Elizabeth Oakes is a founding member of the Maia Quartet, which is currently in residence at the University of Iowa. As a member of the Quartet, she has performed throughout the United States, Asia, Canada and Europe and has concertized in major halls including New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, the 92nd Street Y and Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center. Ms. Oakes’s recent collaborations include Maia Quartet performances with Cynthia Phelps, Joel Krosnick, Andre Michel Schub and Helen Callus. An avid proponent of living composers, Ms. Oakes has been involved both in commissions and premieres of new works, including compositions by Pierre Jalbert, Dan Coleman, Vivian Fung and Donald Grantham.

Ms. Oakes’s upcoming season highlights with the Maia Quartet include performances at Friends of Chamber Music series in Kansas City, The Zimmerli Art Museum series and an all Brahms festival in Hokaido, Japan. She will also be performing this spring with violist Dan Avshalomov and singer Gudrun Buehler and will part of a Maia Quartet CD of string quartets of Grieg, Nielsen and Pierre Jalbert released in 2009. This summer Ms. Oakes will be returning to teach at Interlochen’s Advanced String Quartet Program.

Ms. Oakes was a founder of the Foothills Chamber Music Festival in North Carolina and served both as one of its directors and regular performers. Her solo performances with orchestra have included concerts with the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra. She has served as assistant principal of the Canton (OH) Symphony Orchestra and as principal of both the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra and the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra.

In February 2007, Ms. Oakes, as a member of the Maia Quartet, programmed and coordinated Scandinavian/NordicFest - the largest interdisciplinary undertaking ever to take place at the University of Iowa’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences This month long festival, with chamber music at the heart of event, included film, theater, dance, lectures, recitals and a large outreach component. Last season, Ms. Oakes worked with colleagues in the University of Iowa Music Therapy Department and University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics to focus on impact that music has on our health and wellbeing. “Music, Healthcare and Well Being” included concerts highlighting breast cancer awareness, MS, hospice care and hearing loss.

Currently on the string faculty at the University of Iowa, Ms. Oakes works with a range of students, including viola majors and chamber music students. Before coming to Iowa, she previously served on the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Her summer teaching engagements have included the Great Wall International Music Academy in Beijing, China, Interlochen Arts Camp, the Austin Chamber Music Festival.

A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory, Ms. Oakes received a Bachelor of Music degree in viola performance as a student of Jeffrey Irvine. She continued with a Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music with Heidi Castleman and a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Conservatory of Music with Paul Coletti. At the Juilliard School, she served as a teaching assistant to Sam Rhodes of the Juilliard Quartet and subsequently served on the chamber music faculty of the Peabody Conservatory.