Nicholas Cords
viola

Violist Nicholas Cords has appeared as a chamber musician at Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, Alice Tully Hall, the Cologne Philharmonie, Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, and the Library of Congress. As a soloist, he has performed with the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, the New York String Seminar Orchestra, and the Queens Symphony, among others. His chamber music c redits include the Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, Santa Fe, Tanglewood, Piccolo Spoleto, Lincoln Center, Evian, Four Seasons, Ravinia, Bargemusic, Smithsonian Folklife, Charlottesville, and the Caramoor International festivals.

Mr. Cords is a member of Yo-Yo-Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, a chamber group that combines Western instruments and instruments of present-day countries along the ancient Silk Road trading route in newly commissioned works by composers from those countries as well as in traditional repertoire. He appears on ¿Silk Road Journeys,î the recently released album by Sony Classical, and has traveled worldwide with the ensemble.

Television and radio appearances include a Chinese National Television broadcast from the Great Wall, the David Letterman Show, National Public Radio, and Good Morning America. For the last four years Mr. Cords has been a resident commentator and performer on New York's WQXR Radio's weekly On A-I-R (Artists-in-Radio) program. He has performed with many ensembles, including the Caramoor Virtuosi, An Die Musik, Richardson Chamber Players, Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, Davidsbund Chamber Players, and the Metropolitan Museum Artists in Residence.

Mr. Cords began his musical education at the Juilliard School where he won top honors in the viola competition and subsequently gave the New York premiere of John Harbison's Viola Concerto at Avery Fisher Hall. He completed his studies at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music. His teachers have included Karen Tuttle, Harvey Shapiro, Joseph Fuchs, and Felix Galamir. A committed teacher, Mr. Cords spends his summers teaching at the Bennington Chamber Music and Composers Conference and during the year is on the faculty of Princeton University.