Aaron Berofsky

Violinist Aaron Berofsky has toured extensively throughout the United States and abroad, gaining wide recognition as a soloist and chamber musician. As soloist, he has performed with orchestras in the United States, Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada. He has performed the complete cycle of Mozart violin sonatas at the International Festival Deia in Spain and all of the Beethoven sonatas at New York’s Merkin Concert Hall.  His 2011 recording of the complete Beethoven sonatas with Phillip Bush has been met with great acclaim.

France’s Le Figaro calls his playing “Beautiful, the kind of music-making that gives one true pleasure”.  He has appeared in such renowned venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Corcoran Gallery, Het Doelen, L'Octogone, Seoul National University, the Teatro San Jose and the Museo de Bellas Artes. Mr. Berofsky has been featured on NPR's Performance Today and on the Canadian Broadcasting Company. His acclaimed recordings can be found on the Sony, Naxos, New Albion, ECM, Audio Ideas, Blue Griffin and Chesky labels.  Recent recital tours have taken him to Germany, Italy and Korea, and he was featured soloist on the 2009 NAXOS recording of music by Paul Fetler, performed by the Ann Arbor Symphony, including the debut recording of his Concerto No. 2.  His recording of the complete chamber music of Franz Xavier Mozart was released in 2013 on Equilibrium.

Mr. Berofsky was the first violinist of the Chester String Quartet for fifteen years. The quartet has been acclaimed as "one of the country's best young string quartets" by the Boston Globe. Tours have taken them throughout the Americas and Europe and the quartet members have collaborated with such artists as Robert Mann, Arnold Steinhardt, Franco Gulli, members of the Alban Berg quartet, Andres Diaz, Eugene Istomin and Ruth Laredo. Some notable projects over the years have included the complete cycles of the quartets by Beethoven and Dvorak, and numerous recordings by such composers as Mozart, Haydn, Barber, Porter, Piston, Kernis and Tenenbom. The Chester Quartet has served as resident quartet at the University of Michigan and at Indiana University South Bend.
An alumnus of the Juilliard School, Mr. Berofsky was a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay. Other important teachers have included Robert Mann, Felix Galimir, Glenn Dicterow, Lorand Fenyves and Elaine Richey. Mr. Berofsky is known for his commitment to teaching and is Professor of Violin at the University of Michigan and served as visiting Professor at the Hochschule fur Musik in Detmold, Germany. He taught at the Meadowmount School of Music for many summers and is currently on the violin faculty of the Chautauqua Institution.  He has also given masterclasses throughout the world, including a 2013 tour of Korea which included classes at Seoul National University, Ewha Women’s University, Seoul Arts High School and many others.  He has also given class at the Cleveland Institute, Oberlin, Eastman, the Peter de Grote festival in the Netherlands, Domaine Forget in Quebec, Interlochen, the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival and the Conservatorio Palma Mallorca.

Mr. Berofsky's interest in early music led him to perform with the acclaimed chamber orchestra Tafelmusik on period instruments, also makingseveral recordings with them for the Sony label.  He co-runs University of Michigan’s Baroque Chamber Orchestra with harpsichordist Joseph Gascho.  With a strong dedication to new music as well, he has worked extensively with many leading composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, performing, commissioning and recording music by John Cage, William Bolcom, Zhou Long, Michael Daugherty, Aaron Jay Kernis, Susan Botti, Morton Subotnick, Paul Fetler and Bright Sheng.

Aaron Berofsky has been concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony since 2003.   He has also served as guest concertmaster for many orchestras throughout the US and Europe.

Kathryn Votapek

A member of the Chester String Quartet for 15 years, violinist/violist Kathryn Votapek now maintains an active career as a soloist and guest artist at chamber music festivals throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. She has participated in numerous commissioning projects and premieres and can be heard with the Chester Quartet on the Koch International Classics and New Albion labels. Along with pianist Ralph Votapek and clarinetist Paul Votapek, she performs as violinist and violist with the Votapek Trio. She has also given numerous duo performances with her husband, violinist Aaron Berofsky.

Votapek has been on the faculty of the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Meadowmount School of Music, the Interlochen Arts Camp, the Madeline Island Music Camp, the Quartet Program, the Banff International Festival, the Accademia Musicale Chigiana (Italy), the Peter de Grote Summer Academy (Holland), and Music & More Summerfest (Bosnia and Herzegovina), as well as performing at the Klosterkammerfest (Germany), Speedside Festival (Canada), the International Deia Festival (Spain), the Garth Newel Festival, the Fontana Festival, and with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and the Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings.

Votapek is currently on the faculty at the University of Michigan. She serves as the Chair of Chamber Music at the Chautauqua Institution, and is the associate concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. Previously she was associate professor of violin and artist-in-residence at Indiana University South Bend.

Votapek received her bachelor of music degree at Indiana University and master’s degree from The Juilliard School. Her teachers were Robert Mann, Franco Gulli, and Angel Reyes.

Charles Berofsky

Equally at home as a solo pianist, collaborator, and composer, Charles Berofsky seeks to engage audiences through a myriad of styles and genres of music. Born in South Bend, Indiana, Charles grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and began piano lessons when he was six years old. He also developed an interest in composition from a young age and started organ lessons at age 14.

Charles was recently awarded First Prize, along with the Orchestra Prize, at the 2024 Campillos International Piano Competition (Campillos, Spain). He has been a prizewinner at several other piano competitions, including the 2022 New York International Piano Competition (Third Prize to a solo performer and First Prize for the piano four-hands ensemble); the 2021 Thousand Islands International Piano Competition (First Prize, senior division); and the 2021 Chautauqua piano competition (Second Prize). Charles has also won concerto competitions at both the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York; in the latter instance, at age 20, he was one of the youngest students to ever win a concerto competition at Eastman. For his compositions, he has received a commission from the American Guild of Organists and four prizes from the Eastman School of Music. Other awards include First Prize at the 2018 Chicago College of Performing Arts Young Composer Competition and First Prizes at the Dearborn and Dexter Youth Artist Concerto Competitions in southeastern Michigan.

Charles has attended summer music festivals and participated in master classes in the United States and Europe, including the Lieven Foundation in Vienna, Taos School of Music, Mozarteum Internationale Sommerakademie, and Chautauqua Institution. He has had the opportunity to work with artists such as Malcolm Bilson, Davide Cabassi, Ya-Fei Chuang, Andreas Frölich, Alon Goldstein, Christopher Hinterhuber, Alexander Kobrin, Robert Levin, Andreas Staier, and Arie Vardi, as well as working closely in chamber music settings with Robert McDonald, Yeesun Kim, Angelo Xiang Yu, and Thomas Sauer. He has given solo recitals at Temple Emanu-El of New York, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance; and has been featured as a guest artist with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players and the Pressenda Chamber Players. He is also an experienced church organist, having played for St. Cyprian’s Church in Boston in 2023-2024 and St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Ann Arbor in 2017-2018.

An avid chamber musician, Charles is the pianist of Trio Sponte, which recently won the Grand Prize in the Senior Division of the 2024 Coltman Chamber Music Competition, along with 1st Prize in the Strings/Piano Category. Trio Sponte was selected for the New England Conservatory’s prestigious Honors Ensemble program for the 2023-24 school year; the award comes with a stipend, a recital in Jordan Hall, and various community engagements. In 2023 he was one of five NEC students to be selected for the Borromeo String Quartet’s yearly Guest Artist Award. Charles was previously the pianist of the Newbury Trio, an NEC Honors Ensemble during the 2022-23 school year. He also enjoys playing with members of his family as the pianist of the Berofsky Piano Quartet, along with his father, violinist Aaron Berofsky; his mother, violinist/violist Kathryn Votapek; and his brother, cellist Sebastian Berofsky.

Charles is currently studying piano with Antti Siirala at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, as well as harpsichord and fortepiano with Christine Schornsheim. He obtained his Master’s degree from the New England Conservatory and his Bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music. He has studied piano with HaeSun Paik, Alan Chow, Logan Skelton, and John Ellis; composition with Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Robert Morris, David Liptak, and Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez; harpsichord with Peter Sykes, Michael Sponseller, and Lisa Goode Crawford; and organ with Scott Van Ornum.

Sebastian Berofsky

Sebastian Berofsky is a twenty-one-year-old cellist from Ann Arbor, MI who began cello lessons at age six. He previously studied with University of Michigan professor Richard Aaron and he has also studied with, and played in master classes given by, Astrid Schween, Leonid Gorokhov, Steve Doane, Brandon Vamos, the Fauré Piano Quartet, the Horszowski Trio, Pavel Haas Quartet, the Callisto Quartet, and the Escher Quartet. One of three finalists in the Chautauqua Sigma Alpha Iota Concerto Competition, Sebastian was the winner of the Michigan American String Teachers Association chamber music prize, Michigan Youth Arts Festival chamber music award, Music Teachers National Association Senior String Division award (Michigan), and the Michigan Pops Orchestra concerto competition.

Last summer he attended the Tanglewood Music Center where he won the opportunity to play a concert in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and also won the opportunity to participate in the Shostakovich Festival at the Gewandhaus Leipzig, playing under Andris Nelsons with the Boston Symphony and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester. He has also attended Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Center Stage Strings Advanced Chamber Music Program, and Indiana University Summer String Academy.

Sebastian recently won a position in the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and is a substitute player with the Houston Grand Opera and the New World Symphony. He has also served as principal in the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. In 2018 he performed the Mendelssohn A Major Viola Quintet with faculty members and peers after winning the summer chamber music competition at the IU Summer String Academy. Sebastian has been a guest artist with the Pressenda Chamber Players in Washington, D.C. on several occasions. With the Berofsky Piano Quartet, he has played on the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra’s chamber series, as well as the Chautauqua Chamber Music series, University of Delaware Master Players, and the Crystal Valley Concert series.

Sebastian is a scholarship fourth-year undergraduate student at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, where he studies with Professor Desmond Hoebig and coaches chamber music with Professors Norman Fischer and Brian Connelly. He is a member of Trio Riso, an ensemble that was selected as a semifinalist for the Coltman Chamber Music Competition and a quarterfinalist for the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2024.