Marilyn McDonald
founding member of the Castle Trio and Smithson and Axelrod Quartets, has toured worldwide, playing repertoire that runs the gamut from Baroque to contemporary. She has appeared as soloist with the Milwaukee and Omaha Symphonies, in concert at Caramoor, Utrecht, and Mostly Mozart Festivals among many others. Her recordings are heard on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Virgin Classics, Smithsonian, and Telarc.

She is professor of violin at Oberlin Conservatory and has been artist in residence at Eastman, Indiana, and Boston Universities. Known as “MM” to her students, she is the recipient of the Excellence in Teaching award at Oberlin.

Marilyn enjoys keeping in touch with her former students who can be found in orchestras and chamber music groups throughout the world. She’s dreadfully proud of having won the 2009 Oberlin Valentine short story competition and finds kayaking a lot more relaxing than playing the violin.

James Howsmon
pianist, has collaborated in more than 1,000 recitals in North America, Europe, and Japan and has performed with principal players of every major American orchestra. In recent seasons, he has played in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. (at the Kennedy Center), Philadelphia, Dallas, Montreal, and Minneapolis. Highlights of recent seasons include performances of Stravinsky’s Les Noces with the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Boulez; an ongoing series of the complete Mozart sonatas for piano and violin with violinist Marilyn McDonald; and several performances of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin with the prominent basso Robert Holl. He is a frequent performer on Oberlin College’s stages, having recently played the Poulenc Aubade with the Oberlin Wind Ensemble and Olivier Messiaen’s Couleurs de la Cité Celeste with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. Mr. Howsmon is Professor of Instrumental Accompanying at Oberlin, where he oversees the instrumental collaborative activities of the school’s 100 piano majors. He is also on the faculty of Credo, a summer chamber music program held at Oberlin College. From 1999 to 2006, Mr. Howsmon was on the piano faculty of the Brevard Music Center. He has given guest master classes in accompanying and chamber music at, among others, the Juilliard School, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Interlochen Arts Academy, Arizona State University, the University of Colorado, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Alabama.