2025 Ann Divine Educator Award Winner Announced
Verona Quartet Named Fischoff’s 2025 Ann Divine Educator Award Winner
Notre Dame, IN – The Fischoff National Chamber Music Association is delighted to announce that Verona Quartet has been selected as the winner of Fischoff’s 2025 Ann Divine Educator Award. This national award recognizes the educational outreach work of Fischoff Competition alumni who have demonstrated outstanding and imaginative programming for children and youth in the United States. It honors musicians who have established professional careers in chamber music, and have proven their ability to successfully build a career in both chamber music performance and educational outreach.
Named in honor of retired Executive Director, Ann Divine, this award recognizes her visionary leadership in cultivating community outreach through chamber music. As winner of the Ann Divine Educator Award, Verona Quartet will receive a coveted endorsement from Fischoff, a cash award, and a weeklong residency in St. Joseph and Elkhart Counties in Indiana. Taking place in Fall 2025, Verona Quartet will conduct workshops and perform interactive concerts in schools, community centers, and libraries. The week will include multiple performances of Fischoff’s flagship program, Stories and Music: S.A.M. I Am, which musically reenacts a children’s book and will be featured as part of the St. Joseph County Public Library’s Explore-a-Story festival. Verona Quartet will also work with Fischoff’s Chamber Music Academy and Elkhart County’s El Sistema (ECoSistema) students to dig deeper into the art of chamber music with children and teens who would otherwise not have access to these opportunities.
*Photography credit: Mike Grittani
Verona Quartet consists of violinists Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro, violist Abigail Rojansky, and cellist Jonathan Dormand. With members from Singapore, Canada, United Kingdom, and United States, the Verona Quartet is in residence at the Oberlin Conservatory and has performed across four continents include such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, and Melbourne Recital Hall, in addition to appearances at La Jolla Summerfest, Chamber Music Northwest, Bravo! Vail, Caramoor, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
The Quartet is an active proponent of community engagement through its work with K-12 students. Their early days included a community engagement project in Danville, Illinois, where over two years the Quartet curated a chamber music series and gave outreach performances and masterclasses across elementary, middle, and high schools in the city, resulting in an increase in K-12 music class enrollment to almost double the Illinois state average. More recently, they served as the Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at Caramoor Center for Music and Art, where they performed and taught at over forty K-12 schools in the region. In their role as the Quartet-in-Residence at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, they also engage with audiences outside of the concert hall, in venues such as hospitals, elderly homes, and various businesses. At the Conservatory, they work extensively with students from both the Conservatory and the College of Arts and Sciences; in addition to private teaching and chamber music coaching, they also mentor pre-formed student quartets in the Advanced Quartet Seminar. The ensemble also curates the Oberlin Arts & Sciences Chamber Collective, a collaborative initiative that unites students from across the Conservatory, the College of Arts & Sciences, and members of the Oberlin community. Other quartet residencies include the Indiana University Summer String Academy and the ENCORE Chamber Music Institute.
Fischoff’s Education Director, Kara Kane, explains that, “Verona Quartet has had a meteoric rise since being at Fischoff in 2013, culminating in the quartet’s crowning as the 2020 Cleveland Quartet Winner and then Quartet-in-Residence at Oberlin College & Conservatory. Verona has been able to leverage their international sensibilities to produce richly curated experiences for their audiences. I can’t wait to see how their commitment to community engagement and impressive work with K-12 students will manifest itself in Fischoff’s Stories & Music (S.A.M. I Am) program and ongoing collaboration with our ECoSistema partner musicians. We are also excited to give area pre-college students in our Fischoff Chamber Music Academy and other high school partnerships the opportunity to take a deeper dive into cultivating a sense of community through chamber music.”
On behalf of Verona Quartet, Dorothy Ro responded to news of the award, “We are thrilled and deeply honored to receive the 2025 Ann Divine Educator Award from the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association. Fischoff has been a cherished part of our quartet’s journey, and this recognition energizes our ongoing commitment to music education and community engagement. We believe wholeheartedly in the power of chamber music to inspire, spark connection, and uplift lives. We’re excited to return to Indiana this November to share that joy with students and communities throughout St. Joseph and Elkhart Counties. Our sincerest thanks to Fischoff and to Ann Divine for their unwavering dedication to education in the arts. We are grateful for the opportunity to carry their mission forward.”
Fischoff’s Educator Award Residency is generously made possible in part by the Moore Fund.
Contact: Kara Kane, Education Director
kara@fischoff.org
www.fischoff.org
About Fischoff
Founded in South Bend, IN, in 1973, the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association hosts the Fischoff Competition, the largest and longest-running chamber music competition in the nation. More than 8,400 musicians have participated, many of whom have gone on to distinguished careers in music performance and education.
This unique arts organization has secured its place as the nation’s premier educational chamber music competition because of the caliber of its jurors, performance venues, and well-known alumni. It is also known for extensive outreach programming during the competition and throughout the year. The Fischoff uniquely partners with competition alumni to bring free, innovative music programs directly to children in their own schools and community centers. Since 1995, these programs have served more than 105,000 community children, reaching more than 6,000 underserved youth annually.
