Strings, Harp, and Guitar Competition 2025

Dr. Mary Frances DiBartolo is assistant principal cellist of the Arizona Opera Orchestra, section cellist of the West Valley Symphony, assistant principal of the Tucson Pops Orchestra, and Instructor of Cello and Chamber Music/Director of the PVCC Cello Ensemble at Paradise Valley Community College. DiBartolo is an avid chamber musician, continuo player and recording studio artist, and is a substitute/extra musician with the Tucson and Phoenix Symphonies and the Las Vegas Philharmonic. DiBartolo is an in-demand educator, and from 1993-2010, was on faculty at Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, AZ) as Senior Lecturer of Cello and Chamber Music, and Coordinator of Chamber and Event Music for the NAU School of Music.

A faculty artist at the Orfeo and Schlern International Music Festivals/Italy, and at the InterHarmony International Music Festival in the Berkshires, DiBartolo taught, performed, and coached chamber music. She has performed in many notable national and international festivals including the Spoleto Italy/USA Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Mainly Mozart Festival, Animas Festival, Red Rocks Festival, Arizona Opera Wagner Ring Cycle Festival, and the Lancaster USA Festival. DiBartolo’s orchestral career spans thirty-five years. Dr. DiBartolo was an inaugural fellow of Michael Tilson Thomas’s renowned New World Symphony, and has performed with the Sarasota Opera Orchestra, the Cincinnati Ballet & Chamber Orchestras, Seattle’s Northwest Chamber & Ballet Orchestras, and the Tucson Ballet Orchestra. Her vast symphonic experience includes performances with the orchestras of Flagstaff, Phoenix, Tucson, Fort Wayne, Dayton, Naples, West Virginia, Omaha, Lincoln, Charleston, and Columbus (OH). DiBartolo, a musicians union member from the age of 19, has held several American Federation of Musician (AFofM) orchestra positions, won through national auditions.

DiBartolo is a sought-after private teacher and maintains studios in Scottsdale and Tempe, AZ. She has presented at the National ASTA Conferences and AMEA, and was a featured clinician at the ASTA Tucson Cello Congress and the ASTA Cellobration in Phoenix. DiBartolo is a sectionals coach for the PYS (Phoenix Youth Symphonies), and regularly adjudicates the Arizona Regionals/All-State Orchestra auditions, the Phoenix Youth Symphony auditions, the ASTA Solo Competition, and the Arizona Musicfest Young Musicians Instrumentalist Competition (solo and chamber music), amongst others.

DiBartolo is a highly requested continuo player, and has collaborated with the St. Barnabas on the Desert Episcopal Church Choir and Chamber Orchestra, The La Casa de Cristo Sanctuary Choir, the Paradise Valley United Methodist Church Chorale & Paradise Singers, the Scottsdale Choral Artists, the (formerly) Phoenix Bach Choir, the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati, the Mount St. Mary’s Seminary/Athenaeum of Ohio Orchestras, the St. James Church Concert Series of Seattle, and the First Plymouth Congregational Church Abendmusik Series, Lincoln, NE.

Adept at many styles and genres, DiBartolo can be heard on New Age Artist Chris Spheeris’ CD “Dancing with the Muse,” trumpeter and vocalist Chuck Curry’s CD “Late Bloom,” and can be seen performing in the John Tesh/PBS “One World” video filmed, in part, in Monument Valley, Utah.

Dr. DiBartolo holds degrees from the University of Arizona (DMA), The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music: CCM (MM), and, following studies at Northwestern University, the University of Iowa (BM).

Called by The Boston Globe, “an intelligent, agile and breathtaking violinist”, Danwen Jiang has concertized as concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Poland, and across the United States. She has appeared in concert halls such as Carnegie Hall in New York City, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., La Salle Gaveau in Paris, Cultural Centre Concert Hall in Hong Kong, and Beijing Concert Hall in China.  Her recordings are available on China Record Corporation, Eroica label, and Soundset Recordings. The American Record Guide called her “an exceptional violinist”, while the Fanfare Magazine described her performance as “absolutely exquisite”.

As a chamber musician, Professor Jiang has collaborated in concerts with members of the renowned Guarneri, Juilliard, Tokyo, Emerson, and Shanghai String Quartets, The Boston Players, American Chamber Players, and other distinguished musicians such as André-Michel Schub, Lilian Kallir, Igor Kipnis, Ani Kavafian, Eric Rosenblith, Stanley Drucker, and Regina Carter. She has appeared at Manchester Music Festival, Sanibel Chamber Music Festival, Yale Chamber Music Series, Rutgers SummerFest, Taconic Music, Montecito International Music Festival in the United States, Festival du Quercy Blanc and Festival Dan le Gard in France, Harpa International Music Festival in Iceland, InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy and Germany, Victoria International Music Festival in Canada, among others. As an orchestral performer, she was Concertmaster for the Riverside Symphonia in New Jersey from 1995-2001.

A highly regarded string pedagogue, Danwen Jiang is Professor of Violin in the School of Music, Dance and Theatre at Arizona State University in the United States, where she was a recipient of the Professor of the Year Special Recognition Award, President’s Tenure/ Promotion Faculty Exemplar Award, and Distinguished Teacher Award. She was featured as soloist and masterclass clinician by the American String Teachers Association in national conferences. She served as a visiting faculty at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and at the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign. As guest professor, she has taught at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavík, State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart in Germany, Sydney Conservatorium of Music at The University of Sydney in Australia, Vancouver Academy of Music in Canada, and Academy of Music in Kraków, Poland. She is a member of the faculty at the Red Rocks Virtual Music Institute in Arizona, and the Euro Arts Academy based in Germany and South Korea.

Danwen Jiang studied violin with Arnold Steinhardt, Oscar Shumsky, Taras Gabora, and Weijian Zhao. Other influential musicians include Jaime Laredo, Michael Tree, Zara Nelsova, Felix Galimir, Josef Gingold, Joseph Silverstein, György Pauk, and Seymour Lipkin.

For more information about Professor Danwen Jiang, please visit http://www.danwenjiang.com.