Violin Teacher

Andrew has established himself as an extraordinary chamber musician, soloist, and teacher throughout America. As a former member of the critically acclaimed Fifth House Ensemble, he has performed at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre on their Composer Portrait series, on Rush Hour’s yearly summer music series, and participated in many master classes at institutions such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison and New Music on the Point.

As a soloist, he specializes in performing great contemporary solo violin pieces. At Ravinia's Bennet Gordon Hall (summer of 2012) he performed David Rakowski’s, When the Bow Breaks, a sonata for solo violin, for which the composer praised ‘Now I like the whole piece, for the very first time!’ In November of 2011 he performed Kevin Puts’ epic solo piece, Arches on a Rush Hour Encore which was broadcast live on Chicago’s WFMT.

Considered a champion of new music, Williams has commissioned a number of works for the violin. He has also given seminars on composing for the violin at Roosevelt University and the Fresh Inc. festival.

As a teacher, Williams has been on faculty at the Merit School of Music, teaching violin, viola, and served as string department chair. He was a co-founder of Merit’s Solo String Workshop, which hosted world class artists such as Helen Callus and Rachel Barton Pine.

Masterclass Instructor

Violinist Jing Zeng joined the first violin section of The Phoenix Symphony in September 2006. Zeng began playing the violin at age four and was accepted as the top violin student at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music at age 11. Zeng was the prize winner of the Sixth National Violin Competition in Beijing, China and the semi-finalist of the Novosibirsk International Violin Competition in Russia at age of 15. The following year Zeng received the full scholarship to the Young Artist Program of the Cleveland Institute of Music where she received both of her bachelor and master degrees, studying with David Cerone, Linda Sharon Cerone, and William Preucil.

Zeng has performed in numerous recitals and chamber music concerts in the United States. She was the first prize winner of the Darius Milhaud Performance Competition and the Suburban Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition. Zeng toured Japan twice as the associate concertmaster and principal second violin of the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, Fabio Luisi and Edo de Waartand performed chamber music with musicians from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. She was invited as an alumni to form the PMF 20th anniversary Orchestra and performed with Christoph Eschenbach in 2009. Zengattended the New York String Orchestra Seminar under Jamie Laredo and performed with Leon Fleisher and Gil Shaham at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Zeng was the principal second violin and soloist for the National Repertory Orchestra and was a member of the Colorado Music Festival in Colorado. Zeng has also been selected to participate in the Music Bridge International Music Workshop six times in Canada. Zeng participated in various master classes of such eminent musicians as Andres Cardenes, Martin Chalifour, Sidney Harth, Ida Kavafian,Donald Weilerstein, Pinchas Zuckerman, Mimi Zweig, Cavani String Quartet, Cleveland String Quartet, Emerson String Quartet and musicians from the Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.