An Afternoon of Chamber Music

David Garrett joined the cello section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in February of 2000. Previously he was a member of the Houston Symphony, assistant principal of the San Antonio Symphony, and a member of the New Orleans Philharmonic. Garrett also appears frequently as a recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist, and is a frequent performer on the Philharmonic's Chamber Music Society and Green Umbrella concerts. Garrett has recorded modern cello works for the Albany and Opus One labels; his doctoral dissertation includes publication of previously unknown baroque cello works, and he pursues the standard literature in regular solo and chamber music performances. Garrett also enjoys teaching; currently, he teaches cello at California State University, Long Beach.

Along with his wife, Junko, David Garrett performs cello and piano recitals as the Belrose Duo, including several tours in the U.S. and Japan. Away from the cello Garrett enjoys playing the viola da gamba, composing, and arranging; in his spare time he enjoys games and sports, especially tennis, chess, and bridge.

Edith Markman was born in Detroit, Michigan, and began her formal musical training at the age of eight with her father, Luben Haladjoff. She studied with Josef Gingold and Ivan Galamian at the Meadowmount School, and in 1968 she enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music to study with Joseph Silverstein. Markman also spent four successive summers at Tanglewood at the Berkshire Music Center.

In 1971, she became the first undergraduate to be dually enrolled in Yale College and the Yale Graduate Music School. At that time she became concertmaster of the Yale Collegium and Philharmonia Orchestras and a principal player with the New Haven Symphony. She remained at Yale and received the Master of Music degree (1974) and beyond that completed her academic studies toward the Doctorate of Music.

A native of Almira, Washington, violist Minor L. Wetzel studied at Indiana University and received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Michigan. His teachers have included Roland Vamos, Emmanuel Vardi, Donald McInnes, Camilla Wicks, and Tadeusz Wronski. He joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the start of the 1994/95 season.

Wetzel's orchestral experience includes the Spokane Symphony, principal viola of the Ann Arbor Chamber and Sacramento Symphony Orchestras, the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, and - for the six years prior to joining the Philharmonic - the San Francisco Symphony. He has performed as soloist with various local orchestras. His awards include the W. E. Hill & Sons Award at the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition.

He was employed as a chamber music coach at the USC Thornton School of Music and currently teaches viola performance at California State University Fullerton. Wetzel is a regular performer on the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Chamber Music Society series and has also performed with various ensembles at the Philharmonic's Green Umbrella concerts.

He and his wife Stacy, a member of the first violin section of the Philharmonic, have three children.

Violinist Stacy Wetzel attended the Juilliard School and the San Francisco Conservatory. She studied at the Banff Centre and received her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Washington and her Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan. She was first-place winner in the Washington International Competition and the Buffalo Young Artists competition, and she won the Swiss Radio Prize in the Tibor Varga Competition in Switzerland.

Wetzel has been a soloist with the Los Angeles Chamber Symphony and the Buffalo Philharmonic. For two years she was the concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Chamber Orchestra, and she has performed with ensembles including the Soviet Émigré Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Music West, and the Michigan Chamber Players. She was on the faculty of the University of Michigan and served on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

She joined the San Francisco Symphony in 1987. In the fall of 1995, she followed her husband (who joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1994) to Southern California and won the audition for a position in the second violin section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 2001 she moved up to join the orchestra's first violin section. She made her concerto debut with the Philharmonic playing "Autumn" from Vivaldi's Four Seasons at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.