Special Benefit Concert & Celebration

Sunday, April 6 at 5 PM

Washington Conservatory at 

Westmoreland Congregational  

UCC Church

1 Westmoreland Circle

Bethesda, MD 20816  

$25 General Admission

Purchase Tickets 

Directions  

Elisabeth Adkins, violin

Edward Newman, piano

The program will include the Bach Italian Concerto (solo piano), Beethoven Piano and Violin Sonata in G Major, Op. 30, No. 3, Chopin Etudes Op. 25, No. 1 and No. 2, Ballade No. 3 in Ab Major and Pierne Sonata for Violin and Piano (1900). Audience members are invited to a post-concert wine reception in the lower level social hall, immediately following the concert.

Elisabeth Adkins' richly varied musical life makes her equally at home in solo, orchestral and chamber music repertoire. At the age of 25, she was awarded the position of Associate Concertmaster of the National Symphony by Music Director Mstislav Rostropovich.  Over an orchestral career that spans three decades, she has worked closely with the most celebrated conductors, composers and soloists of our time.  She has appeared with the NSO as concerto soloist on numerous occasions.  She was featured with the NSO at the special request of the late Iona Brown, whom she joined in Bach's Concerto for Two Violins.  She has appeared as soloist with the Dallas Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony and as Concertmaster of the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra.

Adkins frequently collaborates with her husband, pianist Edward Newman in a violin/piano duo beloved in the Washington DC area. Their National Gallery recital was chosen to inaugurate WETA's series Front Row Washington. In addition to frequent appearances at the Kennedy Center and throughout the mid-Atlantic region, the duo was featured at a special concert for both houses of Congress in the Capitol Rotunda.  Adkins and Newman are former Artists-in-Residence at the Washington Conservatory of Music, and Newman is currently a member of the Washington Conservatory piano faculty. 

Edward Newman received both B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Juilliard School and has been soloist with numerous orchestras, among them the Cleveland Orchestra, the National Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony. He was awarded first prize in the 1979 Casadeus International Piano Competition.  He also was a prizewinner in the Gina Bachauer Competition and was a semifinalist in the 1981 Van Cliburn Competition. A pianist of virtuosity and sensitivity, Newman has been described as a pianist with "a light touch of dazzling clarity" (Cleveland Plain Dealer) with "expressive lyricism" (Washington Post.) By virtue of his marriage to Elisabeth Adkins, he is a member of the Adkins String Ensemble, comprised of six brothers and sisters of the Adkins family.