Department of Music

Lois Finkel, violinist, has taught at Brown University since 1986 and has served as the Director of Strings and Chamber Music since 2017.  She did her undergraduate studies at Cornell University where she studied with Sonya Monosoff, and her graduate studies at the Eastman School of Music under Sylvia Rosenberg and Abram Loft.  

Lois is a tenured member of the Rhode Island Philharmonic where she plays Assistant Principal Second Violin.  In the summer she plays at the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming.

Lois was a founding member of the Charleston String Quartet which held residencies at Haverford College and Connecticut College.  They were chosen to attend the Aspen Institute for Advanced Quartet Studies and toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe.  She has been coached by the Juilliard Quartet, the Fine Arts Quartet, the Cleveland Quartet, Budapest Quartet, YoYo Ma, Patricia Zander, Eugene Lehner, Malcolm Bilson, Donald Weilerstein, Peter Salaff, and Paul Katz among others. 

She attended Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute and was chosen to participate in the National Endowment for the Humanities Beethoven String Quartet Seminar with Lewis Lockwood at Harvard.  

Lois is the Chair of Chamber Music at the Rhode Island Philharmonic and Music School.  In addition to the regular chamber music program she organizes a chamber music workshop for children and amateur adults.