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Matt Flinner is widely
considered one of the hottest mandolin players on the acoustic scene. He started out as a prodigy who was
playing bluegrass festivals before he entered his teens, and won the national banjo contest at Winfield
Kansas in 1990, and the mandolin award there the following year. He then attended the University of Utah
at Salt Lake City where he obtained a degree in composition and performed with the Utah Symphony.
Flinner has two solo album releases to his credit, The View From Here and Latitude, which feature an
all-star cast of acoustic players including Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, David Grier and Darol Anger.
Flinner believes that his early years spent in the Rocky Mountains had a very real impact on his music.
"There's an American harmony in classical music that's this big wide-open sound -- Aaron Copeland's work,
for example," Flinner says. "So I think there could be something to that, that your surroundings reflect
your music."
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Dana Rath, mandolinist, has
devoted his musical career to reawakening interest in the mandolin family instruments. He has worked with The
Berkeley Mandolin Ensemble,the Rudy Cipolla group, the Hotzeplotz Klezmer Orchestra and is a founding member
of The Modern Mandolin Quartet. His interest in classical mandolin began while studying classical guitar at
Loyola University in New Orleans. He then studied in Europe with mandolin virtuoso Keith Harris. Other
instructors include Gertrud Troester, Emmanuel Sheynkmann and Andy Statman. Dana has recorded new works by
Alexis Alrich and Larry Polanski for Opus One Records. He has also performed with the Berkeley Symphony and
Louisville Symphony and has played mandolin, guitar and banjo for San Francisco's American
Conservatory Theater. His involvement with the Quartet continues his dream of bringing new prominence to the
modern mandolin.
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Paul
Binkley plays mandola and guitar with the
Modern Mandolin Quartet and also contributes many of the group's
arrangements. Paul began his musical studies in London, Ontario where he
gave his first professional concerts before graduating from high school.
He became an instructor at the London Guitar and Lute Center for several
years before moving to San Francisco to complete his Bachelor of Music
degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and his Master of Arts
in Music degree at San Francisco State University, majoring in guitar
performance. Paul has been an ensemble player with the San Francisco
Contemporary Music Players, the San Francisco Opera, Ballet, and
Symphony,the Berkeley Symphony and many other orchestras. He is guitar
instructor at Mills College. He has also recorded contemporary pieces
for Opus One Records and Centaur Records. Other recording credits
include the San Francisco Symphony recording of Prokofiev's Romeo and
Juliet with Michael Tilson Thomas.
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Adam Roszkiewicz was born in 1979 and has been playing guitar since age 7. He earned his undergraduate and graduate diplomas from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with David Tanenbaum and Marc Teicholz. During his studies at SFCM he received three departmental awards for outstanding achievement in guitar performance. Adam has participated in master classes with Manuel Baruecco, Roberto Aussel, Carlos Barbosa-Lima, Paul Galbraith, and Hopkinson Smith. In March 2005, he made his Carnegie Hall debut, performing guitar duets with Santiago Gutierrez. In addition to the classical guitar, Adam is also an active performer of Bluegrass, folk and traditional acoustic music on guitar, mandolin, and mandocello.
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About the MMQ
