Thirty-year-old violinist Greg Staples joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in December 1999. A native Detroiter, Gregory returned to the Motor City from Atlanta, where he served in the First Violin section of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since 1994. In the fall of 1998, Staples was appointed Acting Assistant Concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony.

The son of former DSO Concertmaster Gordon Staples and longtime first violin section member Beatriz Budinsky, Gregory will now share the Orchestra Hall stage with both his mother and his former teacher, Principal Second violin Geoffrey Applegate. As winner of the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra’s concerto competition, Gregory soloed with the DSO in 1987 and again in 1993. In 1988, Gregory was one of seven American violinists chosen to participate in the first American-Soviet Youth Symphony, which toured the United States and the former Soviet Union.

A 1993 graduate of the Indiana University School of Music, where he earned an Artists’ Diploma, Gregory is also an avid chamber music enthusiast and performs on a 1775 Ferdinand Gagliano violin. Gregory has appeared with the Grosse Pointe Symphony Orchestra and the Birmingham Bloomfield Symphony, as well as at the Grand Teton Music Festival and the Holland Music Festival.

Violinist Adrienne Rönmark holds a Master’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a Bachelor’s degree with Honors from The University of Michigan. She served as Assistant and Associate Concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony from 1999-2007, and since 2008 is a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s 1st Violin section.

An avid solo and chamber musician, Adrienne has been featured as soloist with the Detroit Symphony on several occasions, as well as the Warren, Birmingham-Bloomfield, Grosse Pointe, and Southern Great Lakes Symphony Orchestras. Her chamber music collaborations have taken her across the globe with artists such as Pinchas Zukerman, Nigel Kennedy, and the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings. Notably, Adrienne is a founding member of New Music Detroit (a dynamic contemporary music collective), the Gamar Duo (with her mother, DSO cellist, Debra Fayroian), and the Great Waters Quartet.

Outside of her performances, Adrienne maintains a private studio of violin students in Troy, where she lives with her husband and three children.

Mike Chen received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Northwestern University, studying violin with Blair Milton. In 1999 he began playing the viola and studied with Li-kuo Chang. His other teachers included Michael Strauss, Peter Slowik, Keith Conant and Baird Dodge.

Mike was a member of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra from 2012 to 2018, a member of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2003 to 2012, and prior to that, a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 1992 to 1995. He has performed with the Detroit Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony. In 2017, Mike joined the Cincinnati Symphony on its European Festivals Tour.

He received a Master’s degree in Conducting at Northwestern University in 1999, studying with Victor Yampolsky and Mariusz Smolij. His other conducting teachers include Gilbert Varga, David Zinman, and Murry Sidlin.

Mike was a conducting fellow at the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen, Colorado in 2008. He has also served as Assistant Conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra, guest conductor of the Webster University Community Music School’s Young People’s Symphony Orchestra, and guest conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Side-by-Side Orchestra.

Peter McCaffrey has been a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra cello section since 2012.

Prior to joining the DSO, Peter served as principal cellist of the Louisville Orchestra and of the South Florida Symphony. Since moving to Detroit, Peter has become an advocate for the roll that the arts can play in helping to revitalize a city. He is frequently found performing in schools, hospitals, retirement homes, bars, religious institutions, and was featured in a National Geographic video about the comeback of Detroit.

Peter has soloed with many orchestras, including subscription concerts with the Louisville Orchestra, the Royal Oak Symphony and the Windy City String Ensemble while on tour in Australia. As a chamber musician, Peter has had the opportunity to travel around the country and abroad performing in concert series and music festivals. His college string quartet was a finalist in the Coleman International Chamber Music Competition, and he currently performs with the Great Waters String quartet made up of fellow DSO musicians.

Peter earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in cello performance from the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. His primary teachers have been Eleonore Schoenfeld, Gerard Mantel, Richard Hirschl, and Gilda Barston. Peter performs on an 1880 Postiglione cello.

Testimony Sings with Alvin Waddles