Individual Bios
Violinist Aaron Berofsky has toured extensively throughout the United States and abroad, gaining wide recognition as a soloist and chamber musician. As soloist, he has performed with orchestras in the United States, Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada. He has performed the complete cycle of Mozart violin sonatas at the International Festival Deia in Spain and all of the Beethoven sonatas at New York’s Merkin Concert Hall. His 2011 recording of the complete Beethoven sonatas with Phillip Bush has been met with great acclaim.
France’s Le Figaro calls his playing “Beautiful, the kind of music-making that gives one true pleasure”. He has appeared in such renowned venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Corcoran Gallery, Het Doelen, L'Octogone, Seoul National University, the Teatro San Jose and the Museo de Bellas Artes. Mr. Berofsky has been featured on NPR's Performance Today and on the Canadian Broadcasting Company. His acclaimed recordings can be found on the Sony, Naxos, New Albion, ECM, Audio Ideas, Blue Griffin and Chesky labels. Recent recital tours have taken him to Germany, Italy and Korea, and he was featured soloist on the 2009 NAXOS recording of music by Paul Fetler, performed by the Ann Arbor Symphony, including the debut recording of his Concerto No. 2. His recording of the complete chamber music of Franz Xavier Mozart was released in 2013 on Equilibrium.
Mr. Berofsky was the first violinist of the Chester String Quartet for fifteen years. The quartet has been acclaimed as "one of the country's best young string quartets" by the Boston Globe. Tours have taken them throughout the Americas and Europe and the quartet members have collaborated with such artists as Robert Mann, Arnold Steinhardt, Franco Gulli, members of the Alban Berg quartet, Andres Diaz, Eugene Istomin and Ruth Laredo. Some notable projects over the years have included the complete cycles of the quartets by Beethoven and Dvorak, and numerous recordings by such composers as Mozart, Haydn, Barber, Porter, Piston, Kernis and Tenenbom. The Chester Quartet has served as resident quartet at the University of Michigan and at Indiana University South Bend.
An alumnus of the Juilliard School, Mr. Berofsky was a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay. Other important teachers have included Robert Mann, Felix Galimir, Glenn Dicterow, Lorand Fenyves and Elaine Richey. Mr. Berofsky is known for his commitment to teaching and is Professor of Violin at the University of Michigan and served as visiting Professor at the Hochschule fur Musik in Detmold, Germany. He taught at the Meadowmount School of Music for many summers and is currently on the violin faculty of the Chautauqua Institution. He has also given masterclasses throughout the world, including a 2013 tour of Korea which included classes at Seoul National University, Ewha Women’s University, Seoul Arts High School and many others. He has also given class at the Cleveland Institute, Oberlin, Eastman, the Peter de Grote festival in the Netherlands, Domaine Forget in Quebec, Interlochen, the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival and the Conservatorio Palma Mallorca.
Mr. Berofsky's interest in early music led him to perform with the acclaimed chamber orchestra Tafelmusik on period instruments, also makingseveral recordings with them for the Sony label. He co-runs University of Michigan’s Baroque Chamber Orchestra with harpsichordist Joseph Gascho. With a strong dedication to new music as well, he has worked extensively with many leading composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, performing, commissioning and recording music by John Cage, William Bolcom, Zhou Long, Michael Daugherty, Aaron Jay Kernis, Susan Botti, Morton Subotnick, Paul Fetler and Bright Sheng.
Aaron Berofsky has been concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony since 2003. He has also served as guest concertmaster for many orchestras throughout the US and Europe.
Equally at home as a soloist, collaborator, and composer, Charles Berofsky seeks to engage audiences through a myriad of styles and genres of music. Charles grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and began piano lessons when he was six years old. He also developed an interest in composition from a young age and started organ lessons at age 14. Charles performs frequently as soloist and a chamber musician in the United States and Europe, both on the modern piano and on period instruments.
Charles has been a prizewinner at various international piano competitions, including Campillos (First Prize & Orchestra Prize), New York (Third Prize to a solo performer & First Prize for the piano four-hands ensemble), and Thousand Islands (First Prize, senior division). Charles has also won concerto competitions at both the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York and the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts. For his compositions, he has received a commission from the American Guild of Organists and four prizes from the Eastman School of Music. Other awards include First Prize at the 2018 Chicago College of Performing Arts Young Composer Competition and First Prizes at the Dearborn and Dexter Youth Artist Concerto Competitions in southeastern Michigan.
Charles has participated in festivals and master classes in the United States and Europe, including the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, International Lieven Foundation of Vienna, IMS Prussia Cove, Taos School of Music, and Chautauqua Institution. He has had the opportunity to work with pianists such as Thomas Adès, Ya-Fei Chuang, Jeremy Denk, Alexander Kobrin, Robert Levin, Andreas Staier, and Arie Vardi, as well as working closely in chamber music settings with Robert McDonald, Yeesun Kim, Angelo Xiang Yu, and Thomas Sauer. He has recently appeared as a soloist with the Residenz-Solisten of Munich, Germany and with the Symphony Orchestras of Málaga and Segovia in Spain, and he has given solo recitals at Schloss Nymphenburg in Munich and Temple Emanu-El of New York.
Charles was recently named a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Bowers Program (2027-2030). An avid chamber musician, Charles has been featured regularly as a guest artist with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players (New York) and the Pressenda Chamber Players (Washington, D.C. area). He is the pianist of Trio Sponte (Boston) and the Berofsky Piano Quartet (Ann Arbor). He was a recipient of the Borromeo String Quartet’s Guest Artist Award (‘23) and was a member of the New England Conservatory’s Honors Ensemble Program for two consecutive years, with Trio Sponte (‘23-24) and the Newbury Trio (‘22-23). In Munich, Charles has been featured on the Löwenberg Chamber Music Festival.
Charles will begin doctoral studies at The Juilliard School in New York in the fall, studying with Robert McDonald. He obtained a post-Master’s degree from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München in Germany, a Master’s degree from the New England Conservatory, and a Bachelor’s degree with a double major in Piano Performance and Composition from the Eastman School of Music. Past mentors include Antti Siirala, HaeSun Paik, Alan Chow, and Logan Skelton (piano); Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Robert Morris, David Liptak, and Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez (composition); Christine Schornsheim, Peter Sykes, Michael Sponseller, and Lisa Goode Crawford (harpsichord/fortepiano); and Scott Van Ornum (organ).
Sebastian Berofsky is a twenty-three-year-old cellist from Ann Arbor, MI who began cello lessons at age six. He is pursuing his Master of Music in Cello Performance studying at the Juilliard School with Astrid Schween. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Rice where he studied with Desmond Hoebig. He previously studied with Richard Aaron and he has also studied with, and played in master classes given by, Blaise Déjardin, Leonid Gorokhov, Steve Doane, Brandon Vamos, the Fauré Quartett, the Horszowski Trio, Pavel Haas Quartet, the Callisto Quartet, and the Escher Quartet.
Last summer he attended the Taos School of Music where he studied with Yeesun Kim of the Borromeo Quartet, Dan McDonough of the Jupiter Quartet, Hye-Jin Kim of the Cooperstown Quartet, and Sasha Kazovsky of the Ariel Quartet. He attended the Tanglewood Music Center where he won the opportunity to play a concert in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and also won the opportunity to participate in the Shostakovich Festival at the Gewandhaus Leipzig, playing under Andris Nelsons with students of the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester. He has also attended Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, the Chautauqua Institution, Bowdoin International Music Festival, and Indiana University Summer String Academy.
The only winner of the Shepherd School String Concerto Competition in 2025, Sebastian was one of three finalists in the Chautauqua Sigma Alpha Iota Concerto Competition and was the winner of the MASTA chamber music prize, Michigan Youth Arts Festival chamber music award, MTNA Senior String Division award (Michigan), and the Michigan Pops Orchestra concerto competition.
Sebastian is a member of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and has also served as principal in the Juilliard Orchestra, the Shepherd School Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. In 2018 he performed the Mendelssohn A Major Viola Quintet with faculty members and peers after winning the summer chamber music competition at the IU Summer String Academy. Sebastian has been a guest artist with the Pressenda Chamber Players in Washington, D.C. on several occasions. With the Berofsky Piano Quartet, he has played on the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra’s chamber series, as well as the Chautauqua Chamber Music series, University of Delaware Master Players, and the Crystal Valley Concert series.
Sebastian was a member of Trio Riso, an ensemble that was selected as a semifinalist for the Coltman Chamber Music Competition and a quarterfinalist for the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2024.
A member of the Chester String Quartet for 15 years, violinist/violist Kathryn Votapek now maintains an active career as a soloist and guest artist at chamber music festivals throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. She has participated in numerous commissioning projects and premieres and can be heard with the Chester Quartet on the Koch International Classics and New Albion labels. Along with pianist Ralph Votapek and clarinetist Paul Votapek, she is the violinist and violist of the Votapek Trio. Additionally, she performs with husband Aaron Berofsky and sons Charles and Sebastian Berofsky in the Berofsky Piano Quartet.
Votapek has been on the faculty of the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Meadowmount School of Music, the Interlochen Arts Camp, the Madeline Island Music Camp, the Quartet Program, the Banff International Festival, the Accademia Musicale Chigiana (Italy), the Peter de Grote Summer Academy (Holland), and Music & More Summerfest (Bosnia and Herzegovina), as well as performing at the Klosterkammerfest (Germany), Speedside Festival (Canada), the International Deiá Festival (Spain), the Garth Newel Festival, the Fontana Festival, and with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and the Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings.
Votapek is currently on the faculty at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. She serves as the Chair of Chamber Music at the Chautauqua School of Music, and is the Associate Concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. Previously she was Associate Professor of Violin and Artist-in-Residence at Indiana University South Bend. Votapek received her bachelor of music degree at Indiana University and master’s degree from The Juilliard School. Her teachers were Robert Mann, Franco Gulli, and Angel Reyes.