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Ruth Kahn, viola
Violist Ruth Ellen Kahn is a graduate of The Juilliard School and has performed on every important concert stage on two coasts including Carnegie Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles to name a few. Her extensive chamber music experience includes performing with such eminent artists as Cynthia Phelps, Shmuel Ashkenazi, Maurice Bourgue, and with ensembles such as the Miró String Quartet and the Colorado String Quartet, among others. She has received many awards and prizes including a performance at Carnegie Recital Hall from Artists International with the West End Chamber Players (of New York) as well as an invitation to perform for the New York Viola Society. Ms. Kahn's most recent recital, given at Hertz Hall in Berkeley, California, was to critical acclaim.
Among the many orchestras with which she has played are the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the New York Opera Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, the Carmel Bach Festival, the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. Ruth is also an accomplished violinist, she acted as Co-Concertmaster of The Russian Chamber Orchestra (Bay Area). Ms. Kahn has performed as a soloist with the Mexico City Philharmonic and the New England Symphonic Ensemble. She has also performed with Naples Philharmonic, Southwest Florida and Venice Symphonies, and Opera Naples of Florida.
Internationally, Ruth has toured with the New England Symphonic and New York Chamber Ensembles to Morocco, Israel and Jordan, where they performed for the Royal Families. Ms. Kahn has been invited numerous times to attend the Spoleto Festival in Italy.
Ms Kahn, was Founder, Artistic Director and violist with the concert series Musica Marin. She also produced a three day Chamber Music and Culinary Festival "Festival Musica Marin". Renowned musicians from Europe, New York and the Bay Area as well as celebrity chefs from around the US and Italy participated in the festival.
Ruth is very active in the area of viola pedagogy and has been the assistant to Paul Doktor at the Juilliard School pre-college division as well as teaching master classes and maintaining a private studio in both the New York metropolitan and San Francisco Bay areas. She has been on the faculty at U.C. Berkeley, San Domenico School in California, Orfeo and Interharmony Music Festivals in Italy. As well as several other private schools in the Bay Area, New York City and New Jersey. Her teachers have included Karen Tuttle, Paul Doktor, Louis Kievman and the world-renowned violist William Primrose.
"The viola recital by Ruth Kahn showed off the naturally rich sound of her instrument..Kahn let loose with a welter of secure technical passages and produced double-stops that were vibrantly in tune, Kahn sunk into the dark sound of her viola and pulled the harmonies out with full color." -Paul Somers, Classical New Jersey