Daniel Avshalomov

Honored by The Strad magazine as "one of the finest occupants of that chair, both instrumentally and musically, of any quartet now active", Daniel Avshalomov was for forty-eight years the violist of the American String Quartet, performing over 4,000 concerts in twenty-seven countries, including all 50 U.S. states in a single season. He finds time each season for concerto appearances, recitals, and collaborative concerts, and returns as a featured performer to festivals across the country.
He has appeared with the Juilliard, Guarneri, and Tokyo quartets as well as collaborating with Norbert Brainin, Yefim Bronfman, Claude Frank, Richard Stoltzman, Bruno Giuranna, Frederica von Stade, PDQ Bach, Heinz Holliger, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Salman Rushdie, and Steve Martin, among others.
His articles appear in Notes and Strings ; he has edited several viola works for publication, produced a selection of program notes, Thought on Laps, and contributed to ASTA's  "Playing and Teaching the Viola". The subject of two articles in The Strad and one in Classical Pulse, Mr. Avshalomov developed "Inside Passages", first presented to the New York Viola Society in 2000, gave the world premiere of Giampaolo Bracali's Concerto per Viola, the American premiere of Alessandro Rolla's Esercizio 3 and recorded the CD "Three Generations Avshalomov" with pianists Robert McDonald and Pamela Pyle, which was featured on NPR's "All Things Considered". He served on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music from 1984 to 2024 and of the Aspen School from 1976 to 2024.
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In retirement he may be found in the mountains.

Laurie Carney

A founding member of the American String Quartet, Laurie Carney (violin) holds the distinction of performing quartets longer than any other woman in this elite field. The American String Quartet began concertizing while she was still an undergraduate at Juilliard. Apart from the Quartet, she has per­formed trios with her husband, cellist William Grubb, and pianist Anton Nel; duos with violist Michael Tree; and as an ensemble partner to such artists as Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Salvatore Accardo, Cho-Liang Lin, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Misha Dichter, Ralph Kirshbaum, Alain Meunier, and Frederica von Stade. Carney's concerto appearances include performing Mozart's Sin­fo­nia Con­cer­tan­te with the Bournemouth Symphony, Basque National Orchestra, and the Welsh National Orchestra. She gave the premiere of Gianpaolo Bracali’s Fantasia for violin and piano. Most recently, Robert Sirota composed his Violin Sonata No. 2 for her, and in addition to per­forming the premiere last spring, she will record the work later this season. A faculty artist at the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1974 and the Manhattan School of Music since 1984, Carney has held teaching positions at the Mannes College of Music, Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins Uni­ver­si­ty, University of Ne­bras­ka, University of Michigan, Shepherd School at Rice Uni­ver­si­ty, and the Taos School of Music. Her dedication to the development of young players brings frequent invitations to offer master classes, most recently in California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, and New Mexico. Carney is a member of a prodigious musical family: her father was a trumpeter and edu­ca­tor, her mother a concert pianist, and all three siblings are professional violinists. Her violin is by Carlo Tononi (Venice, 1720).

Pamela Viktoria Pyle

Pamela Viktoria Pyle has been recognized for her interpretations of the chamber music literature since Dorothy DeLay first engaged her at The Juilliard School. For nearly two decades, she served as a principal pianist in the studios of Miss DeLay and subsequently Itzhak Perlman.  This immersion in the piano and string repertoire led to collaborations with members of the Juilliard, American, Ying, and Mendelssohn String Quartets, including Joel Smirnoff, Joel Krosnick, and Daniel Avshalomov, as well as other soloists such as Robert McDuffie, Sarah Chang, Alan Harris and the Norwegian soprano Anne-Lise Berntsen. Ms. Pyle’s connection to the studio of Dorothy DeLay continues in concert appearances with many of her former students including Laurie Carney, Brian Lewis and Ittai Shapira.

As an award-winning soloist and chamber recitalist, Ms. Pyle has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Mexico, and Brazil, at venues such as Carnegie Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Jordan Hall, and Wolftrap, and at events such as the Lincoln Center Great Performers Series and the Casals Series in Puerto Rico. Ms. Pyle is regularly chosen as the pianist for nationally recognized summer music institutes, including the Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies at The Juilliard School, the Brian Lewis Young Artist Program in Ottawa, Kansas, and formerly at the Aspen Music Festival, and the Robert McDuffie Fall Festival of Strings at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia.  Recent summer appearances include performances with Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom, Peter Wiley, Keith Robinson, and Tara O’Conner at the Music from Angel Fire Festival in venues throughout northern New Mexico.

Ms. Pyle is currently Associate Professor of Piano and Director of the Collaborative Piano Program at the University of New Mexico.   Internationally, she was privileged to engage with Chinese students as a Visiting Professor at Shandong University in Weihai, China, and has made numerous trips to Brazil to teach and perform.

At UNM, she continues to bring in distinguished artists to further enrich the listening opportunities of her community.  Here, she has had the great honor of collaborating with inspiring, chamber music luminaries, including the American String Quartet, Ronald Copes, Joseph Lin, Phillipe Quint and Guillermo Figueroa. 

She is the founder and Artistic Director of the New Mexico Chamber Music Festival, which debuted in 2013, and brings young pianists and string players from around the world for an intensive week of chamber music study and performances throughout New Mexico.  

Ms. Pyle began piano studies with her mother at the age of four and later studied with Patricia Zander at New England Conservatory, Ann Schein at the Aspen Music Festival, and Yoheved Kaplinsky, Samuel Sanders, and Jonathan Feldman at The Juilliard School. At these institutions, Ms. Pyle also devoted herself to chamber music under leading exponents Eugene Lehner, Louis Krasner, Joseph Fuchs, Robert Mann, Felix Galimir, and Benjamin Zander.

Ms. Pyle’s media recordings include CDs on the Albany and Prairie labels and numerous broadcasts, including programs on CBS Sunday Morning, the Charlie Rose Show, CNN, the Martha Stewart Show, National Public Radio, WGBH Boston, WNYC & WQXR New York, KHFM New Mexico, and a PBS special on Itzhak Perlman.  Coverage of the 2011 Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies by the online media site violinist.com, quoted N.Y. Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow as saying that Ms. Pyle made the piano “sound like the heart of an angel”.  In print media, she was featured in Strad magazine in an article about collaborative pianists, which focused on the importance of a balanced partnership in musical collaborations.

Recently she appeared in the independent film, RawTuba, centered on the life of her collaborative partner, tubist Richard White, as they perform in their duo, Diversity Matters.
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Ms. Pyle served as President of the UNM Faculty Senate, where she had the honor of representing the concerns and interests of the UNM Faculty for an unprecedented four terms. In this capacity, she reached out to the entire University to collaborate with members of different communities throughout the state, to share the intellectual, social, and cultural breadth of the University in new ways.