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Lauren Burns
Viola
Violist Lauren Burns is the Lecturer in Viola at Valdosta State University, where she is also violist of the Azalea String Quartet, principal viola of the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra, and director and master teacher of the South Georgia String Project. Originally from South Carolina, she began viola at the age of 10 in a public school strings program and went on to receive her bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from the University of South Carolina and her master’s degree at Peabody Conservatory as a winner of the prestigious Jacob K. Javits national fellowship.
Ms. Burns was a founding member of the Hausmann Quartet, performing throughout the United States on series such as Lyrica Boston, Lyrica New Jersey, and the International Music Foundation in Chicago under Marilyn Gilbert Artist Management. In 2007, the Hausmann Quartet was chosen to be the showcasing ensemble at the Chamber Music America National Conference in Times Square, New York. As a member of the quartet, Ms. Burns completed two years as a young artist-in-residence on the Lyrica Boston Chamber Music Series and two years at Kent State University in Ohio as a teaching assistant to the Miami String Quartet. While in the quartet, Ms. Burns was a fellow at Norfolk and Kent Blossom summer music festivals, coaching with Claude Frank and members of the Keller, Tokyo, and Vermeer quartets. More recently, she has performed in various mixed chamber ensembles as a young artist at the Manchester Chamber Music Festival in Vermont and in performances in Havana, Cuba and in Graz and Bad Leonfelden, Austria.
As an orchestral player, Ms. Burns performed in the Blossom Festival with the Cleveland Orchestra and has been principal viola in the Ohio Valley Symphony, Lyrica Chamber Orchestra (Boston and NJ) and in the Manchester Chamber Music and Texas Music Festival orchestras. She has also performed as section viola in the Mobile, Tuscaloosa, Mansfield, Lancaster, New Hampshire, Brockton, Augusta, and South Carolina Philharmonic orchestras and in the AIMS - Graz, Aspen and Brevard Music Festival orchestras.
Ms. Burns spent two years as an assistant and teacher in the University of South Carolina String Project program, and she received pedagogy training from Rebecca Henry in the Peabody Preparatory Division. She was a faculty member at the Brookline Music School and South Shore Conservatory in Boston, and she received Suzuki certification from teacher trainer Mary Cay Neal. Ms. Burns is currently completing a DMA at the University of Alabama.