Elisabeth
Adkins, Associate Concertmaster of the National Symphony Orchestra
and Concertmaster of Eclipse Chamber Orchestra is equally at
home in solo and chamber music repertoire as she is in the orchestral repertoire.
A favorite of Washington audiences, she has appeared in recital at the
Terrace Theater of the Kennedy Center, The Phillips Collection, Strathmore
Hall, and the Cosmos Club of Washington. Her recital at the National
Gallery with her husband, pianist Edward Newman (also a frequent guest
soloist with the McLean Orchestra), has been selected for several repeat
broadcasts on public radio. Her live solo performances of the Vaughan
Williams The Lark Ascending and the Beethoven Violin Concerto with
the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra have been heard locally on
WETA 90.9 FM and nationally on National Public Radio. As solo violinist
of the Twentieth Century Consort, she is a noted interpreter of the
contemporary repertoire.
A founding member of the American Chamber Players, Ms. Adkins toured
regularly with the group. In 1992, the musicians traveled to Paris
for a residency
including major concerts at the Opera and the Bibliotheque Nationale.
Her
recordings with the American Chamber Players can be heard on Koch International
Classics.
As a concerto soloist, she has performed frequently with the
National Symphony Orchestra, being heard most, recently in the Beethoven
Triple
Concerto. She
was featured with the orchestra at the special request of violinist
Iona
Brown, whom she joined in Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins. Other
highlights of
recent seasons include performances of concertos by Saint-Saens,
Mendelssohn, Vivaldi and Prokofiev with the Springfield Symphony, the Jewish
Community
Center
Orchestra, the Mount Vernon Orchestra and the McLean Orchestra.
Ms. Adkins’ professional life has been enriched by the academic musical
world
in which she was raised. The daughter of noted musicologists, she began
playing the violin at the age of four. By her teens she was performing
professionally not only the modern repertoire but also early music
on original
instruments. Her family displays the same versatility, and her seven
siblings include
four violinists, two cellists, and a soprano. 1994 saw the debut in
the Dallas
Symphony’s Meyerson Hall of the Adkins String Ensemble, a performance
which was
later honored by the Dallas Morning News as one of its “Top Ten
Concerts of
the Year.” This past season the family chamber group toured Texas
and a recording project near ready for release.