Annie Fullard

Violinist, Annie Fullard, joyfully celebrates a life devoted to chamber music and to the collaborative bonds with students, colleagues and communities maintained as member of the Cavani String Quartet for more than 30 years. A leader in the field of chamber music advocacy and education, Ms. Fullard recognizes the empathy and connectivity of chamber music as a metaphor for the kind of communication we should strive for between cultures and nations. Annie currently serves as Distinguished Artist and Charles Yates Chair of Chamber Music at Robert The Mc Duffie Center for Strings at Mercer University,  Co- Director for Encore Chamber Music String Quartet Intensive Program and Artist-Faculty at Center Stage Strings. Projects on the horizon, include a much anticipated book, to be published by Oxford University Press (Fall 2023), The Art of Collaboration: Chamber Music Rehearsal Techniques & Team Building for All  in collaboration with Dorianne Cotter- Lockard, PhD. Lauded for her  “gleaming artistry, bravura and sensitivity” (Cleveland Plain Dealer)  Ms.Fullard has toured extensively throughout all fifty states and abroad, including The Juilliard School Summer Arts Program in Shanghai, China. ProQuartet in France, Mozart Anniversary Tour of Salzburg, Vienna, and Prague, Ms. Fullard has been privileged  to collaborate with distinguished artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Robert Mann, Alisa Weilerstein, Kim Kashkashian, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Anton Nel, Stephanie Blythe, Sergei Babayan as well as members of the Cleveland, Juilliard, Miami, Tàkacs, Ying, Emerson,Guarneri, Borodin, Amadeus, and St. Lawrence String Quartets.  Ms. Fullard and her colleagues are recipients of The Naumburg Chamber Music Award, The Cleveland Quartet Award, The Guarneri Quartet Award for Artistic Excellence from Chamber Music America. and are laureates of The Banff International, Fischoff, Coleman and Carmel Chamber Music competitions.  Ms. Fullard thrives in community based residencies, and is proud to have served as as a visiting artist at the Walnut Hill School,  New World Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, Interlochen Center for the Arts,The Perlman Music Program, Banff Center, Kneisel Hall, Norfolk Summer School of Music, Chautauqua Festival, Midwest Young Artists and The Academy at the Music Institute of Chicago. She has served as a juror for the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition,  Midwest Young Artists Discover Competition and The Washington International Competition. Ms Fullard and her Cavani colleagues offer Art of Collaboration presentations on connective leadership and team building at conservatories, universities, and business schools around the country.  As a member of the Quartet-in-Residence and faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music for more than thirty years, she served as director of Chamber Music for The Young Artist Program and Performance and Analysis Seminar, and Director of String and Piano Chamber Music at Case Western Reserve University. In collaboration with her Cavani Quartet colleagues, she developed the Apprentice Quartet Program, Intensive Quartet Seminar, Art of Engagement: Careers and Leadership in the Arts, Art of Collaboration Rehearsal Techniques Seminar, and COLLAGE: Music, Art & Poetry with poet and Kent State University professor, Mwatabu Okantah. Former students who have been coached and mentored by Ms. Fullard include members of the Catalyst, Jupiter, Daedalus, Harlem, Ehnes, Miro, Afiara, Verona, Maia, Biava, Attaca, Thalea, and Linden String Quartets, as well as members of  ECCO, A Far Cry, New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, St Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Chicago Symphony and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Recognizing the natural ability of chamber music playing to inspire cognitive and emotional development in children through empathy and interaction, she founded the Friday Night Chamber Music  program for school age students and continues to serve as a visiting artist and mentor for pre- college programs in and around the Cleveland region. Ms Fullard and her Cavani colleagues currently serve as Artistic Directors of the Arts Renaissance Tremont series and inaugurated the critically acclaimed performance series Beyond  Beethoven, culminating in a gala performance which included more than 100 local high school string students and two world premieres. Ms. Fullard, and her Cavani colleagues are former Artists-in-Residence at the University of California, Riverside, University of Texas Austin, and the University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale. Ms. Fullard pursued her violin studies at Indiana University, and Yale University, and is a gTeachers and mentors include Donald Weilerstein, Josef Gingold, Earl Carlyss, Ronald Crutcher and Peter Salaff. Her great loves include having a laugh, movie watching, coffee, listening to Ella Fitzgerald, animals of all shapes and sizes, downhill skiing, and her incredible family, which includes many violists and a French horn player. cavani.org