links at natesviolin.com

instantencore.com

For classical music lovers, or indeed anyone who loves live performance, this is the place. Find a concert to attend, using the site's well-organized browse and search tools. Learn about the artists and see what else and where else they're playing. Buy tickets to the concert and enjoy! But then, get an Instant Encore: if you like what you heard, go right back to the site and download the concert you just attended! Or if you had to miss it, now's your chance to hear it after all. My boutique on instantencore.com shows all my upcoming concerts, plus photos and my practice journal. You can also look, listen and purchase my CD, Rapid Approach. Site creator Margo Tatgenhorst Drakos was once the cellist in a string quartet of mine at Curtis.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Most of my performing is done right here in Chicago at Symphony Center. What a fantastic breadth of repertoire we get to play! Every week offers something new. If practicing to get into an orchesra shaped many of my ideas about practice itself, performing with one has done the same for performance. At work I get to see the most accomplished performers do what they do under pressure. What better way to get inspired?

UBS Chamber Music Festival of Lexington

The summer of 2007 marked the inaugural UBS festival in my hometown of Leixngton, KY. For years, Central Kentucky Chamber Music Society director Charles Thompson and former Art Leauge president Charlie Stone had a dream of a summer festival devoted to small ensembles. Last year, I was privileged to serve as Music Director for the realization of that dream. Charlie, as board president, has helped me put together a great group of players, all of whom return for 2008: my wife, violinist Akiko Tarumoto; violist Burchard Tang and his wife, cellist Priscilla Lee; and pianist Alessio Bax. And as a new addition, we welcome Daniel Thomas Davis as composer-in-residence. We have commissioned and will premiere a piano quintet by Dan during the festival's three performances: August 29, 30 and 31. Join us at the Fasig-Tipton pavilion and elsewhere around Lexington as we celebrate chamber music in the heart of thoroughbred country!