Garth Newel Piano Quartet

As artists-in-residence at Garth Newel Music Center, one of the premier and most active chamber music organizations in the United States, they program and perform over 50 concerts each year, engaging with audiences through conversational and interactive programs.

About the Quartet

Quartet Members

An active presence on the national and international stage, the Garth Newel Piano Quartet has performed throughout the United States and on five continents, at such prominent venues as Carnegie Hall, Strathmore Hall, The Chautauqua Institution, and the San Diego Chamber Music Workshop.

The quartet believes strongly in promoting creativity, and holds an annual competition for rising composers aimed at bolstering the piano quartet genre. They regularly commission and premiere music of their contemporaries, such as Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Moravec, and David Biedenbender, for whom they have received the 2017 CMA commissioning grant.

The Garth Newel Piano Quartet maintains a strong dedication to education and to nurturing the next generation of chamber musicians. They serve as faculty and directors for the Emerging Artist Fellowship Program, which gives talented college-age musicians an opportunity to study and perform chamber music under the guidance of the Quartet and world-renowned guest musicians. Other prominent programs include an annual Amateur Chamber Music Workshop and Music in the Schools residencies around Virginia and as far as Georgia. Additionally, the Quartet has given masterclasses at Universities and Conservatories throughout the world.

Teresa Ling

-VIOLIN

Teresa Ling, violin, has performed at Garth Newel Music Center since 1998 and serves as resident violinist and Co-Artistic Director. She has served on the faculties of the Washington Conservatory, University of the Pacific, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, University of South Dakota, and Augustana (South Dakota), Northwestern (Iowa) and Dordt Colleges, and has been a member of the Dakota String Quartet, Mariposa Piano Trio, and the Aurelian Trio.

Additionally, she has performed and taught at the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival (Italy), the San Diego Chamber Music Workshop, and the Las Vegas Music Festival. Her awards and prizes include an Artist Fellowship from the South Dakota Arts Council, the Winnifred Small Solo Prize in London, and a Rotary Fellowship resulting in an Advanced Diploma from London’s Royal Academy of Music.

She has a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and a Master’s degree in Performance from Eastman School of Music. Her teachers have included Paul Kantor, Donald Weilerstein, and Carmel Kaine.

Fitz Gary

-VIOLA

In the summer of 2022, Fitz Gary joined the Garth Newel Piano Quartet as violist and Co-Artistic Director. Fitz, a native of Charlottesville, Virginia, has toured across the United States, Europe, and Asia performing in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, London’s Royal Albert Hall, and Japan’s Suntory Hall. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music with Jeffrey Irvine, and graduate studies at The Juilliard School with Heidi Castleman and Hsin-Yun Huang. Selected as a 2013-2014 Fulbright Scholar, he studied with Barbara Westphal at the Musikhochschule in Lübeck, Germany. The school subsequently awarded him the DAAD prize for an outstanding international student, as well as his second master’s degree. While in Germany, Fitz also performed with the Grammy-Award-winning NDR Sinfonieorchester (Elbphilharmonie) in Hamburg as a member of their Academy.

Fitz was a Clinician Ambassador for the string company D’Addario, and presented the “Strings 101” clinic to K-12 and college-level musicians in the Hampton Roads area, sharing knowledge and advice on all things strings. He also served as the President of the Feldman Chamber Music Society in Norfolk, Virginia, affording him the opportunity to present great chamber ensembles to the community.

In 2012, Fitz started a project called Music Feeds Us, a chamber music series which ran for seven seasons. The concerts, which have been featured on Performance Today, raised over 175,000 meals for partner food banks in Virginia. Championing social awareness and hunger relief through string quartets was proof that classical music can inspire the power for good.

As an avid orchestral musician, Fitz has had the opportunity to perform with some of America’s most prestigious ensembles, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center.

Isaac Melamed

-CELLO

Cellist Isaac Melamed’s musical endeavors connect him to some of the greatest musicians and artists of our time. As a member of the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Isaac has toured internationally to critical acclaim under music directors Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Daniel Hope. Since joining the Garth Newel Piano Quartet in 2014, Isaac and the Quartet have performed throughout Croatia, Scotland, Italy, at the Chautauqua Institution, and around much of the United States. The Quartet programs and performs over 50 chamber music concerts each year and directs numerous educational programs at the historic Garth Newel Music Center in Hot Springs, Virginia.

A San Francisco native, Isaac studied with Grammy Award-winning cellist Antonio Lysy in Los Angeles, where he enjoyed solo engagements with the UCLA Philharmonia and Symphony Orchestras, and the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra. Isaac received graduate degrees from Manhattan School of Music, studying with Alan Stepansky and David Geber, as well as training from Dmitri Ferschtman at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Daniël Esser of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Steven Isserlis and Miklós Perényi at the Kronberg Academy in Germany. Isaac’s cello was created for him in 2016 by Robert Brewer Young of Sentaraille a Berdot, France, on the model of the Marquis de Corberon Stradivari, 1726.

Jeannette Fang

-PIANO

Jeannette Fang joined the Garth Newel Piano Quartet in 2015 as pianist and Co-Artistic Director. Praised for her imaginative and expressive performances, she has been featured at such prestigious venues as Alice Tully Hall, John F. Kennedy Center, Zankel Hall, Hill Auditorium, Peter J. Sharp Theater, Weill Recital Hall, and Steinway Hall, as well as appearing on stages in Europe and Asia.

Her awards include the Gold Medal at the 2013 Seattle International Piano Competition, where she also received the President’s Award and Audience Favorite Prize. She has earned top prizes in the Dallas Chamber Symphony International Piano Competition and the MTNA Young Artist National Competition. She is the recipient of the Earl V. Moore Award and the Gottlieb Award, given by the University of Michigan, and the Elizabeth J. Parisot award from Yale School of Music, the winner of the Karlfried Nordman Scholarship Piano Competition at Juilliard, and was a National Presidential Scholar in the Arts in 2003.

As an avid chamber musician, Jeannette has collaborated with internationally acclaimed artists, and has been engaged by the Taos Music Festival, YellowBarn Festival, Bargemusic, and Le Poisson Rouge.

Jeannette was a founding member of the new music group Khemia Ensemble, and has worked with composers such as David Biedenbender, Aaron Jay Kernis, Martin Bresnick, David Lang, Sydney Hodkinson, and Andy Akiho. She has commissioned and recorded a set of prepared piano works, as well as recorded the music of Paul Moravec and William Horne.

Jeannette has published many articles on music, and currently hosts a podcast entitled So Many Wrong Notes. She holds degrees from Juilliard and Yale, and received her Doctorate of Musical Arts from University of Michigan. She has held faculty position at Bowling Green State University, the University of Michigan, Yale School of Music, Siena Heights University, and McAlester Institute of Music.