Gualala Arts Chamber Music Series presents: David McCarroll, violin & Mary Elliott, cello at the Gualala Arts Center Sunday, September 3 at 4:00 p.m.

David McCarroll

David McCarroll was born in Santa Rosa, California in 1986. He grew up on his family's Sonoma County farm. At four he started studying the violin with the late Helen Payne Sloat. When he was eight David began studying with the late Anne Crowden at the Crowden School in Berkeley. At 13, David received an invitation to join an international group of 60 young music students at The Yehudi Menuhin School outside London where he studied for five years with Simon Fischer, a former student of Dorothy DeLay and Professor of Violin at the Guildhall School of Music.

In 2004, David received a full scholarship to join violinist Donald Weilerstein's celebrated studio at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where he is now studying.

David has appeared as a soloist and in chamber music in a number of venues in the U.K. including the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, and Wigmore Hall. He has performed as a soloist with the renowned London Mozart Players. Recently he played Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Santa Rosa Symphony. He has also performed in Switzerland, Tunisia, Thailand, and other parts of the United States. Chamber music is a deep interest and he has performed in quartets in the U.K. and New England. In the summers of 2005 and 2006 he was a participant in the prestigious Yellow Barn chamber music festival where he received the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation Scholarship. He is also a past participant in the Gstaad (Switzerland), Wyastone (Wales), Gower (Wales), and Spittalfields (London) music festivals.

In addition to music, David loves to hike and is an avid soccer enthusiast and player. David maintains an active interest in social concerns including the needs of those impacted by the AIDS pandemic and is working currently on projects of the Starcross Community to help AIDS orphans in Africa. He has been involved with programs encouraging world peace promoted by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. With other members of his family, David has worked to get strings to young music students in Cuba where such items are very difficult to obtain. When at home, David assists with the family farm and has a special fondness for the olive fields.

His interest in the music of 20th Century composers began in grade school when he was in ensembles coached by the Bay Area composer John Adams, and studied theory and composition with Arkadi Serper, formerly of the Moscow Conservatory. David plays a 1761 violin made by A & J Gagliano.

David McCarroll & Mary Elliott

Mary Elliott was born in South Wales in 1985 where she began learning the cello at the age of three. In 1999, she performed her first recital, which was in aid of the Kosovo crisis appeal, and later that year she took a place at the Yehudi Menuhin School where she studied with Louise Hopkins.

She enjoys playing as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. As a soloist she has performed in venues such as Brangwyn Hall, The Purcell Room in London's Southbank, Fishmongers Hall, and Mercers Hall as well as other venues in England, Wales, Scotland, France and Tunisia. She made her concerto debut in 2003 when she played Elgar's Cello Concerto with the Jupiter Symphony Orchestra and later that year she performed Faure's "Elegy" with the Guildford Symphony Orchestra.

As a chamber musician she has performed in festivals such as the Gower, Wyastone, and Spittalfields festivals, and has performed in the U.S.A and the UK in venues such as St. John Smith Square. In the summer of 2004 her former piano trio toured Thailand in aid of several Thai charities. In 2005, she and two other members of the Royal Northern College of Music formed "The Tanera Trio," a piano trio which won first prize in the Hirsch Competition and has gone on to perform all over the UK.

In orchestras Mary has performed in venues such as the Queen Elizabeth Hall, St. Davids Hall, The Royal Albert Hall and in tours to the "Menuhin Festival" in Switzerland.

Mary has had master classes with musicians such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Colin Carr, Timothy Eddy, Bernhard Greenhouse, Ian Brown, and Gary Hoffman.

She is in her third year of an undergraduate degree at the Royal Northern College of Music where she is studying with Hannah Roberts. In September 2005 she was awarded the Amy Lindley Prize for outstanding cello playing.

Admission is $20. Children and young people ages 7 through 17 are admitted free. Advance tickets are available at the Gualala Arts Center or at the Dolphin Gallery in Gualala. Tickets may also be purchased at the door prior to the performances. For further information, call the Gualala Arts Center at 707-884-1138, or visit the website, GualalaArts.org. Those unable to furnish their own transportation may call the Arts Center to request rides to the concerts.