Violinist TIMOTHY KANTOR enjoys performing around the globe at some of the world’s greatest concert halls and chamber music series. As a member of the Afiara Quartet in Toronto, Mr. Kantor has performed hundreds of concerts and helped to develop several innovative projects. One of the quartet’s projects, Spin Cycle with DJ Skratch Bastid, culminated with a Juno Award-nominated album and a solo performance with the Toronto Symphony. Collaborations include those with such varied artists as scratch DJ Kid Koala, Academy Award-nominated producer KK Barrett, and jazz virtuoso Uri Caine.

Before joining the Afiara Quartet, Mr. Kantor was concertmaster of the Evansville (Indiana) Philharmonic and a founding member of the Larchmere String Quartet, in residence at the University of Evansville. He has performed as a member of the Kuttner String Quartet in residence at Indiana University, the chamber music and Quartet in the Community residencies at the Banff Centre, the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Seminar. He has also performed chamber works with many of today’s leading musicians, including Joshua Bell, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Atar Arad, William Preucil, Alexander Kerr, and the Pacifica Quartet. Mr. Kantor has been featured as an artist on American Public Media’s “Performance Today,” CBC Radio, and local classical radio stations in both Cleveland and Toronto. He is devoted to the performance of new music and has participated as soloist, concertmaster and chamber musician with the new music ensembles at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Indiana University. 

A dedicated teacher and coach, Mr. Kantor is the Assistant Professor of Violin at the University of Arizona’s Fred Fox School of Music. Mr. Kantor also teaches at the Kinhaven Music School in Vermont and the Programa Gabriel del Orbe in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic). Mr. Kantor graduated with honors from Bowdoin College, earned a Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and pursued doctoral studies at Indiana University. His former teachers include Mark Kaplan, Jaime Laredo, Paul Kantor, Stephen Kecskemethy, and Andrew Jennings. Off the clock, Mr. Kantor enjoys auto racing and basketball.

Violinist MICHELLE ABRAHAM KANTOR was appointed Associate Concertmaster of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra in 2016. In recital, she collaborates with pianist Peter Takács (Oberlin Conservatory) and violinist Timothy Kantor (University of Arizona). She has appeared as guest artist on the Faculty Chamber Music Series at Oberlin Conservatory and the Fred Fox School of Music at the University of Arizona, as well as the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music Summer Series and Saint Andrews Bach Society in Tucson.

Deeply committed to music education, Ms. Abraham teaches Suzuki and Traditional violin students ages three and up in her home studio in Tucson, and is on the Senior Session Violin Faculty at the Kinhaven Music School in Weston, Vermont. She has taught at The Music Settlement and the Oberlin Community Music School in Ohio and has led Teaching Workshops to music students at the University of Arizona.

Ms. Abraham holds a Bachelor of Arts from Stony Brook University, a Master of Music from the Yale School of Music, and an Artist Diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with Philip Setzer of the Emerson String Quartet, Pamela Frank, Ani Kavafian, and Paul Kantor. A Connecticut native, she enjoys baking, watching basketball, and spending time with pets Seppe, Daphne, and Ella.

A native of Tucson, cellist NICHOLAS MARISCAL is the newly-appointed Assistant Principal Cellist of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. A recent alumnus of the New World Symphony in Miami, Mr. Mariscal is a winner of the orchestra’s concerto competition, performing the rarely-heard Khachaturian Concerto-Rhapsody for cello. In 2018, he made his professional solo debut performing the same work with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, he is a prize winner in the Sphinx, Edith Knox, and Indiana University Latin American Music Center competitions.

Recently, Mr. Mariscal was invited to perform as Guest Principal Cello with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra in Norway, on its tour of South Korea with conductor Han-Na Chang. He has also performed as Principal Cello of the Fjord Cadenza Festival in Ålesund, Norway, in addition to participating in the Tanglewood, Heifetz, and Aspen music festivals. An avid chamber musician, Mariscal has performed with esteemed artists such as Midori Goto, Jorja Fleezanis, Tamás Varga, Atar Arad, and Paul Kantor.

A passionate proponent of lesser-known and new music, Mr. Mariscal is an especially ardent performer of Latin American music. While still an undergraduate at Indiana University, he won the Latin American Music Center’s Recording Competition, giving him the opportunity to record and share rarely-heard music for unaccompanied cello by 20th- and 21st-century composers including Osvaldo Golijov, Alberto Ginastera, Paul Desenne, and Leo Brouwer. As a fellow at the New World Symphony, Mr. Mariscal took the same inspiration and curated a full orchestra and multimedia program titled Alma Latina, with the goal of sharing with audiences just a small sample of the trove of undeservedly neglected works from Latin America. As a performer of new music, he has been involved in dozens of premieres of new works, and has played extensively with the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, and USC’s Thornton EDGE ensemble. His Aspen performance of Tan Dun’s Elegy: Snow in June for cello and percussion ensemble earned the review, “Mariscal seemed born to play Dun’s soulful, endlessly inventive and expressive music. With rock-solid technique and undeniable star quality, Mariscal seemed less a student getting a break than a bona fide artist.”

As a performer, Mr. Mariscal believes ardently in working to make classical music approachable and accessible to everyone, and strives to do so by speaking to audiences frequently and attempting to break down traditional barriers in performances. Mr. Mariscal received his Bachelor of Music degree from Indiana University under the tutelage of Eric Kim, and received a Master of Music degree and a Graduate Certificate from USC, where he studied with David Geringas and Ralph Kirshbaum.

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