Mischa Lefkowitz is a Los Angeles violinist who plays both as a soloist and for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He was born in Riga, Latvia, and began his violin studies at the age of seven. He made his symphony debut at the age of twelve, and at age seventeen he was admitted to Leonid Kogan’s violin class at the Moscow Conservatory. He has also studied with such renowned master performers as Nathan Milstein, Mischa Mischakoff, Roman Totenberg, Henri Temianka, and Jean Fournier of the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg, Austria. Lefkowitz was a top prizewinner at the 1983 Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition (co-sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation). He was also the winner of the City of Paris “Music Française” prize from the 1985 Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition. Other awards include First Prize at the Rotary International Competition in California and prizes at the Paganini International Competition, the Bach Festival Young Artists Awards, the All-State contest for violin soloists, and the Concertino-Prague Radio Competition. The recipient of a solo recitalist grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and touring grants from the California Arts Council, Lefkowitz performed around the world with the London Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the English Chamber Orchestra, the California Chamber Symphony, the American Chamber Symphony, the Academica Camerata of Salzburg, and the Victoria Symphony of Canada. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall (New York), the Philips Collection (Washington, D.C.), Salle Pleyel (Paris), the Wilshire Ebell Theatre (Los Angeles), the California Palace of the Legion of Honor (San Francisco), and is a frequent guest artist at many summer festivals, including Meadow Brook, Aspen, and Kneisel Hall. He joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1977 and plays in the First Violin section as well as performing at the Philharmonic’s Chamber Music Society at Walt Disney Concert Hall. He is the Founder and Music Director of Masterpiece Virtuosi, a chamber orchestra and string ensemble. For 18 years (1988-2006) Lefkowitz was an Artist in Residence at Chapman University. He served as a guest violin professor on the faculty of UC Irvine in 2001, and has also given numerous master classes at many California universities. He continues to teach today, and can count many professional musicians among his former students, including Josh Vietti, who was named one of one of the Breakout Musical Acts in Los Angeles in 2012. His discography includes world-premiere recordings of Giardini, Michelet Violin Concertos, and the Rózsa Solo Violin Sonata as well as concertos by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich, and Bloch on the Ontaris, Laurel, Cambria, Sequence, and Pantheon labels. He released an album of Romantic concertos that include Fauré, Sibelius, and Diciedue violin concertos with the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Cambria label), and a Bartók Concerto CD. His 2011 recordings include five CDs of German, French, Italian, Russian, and American music. His 2012 releases, Romantic Showpieces, Shostakovich works, and Modern Metamorphosis are available in iTunes, along with recent recordings of Bach solo sonatas and Beethoven and Brahms sonatas. His 2013 CD Recordings include Schumann’s Violin Concerto in A-minor, a 3-disc album entitled “10 Violin Concertos” (Part II and Part III), and two other CDs: “Vivacious” and “Solo and Chamber Works: Part 2″. Simone Vitucci has always had music in her life and began studying cello as a child in South Africa, playing solo with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra by the age of 15. She earned scholarships to several universities in the United States, including Yale where she studied with the legendary cellist Aldo Parisot. She is now based in Los Angeles with her family, and became a US citizen in 2012. Simone's chamber music work won her a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Her music has allowed her to tour throughout the world, and to play a diverse range of musical styles ranging from classical to jazz. She has also played cello for pop stars such as Burt Bacharach and Rod Stewart, recorded soundtracks for Hollywood movies and video games, and appeared in commercials, TV and radio shows.