Special guests Eliot Heaton, Violin & John Madison, Viola - Mozart Sinfonia 

Eliot Heaton

Violinist Eliot Heaton is the current Concertmaster of the Detroit Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, and the Saginaw Bay Symphony. He previously served as Concertmaster of the Terre Haute Symphony and Oberlin Symphony orchestras, and has played as guest Concertmaster with the Lansing Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, and the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic. He also plays as an extra musician in both the Detroit and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. 

Eliot has appeared as a soloist with a number of orchestras throughout the midwest, performing a wide variety of concertos from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. He also performs regularly on a number of chamber series, including Chamber Soloists of Detroit, the Scarab Club, New Music Detroit, the Geneva Music Festival, and Manchester Summer Chamber Music.

Eliot was a double major at Oberlin College and Conservatory, earning degrees in History and in violin performance, the latter with Professor Marilyn McDonald. He later received his Master of Music degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying violin with Professor Kevork Mardirossian and completing an outside area specialty in jazz studies. When he’s not playing the violin, he enjoys reading, tennis, and spending time with his wife and their two cats. Eliot plays on a 2019 Joseph Curtin violin.

John Madison

John Alexander Madison received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Viola Performance from The University of Michigan and is currently the Principal Violist of The Detroit Opera Orchestra and performs regularly with The Detroit Symphony and the Sphinx Symphony Orchestras. He is a founding member of New Verse Chamber Ensemble and The Cassini Ensemble and performs chamber music as a guest with various chamber ensembles around the country. John has performed as soloist with the Detroit Symphony, Toledo Symphony, Jackson Symphony, Grosse Pointe Symphony, and Southfield Symphony and has performed as guest with The New York City Opera and toured the United States with the Paris Chamber Orchestra.

As an educator, John has taught at Sienna Heights College, University of Michigan, served as Dean of the Sphinx Preparatory Music program, and is currently on faculty at Wayne State University.

Outside of music, John is a master gardener and enjoys spending time both gardening and landscaping. He has also been a hospice volunteer for over 25 years, specializing in terminal children. John’s latest recording project “Of Time and Love”, music for contralto, viola and piano, was recently released on Centaur records.

More info to come!