Fulkerson, Gregory (Locke)

Fulkerson, Gregory (Locke), American violinist; b. Iowa City, May 9, 1950. He received lessons from Paul Kling in Louisville (1961–66), and then studied mathematics at Oberlin (Ohio) Coll. (B.A., 1971), where he also was a student at its Cons, of David Cerone, Richard Kapuszinski, and Robert Fountain (B.M., 1971). Following studies with Peter Marsh at the State Univ. of N.Y. in Binghamton (1974–75), he completed his education at the Juilliard School in N.Y. (M.M., 1977; D.M.A., 1987), where his mentors included Ivan Galamian, Felix Galimir, Robert Mann, and Dorothy DeLay. From 1971 to 1974 he played in the Cleveland Orch. He made his recital debut at Cleveland’s Music School Settlement House in 1973, and in 1974 he founded the Audubon String Quartet. From 1979 to 1981 he was concertmaster of the Honolulu Sym. Orch., with which he made his debut as a soloist in the Dvorak Concerto under Donald Johanos’s direction in 1979. In 1980 he won 1st prize in the International American Music Competition in Washington, D.C. His N.Y. recital debut followed at the 92^nd St. YMHA in 1981. He returned to N.Y. in 1982 as soloist in the Barber Concerto with the American Sym. Orch. conducted by David Ramadanoff. In 1983 he made debut appearances in London, Paris, Hannover, and Rome, and in 1991 in Santiago. In 1992 he appeared as Einstein in Glass’s Einstein on the Beach with the Philip Glass Ensemble at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Fulkerson’s enormous repertoire includes some 50 concertos. Among composers he has frequently played are Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schoenberg, Berg, Weill, and Barber. Several composers have written works for him, including Erb, Wernick, and Daugherty. Fulkerson also gave posthumous premieres of the concertos of John J. Becker (Cahttanooga, Jan. 18, 1983) and Roy Harris (Wilmington, N.C., March 21, 1984).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire