The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has hired three new full-time players. Flutist Christopher Todd Skitch and trumpeter Stuart Stephenson began the season with the ASO. Violinist Anastasia Agapova begins playing in November. A bit more about each of them:
SKITCH, second flute: The Canadian holds degrees from the University of Toronto and McGill University in Montreal. He began his professional career in 1997 with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. He was an original member of the IRIS Orchestra (Tenn.) and has played at or with the Bellingham Festival of Music (Wash.), Blossom Music Festival at Kent University (Ohio), Spoleto Festival USA, Tanglewood Music Center (Mass.), the Memphis Chamber Music Society and the National Repertory Orchestra (Colo.).
STEPHENSON, principal trumpet: Comes from Fairfax Station, Va., where he began playing the trumpet at age 10. He has a bachelor’s degree from Juilliard and a master’s from Northwestern University, maintains a private trumpet studio and is a brass coach for Midwest Young Artists (Ill.). He’s performed at the Aspen Music Festival (Colo.), the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival (Germany) and at Tanglewood Music Center (Mass.).
AGAPOVA, first violinist: The Russia native came to the United States in 2005 to study, and graduated from Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music last May. She has appeared as a soloist with orchestras in England, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania and Russia.
