Allegro features talented soloists from around the world and from our own backyard! For our 2008 season, we are pleased to welcome Dara Morales. She will perform Mozart's Violin Concerto No 5 in our June concert.

Violinist Dara Burkholder Morales is the newly appointed Assistant Principal Second Violin of the Philadelphia Orchestra. A native of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, she previously held positions as Principal Second Violin of the Utah Symphony and Opera, Principal Second Violin and Interim Associate Concertmaster of the Puerto Rico Symphony, and Concertmaster of the Northern Kentucky Symphony. Ms. Morales earned both her Bachelors and Masters degrees in music from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she acted as graduate teaching assistant and taught in the prestigious Starling Preparatory Program. She was a valedictorian of the 1992 class of Ephrata High School.

As soloist, she has performed with the Utah Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Puerto Rico Symphony, the Bangor Symphony, and the Lancaster Symphony, among others. During recent summers, she has been a regular participant in the Grand Tetons Music Festival, the Park City Chamber Music Festival, and the Intermezzo Chamber Series. Her principal teachers include Kurt Sassmannshaus, Helen Kwalwasser, and Dorothy DeLay, and chamber music studies with Peter Oundjian, Henry Meyer, and the Tokyo Quartet. She lives with her husband Jesús, a cellist, and their baby daughter Isabel in center city Philadelphia.