Elizabeth Adams, violin - Chestertown Piano Quartet
(USA)
Formed in 2024 at the National Music Festival, the Chestertown Piano Quartet is composed of faculty affiliated with some of the most prominent music schools in the United States, including Peabody, Yale, and Towson University. The members — Elizabeth Adams, violin, Renate Falkner, viola, Joseph Gotoff, cello, and Minji Nam, piano — are highly sought-after chamber musicians, having appeared in prestigious music festivals throughout the United States and internationally.
The Quartet has been named Ensemble-in-Residence at the Kent Cultural Alliance in Chestertown, MD for the 2025-26 season, and will be presenting works by underrepresented female composers of the 19th and 20th centuries alongside newly commissioned contemporary compositions and classic favorites. The quartet is committed to local education and to promoting interdisciplinary collaboration between the many diverse artists in residence at the KCA and throughout the greater context of Maryland and Washington D.C.’s vibrant cultural community.
Elizabeth Adams, violin, has performed throughout Europe and North America as violinist, violist, and pianist, from solo to chamber music to orchestra. She is in demand as a versatile performer, teacher, adjudicator, and clinician. She is a member of the Washington Concert Opera orchestra and plays in symphony orchestras and in period and modern chamber ensembles from Richmond to Baltimore. Elizabeth has appeared at the Smithsonian Institution, the embassies of Russia, Austria, and Italy, and the American Consulate in St Petersburg, as well as with orchestras at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, het Concertgebouw, Place des Arts, Palais Montcalm, and Jordan Hall, among others.
Recent performances include Ravel’s Tzigane and Stravinsky’s l’Histoire du soldat at National Music Festival; Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire at Catholic University’s International Piano Series; and chamber concerts at Redpath Hall at McGill, University of Maryland, and the Kreeger Museum.
Elizabeth holds an MM in violin and a BA in Russian studies from Yale. She has studied violin and pedagogy extensively in both Russia and North America and holds a doctorate in violin from l’Université de Montréal. She has studied chamber music with the Borodin, Tokyo, and Colorado String Quartets. Primary teachers include Ani Kavafian, Ricardo Cyncynates, Mikhail Gantvarg and Vladimir Landsman, and Baroque violin with Robert Mealy.
Formerly head of strings at George Mason University, Elizabeth currently teaches at Peabody Preparatory in Baltimore. In the summers she performs as a faculty artist at the National Music Festival in Chestertown, Maryland.