Boston Symphony Orchestra Bids Farewell to Three Long-Time Musicians

Violinist Valeria Vilker Kuchment, bassist John Stovall, and principal flutist Elizabeth Rowe have served a combined 94 years with the orchestra

Second violinist Valeria Vilker Kuchment, bassist John Stovall, and principal flutist Elizabeth Rowe recently performed their final concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). 

Combined, all three musicians have played with the BSO for nearly a century; Vilker Kuchment played with the BSO for 38 years, Stovall was with the orchestra for 36 years, and Rowe performed in the ensemble for 20 years. 

“Join us in celebrating the remarkable careers of three musicians who took their final bows with us on July 28: [Kuchment, Stovall, and Rowe],” the Boston Symphony posted on Instagram. “We will miss them onstage and wish them the best as they embark on their next adventures!”

Vilker Kuchment graduated from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory as a student of Yuri Yankelevich, and was a prizewinner at the Prague and Munich International Violin Competitions. She arrived in the U.S. in 1975 and joined the BSO at the beginning of the 1986/87 season. She has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra, and performed internationally and with artists including Gil Shaham, Garrick Ohlsson, and Emanuel Ax.

She has also performed with the Apple Hill Chamber Players, SinfoNova, Harvard Chamber Orchestra, Handel and Haydn Society, and Boston Philharmonic, as a first violinist. Additionally, she teaches at the New England Conservatory (NEC), Longy School of Music, Tanglewood Music Center, and Boston University Tanglewood Institute.

Born in 1958 in Casper, Wyoming, Stovall first studied piano before beginning the double bass in high school. He attended the University of Texas in 1978, before transferring to NEC to study with BSO’s assistant principal bass Lawrence Wolfe, graduating in 1983.  

Prior to joining the BSO at the start of the 1988/89 season, Stovall played with the Houston and New Orleans symphonies and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. He was a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow during the summers of 1981 and 1982, plus participated in the Grand Teton and Aspen music festivals and the Congress of Strings in Seattle.

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she was a student of Julius Baker and Jeffrey Khaner, Klein joined the BSO in 1994 and was named associate principal flute in 1997.

She has premiered several works written for her, plus been featured in BSO performances of Frank Martin’s Concerto for Seven Winds, and performed as soloist with the Boston Pops, New Jersey Symphony, Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, and the Masterworks Festival Orchestra. 

In 2017, she graduated summa cum laude from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and has lectured and performed in lecture events on Christ and the arts at the Institute for Christian Unity and the Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts. Klein is also on the flute faculty of Boston University.