Annie Fullard

Violinist Annie Fullard joyfully celebrates a life devoted to the performance of chamber music and to the collaborative bonds with students and colleagues developed in more than 30 years as first violinist of the Cavani String Quartet. 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 that we should strive for between cultures and nations. Currently serving as Distinguished Artist and Charles and Mary Jean Yates Chair in Chamber Music at The McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University,  Program Director for Encore Chamber Music String Quartet Intensive and Teaching Artist -in - Residence for ChamberFest Cleveland, Ms Fullard and her Cavani colleagues served as faculty Quartet- in- Residence at The Cleveland Institute of Music from 1988-2018. Currently The Cavani Quartet is proud to be The Ambassador Ensemble- In- Residence and directing Chamber Music Intensive Program at The Music Settlement, Cleveland, Ohio as well as the newly named Artistic Directors of Arts Renaissance Tremont. 

 A founding member of the quartet, Ms. Fullard and her colleagues are recipients of The Naumburg Chamber Music Award, as well as prize winners at The Fischoff, Coleman and Carmel Chamber Music competitions and two time recipients of The Guarneri String Quartet Award for Artistic Excellence from Chamber Music America. Additional quartet accolades include The Cleveland Quartet Award at the Eastman School,  The Ohio Governors Award for The Arts as well as Musical America Magazine’s Young Artists of the Year. Lauded for her  “gleaming artistry, bravura and sensitivity” (Cleveland Plain Dealer)  Ms. Fullard has toured extensively throughout the United States, to all fifty states, and abroad, including a Mozart Anniversary Tour of Salzburg, Vienna, and Prague. Other appearances include Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Corcoran Gallery and Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Ambassador Series in Los Angeles, Honolulu Chamber Music Society, Pro Quartet Festival L’Epau in France, and the Ijsbreker Series in Amsterdam. Ms. Fullard has had the honor of collaborating with distinguished artists such as Alisa Weilerstein, Kim Kashkashian, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Itzhak Perlman,  Stephanie Blythe, Sergei Babayan as well as members of the Cleveland, Juilliard, Takàcs, Ying, Emerson, Borodin, Ehnes, Amadeus, St. Lawrence String Quartets. She has been a featured artist on NPR programs Performance Today and “Says You” as well as NBC, ABC, and CBS, television. Ms. Fullard had the honor of performing as part of the Violins of Hope Exhibition, and with the Cavani Quartet colleagues, is a Cuyahoga Arts & Culture Grant recipient, performing their  multi- discipline program, COLLAGE: Music and Poetry with Mwatabu Okantah,  Professor of Pan African Studies at Kent State University in communities and neighborhoods throughout the United States.

Nationally recognized as a transformative and inspiring chamber music coach, and powerful advocate for chamber music education, Ms. Fullard has served as faculty for the 2018 Juilliard Summer Arts Program in Shanghai, and given master classes at the world’s top conservatories including The New England Conservatory of Music and Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.  Ms Fullard has been honored to perform and teach at leading music festivals, including New World Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, Interlochen Center for the Arts, The Perlman Music Program, Banff Center, for the Arts,  Kneisel Hall, Norfolk Summer School of Music, Chautauqua Festival, PhoenixPhest, Chamber Music Connection, Midwest Young Artists and The Academy at the Music Institute of Chicago, Encore Chamber Music and ArCoNet Arts and Community Network, in Philadelphia. She has served as a juror for The Fischoff National and Midwest Young Artist Discovery Chamber Music Competitions. During her tenure at The Cleveland Institute of Music, Ms. Fullard served as Artistic Advisor for Community Engagement,  Conductor of Youth String Camerata, Director of The String and Piano Chamber Music Seminar at Case Western Reserve University and Director of  the Young Artist Chamber Music Program and Performance and Analysis Seminar.

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 at CIM program for pre college students in 2016. In collaboration with her colleagues in the quartet, at CIM,  she  developed the Apprentice Quartet Program, Intensive Quartet Seminar, New Quartet Project and M.A.P. (Music, Art & Poetry) PROJECT. Former students who have been mentored by Ms. Fullard and her Cavani colleagues, include members of the Jupiter, Aeolus, Azuri, Daedalus, Catalyst, Miro, Afiara, Verona, Maia, Biava, Harlem, Omer, Telegraph, Ehnes and Linden String Quartets, as well as members of the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Chicago Symphony, ECCO,  A Far Cry, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, KINETIC and DeCoda.

Ms. Fullard and her Cavani colleagues have given  communication and coaching strategy seminars at universities and conservatories around the country including, MBA and EMBA classes at The Weatherhead School of Management at CWRU and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville School of Business, presenting their program: Coaching Strategies and Techniques: Building Empowered and Collaborative Teams by Applying Principles of Chamber Music Pedagogy. On the horizon, is a much anticipated book project- The Art of Collaboration: Chamber Music Rehearsal  Techniques & Teambuilding with writing partner,  Dr. Dorianne Cotter-Lockard, PhD. Ms. Fullard and her colleagues are former Artists-in-Residence at the University of California, Riverside, University of Texas,  Austin, as well as visiting-artist at the University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale.  A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Ms. Fullard pursued additional studies at Yale University, Indiana University and Ohio State University. Teachers and mentors include Donald Weilerstein, Josef Gingold, Franco Gulli, Earl Carlyss and Peter Salaff. Ms. Fullard lives in Shaker Heights with her husband Jim, two cats, and enjoys reading, downhill skiing, movies, and never tires of listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Beethoven. For more information please visit cavanistringquartet.com