Violinist, Pedagogue, Researcher

  Ned joined the Grammy-nominated St. Petersburg String Quartet in 2021, with whom he founded Leopold Auer Music Festival, a summer music camp for dedicated strings and piano students. In 2021 Ned also founded Leopold Auer Music Academy with members of the quartet, serving as artistic director and instructor of violin and chamber music. He is an owner of Village Music Academy in Kansas City, where he teaches violin and piano classes. He serves as executive director of the Mendelssohn Foundation, a music education nonprofit based in Kansas City. He spent 2020 as school principal and senior teacher at Wolfgang Violin Studio in Singapore, and he has taught in various capacities at Avila University, the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Illinois College, the University of Illinois Springfield, the Conservatory of Central Illinois, and Champaign School of Music. 

He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, the Mann Center in Philadelphia, and abroad in Israel, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Czech Republic, Russia, Canada, and Mexico. He has served as concertmaster of various orchestras and music festivals, including the Philadelphia International Music Festival and Vienna Music Festival. As a student at Wichita State, he was associate concertmaster of Suprima Chamber Orchestra, a touring orchestra with professional management, with notable performances in Russia at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Glazunov Hall for its XII International Conservatory Week, and at Bargemusic in Brooklyn, New York.

     As a researcher he has published peer-reviewed articles with Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Speculum Musicae, and the Beethoven Journal, and since 2017 he regularly contributes to the American Record Guide as an independent music critic. The New Beethoven Research Conference in Boston invited him to present research on Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. He presented at the Beethoven the European conference based in Lucca, Italy, and at the AMS Midwest conference at the University of Iowa. Through his work with the Mendelssohn Foundation, Ned enjoys connecting with scholars from around the world, and he volunteers his time reading submissions for the AMS conference.

     Dedicated to healthy playing and lifestyle, he is active AmSAT-certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, a medically proven method for improving body movement and usage. Through the Alexander Technique he engages musicians to help them avoid repeated stress injuries and maintain physical health. In 2017 he graduated from the teacher training course of Alex and Joan Murray, who have served as key international exponents of the Alexander Technique for over 50 years. 

    His educational background includes a Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degree with Megan Freivogel and the Jupiter String Quartet at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. He studied for his Bachelor of Music at Wichita State University with Nancy Luttrell, Alla Aranovskaya, and the St. Petersburg String Quartet. He plays an early 20th century German violin named Fritz in honor of legendary violinist Fritz Kreisler.