Paula Sisson Akbar, a native of Dee Flat, Oregon, attended Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and received her Master of Violin Performance degree from the Yale Graduate School of Music. Prior to joining the National Symphony Orchestra in 1991, she was a first violinist in the Oregon, New Haven, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras and the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. Ms. Akbar has since performed with the 20th/21st Century Consort, the Library of Congress Summer Chamber Players, the Sunrise String Quartet, the National Chamber Players, and the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, and is a founding member of the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra in Washington DC. She has performed with Mexican musicians in San Miguel de Allende’s Angela Peralta Theatre, toured to Costa Rica and Buenos Aires (and recorded a CD entitled “To Buenos Aires With Love”) with the WAMMIE award-winning group QuinTango, in 2010 completed a two week cruise to the Caribbean as a member of the Symphonic Voyages Orchestra, and, with her Viva Violins/Fiddle Sessions NSO colleagues, participated in almost every NSO United States Residency since 1992. Ms. Akbar is the creator of Madame Mavis Pugh’s School of the Violin/Viva Violins Kinderkonzert, and Bears, Bears, Everywhere, NSO Teddy Bear programs which have been presented in the KC Family Theater for three seasons. Locally, Ms. Akbar is current Concertmaster of the Blue Ridge Orchestra and is a member of the Four Seasons Chamber Orchestra. Her violin is crafted by Black Mountain luthier Kate Rickenbacker.