2022 Heifetz alumnus and Heifetz on Tour artist Joseph Skerik is a member of the Vega String Quartet, which holds an endowed residency at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. His 2024-25 quartet season includes performances with Amy Schwartz-Moretti, David Coucheron, Ettore Causa, Aloysia Friedmann and Jon Kimura Parker in the US and Mexico, a commission project for the PBS program ‘Songs About Buildings in Moods,’ featuring works by David Gardner and Emily Koh, the premiere of a new viola quintet by Paul Coletti, and concerts in Atlanta and Carnegie’s Zankel Hall with Mark and Maggie O’Connor, presenting their program “Beethoven and Bluegrass” in April 2025. In 2024, the Vega Quartet was featured in concerts at the National Gallery in Washington, DC in conjunction with a rare exhibition of Mark Rothko works, and collaborated with Zuill Bailey, Ransom Wilson and the Juilliard Quartet. Joseph has recently been a guest artist at the Heifetz Institute’s Hear and Now concert series and the festivals of Methow Valley, Highlands-Cashiers, Lake George, Vivace and Kneisel Hall. He has performed chamber music with Ani Kavafian, Edward Arron, Ilya Kaler, Erin Keefe, Colin Carr, Andrew Shulman, Brook Speltz and Zuill Bailey. Joseph is a prize-winner at the AVS Competition and the 2022 Oskar Nedbal Viola Competition in Prague. He is the co-founder of Viridian Strings, an ongoing summer chamber music festival in the Grand Traverse region of Michigan. Joseph studied at the Interlochen Arts Academy with Renee Skerik, Cleveland Institute of Music with Jeffrey Irvine, and at the Yale School of Music with Ettore Causa.