Violinist Cara Schlecker, alumna of The University of Michigan and the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings, is an avid performer and teacher in the Chicagoland area and the current concertmaster of the West Suburban Symphony Orchestra. Formerly, she was the concertmaster and soloist for the Star Gate Orchestra and a Member of The Civic Orchestra of Chicago. 

 

Ms. Schlecker has performed internationally in both the Rome Chamber Music Festival and the InterHarmony Festival of Hinterzarten, Germany. She made her Lincoln Center debut in 2012 and has had the pleasure of performing several times at both the Stanley Kaplan Penthouse and Le Poisson Rouge. She has been featured on Chicago’s classical station WFMT radio’s “Introductions.” Ms. Schlecker was featured on national television with the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings in their PBS special, “A Grand Mercer Christmas.” 

 

She has performed and toured with artists such as Rod Stewart, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Chuck Leavell, Jo Dee Messina, the “Ten Tenors” of Broadway, and Martin Short, to name a few. A frequent recitalist, Ms. Schlecker has performed chapter recitals on behalf of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Wagner Society of America. Her recording, of Igor Frolov's Concert Fantasy on Themes from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, was released through The University of Michigan's “Gershwin Initiative.” Ms. Schlecker is on faculty at Triton College and has served on faculty at Sherwood Conservatory of Music at Columbia College Chicago