The Musical Moments recital series at the Geneva Public Library will feature Eliot Heaton, violin, and Meg Heaton, piano on Friday, September 19, starting at 7:30 p.m. in the library’s reading room.  The program will include the Beethoven Kreutzer sonata op 47, and pieces by Kreisler, Dvorak, and Franck. 

Eliot Heaton joined The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2024. He previously served as concertmaster of the Detroit Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, and the Saginaw Bay Symphony. He was also guest concertmaster with the Chautauqua, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Fort Wayne, and Terre Haute symphonies and has played in the sections of the Detroit and Pittsburgh symphonies.

Mr. Heaton has appeared as a soloist with a number of orchestras throughout the Midwest, performing concertos by Tchaikovsky, Korngold, Bruch, Khachaturian, Bach, Stravinsky, and Mozart. He is also an enthusiastic proponent of new music, an interest that began with Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble and continued with the Indiana New Music Ensemble and New Music Detroit.

Mr. Heaton was a double major at Oberlin College and Conservatory, earning degrees in history and violin performance while also competing on the tennis team. He later received his Master of Music degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music with a minor in jazz studies. His primary violin teachers included Marilyn McDonald, Kevork Mardirossian, Linda Case, and Jan Butler. When he’s not playing the violin, Mr. Heaton enjoys reading, tennis, and spending time with his wife and their two cats. He plays a 2019 Joseph Curtin violin.

Pianist Meg Cognetta Heaton trained at Oberlin, teaches at Hobart & Smith Colleges, and is the accompanist of the Hobart & William Smith Colleges Community Chorus. She has been a member of the Geneva Tuesday Piano Quartette for over thirty years, an ensemble dedicated to the playing of 8-hand piano arrangements of a wide variety of orchestral works.

The concert is free and open to the public.  

Musical Moments is long running, beloved concert series by local artists during the spring and fall. The Library is grateful to volunteer Tom McClure, who works hard to organize these events each year.

Musical Moments is possible thanks to sustaining financial gifts from Jane Crumlish, the Foundation for Geneva Public Library, and the efforts of volunteers. To find out more about volunteering, please visit here.