Meet the founders
Jake Fowler
Cellist
New Orleans-based cellist Jacob Fowler is the Founding Director of the Surf and Sounds Chamber Music Series (Outer Banks, North Carolina) and has performed with members of the Manhattan Chamber Players, Dover and Escher Quartets and the Lysander Trio at festivals around the world including the SXSW Festival in Austin.
Mr. Fowler is a former tenured member of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and former Principal Cellist of the Shen Yun Performing Arts Orchestra, with which he travelled throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Mr. Fowler has also served as adjunct faculty at Virginia Wesleyan College and the Fei Tian Academy and College.
Elizabeth crute
Violinist
Violinist Elizabeth Crute enjoys an active career as a chamber musician, orchestra player, and music educator. She is a founding member of the chamber music collective the Delachaise Ensemble, regularly performs with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and has performed with popular artists including the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Andrea Bonelli, T.I., and Sarah Brightman, and appeared in Showtime’s On Becoming a God in Central Florida. Elizabeth frequently collaborates with local artists for multidisciplinary projects and recordings with musicians and composers, including recently performing with the Marigny Opera Ballet, Melange Dance Company, Versipel New Music, and at the 2026 Overlook Film Festival.
She toured with ARCO Chamber Orchestra in Italy, which included performing at the 2011 UNESCO Conference in Venice at Teatro La Fenice and was involved in multiple performances and recordings of classical and contemporary music with the ensemble. She has been an invited artist with the Northern Neck Chamberfest, Crescent City Chamber Music Festival, and the Woodlands Chamberfest. A passionate music educator, Elizabeth teaches 3rd and 4th grade strings at the Homer Plessy Community School in New Orleans and maintains a vibrant home studio of violin students.
moises cunha
Violinist
Increasingly recognized as a versatile and passionate performer, Brazilian-born violinist Moises Bonella Cunha has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Brazil, Italy, Russia, and United States. Moises has been featured as a soloist with major Brazilian symphonic and chamber orchestras, including Bahia Symphony Orchestra, Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra, and Theatro Sao Pedro Chamber Orchestra.
Passionate about chamber music, Moises is Artistic DIrector of the Northern Neck Chamberfest, and a frequent artist at the Northern Neck Chamber Music Series in Virginia. Since 2018, Moises has served as Concertmaster and Artist-in-Residence of the Northern Neck Orchestra in Virginia and makes regular appearances with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in New Orleans.
Musicians
Catherine Matushek
Violist
Catherine Matushek is originally from Pittsburgh, PA, where she started playing viola at age 8 through her public school. She moved to New Orleans in 2015, and became a full-time member of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in 2019. Catherine was previously a member of the Erie Philharmonic, Firelands Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Pops Orchestra, and CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra. She has also performed with the Canton, Mobile, Gulf Coast, and Pensacola Symphony Orchestras.
Catherine completed her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Jeffrey Irvine and Lynne Ramsey. She has received chamber music coaching from members of the Cavani, Cleveland, Juilliard, and Takács Quartets. She is also a member of the New Orleans-based Radio Bird Quartet, a non-traditional string quartet that performs original arrangements of pop and rock tunes.
A committed educator, Catherine studied Suzuki pedagogy at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She has taught at the Cleveland School of the Arts, the Sato Center for Suzuki Studies, as a teaching assistant at CIM, and for El Sistema-inspired programs in Cleveland and New Orleans. She currently teaches 20 private violin and viola students aged 5-17, and for the LPO Academy education program. Catherine lives in Gentilly with her husband, Michael, and their cats, Clover and Percy. She enjoys cooking, playing video games, practicing yoga, and fostering kittens for the Louisiana SPCA.
Sixto Franco
Violist
Sixto is a music and performing arts enthusiast, composer, teacher and founding member of the Quijote Duo and became a member of the Lousiana Philharmonic in September of 2022. He is enjoying an active career in the musical arts, having concertized in Europe, United States, Mexico and Uruguay. Sixto Franco is passionate about chamber music and has had the honor to perform with Eighth Black Bird, International Chamber Artists, Symbiosis Ensemble in L.A., Music of the Americas Project, the Chicago Ensemble, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, the Chicago Chamber Music Festival and the Gesher Music Festival in St. Louis, MO. Recently, Sixto has made an appearance in “Broadcast from home”, an highly collaborative project created and developed by composer and community-maker Lisa Bielawa.
Soloist appearances include the Camerata Musicalis, Chamber Orchestra of Salamanca, the Lira Castellonera Symphonic Band, Spain and the Thornton Music School Chamber Orchestra, He has also performed in the Santa Barbara Chamber orchestra, the Barcelona Symphony, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, the Elgin Symphony, and the Chicago Philharmonic, in addition to having performed with artists such as Paquito D ́Rivera, Fareed Haque, Ernie Adams, Robert McDuffy, Mike Mills, Steve Larson and Austin Wintory. The creative side of Sixto Franco has pushed him to venture into composition. He has written music for different mediums such as chamber music, theater and dance. He made his debut on February 2011 premiering his work “Blanco y Negro” in a Cancer Benefit Concert promoted by the Spanish Consulate in Los Angeles. The “malArte Association” of Valencia, Spain, premiered his piece Five “O’clock Tabu” as the soundtrack for the interdisciplinary work with the same title. On November of 2022 Sixto will make his theater debut as a composer/performer in the premier of the play “The Jane Project” at Tulane University. Sixto was also the co-curator of the Mu Live concert series, a performance series that strived to highlight local artists by pairing music, sculptures and visual art.
Kyle Anderson
Cellist
Kyle Anderson is a cellist from New Orleans, Louisiana, and a third-generation musician. His parents are Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) Principal Double-Bassist David Anderson, and New-Orleans-based harpist CatherineAnderson. His grandfather, Edwin Anderson, was Bass-Trombonist with the Cleveland Orchestra from 1963-88. Growing up in New Orleans, Kyle studied with Karen Ray and Allen Nisbet. Kyle also has a passion for jazz and spent two years studying jazz guitar at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. In 2017 he earned his bachelors degree in Cello Performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM), where he studied with the renowned chamber musician and soloist Sharon Robinson and spent three semesters in her Advanced Piano Trio Program.
After his time at CIM, Kyle was awarded a place in the Orchestra Now (TON), a new graduate orchestra based at Bard College in New York state, where Kyle earned his masters degree in 2020. During his three seasons with TON, Kyle worked with esteemed conductors from around the world and performed at many of New York City’s finest concert halls. In addition to his principal teachers, Kyle was lucky to work with Hans Jørgen-Jensen, Peter Wiley, Stephen Geber, Mark Kosower, Richard Weiss, Raphael Wallfisch, Alban Gerhardt and many more. In the summer of 2021, Kyle was principal cellist of the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado, and returned the following year as assistant-principal.
Since graduating, Kyle has been an avid performer of chamber and orchestral works in the New Orleans area, and in 2023 he won a position with the LPO cello section. Kyle has performed with a long list of non-classical artists as well including Erica Falls, Big Freedia, Tank and the Bangas, and the Queens of the Stone Age. Kyle also still plays guitar and composes original music.