Violinist Heather LeDoux Green joined the National Symphony Orchestra in 2005 and became a member of the first violin section in 2007. She came to the NSO after spending two years as assistant concertmaster of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. Prior to Washington D.C., Green was a member of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. She received her Master of Music degree from Rice University studying with Sergiu Luca. As an undergraduate, she was a student of esteemed violinist Camilla Wicks. She considers Wicks her greatest mentor, dutifully following her to three schools and graduating from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As a chamber musician, she is a new member of the Manchester String Quartet and has performed with the Kennedy Center Chamber Players, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Eclipse, Spoleto, Sun Valley, Music in the Mountains, and Round Top. She has participated in Italy’s Accademia Chigiana, Mozarteum Academy in Austria, and the Amadeus Quartet Program in London. She has soloed with the NSO, performing Tan Dun’s “Hero” Concerto with the composer conducting. Most recently, she and NSO bassist Paul DeNola have written a comedic children’s program featuring short classical works. They have been featured in the Kennedy Center Family Theater and perform regularly for schools sharing music and humor with young audiences.

National Symphony Orchestra Principal Violist Daniel Foster’s varied career encompasses orchestral, chamber, and solo playing, as well as teaching. Since capturing the First Prize in both the William Primrose and Washington International Competitions, he has appeared in recital and as soloist with orchestra in Washington, D.C., and throughout the United States. After Studying with Jeffrey Irvine and Lynne Ramsey at Oberlin Conservatory and with Karen Tuttle at The Curtis Institute, Mr. Foster joined the National Symphony’s viola section in 1993 and was appointed Principal by Music Director Leonard Slatkin in 1995. Foster has appeared frequently as soloist with the National Symphony since his appointment.

Foster was a member of the critically acclaimed Dryden Quartet, which he founded along with his cousins Nicolas and Yumi Kendall and National Symphony Concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef. He is currently a member of the 21st Century Consort, and is a founding member of the Kennedy Center Chamber Players. Foster has performed chamber music at the Marlboro, Bowdoin, Killington, and Alpenglow Festivals, and at Strings in the Mountains. Foster appears regularly on a number of chamber music series in the Washington, D.C. area.

Foster is on the faculty at the University of Maryland, where his former students have gone on to major orchestral and university positions, and he has been a faculty member at the Bowdoin and Killington festivals. Foster has given master classes at Oberlin and Peabody Conservatories, the University of Michigan and the Cleveland Institute of Music and is a member of the “International Principals” faculty at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan.

Foster comes from a musical family. In addition to his violinist and cellist cousins, his father William was also a violist with the National Symphony from 1968–2018, and his grandfather John Kendall was a renowned violin pedagogue. His wife Adria Sternstein Foster is the Principal Flutist of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra.

David Hardy, principal cello of the National Symphony Orchestra, achieved international recognition in 1982 as the top American prize winner at the seventh International Tchaikovsky Cello Competition in Moscow. Hardy won a special prize for the best performance of the Suite for Solo Cello by Victoria Yagling, commissioned for the competition. Tass particularly praised Mr. Hardy's performance of the Dvořák Cello Concerto. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, David Hardy began his cello studies there at the age of eight. He was 16 when he made his debut as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

When he was 21 years old, Mr. Hardy won the certificate in the prestigious Geneva International Cello Competition. The next year, he was graduated from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Laurence Lesser, Stephen Kates, and Berl Senofsky. In 1981, he was appointed to the National Symphony Orchestra as associate principal cello by its then music director, Mstislav Rostropovich. In 1994, Hardy was named principal cello of the NSO by its next music director, Leonard Slatkin. Hardy made his solo debut with the National Symphony Orchestra in 1986 with Mstislav Rostropovich conducting. A regular soloist with the NSO, Hardy, in 2004, gave the world premiere performance, with Leonard Slatkin conducting, of Stephen Jaffe's Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, which was commissioned by the John and June Hechinger Fund for New Orchestral Works. Hardy gave the European premiere of the Jaffe concerto in Slovenia in 2007. Bridge Records released the premiere recording of the Concerto with Mr. Hardy and the Odense Symphony of Denmark.

The National Symphony Orchestra recording of John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1 featuring Hardy's solo cello performance won the 1996 Grammy Award^® for Best Classical Album. Another recent recording—in collaboration with NSO principal keyboard Lambert Orkis—is Beethoven Past & Present, consisting of two complete performances of Beethoven's eight works for piano and cello, performed on both modern and period instruments. Hardy is a founding member of the Opus 3 Trio with violinist Charles Wetherbee and pianist Lisa Emenheiser. The Opus 3 Trio has since performed to critical acclaim across the country and has commissioned, premiered, and recorded many new works. Mr. Hardy is also a founding member of the Kennedy Center Chamber Players. Additionally, Mr. Hardy was cellist of the 20th Century Consort in Washington, D.C., where he premiered works by Stephen Albert, Nicholas Maw, and Joseph Schwantner. Hardy's playing can be heard on recordings under the Melodyia, Educo, RCA, London, Centaur, and Delos labels.

Critics in Washington and beyond have praised his virtuosic technique and deep musical sensitivity. Hardy's instruments were made by Carlo Giuseppe Testore in 1694 and Raymond Hardy in 2000.

In addition to his performing schedule, Mr. Hardy is professor of cello at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland.

Lambert Orkis's substantial career includes more than 11 years of concertizing with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. For 30 years, the celebrated duo of violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and pianist Lambert Orkis has appeared to capacity audiences in the finest performance venues. The duo's many recordings and DVDs for Deutsche Grammophon include sonata cycles by Mozart (Choc de l'annee Award), Beethoven (Grammy Award^®), and Brahms. Recent releases include The Silver Album celebrating 25 years of their artistic partnership, The Club Album issued in both CD and video formats, and a performance of Krzysztof Penderecki's Sonata No. 2 for violin and piano in commemoration of the composer's 85th birthday.

Orkis has premiered and recorded compositions by numerous composers for bridge Records, including solo works written for him by George Crumb, Richard Wernick, and James Primosch. With NSO Principal Cello David Hardy, Orkis performs Beethoven's cycle of works for piano and cello on the Sono Luminus label. He appears regularly at the most prestigious festivals throughout the world, such as the Salzburg and Lucerne Festivals, and recently returned to Sydney as distinguished performing artist and teacher for Australia Musica Viva Festival. He performs and has recorded as a member of the Kennedy Center Chamber Players and the Smithsonian Institution's Castle Trio (period instruments), and holds the positions of Principal Keyboard of the National Symphony Orchestra and Professor of Piano at Temple University in Philadelphia. The Federal Republic of Germany has bestowed upon Lambert Orkis the Cross of the Order of Merit in acknowledgment of his accomplishments.