Meet Our Cello Clinicians
Dana McComb
Canadian born cellist, Dana McComb, is sought after as both a performer and teacher. Ms. McComb has been invited to give recitals from San Francisco to Montreal. She has performed in the cello sections in orchestras throughout the continent: the Toronto Symphony, the Winnipeg Symphony, and the Richmond Symphony, among others. She has participated in the Banff Chamber Music Academy, National Orchestral Institute, Kneisel Hall Music Center, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival and Meadowmount Summer Music School. Ms. McComb was awarded the top prize in Chamber Music at the Canadian Music Competition as member of the Continental String Quartet.
An avid teacher, Ms. McComb has served on the cello faculty of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and the Eckhardt-Gramatte Conservatory in Manitoba. She has spent her summers on the faculty of The Orchestra Project, the Summer Music by the Lake Festival, and the International Music Camp in North Dakota.
Dana McComb received her Master of Music and Bachelor of Music Degrees at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Bonnie Hampton and Irene Sharp.
Currently she resides in Richmond, Virginia where she has a private studio and is on faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Jason McComb
Jason McComb has been the Assistant Principal Cellist of the Richmond Symphony since 2002.
Having received his early musical training in his native Portland, Oregon, Mr. McComb earned a Bachelor of Music from The Juilliard School where he studied with Joel Krosnick and Zara Nelsova. He then went on to study with Bonnie Hampton at The San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he received a Master of Music in both cello and chamber music.
Mr. McComb has participated in many festivals including Aspen, Musicorda, Kent/Blossom, Banff and Tanglewood, where he was awarded two prizes for outstanding cellist. Among numerous chamber music performances are ones with Joel Krosnick, Donald Weilerstein, Mischa Amory, Ian Swensen, William Preucil and the Miami String Quartet. He has been a member of Orchestra London Canada, and has served on the faculty of Brandon University in Canada.
A very active teacher, Mr. McComb has a private studio and is on the faculties of the University of Richmond, University of Mary Washington, and Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2009 Mr. McComb performed the Dvorak Cello Concerto with conductor, Keith Lockhardt.
Jason McComb lives in Richmond with his wife, cellist Dana McComb, and his three sons.
Jonathan Kramer
Dr. Jonathan C. Kramer is Teaching Professor of Music and Arts Studies at North Carolina State University, and Adjunct Professor of Ethnomusicology at Duke University. As a cellist, he has performed as principal of the Tucson Symphony and as a member of the San Francisco Opera and Ballet Orchestras and the North Carolina Symphony. Among his teachers are Aldo Parisot, Gordon Epperson, Raya Garbousova, David Wells, Madeline Foley, and Maurice Gendron. He has concertized extensively as recitalist and chamber musician throughout the U.S. as well as in Russia, India, Korea, Canada, Austria, Bulgaria, U. K., Switzerland, and Italy. He has performed with The Mostly Modern series of San Francisco, Mallarme Chamber Players, Duke University Encounters Series, the Piccolo Spoletto Festival, Raleigh Chamber Music Guild; and presented solo concertos with a number of regional orchestras. He has recorded for Albany Records, and Soundings of the Planet Studios. He is on the teaching faculty of the North Carolina School of the Arts Summer Institute and frequently accompanies Rumi translator Coleman Barks in poetry readings. He has served as moderator of the Pedagogy Panel at the American Cello Congress and his An Homage to Pau Casals for cellist and narrator has been presented at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, the 92nd St. Y in NYC, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and elsewhere. Kramer maintains an active cello studio, and former students have attended Juilliard, Peabody, Manhattan, New England Conservatory, and other schools of music. As ethnomusicologist, Dr. Kramer has been awarded Senior Fulbright Fellowships at Banaras-Hindu University in India and at Chosun University in Kwangju, South Korea, and spent two summers at the Institute for Korean Traditional Performing Arts in Seoul. He has lectured on global issues in music and aesthetics in the United States, the U. K., Korea, India, China, Japan, and for the Semester at Sea program during their spring, ’06 around the world voyage. He has presented papers before the Society of Ethnomusicology, the U.S. Fulbright Commission, the Ramakrishna Mission in Kolkata, India, and the European Foundation for Chinese Music Research with whom he participated in the 2006 fieldwork expedition and conference in Yulin, Shaanxi Province, PRC. Recently, he has consulted with the Tibetan (now Plateau) Endangered Music Project in Qinghai Province, PRC and has read papers on the subject in Shanghai and Beijing and was quoted by National Geographic Magazine in their article on the Project. In March, 2008 he presented a lecture at the invitation of the American Corner of the US Embassy in Parimaribo, Suriname (former Dutch Guyana) on “Surinamese Music in a Global Context.” Since then he has twice returned to Suriname as a consultant in the role of the performing arts in the development of cultural tourism. Dr. Kramer was a member of the Tanglewood II Symposium (2007) on the Future of Music Education at Williams College and one of the primary authors of the Tanglewood II Declaration. He is currently writing a college-level World Music textbook with associate Dr. Alison Arnold called (provisionally) What in the World Is Music? that will be published by Pearson/Prentice Hall. He holds advanced degrees from Duke and the Graduate School of the Union Institute where he completed a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology and Performance Studies with a dissertation on traditional Korean music.
Adam Carter
Cellist Adam Carter grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts. He received his Bachelors degree and Masters degree with distinction from the Eastman School of Music, and is currently finishing his doctoral degree at the Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison. His principle teachers include Steven Doane, Rosemary Elliot, Robert Marsh, and Uri Vardi. Before joining the faculty at UVA, he played with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra in Madison, WI. He has also won positions with the Akron Symphony, Evansville Philharmonic, and Cedar Rapids Symphony, and performed with the Erie Philharmonic, Fairfax Symphony, and Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival. An active teacher, Mr. Carter was adjunct professor of cello and bass at Ripon College in Ripon, WI, maintained a large private studio, and taught with the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras and the Sun Prairie Music Academy. As a founding member of the Tarab Cello Ensemble, Adam travels the country playing new works for cello octet. The Ensemble was awarded a grant from the Howard Hanson Institute for American Music for its accomplishments in the performance and creation of contemporary American music, a grant from the Foreman Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts, and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. The Ensemble has recorded on Bridge Records and Albany Records. Mr. Carter is a top prizewinner at the 1998 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
