Born in Russia, Evgeny started playing the violin in 1998 in Ulyanovsk at the Children’s Music School, graduating from Togliatti College of Music as violinist and violist, and entering Kazan State Conservatoire as a violist in 2008. Winning local competitions in violin solo and chamber music, in 2007 he received First and Special Prizes in the Solo Viola Competition, Togliatti, Russia.

From 2003, Evgeny held professional positions in numerous orchestras as violinist and violist, including Principal Viola in the Togliatti State Symphony Orchestra (2006-07) and Assistant Principal Viola at the Kazan State Symphony Orchestra (2007-08). Broad musical interests brought him to the Togliatti College Chamber Orchestra as assistant conductor in 2004, and as a conductor from 2005-2007. Evgeny also taught from 2006 in the Togliatti Music School and later in the Kazan State Conservatory Preparatory School.

As a violist of the “Da Brachio” Quartet and the “New Music” ensemble, Evgeny toured France, Germany and Poland, and participated in the International Festival in Kiev, Ukraine (2007). In 2008 Evgeny moved to Lansing, MI where he is an Assistant principal viola of the Chamber orchestra “Ad Libitum” (Yuri Gandelsman conductor), and violist in the Lansing Symphony and Midland Symphony Orchestras.

Joseph Kauffman was born in Oakland, California in 1986, and began studying the violin when he was five. He studied with Dejin Sun, and later with Yayoi Numazawa of the Philadelphia Orchestra. During the summers, Joseph participated in international music festivals such as Interlochen, Luzerne, Music in the Mountains, Kinhaven, and Recontres Musicales International des Graves where he worked with many of the finest musicians and teachers.

     Joseph graduated from the Pennsylvania State University in 2008 with a BM in Violin Performance, and was honored to receive the Creative Achievement Award given out to one exceptional student. He studied there with James Lyon and Max Zorin on a music scholarship, and was awarded Jury Recognition in his first year. Joseph was a winner of the Beene, Kroulik, and Brewster competitions in Pennsylvania, and in 2008, received first prize in the PSU Philharmonic Concerto Competition where he performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto. He returns to Penn State every summer for the Penn’s Woods Music Festival under the direction of Maestro Gerardo Edelstein. Joseph founded "Valens” Piano Quartet which earned 2st Prize in the MTNA Chamber Music Competition.

     Kauffman was accepted into the class of Professor Eduard Schmieder in 2008 where he began his studies in the master’s degree program at Temple University. He served as concertmaster for Temple’s performances of Puccini’s La Boheme, Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, as well as several other performances by the Temple Orchestra. This summer Kauffman will solo with the Wayne Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra, and his newly formed piano trio will premiere a new work for violin, piano, and horn commissioned for his trio.

Alfiya Latypova was born in 1988 in Sochi. She started to play the violin at the age of 5 in the Children’s Music School (Prof. A. Lukiyanenko). At the age of 15, Alfiya moved to Kazan for studying in the Secondary Special Music College (Prof. Vadim Afanasiev). First Prize winner in the 2007 International Music Competition in Bulgaria “Hopes, Talents, Masters,” Alfiya also received top prizes in the Bach Music Competiton 2006 (2nd prize) and the All-Russian Khalida Akhtyamova Competition 2008 (3rd prize).

In 2007 Alfiya became a student of the Kazan State Conservatory where she was a concertmistress of the Kazan Chamber Student Orchestra with its own season series at the Big Concert Hall in Kazan, and toured throughout Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg. An active performer in the Republic of Tatarstan and recognized for her talent, Alfiya took part in the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, and beginning in the fall of 2009 she will enter the Boyer College of Music at Temple University in the international class of Professor Eduard Schmieder.

She was selected to participate in the 12^th annual iPalpiti Festival of International Laureates in Los Angeles in 2009 and in San Francisco February 2010. In the fall of 2009 she entered the Boyer College of Music at Temple University in the international class of Professor Eduard Schmieder.  During this season she has performed numerous outreach performances in Philadelphia.

A graduate of the Kazan State Conservatoire, Adelya Shagidullina is a First Prize winner of the International Music Competition in Toglliatty, Russia (2007), winner of the second prize at the All Russian Music Competition (2005), and a First Prize winner and special prize at the international J.S. Bach competition (2003), among others.

Named Fellow of the Art Department of Russia (2003-2006), and Fellow of Russian Performing Art (2007-2008), Adelya has performed in Moscow, Paris, and extensively throughout her native Tatarstan, and its capital, Kazan. Selected as a principal violist of numerous youth international orchestras under direction of prominent conductors such as Yuri Simonov, most recently in International Youth Symphony of Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Russian and European Symphony Orchestra, Adelya has been working professionally in the Kazan State Chamber Orchestra “La Primavera” and the Kazan State Symphony Orchestra. Adelya was selected by iPalpiti for its east coast residency in 2009, and performed in concerts at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and Carnegie Hall in New York.