Meet the Players--New York

The string quartet for the Crescendo Chamber Music Project of New York, consisting of Evelyn Petcher, violin, Julie Lawrence, violin, Arthur Dibble, viola, and Alina Lee, cello, will present Achille’s Heel, by contemporary composer Colin Jacobsen (b. 1978). Here are the musicians:

Violinist EVELYN PETCHER BRANDES brings a passion for innovation and commu-nity to both her performing and teaching. She is a founding member of Leadlights Ensemble and a Resident Artist at the Bronx Arts Ensemble. Evelyn’s work frequently blurs the line between performance and workshop, and she enjoys playing in community settings like coffee shops, hospitals, and parks. She is on faculty at the Elizabeth Faidley violin studio, and is in demand for residencies in strings, composition, and musicianship for organizations such as the New York Philharmonic, the Little Orchestra Society, and Leap NYC. Evelyn is also the co-founder of East Lake Expression Engine, an El Sistema inspired program in Chattanooga, TN which offers holistic musical instruction to under privileged children.

Violinist Dr. JULIE LAWRENCE has performed on the stages of New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, and Steinway Hall. She is a founding member of the Leadlights Ensemble, whose mission is to connect people through music, bringing joy and vitality to communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Leadlights curated “Play On! Washington Heights,” a monthly sidewalk concert series outside a Word-Up Community Bookshop. Her love for championing under-played works led Dr. Lawrence to present the music of Georg Muffat on her doctoral thesis. She frequently programs contemporary works alongside Bach and Brahms sonatas, and has premiered works by New York composers J. Mark Stambaugh, Michael Kosch, and Kyle Werner. She has performed under the batons of Leonard Slatkin, Kurt Masur, and Yoav Talmi. A graduate of Manhattan School of Music, Julie Lawrence received the Raphael Bronstein Award for Excellence in Performance and Pedagogy. Dr. Lawrence has held teaching positions at Rutgers University and the Geneva Conservatory of Music, where she was also Director for six years.

Violist, Violinist, and conductor ARTHUR DIBBLE enjoys a wonderful free-lance musician’s life in New York City. Diverse styles of music have taken him all over the world, from touring with Barbra Streisand, Led Zeppelin, various string quartets and the St. Louis Symphony to right here at home on the major stages of New York City and the surrounding region with orchestras, chamber groups and Broadway stars. He is currently music director for his lovely wife, mezzo-soprano Sishel Claverie on theater/recitals projects. Seeking expression since his Juilliard days, Arthur collaborates regularly with living composers and participates in the Tonal Refraction Ensemble, exploring our “pre-conscious gut reactions to sounds themselves.” Arthur enjoys teaching and performing for the Midori Foundation in NYC public schools. You can also often find him in recording studios during the day, Broadway show pits in the evenings, feeding his espresso obsession in a café, or traveling to see his son and daughter in college.

Cellist ALINA LEE is as versatile a chamber musician as she is a performer in solo and orchestral music. Ms. Lee has performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Seongnam Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Kitchener-Waterloo/Oshawa-Durham Youth Orchestras, among others. Recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award, she has performed on the NPR show From the Top. She has appeared in Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, and Seoul Arts Center. Ms. Lee has participated in festivals such as the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Chamber Music Residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Ms. Lee studied with Joowon Kim and David Hetherington at the Royal Conservatory of Music. She received her Bachelor and Master of Music at The Juilliard School, where she studied with Richard Aaron, and later she also continued her studies with Marcy Rosen at the Mannes College.