Violinist Sharan Leventhal will be our featured soloist for our special Mothers Day Concert on May 8, 2011. Ms. Leventhal will perform Mozart's Violin Concerto #5.

Since winning the Kranischsteiner Musikpreis at the 1984 International Contemporary Music Festival in Darmstadt, Germany, violinist Sharan Leventhal has built an international reputation as a champion of contemporary music. Her more than 100 premieres include works written by Gunther Schuller, Virgil Thomson, William Kraft, Simon Bainbridge, Taina León, and Pauline Oliveros.

Leventhal has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra; the Toledo, Milwaukee, Gulf Coast, Topeka, Dayton and Albany symphonies; and the Wisconsin and Cleveland chamber orchestras, among others. She is a member of the Gramercy Trio, the Kepler Quartet and the Boston Artists Ensemble, and also appears regularly with the Milwaukee-based contemporary ensemble Present Music.

Leventhal has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fromm Foundation, the Australia Council for the Arts, the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music Recording. She can be heard on the New World, Newport Classic, Naxos, Parma, Northeastern Recordings and Catalyst/BMG labels.

Leventhal teaches at The Boston Conservatory and Brandeis University, and has served on the faculties of Michigan State University, the Berklee College of Music, and the Interlochen Arts Camp. She also presents seminars and master classes throughout the United States and Europe and has been a regular guest at the Bruckner-Konservatorium in Linz, Austria. She is the founder and director of Play On, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting active participation in music making.