Chad Kaltinger

Principal

Sponsored by Dorothy Wise

Chad Kaltinger is an active freelancer in the San Francisco area and maintains a busy schedule as orchestral violist, chamber musician, soloist, and recording artist. Principal violist for Opera San Jose and the Santa Cruz Symphony, he is a frequent guest principal at the San Jose Chamber Orchestra. Chad has performed in many festivals around the U.S. including Music in the Mountains, Arizona Musicfest, South by Southwest, the Monterey Jazz Festival, and the Mendocino Music Festival. He is an active proponent of new music and performs regularly with the Cabrillo Music Festival, the University of California-Santa Cruz New Music Works Ensemble, and the Worn Chamber Ensemble. He was the soloist in the  2012 U.S. premiere of Noam Sheriff’s Canarian Vespers, for solo viola and strings, with the Cadenza Chamber Orchestra in Santa Cruz, California.

Chad hails from Chicago where he began his studies at age 9.  He studied at the Music Institute of Chicago in Wilmette, Ill. with Peter Slowik, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Emanuel Vardi. As a fellowship student at the Aspen Music Festival he studied with Heidi Castleman and Victoria Chiang. Chad was the winner of the 1994 E. Nakamichi Viola Concerto Competition at the Aspen Music Festival.  He joined QSF in December 2012.

Scot Moore

Assistant Principal

Alexandre LEE

Sponsored by Rachel Dann

Ian Parvin

Lisa Ponton

Sponsored by Kellie Allyn

Lisa Ponton has held the positions of Associate Principal Viola of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Co-Principal Viola of Sweden’s Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Principal Viola of Orchestra Iowa, and Associate Principal Viola of “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Chamber Orchestra. She has also performed with the Royal Danish Orchestra, the Jacksonville Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the historical performance ensemble, Bourbon Baroque. As violist with the Orchestra Iowa String Quartet and the U.S. Marine String Quartet, she has performed numerous chamber music concerts as well as many educational concerts and outreach events.

An experienced and engaging educator, Ms. Ponton has been a viola, violin, and chamber music instructor at the Orchestra Iowa School. She was also on the adjunct music faculty at Grinnell College. She has coached chamber music ensembles and sectionals for many student orchestras including the Maryland Classical Youth Orchestras, the Golden Isles Youth Orchestras, the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestras, and the Youth Orchestra of Iceland.

Lisa Ponton has a Bachelor of Music degree in viola performance from the Curtis Institute of Music. As a full scholarship student, she earned a Master of Music from The Juilliard School. In addition, she has earned a Professional Diploma in Historical Performance from the Royal Academy of Music, where she was the recipient of the Enlightenment Scholarship and the Dorothy Kennedy Davis Award.