Ross Snyder, violin

An avid chamber musician, Ross Snyder is a founding member of the Tesla Quartet, which formed at the Juilliard School in 2008 and is currently the Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Recent engagements with the Tesla Quartet include performances in Juilliard’s ChamberFest and FOCUS! Festival, as well as concerts in Alice Tully Hall. A fellow of the 2007 Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, he began studying chamber music with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at age twelve, and at age sixteen he and three of his colleagues formed the Callisto String Quartet. For three years the CSQ performed outreach concerts at various venues in Pittsburgh.  Ross has also studied with members of such world-renowned ensembles as the Borromeo, Guarneri, Juilliard, Miró, St. Lawrence, Takács, Tokyo and Vermeer string quartets.

In March, 2008, Ross won Second Prize in the Hudson Valley Philharmonic String Competition. He is also a first prize winner of the Dorothy J. Bales ’41 Violin Competition at the New England Conservatory and was awarded the use of a violin by Jean Baptiste Vuillaume. In 2007 Ross was a finalist in the NEC String Concerto Competition. Other competitions include participation in the Concours International de Violon Jacques Thibaud in Paris, France.

Ross’s extensive orchestral experience began age 10, when he joined various youth orchestras in the Pittsburgh area. Later orchestral projects include performances at Heinz Hall with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He spent the summer of 2008 serving as an assistant concertmaster of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland and also participated in the VFO’s 2008 European tour to Milan, Luzern, Berlin, and Madrid. During his studies at Juilliard he served as one of the leaders of the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra. Ross has performed as concertmaster at Jordan Hall with the New England Conservatory Symphony and Sinfonietta Orchestras, and as a member of the NEC Philharmonia Orchestra. He has also been a member of the Aspen Chamber Symphony, and in the summer of 2008 he toured China with the Juilliard Orchestra.

Currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Ross received his Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Joel Smirnoff.  He received his undergraduate degree from the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he studied with Malcolm Lowe.