San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts

 

Permian Basin
String Quartet

The Permian Basin String Quartet is the string ensemble in residence with the Midland-Odessa Symphony and Chorale (MOSC). The quartet performs regularly in Midland, Odessa, and throughout west Texas. In addition to their duties with the quartet, all four members remain active as performers and teachers. They serve as principal and section players with the Abilene Philharmonic, and the Lubbock and San Angelo Symphony Orchestras.

Teaching is an integral part of the quartet's duties as they each maintain private teaching studios, and serve as adjunct faculty at Midland College. Members of the quartet have furthered their chamber music studies through coachings and master classes with such prestigious ensembles as the Juilliard, Cleveland, Orion, and Takacs quartets. The players are also veterans of reputable music festivals including Tanglewood, Domaine Forget, Music Academy of the West, Bowdoin, and Aspen.

John Madura, a native of Arden Hills, Minnesota, began studying the violin at the age of three and has been playing professionally since he was six years old.

Highlights of Mr. Madura's career include winning the 2004 Texas Tech University Concerto Competition and performing the Brahms Violin Concerto with the TTU Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Gary Lewis. He was also invited to perform Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante with the Caprock Pro Musica Chamber Ensemble in a concert celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. The following summer, Mr. Madura was selected as a finalist in the Schlern International Music Competition taking place in Schlern, Italy.

Mr. Madura has an extensive history in orchestral performance and has been part of symphony orchestras in Midland, Lubbock, Abilene, San Angelo and Big Spring in Texas and Baton Rouge and Lafayette in Louisiana. He was also Concertmaster of the Natchez Opera Orchestra and was Assistant Concertmaster for the Abilene Opera Orchestra. Mr. Madura has performed with Chamber Music Amarillo and was invited to participate in the Quartz Mountain Music Festival Orchestra. He has performed with major artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Brad Leali, The Smothers Brothers, Mercedes Ellington, Sarah Brightman, Sandi Patty and Smokey Robinson.

Key instructors for Mr. Madura include Dr. John Gilbert at TTU, James Alexander and Kevork Mardirossian at Louisiana State University and Elizabeth Ericksen of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Mr. Madura enjoys teaching, playing the violin in both chamber and orchestral ensembles and is also an avid painter. He is also a new father to a baby girl, Madeline Claire Madura.

Mario Dimitrov, violin, is a native of Sofia, Bulgaria where as a student won several violin competitions including the National Competition for Young Musical Talents and the Concerto Competition with his performance of Mozart Violin Concerto No.5. In 1993 he was admitted to the Summer Academy of Tibor Varga in Sion, Switzerland where he received a performance diploma.
Mr. Dimitrov holds a Master of Music degree and Doctoral Degree /ABD/ from Louisiana State University where he received several awards including the LSU String Scholarship, Louisiana Music Award, the Music Club Award, and the Concerto Competition Award for his performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto for Violin. He was a member of the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and he was invited to attend the Hiber Spring Chamber Music Festival in 2004 and International Institute of Round Top in 2005. His teachers were Kevork Mardirossian, Ifrah Neaman, and Stefan Georgiu.

Colin Garner, viola, received undergraduate degrees in viola performance and music education from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a master of music degree in viola performance from the University of Southern California. His principal viola teachers were Donald McInnes, Ralph Fielding, and Erika Eckert. He studied chamber music with members of the Cleveland, Takacs, Juilliard, Cavani, Hungarian, and Manhattan string quartets.

Mr. Garner's music festival experience includes the Music Academy of the West, National Repertory Orchestra, Bowdoin, Encore, Aspen, and the Tanglewood music center where he served as principal violist for the festival of contemporary music orchestra. Prior to his appointment with the Midland/Odessa symphony as principal violist, Mr. Garner performed with the New World Symphony, the Colorado Music Festival, served as associate principal violist in the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and was a member of the Colorado Ballet Orchestra. He also teaches privately, and is an adjunct faculty member at Midland College.

Sarah Wilson, cello, made her Carnegie Hall debut at age 17 as principal cellist of the National Youth Orchestra under the direction of Lukas Foss. Since then Ms. Wilson has performed throughout the Eastern, Southern and Midwest United States as well as Canada, Mexico, Holland, Italy, and Switzerland. Her festival appearances include orchestral, chamber, and solo performances at Zephyr Music Festival in Courmayeur, Italy, International Festival of Domaine Forget in Quebec, Canada, Bowdoin International Music Festival in Brunswick, Maine, Killington Music Festival in Killington, Vermont, Brevard Music Festival in Brevard, North Carolina, Texas Music Festival in Houston Texas, and Oberlin at Casalmaggiore in Casalmaggiore, Italy.

A firm believer in the importance of diversifying the musical canon, Ms. Wilson has dedicated herself to performing lesser known works from the Classical repertoire as well as works from the 20th and 21st centuries. To this end she has performed cello works of Leos Janacek, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, James MacMillan, Samuel Ades, and Elliott Carter. Ms. Wilson gave the world premier of "Gemini" for cello and piano, a piece which was written for and dedicated to her by Jacob Gotlib. As principal cellist of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, she collaborated with the new music ensemble Eighth Blackbird.

Ms. Wilson holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Cello Performance from the renowned Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music degree from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Now a resident of Midland, Texas, Ms. Wilson serves as principal cello for the Midland-Odessa Symphony and Chorale, guest principal cello of the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, and cellist for the Permian Basin String Quartet.

Ms. Wilson performs on an Italian instrument from 1757, attributed to the school of Calvarola.



Additional funding provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts.