Israeli-born violist Yizhak Schotten was discovered and brought to the United States by the renowned violist William Primrose, with whom he studied at Indiana University and the University of Southern California. Other studies were with Lillian Fuchs at the Manhattan School of Music. A feature article about Yizhak Schotten in STRAD Magazine called him "one of America's finest viola players... a leading light of the U.S. viola establishment." His solo appearances with orchestras in this country and abroad have included performances with conductors Seiji Ozawa, Thomas Schippers, Sergiu Commissiona, Joseph Swensen, Arthur Fiedler and others. He has concertized in Israel, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Holland, Austria, Mexico, England, Canada and throughout the United States. His solo recitals have included Town Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Merkin Hall in New York, Boston's Jordan Hall, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, among others.

As a member of the Trio d'Accordo, Yizhak Schotten won the Concert Artists Guild International Competition in New York, and the trio performed on many of this country's prestigious concert series. He often collaborates with renowned musicians, and has appeared in chamber concerts at the Aspen Music Festival, Bargemusic in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., at Symphony Hall in Boston, and the Concertgebouw in Holland. Mr. Schotten has also had numerous broadcasts on National Public Radio. He was the Artistic Director of the XIV International Viola Congress and has been a featured artist at six other International Congresses.

Formerly a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Yizhak Schotten was chosen to be an exchange artist with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. Later he became principal violist of the Cincinnati and Houston Symphony Orchestras. In the summers he has also been on the faculties and performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Banff, Meadowmount, Interlochen, and appeared in the Tanglewood, Chamber Music Northwest, Montreal, Skaneateles, and the Juneau Festivals. Abroad he has performed at the Taipei Philharmonic Festival in Taiwan, the Festival Internacional de Musica Clasica in Mexico, the Festival de Musique de Chambre de Montréal, and the Amsterdam Kamermuziek Festival in Holland. He and his pianist wife, Katherine Collier, are Music Directors of the Maui Classical Music Festival in Hawaii and Strings in the Mountains Festival in Steamboat Springs Colorado. He is also Music Director of Chamber Music Ann Arbor. In 1997, he represented the United States as a judge and performer at the Tertis International Viola Competition in England.

Yizhak Schotten has recorded four discs for Crystal Records including his reconstruction of the J.S.Bach Concerto in D for Viola and Strings. He has most recently recorded a CD of over fifty solo and tutti orchestral excerpts from twenty-three symphonic works with written and spoken commentary. His C.R.I. recording of the Bloch Suite and the Hindemith Sonata Op. 25 #4 (world premiere recording) was chosen as "Critics' Choice" for three months in High Fidelity Magazine. Pearl Records included his playing on its anthology, "History of the Recording of the World's Finest Violists."

Yizhak Schotten joined the University of Michigan School of Music faculty in l985 after having taught at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music and the University of Washington in Seattle. He was also on the American Federation of Musician's Congress of Strings faculty. As a teacher of prize winning students, he is very active giving master classes to young violists throughout the United States and abroad. He has given recitals and master classes in England at the Tertis International Competition at the Isle of Man, the Menuhin School in Surrey, and the Guildhall School of Music and Royal College of Music in London. He has also given master classes in Israel at the Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem Academies of Music, at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Australia, and in Taiwan for the Hsing Tien Kong Culture & Education Development Foundation.

Yizhak Schotten, Violist