About Us
Red Creek String Quartet
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Meet our musicians
Tigran Vardanyan
Violin
Violinist Tigran Vardanyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia. He began his violin studies with his father at the age of six. At a very young age, Vardanyan won First Prize at the 1991 and 1993 Armenian National Competitions; he also won the Gold Medal at the 1992 Amadeus Competition for Young Artists and performed as a soloist with the Armenian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, the Armenian Chamber Orchestra, and the Armenian TV and Radio Orchestra.
In 1994, Vardanyan immigrated to Los Angeles, CA, to study with the renowned Ukrainian violinist, Abram Shtern. In 1996, he moved to Rochester, NY, to study at the Eastman School of Music with Professor Zvi Zeitlin.
Since 1998, Vardanyan has been a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2000, he was featured as a soloist with the Philharmonic, playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto under the direction of Christopher Seaman. Vardanyan is on the faculty of Nazareth College and SUNY Oswego Music School, and has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in various concert venues in the Middle East, Europe, Central America, and North America. He performs on a Francesco Gobetti violin (Venice, ca. 1720). In 2009, Vardanyan became a U.S. citizen. He lives in Rochester with his wife and son.
An-Chi Lin
Violin
Violinist An-Chi Lin comes from a family of musicians and began playing the piano at the age of five and the violin at age six. An-Chi Lin received a Bachelor’s Degree in Violin Performance from Soochow University in Taipei, Taiwan and a Master of Music in Violin Performance and Literature from Eastman School of Music. Lin has been a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra since 1997. She has also performed with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, the Rochester Oratorio Society, and the Skaneateles Festival Orchestra.
From 2002 to 2008, Lin performed in the RPO’s Educational String Quintet, a group dedicated to bringing classical music to the elementary school children of the Rochester City Schools. As a chamber musician, she has appeared on “Live from Hochstein” with the Hochstein String Quartet and with Gibbs and Main (formerly known as Quartsemble). She is currently in a violin-guitar duo, Red Creek Duo, which took them to western New York, Illinois, and California.
Lin is currently on the violin faculty of the Roberts Wesleyan College, Hochstein School of Music, and Nazareth Community School. She joins the faculty of InterHarmony International Music Festival in 2014. She is also an accomplished pianist and accompanist and performs regularly with her students and colleagues.
Olivia Chew
Viola
Violist Olivia Chew, a native of Long Island, joined the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in 2014 and served as assistant principal viola in the 2014-15 season. During her orchestral career, she has been invited to play at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and others. As a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, she served as principal viola of the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen.
She holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she studied with Alan de Veritch and Stephen Wyrczynski. After her studies at IU, Chew received a full scholarship to Manhattan School of Music’s Orchestral Studies program, where she studied with Karen Dreyfus. Prior to joining the RPO, she served as assistant principal viola in the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and was a member of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra.
Christopher Haritatos
Cello
Cellist Christopher Haritatos holds degrees from the University of Chicago, the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Alan Harris, and the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Mr. Harris and with Steven Doane. Before joining the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in 2009, he had been a member of numerous other orchestras including the Austin Symphony, Austin Lyric Opera Orchestra (including as Acting Principal and Interim Principal cellist), and the Aspen Chamber Symphony, and taught at Texas State University-San Marcos. As a baroque cellist, he studied with Jaap ter Linden as a Fulbright Scholar at the Akademie für Alte Musik in Bremen, Germany, and has played with numerous early music groups throughout Northern Europe and North America. He is Co-director of Publick Musick and cellist of the baroque chamber ensemble Fioritura.