Serafin String Quartet

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Hailed in the New York Times for "impassioned" playing and "clear articulation and unity of purpose," violinist Kate Ransom is a prominent chamber musician who has performed hundreds of concerts in many of the world's finest chamber music halls. Presently, she is a frequent recitalist, and is violinist with Serafin String Quartet. Formerly, as a founding member of the Alexander String Quartet (the first Quartet to win the prestigious Concert Artists Guild award), she debuted at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and received first prize and audience prize at the London String Quartet Competition (1985). She has collaborated with artists William Preucil (Concertmaster of Cleveland Orchestra), Sadao Harada (founding cellist of Tokyo Quartet), guitarist Eliot Fisk and pianists Sandra Rivers and James Tocco. She performed the complete Sonatas of Beethoven in FL, VT, DE, PA (2010) and will perform the complete sonatas of Brahms in 2011-12 in DE and PA. Ms. Ransom studied with Paul Makanovitzky, Szymon Goldberg and Ivan Galamian, and was a chamber music protege of Tokyo Quartet. She has recorded for Centaur, Klavier, Gallo and CRI and been featured on WRTI (PA), WQXR (NY), Radio London, Radio France, National Public Radio and on WHYY Public Television and WSKG Public Television. She has served on the faculties of the University of Delaware, Brevard College and Lehigh University; she has also held Ensemble in Residence positions at University of Delaware, St. Lawrence University, SUNY-Potsdam, Lehigh University and Brevard College. She pursued post-graduate chamber music study at The Juilliard School with Robert Mann and holds a master's degree in Violin Performance from Yale School of Music and a bachelor's degree, magna cum laude in Violin Performance from the University of Michigan, School of Music. Devoted to organizational advancement, she has held executive leadership positions in music education since 1990 and currently serves as President of The Music School of Delaware. Ms. Ransom plays a violin crafted in 1728 by Venetian master Sanctus Serafin.

Noted as "intense" by American Record Guide, "energetic" by Rome News Tribune and "the principal purveyor of romance" by the Richmond Times, soloist, collaborative artist and educator Timothy Schwarz is known throughout the world for his innovative and educational programming. Since his solo debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of nine, he has performed as a solo and collaborative artist in recitals and chamber music concerts throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. His recording career spans 15 years, with solo and chamber music albums distributed by EMI, Marquis Classics, and Centaur Records. The American Record Guide praised his solo recording of the Bartok Sonata No. 2 (Centaur Records) as "good enough to be the only recording in your collection if you just want one." The National Endowment of the Arts named him "Most Promising Artist in Maryland" for his performance of Bartok's Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Cincinnati Concert Orchestra, and he continues to perform numerous concertos within the United States each season. In 1995 he won the Artistic Ambassador Competition, resulting in 75 recitals in 20 different countries throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Schwarz was invited back for two more tours, where he presented numerous all-American recitals, performed on dozens of television and radio stations and commissioned numerous works combining Arab and American melodies. As a concerto soloist, he has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Richmond Philharmonic, the Rome Symphony Orchestra, the Brazilian Chamber Orchestra, the Hamilton-Fairfield Symphony, the Blue Ash/Montgomery Symphony and numerous regional orchestras in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. Mr. Schwarz is currently Head of the String Program and Professor of Practice at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA and serves as the Music Director of the Wilmington Community Orchestra (Delaware). He holds degrees from Temple University, the Peabody Conservatory and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. His principal teachers were Dorothy DeLay, Helen Kwalwasser and Sylvia Rosenberg.

Praised for "ravishing sound" by The Strad Magazine and "passionate talent and beautiful poise... all in one package" by AVS, violist Molly Carr is the newest member of Serafin String Quartet. Ms. Carr was a winner of the 2010 Juilliard Viola Concerto Competition, making her New York solo debut with the Juilliard Orchestra under Xian Zhang in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in April 2010. She has won several other major honors, including a top prize in the 2008 Primrose International Viola Competition; first prize in the National Solo Competition of the American String Teacher's Association; an instrument scholarship from the Virtu Foundation; a $25,000 scholarship endowment from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development; and top honors in the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts' prestigious Arts Recognition and Talent Search Program. Recent performances have included a Leon Fleisher Young Artists Concert at Carnegie Hall; a Focus! 2010 concert with the Azur Quartet and an Insight Series concert with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center; and concerts with Perlman and the Perlman Music Program at Chicago's Symphony Center, Princeton's McCarter Theatre, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Jerusalem Music Centre. Ms. Carr appeared on PBS's Live From Lincoln Center and CBS's Kennedy Center Honors Program with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and fellow students of the Perlman Music Program. As a chamber musician, she has collaborated with renowned artists Itzhak Perlman, Carter Brey, Peter Wiley, Ida Kavafian, Pamela Frank, Alisa Weilerstein, Roger Tapping, Ron Leonard, Paul Katz, Bonnie Hampton, Lucas Foss, the American String Quartet and the Attacca String Quartet. Ms. Carr received her bachelor's and master's degrees from The Juilliard School where she studied under Heidi Castleman and Steven Tenenbom.

Hailed in Strings Magazine for "style and elegance" and "lyrical expressiveness," Lawrence Stomberg enjoys a wide-ranging career as soloist, chamber musician and pedagogue. Since his debut at Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 1999, he has performed as soloist and chamber musician while faculty at the Eastern Music Festival and Texas Music Festival, and was a founding member of the piano trios Trilogy and the Johannes Trio, as well as the Brightmusic concert series in Oklahoma City, OK. As a committed performer of contemporary music, Mr. Stomberg has premiered works at New York's Miller Theater and Merkin Hall and released a debut recording of solo contemporary music entitled The American Cello (2000). He has also recorded for the VAI and Centaur labels. In 2006, Mr. Stomberg embarked on a concert tour of the United States and China, performing solo recitals of modern works and presenting master classes for conservatory students. He gave his European debut performance in 2010, performing chamber music at London's St. John's Smith Square, and will present his South American debut in August of 2011 in Bogota, Colombia. In recent seasons, he has been a featured concerto soloist with orchestras in Delaware, Alabama and Georgia. As an orchestral performer, he served as Assistant Principal Cellist in the Oklahoma City Philharmonic from 2002 until 2004, after four years as a member of the Tulsa Philharmonic. Mr. Stomberg was a student of Shirley Trepel at Rice University, where he graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Music degree, and continued his studies with Timothy Eddy, receiving his Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts Degrees at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. An active and dedicated pedagogue, Mr. Stomberg served on the faculties at Truman State University in Missouri and Oklahoma State University before joining the music faculty at the University of Delaware in 2004 where he currently serves as Associate Professor of Cello.