Arlette Aslanian-Townsend

Arlette Aslanian-Townsend has been the Concertmaster of the Stratus Chamber Orchestra (formerly called Music Sacra Chamber Orchestra) for over 20 years. During this time, she has gone on three European tours with the group and has soloed on countless occasions. She is also violinist in the New Dawn String Quartet, which consists of string Principals from Stratus.

As an extremely active freelance violinist, she has played with numerous professional ensembles throughout the region. Some of the groups she’s played with are the Boulder Philharmonic, the Mercury Ensemble, the Fort Collins Symphony and the Denver Opera Company, to name just a few. Besides her many performing engagements, Mrs. Aslanian-Townsend maintains a large private violin and viola teaching studio in Denver, and is a long-time faculty member of Denver Talent Education, where she teaches orchestra and repertoire classes. She is a regular guest clinician at various institutes and workshops throughout the country and has judged many competitions.

Mrs. Aslanian-Townsend received her Master of Music degree from the University of Denver and her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her primary teachers have been Harold Wippler, James Maurer, William Starr, Sally O’Reilly, Kevork Mardirossian and Dinos Constantinides. Mrs. Aslanian-Townsend continues to further her education by regularly attending the Starling-Delay Symposium at Juilliard, International Suzuki conferences and local workshops. She is the past President of the Suzuki Association of Colorado and was the Suzuki Youth Orchestra of the Americas (SYOA) Coordinator at a Suzuki Association of the Americas International conference.

Previously she worked for ten years with Boulder Suzuki Strings and had a two-year tenure as Musical Director at Cherry Creek High School. There she coached string quartets and conducted its two large orchestras. She has coached chamber music at Denver Talent Education, Boulder Suzuki Strings and many summer camps. At the University of Denver, her string quartet won the schoolwide chamber music competition and was invited to open for the grammy awardwinning Takacs quartet. Mrs. Aslanian-Townsend was the first violinist and contractor for the Eine Kleine Quartet for over twenty years.

Besides music, her passions include traveling with her husband, ethnic cooking, hosting parties and playing with her cats “Hansel and Gretel.”