biava quartet

Austin Hartman
Violin

Violinist Austin Hartman of Columbia, Pennsylvania, has traveled worldwide presenting concerts and masterclasses for audiences of all ages. As a founding member of the Biava Quartet, Mr. Hartman celebrates this season ten years of performance with the ensemble.

Austin Hartman has earned much recognition as soloist and recitalist. He was awarded the Gold Medal Prize at the Julius and Esther Stulberg International String Competition in Michigan and, as winner of the Albert Greenfield and the Mann Music Center Concerto Competitions, Mr. Hartman has twice appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Luis Biava, for whom the quartet is named. Mr. Hartman has also been heard with the Kennett Symphony, the Landsdowne Symphony, the Temple University Orchestra, the Lancaster Symphony, and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra as winner of the annual concerto competition.

Mr. Hartman has as well been featured in recitals, including a performance at a state dinner for former Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania. In 1998, he received a first prize scholarship for musical excellence from the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts and was most recently awarded a grant from Chamber Music America for continued work in community outreach.

Austin Hartman has received degrees from the New England Conservatory and Cleveland Institute of Music where he was a student of Donald Weilerstein. His other teachers have included Yumi Scott, Choong-Jin Chang, Ronda Cole, Carolyn Moyer and the late Jascha Brodsky.

Outside of his life in the Biava Quartet, Mr. Hartman also enjoys using his music for community service and outreach. In 2003, he traveled with a group of musicians to share music in Zambia as part of a missions outreach. Austin Hartman has also recently piloted a concert initiative called the "Vivaldi Project," the goal of which is to unite professional and community musicians in performances of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons".