Zachary DePue has established himself in concert venues around the world delivering virtuosic high-energy performances. He demonstrates command as a leader, soloist, collaborator, and improvisational artist reaching across a diverse landscape of music. His authentic warmth and generosity on stage invites audiences to join him in all his explorations.

DePue became one of the youngest concertmasters in the country when he was appointed to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (ISO) in 2007. For more than a decade, DePue served the orchestra as a passionate and dedicated leader both in and outside the concert hall. He was named a member of the Stanley K. Lacy Executive Leadership Series, connecting Indianapolis’ emerging leaders to the issues and needs of the community.

DePue rose to international prominence as a founding member of Time for Three, with whom he performed for 15 years. During his tenure with the category-defying trio, he made numerous tours and gave high-profile appearances, including a performance on the 2014 semifinals round of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. They were the ISO’s first ensemble-in-residence, charged with introducing new audiences to the symphony experience and breathing fresh creative life into the orchestra’s Happy Hour Concert Series. DePue recorded four albums of original music and arrangements with Time For Three. Their 2014 release featured collaborations with ukulele phenom Jake Shimabukuro on “Happy Day,” the uplifting DePue-penned opening cut; saxophonist Branford Marsalisin the rollicky original “Queen of Voodoo;” cellist Alisa Weilerstein in a quartet version of Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise;” and singer/songwriter Joshua Radin in four of his early songs. The trio members were active creative partners in the commissioning of new pieces which were vehicles for collaborations with orchestras and the ensemble. Composers Jennifer Higdon, William Bolcom, and Chris Brubeck each contributed substantial pieces leading the trio to performances with orchestras across the country including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at their home venue and for their 2013 Carnegie Hall appearance, Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia, Wheeling Symphony, Brevard Festival Orchestra, among many others. The Trio also recorded Higdon’s Concerto 4-3 with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and appears on their 2012 Take Six release.

DePue’s earliest introduction to the stage came through performances with his family. He is the youngest of four brothers—all violinists—who make up The DePue Brothers Band, an eclectic ensemble that blends bluegrass and classical music, with elements of jazz, blues and rock. DePue graduated in 2002 from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he served as concertmaster of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and studied with renowned violinists Ida Kavafian and Jaime Laredo. He is a former member of the Philadelphia Orchestra where he performed in the first violin section for five years. He performs on a violin made by Giuseppe Rocca of Turin, Italy, in 1846.

Known for his “rich tone and lyrical acumen” (Chicago Tribune), violist Michael Isaac Strauss has performed around the world as a soloist, recitalist, in chamber music, and in symphonic settings. He made his solo debut with the Minnesota Orchestra in 1990 and has since appeared as featured solo or recording artist with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Orchestra 2001, Charleston Symphony, Harrisburg Symphony, and Camerata Chicago, among others. During his 20-year tenure as the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra principal violist, Strauss was also featured as soloist or collaborator in duo roles nearly every season.

Strauss’ current performing ventures are The Indianapolis Quartet (TIQ) and the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra.

He performs in TIQ with violinists Zachary DePue and Joana Genova and cellist Austin Huntington. The quartet is ensemble-in-residence at the University of Indianapolis, where they perform an annual series. Numerous collaborating guest artists have included pianists Orli Shaham, Drew Petersen, and Soyeon Kate Lee; clarinetist Todd Palmer; violists Atar Arad and Carrie Dennis; cellists Mark Kosower, Eric Kim, and Nicholas Cannellakis; and composers Frank Felice and Robert Paterson.

Strauss’ recent and upcoming engagements include TIQ’s New York debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, his chamber music performances with Yehuda Hanani on the series Close Encounters with Music, concerts with Urban Troubadours in Ohio, a solo recital in Philadelphia with pianist Hugh Sung, and featured solo appearances with the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra.

Strauss serves on the performing artist roster and faculty at the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival and the Berkshire High Peaks Festival.

A former member of the distinguished Fine Arts Quartet, Strauss performed across the U.S. and Europe and at festivals such as Schleswig-Holstein, Bayreuth, and Montpellier. In North America, Strauss has collaborated at summer festivals including LaJolla, Caramoor, Banff, Sewanee, and Eastern Music Festival. In recent concert seasons, he has performed string quintet works with the Calder, Cavani and Jupiter quartets. Recent festival faculty appointments and performances include the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival and the Berkshire High Peaks Festival. Strauss has performed and taught at the Beijing International Music Festival & Academy, Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, Sunflower Music Festival, and Brevard Music Festival. Strauss appears on annual chamber music series throughout the United States, and previously served as Artistic Director for his own series, Music@Shaarey Tefilla and Canale Music at the Indiana History Center, in the Indianapolis metro area for eight seasons.

Strauss’s May 2016 recording release, Wordless Verses, features trio repertoire for oboe, viola, and piano and is on the Oberlin Music label distributed by Naxos. Recent reviews praise the trio and their performances on this recording. Fanfare magazine called them “a formidable trio, virtuosos all, and they make much of the rich and colorful sonorities that their unusual ensemble affords” and wrote that they are “quite capable of lingering over a passage to splendid effect, or of finding a secondary voice that particularly illuminates a chord or phrase. This new recording, then, would be my first choice for the Loeffler and the White, and it is the only current recording of the Holbrooke Fairyland in the original scoring for oboe.” Cleveland Classical said resoundingly, “Who needs words when the playing is this poetic all by itself?”

Numerous other titles featuring Strauss can be found on the labels of I Virtuosi (debut recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Viola Sonata), CRI (David Finko’s Viola Concerto and 20th century chamber music works with the Philadelphia-based Orchestra 2001), Lyrinx (Mozart’s complete viola quintets with the Fine Arts Quartet in SACD), and Centaur (Stamitz’s works for solo viola with orchestra; reissue of David Finko’s Viola Concerto). He is also the featured recording artist on the Suzuki® Viola School Volumes 8 and 9.

A devoted teacher, Strauss serves on the faculty of the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University and the University of Indianapolis. He regularly presents master classes and coaches developing to advanced students and professionals in orchestral audition preparation. He has previously held faculty positions at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Roosevelt University, DePauw University, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Butler University, University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and Swarthmore College.

Strauss is a passionate advocate for community music education and has served on many local and national not-for-profit boards including the American Viola Society national board and local chapters in Indiana and Ohio, as well as President of the Board of Directors of the Indianapolis Suzuki Academy.

Strauss’s work has been honored with the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts Cinnamon Award, First Prize of the WAMSO Competition of the Minnesota Orchestra, Ealing prize at the Tertis International Viola Competition, Artist Fellowship Awards from South Carolina and Indiana, and a Creative Renewal Fellowship Award from the Arts Council of Indianapolis.

A native of Iowa, Strauss began his viola studies in Iowa City’s public schools. He continued under the tutelage of William Preucil, Sr., John Graham, and Karen Tuttle. He received additional training at Mannes College of Music and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Strauss is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and performs on a viola attributed to Matteo Albani of Bolzano, Italy in 1704.