GUILLAUME COMBET, violinist
Guillaume Combet has had extensive experience as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player and pedagogue. He has been concertmaster of the Chicago Civic Orchestra under Barenboim and Boulez, soloist and assistant concertmaster of the Chicago String Ensemble, soloist with the Orchestre Symphonique de Tours, and has toured internationally with Les Virtuoses de France and the West End String Quartet, better known as Corky Siegel’s Chamber Blues. He has performed with numerous orchestras in the Chicago area where he moved from recently—Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fulcrum Point New Music Project, and Ars Viva, and has performed on chamber music concert series including WFMT Dame Myra Hess Concert Series, Mostly Music Concert Series, and Craftsbury Chamber Players. He currently performs with Network for New Music and Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra. As a teacher of violin and chamber music at the Merit School of Music, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and now the University of Pennsylvania and the Temple University Music Preparatory Division, his students have won major scholarships, competitions and awards. Guillaume is from France, studied with Gerard Poulet, graduated with a First Prize in Violin and Chamber Music from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, and received his Advanced Certificate in Violin Performance from The Juilliard School, studying with the late William Lincer, and Joel Smirnoff and Robert Mann formerly of the Juilliard String Quartet.