Name: Summer Music 2024 | Faculty Recital – Atar Arad, viola
Start: 2024-07-10T20:00:00
Location: Auer Hall

Atar Arad

Indiana University Jacobs School of Music

Israeli-born violist and composer Atar Arad is professor of music (viola) at the IU Jacobs School of Music. Summer activities include teaching at Keshet Eilon, Domaine Forget, Heifetz Institute, and, the Steans Music Institute. Cum laude first-prize winner at the Geneva International Music Competition (1972), he has performed worldwide in recitals and as a soloist with major orchestras and was a member of the celebrated Cleveland Quartet. Recordings with the quartet and as a soloist for such labels as Teldec, Telarc, RCA, and RIAX are widely acclaimed. His performance of Paganini’s Sonata Per La Grand’ Viola e Orchestra is considered a landmark in the history of the viola. Arad’s compositions include a solo viola sonata, two string quartets, and more. Tikvah for viola solo was commissioned for the 2008 Munich International Viola Competition by ARD. Listen (Three Poems by W. S. Merwin) for tenor, clarinet, viola, cello, and bass was written for the International Musicians Seminar concert tour in England with Mark Padmore. Epitaph for cello and string orchestra was written for Gary Hoffman, who premiered it with the Kremerata Baltica Orchestra. Arad played the viola version at the 2012 International Viola Congress (IVC) and his 12 Caprices for Viola (Hofmeister Musikverlag) on concert tours of the United States, Canada, Israel, England, Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal. Recent performances include the Primrose Memorial Concert at Brigham Young University and a Toronto recital as the Lorand Fenyves Distinguished Visitor. At IVC 2018, he premiered Ceci n’est pas un Bach, a concerto for viola and strings. In June 2019, with Vadim Gluzman and Mark Kosower, he premiered his String Trio, commissioned by the North Shore Chamber Music Festival. He is a recipient of the American Viola Society’s Career Achievement Award (June 2018); the International Viola Society’s Silver Alto Clef 2018 (“in recognition for his outstanding contributions to the to the viola”); and the IU Trustees Teaching Award (2019). Arad plays on a viola by Niccolo Amati and uses PI strings by Thomastik.