Celebrating 5 Years with Adam Stern

Rachel Lee Priday

Rachel Lee Priday, is known for her spectacular technique, sumptuous sound, and deeply probing musicianship, alongside “irresistible panache” (Chicago Tribune). She is passionately committed to new music and creating enriching community and global connections through wide-ranging repertoire and multidisciplinary collaborations that reflect a deep fascination with literary and cultural narratives.

Priday has appeared as soloist with major international orchestras including the Chicago, Saint Louis, Houston, Seattle, and National Symphony Orchestras, the Boston Pops, and the Berlin Staatskapelle. Her distinguished recital appearances have brought her to eminent venues such as Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Chicago’s Ravinia Festival and Dame Myra Hess Memorial Series, Paris’s Musée du Louvre, Germany’s Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival and Switzerland’s Verbier Festival. She has premiered and commissioned works by composers including Matthew Aucoin, Christopher Cerrone, Gabriella Smith, Timo Andres, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Cristina Spinei, Melia Watras, Paul Wiancko and many more.

Priday began her violin studies at the age of four in Chicago, after she saw the puppet Lamb Chop pretend to play the violin, and shortly after moved to New York City to study with iconic pedagogues Dorothy DeLay and Itzhak Perlman at The Juilliard School. She holds degrees from Harvard and the New England Conservatory, and has served on the faculty of the University of Washington since 2019. She performs on a Giuseppe Guarneri violin (“filius Andreae”).

Mara Gearman

Mara Gearman’s dedication to the viola started during her formative years in Seattle where she earned awards in various competitions, participated in the prestigious RoundTop Music Festival and the Strings Seminar in New York City, played with the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, and was a member of three different performing and competing string quartets.

After graduating from Garfield High School, Mara’s musical journey continued at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Karen Tuttle and Roberto Diaz. Expanding her music education horizons, Mara attended the Verbier Masterclasses, the Netherlands’ Masterclass course led by Nobuko Imai, the Sarasota Music Festival, Domaine Forget Chamber Music and Solo Courses, Banff Masterclasses and the NAC Young Artists Program under the guidance of Pinchas Zukerman.

Mara joined the Oregon Symphony in 2002. She formed a quartet, the Four Violas, with colleagues from that symphony, and the ensemble was invited to perform at the 2004 International Viola Congress in Minnesota.

Since joining the Seattle Symphony, Mara has won Assistant Principal chair as well as being invited to play as Principal Viola with the Los Angeles Opera and Kansas City Symphony.

An enthusiastic educator, Mara has taught at Central Washington University and Cornish College of the Arts. Her commitment to nurturing young talents extends beyond the classroom, as she has organized and led intensive chamber music courses at both high school and college levels, fostering the next generation of musicians. She performs regularly at the Methow Chamber Music Festival and teaches at the Marrowstone Music Festival.

Franz Joseph Haydn, (1732-1809), was an Austrian composer who was one of the most important figures in the development of the Classical style in music during the 18th century. He helped establish the forms and styles for the string quartet and the symphony. More