Chicago Suzuki Institute - Student Program 2026

Featuring Elisa and Amy Barston
Wednesday, July 8, from 1:00-2:00 pm
Northeastern Illinois University Auditorium

Praised for her “glowing sound” and “technical aplomb,” multi-award-winning artist Elisa Barston is the Seattle Symphony’s Principal Second Violin, a position she’s held since the 2006/2007 season. Previously, Barston served as Associate Concertmaster of the Saint Louis Symphony for nine seasons and was a member of the first violin section of the Cleveland Orchestra.

As a soloist, Barston has performed extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia, appearing with the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Taipei Symphony and the English Chamber Orchestra, among many others. She has also been featured on multiple occasions as soloist with the Seattle Symphony, including in performances of Sergei Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto, Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 1, Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Wolfgang Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, and U.S. premieres of two previously unpublished violin concerti by Vivaldi.

An avid chamber musician, Barston was a member of the Corigliano String Quartet. She enjoys playing in chamber series and music festivals including the Seattle Series, Music on the Strait, Concerts in the Barn, and the Seattle Symphony’s Chamber Series.

Barston also loves to teach. She coaches regularly with the Seattle Chamber Music Society Academy as well as at the Japan Seattle Suzuki Institute. In the summer of 2025, Barston coached the violinists of the National Youth Orchestra (NYO2) as they prepared for their Carnegie Hall performance and European tour.

Barston’s principal violin teachers include Josef Gingold, Robert Lipsett, Almita and Roland Vamos, Elaine Skorodin Fohrman, and Betty Haag. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Music Cum Laude. At Indiana University, where she earned a Master of Music degree, Barston was awarded the prestigious Performer’s Certificate, the Jascha Heifetz Scholarship and the Starling Foundation Grant.

Cellist Amy Sue Barston was born in Evanston, Ill., and has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Rockford Symphony, Prometheus Chamber Orchestra, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of Southern Fingerlakes, University of Michigan Symphony, University of Southern California Symphony, and Pasadena Orchestra, among many others. She has also appeared in solo recitals and chamber music at venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Bargemusic, Caramoor, Strathmore, Weill Recital Hall, and the Ravinia Festival. She was a grand prize winner in the Society of American Musicians Competition and won first place and the audience prize in the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition.  Since 2005 she has been on the faculty of the National Cello Institute and Japan-Seattle Advanced Institute for Cello. She was cellist in the Corigliano Quartet, whose Naxos CD was named one of the top two recordings of the year by the New Yorker and Grammaphone Magazine. Barston gave the world premiere of Ned Rorem’s Aftermath at Ravinia. She holds a BM and the most outstanding graduate award from the University of Southern California where she studied with Eleonore Schoenfeld and a MM from Juilliard where she studied with Joel Krosnick. Childhood cello studies were with Nell Novak at the Music Institute of Chicago from the age of 3. She has taken masterclasses with Yo Yo Ma, Bernard Greenhouse, David Geringas, Ralph Kirshbaum, and Miriam Fried; summer studies with Irene Sharp, Richard Aaron, Phillipe Mueller, Gary Hoffman, and Tim Eddy; and chamber music studies with Robert Mann, Peter Oundjian, Roland Vamos, Leon Fleisher, and Pinchas Zukerman. She joined Juilliard’s Pre-College faculty in 2014.