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.