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Dr. Silvers began his musical studies as a child in west Los Angeles, where he quickly entered the pre-college program at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in downtown Los Angeles while studying with Lorenz Gamma. There he ended up holding the concertmaster chair for his senior year of high school in the Colburn Chamber Orchestra, after which he entered the Herb Alpert School of Music at the University of California, Los Angeles to earn his Bachelor of Music in violin performance studying under the tutelage of professors Guillaume Sutre and Movses Pogossian, and graduated at the top of his class holding ranks of Summa Cum Laude and Chancellor’s Marshall. While at UCLA, he won the concertmaster audition for the UCLA Philharmonia, the school’s flagship orchestra. As well, he was selected to attend the Incontri in Terra di Siena festival in Montepulciano, Italy along with the UCLA string faculty for a series of chamber music concerts, including works such as Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht. In addition, Dr. Silvers has attended various orchestral music summer festivals, including the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, where he held the concertmaster position. He then attended the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he achieved Master of Music studying with Professor Mark Kaplan. While pursuing his MM, Dr. Silvers was a member of several regional orchestras, and was a member of the Indiana University Chamber and Philharmonic orchestras, the two highest level ensembles at the school, and had the honor of performing Scheherazade as concertmaster with the IU Philharmonic. He then attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music where he earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in violin as a student of professor Soh-Hyun Park Altino as a University Fellow and musicology teaching assistant.
His DMA Research Project, Edward Elgar’s Violin Concerto: Collaborative Composition and Performance Practice,” explores critical research surrounding the neglected gem of the early 20th century in the violin repertory. While in Madison, Dr. Silvers performed regularly with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and was the winner of the 2018-19 UW-Madison Concerto Competition, performed Antonin Dvorak’s Violin Concerto in A minor with the UW Symphony Orchestra. As well, he was a finalist in the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Fellowship Competition in Montgomery, Alabama in 2019. A regular performer in masterclasses around the country, he has performed for a plethora of artists and composers, including Irina Muresanu, David Kim, Renaud Capuçon, Blaise Magniere, Jacques Israelievitch, Arnold Steinhardt, Almita Vamos, the Aviv String Quartet, the Pacifica Quartet, the Leipzig String Quartet, and John Williams. Dr. Silvers’ professional engagements have included concerts throughout the United States, including such venues as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Walt Disney Concert Hall and Royce Hall of Los Angeles, and Madison’s Overture Center. Outside of the United States, he has also performed in Italy and Switzerland.
Dr. Silvers not only enjoys performing as a violinist, but finds joy in teaching both violin and musical academics, including musicology and music theory, and has been a teacher at the Blue Lake Summer Music Camp in Blue Lake, Michigan, as well as violin faculty at the Arboretum Music School in Waunakee, Wisconsin. Dr. Silvers currently serves on the faculty at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado as a Visiting Instructor of Music Theory and Upper Strings.