addition to her Duo partnership, Dr. Kobayashi has appeared as a soloist with a number of professional and university/college orchestras throughout the United States and overseas with the Salta Chamber Orchestra of Argentina and the Chiang Rai Youth Orchestra of Thailand. As an active chamber musician, she has performed abroad in Argentina and Puerto Rico and in the United States, at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Embassy of Bulgaria and the Arts Club of Washington, all in Washington, D.C. and the Montpelier Arts Center in Maryland as well as numerous other concert venues throughout the United States.
Throughout her career Dr. Kobayashi has received several awards including the VASTA (Virginia State Chapter of ASTA) Outstanding String Teacher Award and the “Excellence in Teaching” Award by the Division of Music and College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University. Past teaching positions include West Virginia University, University of Nebraska at Omaha, University of Georgia and the Preparatory Department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In addition, she has participated and served on the faculties of numerous music festivals in the United States, Norway, Brazil and Argentina. As a dedicated private teacher, Dr. Kobayashi has expanded her pedagogical knowledge by becoming certified in Levels 1 - 3 in the Paul Rolland Pedagogy. Prior to her teaching career, Dr. Kobayashi was a professional orchestral musician and played as a member of the second violin section in the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. Outside of her teaching and performing activities, Dr. Kobayashi is also an active member of ASTA (American String Teachers Association) and has served as a National Chair for the ASTA National Solo Competition, the ASTACAP Program (Certificate Advancement Program) and the Potter's Violins Instrument Awards, among others.
Dr. Kobayashi’s current and former students have been accepted to participate in ASTA’S National High School Honors Orchestra, the American High School Honors Performance Series at Carnegie Hall, All-Virginia Orchestra, Northern Virginia and North Central Virginia Senior Regional Orchestras, West Virginia All-State Orchestra and Nebraska All-State Orchestra. In addition, a number of her students have performed in public master classes for international concert violinists: Jamie Laredo, James Ehnes, Arabella Steinbacher, Oleh Krysa, and Timothy Fain; concertmasters of major symphony orchestras: David Kim (Philadelphia Orchestra) and Valentin Zhuk (Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra) and notable pedagogues: Charles Castleman (The University of Miami), Paul Kantor (Rice University), Andrew Jennings (formerly of University of Michigan) and Marilyn McDonald (formerly of Oberlin Conservatory). Dr. Kobayashi's students have also been accepted into undergraduate and graduate music programs pursuing degrees in music performance, music education and composition at The Juilliard School, Jacobs School of Music (Indiana University), The Hartt School (University of Hartford), Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Shepherd School of Music (Rice University), Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Boston University, Ithaca College, Florida State University, University of Georgia and University of South Carolina. In addition, many of her former students are college professors in violin or orchestral studies, public-school teachers or members of a professional orchestra throughout the United States.
Dr. Kobayashi studied violin with Dorothy DeLay, Andrew Jennings, Paul Kantor and Denes Zsigmondy and performed in the master classes for Nathan Milstein, Ruggiero Ricci, Arthur Grumiaux, and Gyorgy Pauk. Chamber music studies have been with members of the Juilliard, Tokyo and American String Quartets as well as with collaborative pianists Robert McDonald and Samuel Sanders. Dr. Kobayashi earned degrees from The Juilliard School and Yale University and the Doctor of Musical Arts from The University of Michigan.
Personal website: https://www.kobayashigrayduo.com/
Contact Dr. Kobayashi: lkviolin@verizon.net
Dr. Adelya Shagidullina
“Most impressive…exceptional playing.” - The American Prize
“…elegance, grace, and a pure singing tone”, “…master..” - BroadStreetReview.com
Dr. Adelya Shagidullina is a prize-winning violist and violinist. Her numerous awards include top awards at the “Andrey Korsakov All Russian Music Competition”, “Eugen Coca International Music Competition”, and “Togliatti International Competition”, as well as the First Prize and Special Prize for the best performance of a commissioned work at the International “J. S. Bach Competition”. In November 2016, Dr. Shagidullina was announced the First Prize winner of the “American Protege International Competition”, and a winner of the prestigious “The American Prize Competition” in the Professional Division. The former award won her an opportunity to give a solo performance in Carnegie Hall in December 2016. Dr. Shagidullina returned to Carnegie Hall in June 2019 for a solo performance as a top winner of the LISMA International competition (August 2017). In May 2018 she became a winner of Beverly Hills National Auditions, which won her concert engagements in Encinitas, Torrance, and Beverly Hills, CA, in May 2019.
From 2009 through 2015 Ms. Shagidullina was on the roster of iPalpiti Artists International, as well as a principal violist and a soloist of the iPalpiti Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Shagidullina has performed in such venues as Saydashev State Big Concert Hall in Kazan, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic (Russia), as well as Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, among others. As the iPalpiti soloist, Ms. Shagidullina appeared in the “New York Benefactors Series” at the residence of Charles Avery Fisher and was featured in “Sundays Live!” radio broadcast chamber concerts.
Ms. Shagidullina is an active solo, chamber, and orchestra musician, as well as a dedicated teacher.
In 2014, she joined the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia for its American tour with Branford Marsalis and continued performing with the orchestra since then through 2016. She appeared in various chamber concert series, such as Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Bargemusic, Ltd., BCENY Concert evenings, Mallery Concert Series, Embassy Concert Series, and Candlelight Concert Series. In May 2016 she was invited to join the Fine Art Music Company concert series and actively performed with the group through 2019. Dr. Shagidullina is a violist of The Embassy String Quartet since September of 2021, and a Principal Violist of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra since October of 2023. She currently performs with such groups as Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, and Harrisbourg Symphony Orchestra, among others. In February of 2023 Dr. Shagidullina joined the roster of the Serafin Ensemble for its winter festival, and has been performing with them since then.
Ms. Shagidullina collaborated with such prominent musicians as Dmitry Berlinsky, Svetlana Smolina, Luiza Borac, Mark Peskanov, and Branford Marsalis, to name a few.
Over the past ten years, Adelya Shagidullina has taught extensively at both public and private institutions, including Temple University Boyer College of Music and Dance and School of Mahanaim in the United States, and at Kazan State Conservatory and Kazan Special Music College in Russia. She has also privately tutored students and instructed several chamber music groups in Russia as well as in the U.S. While in Russia, she coached the Junior viola section of the Youth Symphony Orchestra in Tolyatti and appeared as a member of the jury at the “Kazan Special Music College Competition”. After moving to the United States to pursue her graduate degrees, Ms. Shagidullina continued her teaching career as a graduate teaching assistant at Temple Music Preparatory Division, as a Graduate Chamber Coach at Boyer College of Music and Dance, and as a teaching assistant in the studio of Professor Eduard Schmieder, as well as a private tutor in violin and viola. She held masterclasses at Rowan University and Gracias Music Festival at the School of Mahanaim.
During her years of studying, Adelya Shagidullina has studied with professor Eduard Schmieder, the violist of the American Quartet, Daniel Avshalomov, and a Grammy-award winning artist, Professor Lambert Orkis.
Ms. Shagidullina holds a Doctoral degree in Musical Arts from Temple University, Philadelphia PA.
Personal website: https://www.adelyaviola.com/
Contact Dr. Shagidullina: