Steven O. Laraia joins the Boston Symphony Orchestra viola section in the fall of 2019 after serving as principal viola of the Sarasota Orchestra for from 2015 to 2019. He has performed at music festivals including the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Yellow Barn Music Festival, and Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, and has toured in the U.S., Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Cuba with Sejong Soloists, A Far Cry, and Sphinx Virtuosi. Mr. Laraia has garnered top prizes at many competitions including the 2014 Hellam Competition, 2012 NEC Concerto Competition, 2012 MUSICCAS International Young Artists Competition, and Sphinx Competition, and he received the 2014 Borromeo Guest Artist Award. He holds bachelor and master of music degrees from the New England Conservatory, where he received the Abraham Skernick Memorial Presidential Scholarship. Mr. Laraia’s principal mentors include: Kim Kashkashian, Dimitri Murrath, Cathy Basrak, Byrnina Socolofsky, and Che-Hung Chen.

Kyle Brightwell began his musical studies on piano and guitar at age four, and began focusing on percussion studies at age eleven. An avid performer/percussionist living in Boston, Mr. Brightwell has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, U.S. Navy Band, U.S. Army Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfonica da Bahia (Brazil), Boston Philharmonic, and the New World Symphony, among others. Future and recent performances include those with Kansas City Symphony and the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra (Japan), as well as his solo debut with the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra performing James MacMillan's Veni, Veni, Emmanuelin March 2012. Mr. Brightwell's summer engagements have included fellowships at the Tanglewood Music Center, Pacific Music Festival, and National Orchestral Institute. In summer 2012 he teaches at Boston University's Tanglewood Institute (BUTI), where he spent three years as a student while in high school. In addition to his performance career, Kyle Brightwell is very dedicated to community outreach through music. While living in New York City, he was a faculty member at The Juilliard School's Music Advancement Program (MAP) for underprivileged inner-city youth, and was also appointed a fellow of the Gluck Community Service Fellowship (GCSF), for which he performed concerts throughout New York in homeless shelters, psychiatric wards, AIDS centers, and many more venues in need of music. Kyle Brightwell is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he studied with New York Philharmonic percussionist Daniel Druckman. He received his master's degree in spring 2012 from Boston University, where he studied with BSO principal timpanist Timothy Genis.

Daniel Getz joined the viola section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the start of the 2013-14 season. Raised in Bethesda, Maryland, Mr. Getz began studying violin at age eight and switched to the viola at sixteen, studying with National Symphony violist Mahoko Eguchi. In 2011 he received his bachelor of music degree from the New England Conservatory, where he was a student of Kim Kashkashian. He earned his master of music degree at the Juilliard School in 2013 as a student of Heidi Castleman and Robert Vernon. Daniel Getz has performed the Bartók, Walton, and Stamitz viola concertos as a soloist with various orchestras in his hometown. He also frequently performs chamber music concerts in the Greater Boston area and in the Berkshires with other members of the BSO. Mr. Getz teaches viola and chamber music at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School. Prior to joining the BSO, he performed as a substitute with the orchestra as well as with the New York Philharmonic. An alumnus of the Tanglewood Music Center, he has also participated at the Aspen Music Festival, Kneisel Hall, and the Perlman Music Program.