Formed at the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Professor Karen Ritcher and Juilliard professor Darett Atkins, The Red Rock String Quartet blends top-tier classical training with an enthusiasm for multi-genre and contemporary music. The quartet's musicians have worked with many of today’s most respected classical artists, including the Cavani String Quartet, Yo-Yo Ma, the Ying Quartet, the Jasper Quartet, and the famed Takacas Quartet, but Red Rock String’s artistry extends beyond classical music, performing alongside Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson and many more of today's recognized bands — our musicians have, on numerous occasions, performed cross-over style at their home base, Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheater.
Michele Battiste is the author of Waiting for the Wreck to Burn (Trio House, 2019), Uprising ( Black Lawrence, 2014), and Ink for an Odd Cartography ( Black Lawrence, 2009). She is also the author of several chapbooks, including Left: Letters to Strangers (Grey Book, 2014). Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Rumpus, Memorious, and Women's Studies Quarterly, among others.
Michele has taught poetry workshops for Wichita State University, the Prison Arts Program in Hutchinson, KS, Gotham Writers' Workshops, and Teen Ink. A finalist for the National Poetry Series, she has received grants and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, AWP, the Center for the American West, the Jerome Foundation, and the NY State Senate. She lives in Colorado where she works for The Nature Conservancy, raising money to save the planet.
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Amy Hershberger has performed extensively as a soloist and in chamber music performances throughout the country. She was Concertmaster of the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra from 2001 until its close in 2017, and has been the Associate Concertmaster of the Pasadena Symphony from 2001 until the present, appearing as a soloist with these orchestras as well as others.
She has collaborated extensively in chamber music across the country, including at the La Jolla Summerfest and the Mozart Festival in San Diego. Additionally, she has performed as a recording musician on many hundreds of motion picture soundtracks, as well on records and other media.
Sarah Thornblade has been described as “a marvelously versatile violinist” (Santa Barbara News) whose playing has been described as “rapturously winning” by the Los Angeles Times. She is an avid chamber musician, a grand prize winner of the Coleman and Fischoff chamber music competitions, and is the associate principal second violin of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. A founding member of the Eclipse Quartet, an ensemble dedicated to performing twentieth-century and contemporary music, the Eclipse quartet has been the recipient of an Aaron Copland Fund recording grant and has recorded for Tzadik, New World, Cold Blue, and Bridge recording labels.
Sarah is on the faculty of Pomona College and is also an active recording musician for film and television. She holds degrees from Indiana University and Northern Illinois University.
Husband and wife poets Aby Kaupang & Matthew Cooperman are Fort Collins natives.
Aby Kaupang is the author of & there’s you still thrill hour of the world to love, Radiant Tether, NOS, (disorder not otherwise specified) (w. Matthew Cooperman), Little “g” God Grows Tired of Me, and multiple other collections. She holds master’s degrees in creative writing and occupational therapy.
Choosing to work outside of academia, she practices as an occupational therapist and nurse’s aide specializing in the treatment of neurodivergent and special needs children.
Aby lives in Fort Collins, CO where she assists in organizing an annual book festival, hosts the reading series, EveryEye, and has served as Poet Laureate.
Matthew Cooperman is the author of, most recently NOS, disorder not otherwise specified (with Aby Kaupang, Futurepoem, 2018) and Spool (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press, 2016), winner of the New Measure Prize. Other works include the image + text collaboration Imago for the Fallen World (w/Marius Lehene, Jaded Ibis, 2013), Still: of the Earth as the Ark which Does Not Move (Counterpath Press, 2011), DaZE, (Salt Publishing Ltd, 2006) and A Sacrificial Zinc (Pleiades/LSU, 2001), which won the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize. He’s also the author of five chapbooks: Disorder 299.00 (w/ Aby Kaupang, Essay Press, 2016 and more.
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