BioGREGORY LUCE (viola), praised by The Washington Post as an “appealing, natural player,” has performed in Austria, England, Hungary, Germany, Canada, and the United States. He has also premiered dozens of pieces in varied ensembles around the world, performing in concert venues including the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Severance Hall, and the Meyerhoff Concert Hall. As an educator he has been invited to coach, teach privately, and perform at numerous schools and festivals such as The Juilliard School, Stanford University, the Interlochen Summer Arts Academy, and the Austin Chamber Music Center’s Summer Workshop. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Luce enjoys many artistic interdisciplinary collaborations, most notably with the Mark Morris Dance Group, with which he gave a two week tour of Taiwan in 2014 and performed in the Lincoln Center’s 2013 White Light Festival. He has also enjoyed an ongoing working relationship with the Conspirare Symphonic Choir of Austin, TX since 2011. Brett Campbell of the Wall Street Journal described one such collaboration as “a powerful new achievement in American music that vividly traces a journey from despair to transcendence.” Since 2008, Luce has been violist of the Aeolus Quartet, top prizewinners at numerous national and international competitions. Following their performance in Trondheim’s International Chamber Music Competition of 2009, the Aeolus Quartet was praised by Strad magazine for their “high-octane performance,” with Luce noted as being “especially enjoyable.” Luce plays on a viola made by Samuel Zygmuntowicz for celebrated violist Walter Trampler in 1991, the instrument on which he performed during the final six years of his life. This instrument is generously on loan from Ruth Sumners Trampler, and bears on the ribs a Latin inscription that translates, “it is not the age of a man that makes him, it is his virtues.”