A member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s
Chamber Ensemble, Dana has performed as guest principal viola of the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra and as a member of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Praised for her rich and beautiful tone, Dana has been a top prizewinner in the Sphinx Music Competition, the Irving M. Klein International String Competition, the M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition and the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition. She serves on the viola faculty of the Mannes School of Music at The New School.

Dana received an Artist Diploma in String Quartet Studies with the Argus Quartet as the 2017-2019 Graduate Quartet in Residence at The Juilliard School. Dana was a 2014-2016 Fellow in Ensemble Connect - a performance and teaching program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute. She received her Bachelor’s of Music from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, and completed her Master’s of Music degree as student of Kim Kashkashian’s at the New England Conservatory.

Leila Adu-Gilmore is an astonishing force in the space where avant-classical composition, electropop and singer-songwriter meet. Exploring her roots in New Zealand, Britain and Ghana, Adu is an international performer/composers who has composed for the Brentano 

String Quartet, Bang on a Can, the London Sinfonietta, the Crossing, Mivos String Quartet, So Percussion, Gamelan Padhang Moncar, Orchestra Wellington, as well as performing and having compositions performed at Ojai Music Festival, and Magdalena Opera.

She received BMus from Victoria University of Wellington, and her doctorate in music composition at Princeton University, and is currently an assistant professor in the music technology program in the music and performing arts professions department at Steinhardt, New York University. n 2022, Leila Adu–Gilmore has been awarded a Charles Ives Composer Fellowship’s from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The Verona Quartet has firmly established itself amongst the most distinguished ensembles on the chamber music scene today. Winner of Chamber Music America’s 2020 Cleveland Quartet Award, the quartet has appeared across four continents, captivating audiences at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center (New York City), Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.), Jordan Hall (Boston), Wigmore Hall (U.K.) and Melbourne Recital Hall (Australia), and has performed at festivals including La Jolla Summerfest, Chamber Music Northwest, Caramoor, the Texas Music Festival, Bravo! Vail, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

The Verona  Quartet serves on the faculty of the Oberlin College and Conservatory as the Quartet-in-Residence. In addition to its position at Oberlin, the Quartet recently held residencies at Nova Scotia’s Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance, North Carolina’s Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle and the ENCORE Chamber Music Institute. As committed advocates of diverse programming, the Verona Quartet curated the UpClose Chamber Music Series on behalf of the COT, electrifying audiences with their “sensational, powerhouse performance[s]” (Classical Voice America). 

The ensemble’s “vibrant, intelligent” (The New York Times) performances emanate from the spirit of storytelling; the Quartet believes that this transcends genre and therefore the name “Verona” pays tribute to William Shakespeare, one of the greatest storytellers of all time.