Department of Music

Lenora-Marya Anop joined the faculty of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 1997, where she is currently Professor of Music (Violin) and Director of Strings. She teaches undergraduate and graduate violin and viola majors, coaches chamber music, and regularly performs as the violinist of the LeClaire Piano Trio. Her students have successfully won positions with orchestras both in the United States and in Asia, have competed in national chamber music competitions, and have been appointed to teaching positions across the country. Awarded a Funded University Research (FUR) grant, she is currently doing collaborative research with neurologist Dr. Anna Conti, working on the topic of posture and correct muscular alignment as it directly relates to the physical aspect of violin playing and postural set-up. A Presser Foundation scholar, Dr. Anop was the founder and director of the SIUE summer String Quartet Institute, and is listed in the 2007 edition of Who’s Who in America.

She continues to perform regularly as a soloist, a chamber musician and as a concertmaster. She “played with balance and sympathy ... [and] achieved a fine, lyric intensity” (Cleveland Plain Dealer); had “beautiful soloistic passages ... well-performed” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch); and was “ravishing ... with [her] lean yet intense first violin particularly capturing the spirit of [the] music” (San Francisco Chronicle). She performs regularly with the renowned Czech organist Karel Paukert, and also enjoys playing numerous solos and live radio broadcasts every year at the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica with organist John Romeri. Since 2000, she has immensely enjoyed being the Concertmaster of the Bach Society of Saint Louis Orchestra (A. Dennis Sparger, Music Director), and is a featured soloist on their most recent CD (titled Gloria) recorded live in front of an audience of 2,000 listeners performing the quintessential violin solo: Bach-Gounod’s Ave Maria. In this capacity, she is often heard on Classic 99, the classical radio station of St. Louis. She also is the Concertmaster of the Masterworks Chorale Orchestra (Ill.), and the Saint Louis Archdiocesan Orchestra. She has performed as a replacement violinist with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Before coming to SIUE, Dr. Anop performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia as First Violin of the Rackham String Quartet (1991-97), winning five leading chamber music competitions in 1992 and 1993, including First Prize at the Carmel Chamber Music Competition, and the Grand Prize at the Colemann Chamber Music Competition. The Strad magazine labeled them “a force to be reckoned with” following their performance at the Evian (France) International String Quartet Competition. Champions of contemporary music, the Rackhams worked with and performed works by leading composers, including Ned Rorem, William Albright, and György Ligeti. The Quartet apprenticed with the Cleveland Quartet at the Eastman School of Music, followed by a three year Rural Residency in Monterey County, California funded in large part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and Chamber Music America.

Dr. Anop received her Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) degree from the University of Michigan; her Master of Music (M.M.) from Yale University, and her Bachelor of Music (B.M. with Honors in Performance) from the New England Conservatory of Music. Her primary teachers included Dorothy DeLay, Paul Kantor, Ida Kavafian and William Preucil. Chamber music studies were under the guidance of members of the Cleveland, Emerson, Vermeer, Tokyo, Juilliard, Concord and the historic Kolish String Quartets, and the Beaux Arts Trio.