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Benjamin Simon

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Lou Harrison
Rhymes With Silver

Benjamin Simon, a native of San Francisco, has performed for audiences around the world as violist of the Stanford String Quartet, the Naumberg-Award winning New World String Quartet, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonic Orchestras. He was principal violist for eight years with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and has served as principal with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.

Simon began his musical training on the violin. With the encouragement of Raphael Hillyer, he switched to the viola while an undergraduate at Yale College. He went on to earn his master's degree from the Julliard School, where he was a scholarship student of Lilian Fuchs and won the Joseph Machlis prize as an outstanding instrumentalist at the graduate level. He has studied and performed chamber music with members of the Budapest, Amadeus, Guarneri and Julliard Quartets, and studied conducting with Denis DeCouteau, Otto Werner Mueller, and Denis Russell Davies.

With the New World Quartet, he recorded four CD's for MCA Classics; their 1991 release of the quartets of Ravel, Debussy, and Dutilleux won a Grand Prix du Disque. Mr. Simon was a participating artist at the Marlboro Festival and several Music from Marlboro tours, as well as the Ravinia, Cabrillo, Blossom and Aspen Music Festivals. Dedicated to contemporary music, Mr. Simon has performed many world premieres as a soloist and in ensembles such as New York's Speculum Musicae, Boston's Composers in Red Sneakers, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. He has recorded for Nonesuch, MCA Classics, Musical Heritage Society, Bridge, CRI, and Laurel Records.

Simon is also a composer whose most recent score for the theater won a Dramalogue Award in Los Angeles, and a writer whose articles appear in national publications. He has taught at Harvard and Stanford Universities and is currently on the chamber music faculty at UC Berkeley. In July 2000 he succeeded Anne Crowden as the Director of the Crowden School in Berkeley, this country's only middle school devoted to classical music and ensemble playing.

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