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Mary Papoulis celebrates her twentieth season with the Great Falls Symphony's Cascade Quartet as well as the String Orchestra of the Rockies. A dedicated teacher in the community, she has also taught at the Olympic Music Festival in Washington, the Summer Youth Orchestra Workshop in Bozeman and workshops with the Ying Quartet. Her musical performances have taken her as far as China, Italy, Norway, Vancouver, Amherst, and Cambridge England. She holds a DMA from SUNY Stony Brook, MM from Eastman and BM from Indiana University. Her teachers have included Joyce Robbins, Peter Salaff, Zvi Zeitlin, Stanley Riche and the Turtle Island String Quartet. She has been soloist with the Great Falls and Butte symphonies as well as Long Island Pops Concerto Competition winner. She can be heard on several recordings with the Cascade Quartet as well as the String Orchestra of the Rockies with Jeni Fleming. Papoulis is the proud mother of her two young sons, Brian and Kevin Gemberling. In her spare time, she plays folk, blues, and gypsy music with guitarist Rich Matoon.Irina Mueller, violin, (born 1980 in Germany) has been praised by critics for being a young artist who gives "powerful and expressive" performances (Trossinger Zeitung), and who plays with "spellbinding musicality" (Schwäbische Zeitung). Irina has recently been awarded the prestigious Soloist's Diploma by the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Trossingen, Germany, and holds additional degrees from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. She received the Master of Music in Violin Performance and Literature, as well as an Arts Leadership Certificate (part of Eastman's Institute for Music Leadership) in May 2004, and the Bachelor of Music in Applied Music (Violin, with High Distinction) in May 2003. Her principal teachers have included Professor Winfried Rademacher in Trossingen, and Professor Lynn Blakeslee at Eastman. Orchestral performances have taken her throughout England, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy and Japan. In addition, Irina has appeared as soloist with orchestras in Germany and Romania, and she has given solo recitals in Ohio, New York, South Carolina, Connecticut and Germany. Irina plays on an English violin by John Betts (London), from the year 1794. Adam Matthes, viola, performs as soloist and chamber musician, exploring a wide variety of repertoire. He has frequented the Aspen Music Festival, and also has performed in the Chintimini Chamber Music Festival in Corvallis, Oregon, Spoleto Festival USA, and the AIMS Festival in Graz, Austria. Notable collaborations include performances with Kenji Bunch, Sarah Chang, Alexander Kerr, as well as members of the Colorado, New Jersey and Oregon Symphonies. In May of 2007 he toured the People's Republic of China with the Zhang Piano Quintet. Taking an earnest interest in new music, he has worked with notable composers Jacob Avshalamov, Kenji Bunch, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Krzysztof Penderecki, and has also premiered many new works by young composers. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the Shepherd School of Music, he studied with John Graham, James Dunham and Joan Derhovsepian, and has also played in master classes for Victoria Chiang, Roberto Diaz, Hsin-yun Huang, Jefferey Irvine, and Tabea Zimmerman. This summer he served as the violist for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. Thaddeus Suits started his career as Assistant Principal Cellist of the Puerto Rico Symphony. He left the island to take a job in Minnesota as cellist in the Rochester String Quartet and has been playing chamber music ever since, including over twenty years with the Cascade Quartet. Thad graduated summa cum laude from Washington University in his home town of St. Louis, where he studied under Yuan Tung. He then continued his studies with the great Pierre Fournier in Geneva and with William Pleeth in London. Thad is a recipient of the Montana Arts Council's Individual Artist Fellowship. He can also be heard in recital with his wife, pianist Su Suits, with whom he has released two CDs: Mistral, and Songs My Mother Taught Me.
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