Leah Kyoungwoon Kim-Tomilson was born in Busan, South Korea where she served as the Associate Concertmaster for the Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra. In Philadelphia, she has performed with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra, the Opera Company of Philadelphia Orchestra, the Harrisburg Symphony, Lancaster Symphony, Delaware Symphony, Elysian Camerata, and Trio Excelsior. She is a founding member of the La Croix Quartet, Tononi Quartet, Sori Duo, and Caritas Trio.
She has served on the faculty at Temple University, West Chester University, Valley Forge Christian College, West Catholic Conservatory, Settlement Music School, and Peabody Conservatory Prep and as the Director of Music for the Rebecca Davis Dance Company.
Currently, Leah is the Director of Music at Villa Maria Academy High School, and is the Director of the Pennsylvania Youth Orchestra, Pennsylvania Petit Ensemble, and Vivace Competition and Chamberstrings Music Camp.
Leah studied Performance and Pedagogy at Juilliard, Peabody Conservatory, and the National Conservatory in France.
Musician Category: Fairmount String Quartet
Cellist Mimi Morris-Kim, loves playing chamber music on modern cello as well as continuo on Baroque cello. She has a doctorate in cello performance from the University of Michigan where she met her husband, harpsichordist and medical physicist, Leonard Kim and where she played with Fairmount String Quartet violinist Rachel Segal as a member of the University of Michigan Graduate String Quartet. Mimi performed as a member of the Ann Arbor Symphony for seven years. She performs frequently with the Riverside Symphony and as a substitute with many groups throughout the Delaware Valley. Mimi has three children, two of whom are among her twenty five cello students. Mimi is on the faculty of Princeton String Academy and has extensive training in the Suzuki method of cello instruction.
Rachel Segal, a native Philadelphian, is a violinist, educator, and the Founder and President of The Primavera Fund, a program that mentors and supports young musicians in Philadelphia. As an orchestral violinist, her career has taken her throughout the USA and abroad. She served as Concertmaster of the Central City Opera orchestra and as a violinist with the Colorado Symphony for twelve seasons, and has had posts as Concertmaster of the Orquestra Sinfonia Portugesa in Lisbon, Portugal, and as Fourth Chair of the Tampere Filharmonia in Tampere, Finland. She currently performs in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the Washington D.C. area with various orchestras. She began her career as Concertmaster of the South Bend Symphony in Indiana.
As an educator, Ms. Segal has held positions at Regis University and the Community College of Aurora in Colorado, Luzerne Music Center in New York, is Director of Chamber Music at the Music and Mindfulness camp in Virginia, and has been Associate Director of the Young Musicians Debut Orchestra since its inception.
Ms. Segal received her Bachelor of Music degree from The University of Michigan and her Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music. Prominent teachers include Sidney Harth, Paul Kantor, Barbara Govatos, and Jerome Wigler. She lives in the Brewerytown section of Philadelphia with her beagles Abby and Sam, and cats Gilbert and Sullivan.
Beth Dzwil, violist, founder, and director of the Fairmount String Quartet, is a seasoned chamber musician, performing for over thirty years with the Fairmount String Quartet and for fifteen years with the Elysian Camerata. She has been featured as a soloist with the Pottstown Symphony, where she served as principal violist for over twenty years, and with the Buxmont Chamber Players, the St. John’s Festival Orchestra, and the Fairmount Chamber Ensemble. In addition to her classical work, she has performed internationally and recorded six critically acclaimed jazz albums with the Tyrone Brown String Sextet. She teaches at the Community College of Philadelphia and the Haverford School, conducts the Philadelphia Sinfonia Strings youth orchestra, and coordinates the Adult Chamber Music Program at Settlement Music School.
