Amy Pikler received her BM degree with highest honors from the University of Michigan where she studied with Professor Yizhak Schotten. Recently, Amy was appointed as section violist in the San Antonio Symphony. Previously, she served as violist in the New World Symphony and Ann Arbor Symphony as well as co-principal violist of the University of Michigan Symphony. Other programs and festivals include the New York String Orchestra Seminar, YOA Orchestra of the Americas-Orchestre de la Francophonie-Orford Arts Center, Aspen Music Festival and American Academy of Conducting Orchestras, National Repertory Orchestra (2011), Chautauqua Music Festival, and Civic Orchestra of Chicago. She was first place winner of the American Viola Society 2014-15 Orchestral Excerpts Competition, received a Farwell Trust Award from the Musicians Club of Women (Chicago), and was a finalist in the NFAA/YoungArts program. As recorder soloist, Amy was featured with flutist Mary Stolper and Chicago’s Music of the Baroque in Telemann’s Concerto for Recorder and Flute. In 2011, Amy presented the United States premiere of Sir Malcolm Arnold’s Recorder Concerto with the I’Solisti Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared as violin, viola, and recorder soloist with several Illinois orchestras including the Chicago Chamber Orchestra and Oak Park River Forest Symphony.
Ms. Pickler tells us, “It is truly remarkable the quantity of orchestral music I was able to cover within such a short time at NRO! Subsequently, I performed many of the works introduced to me and was grateful to initially study them in such a high caliber orchestra. I will always remember my wonderful host family; Amy Perchick, Lenny Weisberg, and Danielle Weisberg; as well as the talented musicians that I met in Breckenridge”.