2024 CREDO Oberlin String Quartet Institute FACULTY

Singaporean violinist Jonathan Ong is a founding member of the acclaimed Verona Quartet. He has performed across the world in international venues such as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, Beijing and Shanghai Concert Halls, Melbourne Recital Hall, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Jonathan has been recognized with top prizes at international competitions across four continents, including the Concert Artists Guild International Competition; London's Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition; the Osaka, Melbourne, and Chesapeake International Chamber Music Competitions; and the Fischoff and Coleman National Chamber Music Competitions.

Jonathan has served as concertmaster of orchestras at the Music Academy of the West, Aspen Music Festival, and Indiana University. He has collaborated with eminent artists such as Renee Fleming, Cho-Liang Lin, Orion Weiss, David Shifrin, Burt Hara, Jorja Fleezanis, Atar Arad, the Pacifica Quartet, as well as musicians of the MET Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and LA Philharmonic.

Jonathan is a graduate of The Juilliard School, Indiana University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Eastman School of Music. His principal mentors include Donald Weilerstein, Alexander Kerr, Paul Kantor, Fredell Lack, Lynn Blakeslee, and Lynette Lim. Jonathan and the Verona Quartet are on the faculty of Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Peter Salaff was director of string chamber music at the Cleveland Institute of Music for 23 years. As a founding member of the Cleveland Quartet he recorded more than 50 chamber works and received a Grammy Award, six Grammy nominations, and Best of the Year honors from Time and Stereo Review. The quartet toured the former Soviet Union, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, Israel, the United States, Europe, and Canada.

Mr. Salaff has served on the faculties of the University of Concepción (Chile), State University of New York at Buffalo, and the Eastman School of Music. He has also taught at numerous festivals, including Interlochen, Chamber Music in the Mountains at Echo Glen, the Aspen Music Festival and School, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in Germany, the Perlman Music Program, PhoenixPhest in Ann Arbor, and the Chamber Music Connection in Columbus, Ohio, and has coached chamber music and given masterclasses at conservatories and universities in the United States, Germany, Japan, Israel, and New Zealand.

Mr. Salaff has been a judge at many chamber music competitions, including the Yellow Springs Competition, the London International String Quartet Competition, the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the Plowman Chamber Music Competition, and the Coleman Chamber Music Association Competition.

Peter Slowik, profiled by The Strad Magazine as “a man of limitless enthusiasm and purpose” is one of the world’s leading artist-teachers of viola. An active chamber musician, Mr. Slowik has performed with cellists Anner Bylsma and Leonard Rose, the Mirecourt Trio, the Saint Petersburg Quartet, the Vermeer Quartet, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, and members of the Cleveland, Chester, Orford and Smithson Quartets. He has been a featured performer at six International Viola Congresses, and recent Master Class trips have taken him to Australia, New Zealand, Czech Republic, and China. Orchestral experiences include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and service as Principal Viola of the American Sinfonietta and the Wichita Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Slowik has served on the faculty of Northwestern University, the Cleveland Institute of Music and Eastman School of Music. Mr. Slowik has been named to the highest teaching award honors of Northwestern University and Oberlin Conservatory. He has served as President of the American Viola Society and currently is Professor of Viola and String Division Director at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. His students may be found in virtually every significant professional orchestra in the US (many serving in titled positions) and in university appointments throughout the country.