Christia Chambers made her orchestral debut at Carnegie Hall in 2008.  A graduate with honors in Viola Performance at the University of Michigan, Mrs. Chambers received her Master’s Degree in Music Education from the University of Akron with honors as well.  She is the recipient of numerous competition awards and scholarships.  Besides being a grand prize winner of the prestigious Tuesday Musical Scholarship Performance Competition, she was awarded the Arden J. Yockey Scholarship for Strings, the Winifred Collins Scholarship for Music Education and was a James B. Angell Scholar.  A lifelong musician, beginning violin at the age of four, Mrs. Chambers is passionate about music education.  She has dedicated herself to the pursuit of serious string pedagogy and has been a violin instructor for over 10 years.  In addition to her large studio of students in Music City Strings Academy, Mrs. Chambers has also been a workshop clinician for the Suzuki Talent Education Program - Birmingham in Birmingham, Alabama and a faculty member of the South Carolina Suzuki Institute at the University of South Carolina in Aiken, South Carolina.  She has been an active member of the Nashville Area Music Teachers Association since 2016 where her students regularly participate in the state and local performance auditions. Mrs. Chambers has had three category winners in the Young Artist Achievement Awards competition and is currently the chair for the annual Fall Fest event.

Violist Hillary Herndon has earned a national reputation for her brilliant playing, “sweetly soaring tone” (Time Out New York), creative programming and insightful teaching. She has been heard on NPR and PBS and has collaborated with some of the world’s foremost artists, including Carol Wincenc, James VanDermark and Itzhak Perlman, who described Hillary as “having it all… a gifted teacher and an excellent musician.” Ms. Herndon’s recordings La Viola, American Voices and 1919: Hidden Treasures from an Epoch Year are available on MSR Classics.

Passionate about teaching, Ms. Herndon has published papers in the journals of the American String Teacher and American Viola Society Her recent appearances include performances and master classes at Carnegie Hall, the Sibelius Academy in Finland, Juilliard, Eastman, the University of Michigan, and the International Viola Congress.  Ms. Herndon teaches at the University of Tennessee, where she is the founder of the annual Viola Celebration and in 2022-2023 at the Eastman School of Music as a sabbatical replacement for George Taylor.  Herndon holds degrees from the Eastman and Juilliard Schools of Music and serves as President for the American Viola Society.

Dana Meyer, founder and Artistic Director of Music City Strings, is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and has been passionate about teaching for more than 40 years.  In her early years she developed and implemented the Boone County Schools Strings Program in West Virginia, was a faculty member of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, instructor and chamber music coach at the New World School of the Arts (Miami), and became a performing faculty member of the Tucson Chamber Music in the Mountains in Tucson, Arizona.  While much of her early teaching career was focused on the high school and collegiate level, Mrs. Meyer performed extensively with chamber music groups and major orchestras in the United States.  She has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Denver Symphony, the Richmond Symphony, and with the major orchestras in Florida.  During her decade long tenure with the American Sinfonietta, she toured Europe annually and was part of the performing faculty at the Bellingham Music Festival in Bellingham, Washington.  While in Florida, Mrs. Meyer taught at the Dillard High School of Performing Arts and was instrumental in securing college scholarships for her students Kevin Sylvester and Wilner Baptiste, who have since formed the famed hip hop duo Black Violin.  In 1999, Mrs. Meyer discovered a passion for the teaching of young students and established her first private Suzuki studio in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  She immersed herself in the Suzuki pedagogy and became a protégé of Ronda Cole.  As her studio thrived she became President of the Suzuki Association of South Florida.  In 2005, Dana Meyer established a violin studio in Franklin, Tennessee. Her dream was to create a program that would provide children the means to become confident, sensitive and beautiful artists.  Music City Strings was the result of this dream.  An international-competition winning group, Music City Strings is one of the top youth string-performance ensembles in the country, has toured Europe, China, Canada and the US, and has attracted the attention of the music industry in Nashville.  The group has performed over 30 concerts with Grammy-Award winning artists Vince Gill, Amy Grant, and Michael W. Smith in such venues as the Ryman Auditorium, Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Bridgestone Arena, Music City Center and the Allen Arena at Lipscomb University.  Music City Strings was the headliner group for the Barrage Next Generation Tours in Wisconsin, Florida, and Arkansas, and has performed on the TOKENS Show at the Ryman, at the University of Louisville Suzuki String Institute, the Hope Foundation with Steven Curtis Chapman, DayStar Ministries, and Music City Roots. While Mrs. Meyer’s time is now mainly devoted to Music City Strings and her private students in Music City Strings Academy, other former faculty positions and posts include the Wintergreen Performance Academy, the Middle Tennessee State University Governor’s School of Music, the South Carolina Suzuki Institute at Furman University, The Fine Arts Student Academy in Nashville, and President of the Middle Tennessee Suzuki Association.  Mrs. Meyer is currently a faculty member with the Greater Washington DC Suzuki Institute, the Suzuki Institute at PhoenixPhest! in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the University of Louisville Suzuki String Institute and is the Auditions Coordinator for the Strings Division of NAMTA.  She was awarded Teacher of the Year by the Nashville Area Music Teachers Association in 2016.

Gregory K. Williams is a multifaceted musician, appearing regularly as a violist, violinist, and teaching artist. He is the Principal Violist of Parlando and Assistant Principal Violist of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra. He is a member of the Golden Williams Duo, a viola-cello duo committed to performing music written by a diverse array of composers. He has performed with the American Symphony Orchestra, American Ballet Theatre, Albany Symphony, New Haven Symphony, Vermont Symphony, Binghamton Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, the Syracuse Symphony, and the Aspen Music Festival. He has subbed on Broadway for Sweeney Todd and Phantom of the Opera. His performances include solo recitals in the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, and throughout the United States. He has also appeared with popular artists such as The Who, Peter Cetera, Jane Birkin, Iggy Pop, and the Irish Tenors. He recorded on the concept album for the new musical Goodbye New York, which was released in 2022 at Feinstein’s 54Below. His debut solo album, Shadows: the Unaccompanied Viola Sonatas of Günter Raphael, will be released in early 2024 by Affetto Records.

Dr. Williams served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Viola at the Eastman School of Music for the 2022-23 school year, and is the Visiting Lecturer of Viola at the University of Tennessee Knoxville this fall. He is the founder of Queens College Viola Day, and is on the viola faculty of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, CUNY.

Greg Williams received his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Viola Performance at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he studied with Karen Ritscher and Dr. Linda Sinanian. Previously, Dr. Williams studied with Michelle LaCourse at Boston University, where he received his Bachelor’s degree in Viola Performance, and with George Taylor at the Eastman School of Music, receiving his Master’s degree in Viola Performance and Literature. 

For more information, please go to https://gregorykwilliamsviolist.com/.