The Quartet
Formed in 2025, Quartet Winneshiek and its members have close personal ties to the Driftless. Each has lived, taught, or performed extensively in northeast Iowa and the surrounding area.
Jonathon Winter
First Violin
American violinist Dr. Jonathon Winter enjoys a diverse career as a solo, chamber, and ensemble musician across the United States and Europe. He has been a member of the Palm Beach Symphony, AIMS in Graz Festival Orchestra, and the National Repertory Orchestra. Equally comfortable as a studio musician, Dr. Winter can be heard as concertmaster on Latin Grammy-nominated album “An Open Book” with Jorge Mejia for Sony Music, and has performed with major artists such as Jeff Beal, Kristin Chenoweth, Midori, and John Williams, among others.
Now based in Boulder, Colorado, Dr. Winter is a faculty member of Boulder Suzuki Strings and performs with ensembles in Colorado, such as the Boulder Philharmonic, Sphere Ensemble, Colorado Symphony, and Colorado Music Festival. He is also a member of the Timberline Quartet, which is in residency at Friends of Chamber Music Denver.
Dr. Winter earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was the teaching assistant of Fritz Gearhart and Charles Wetherbee. He also holds degrees from the University of Minnesota, University of Miami, and the Lynn Conservatory. His previous teachers include Mark Bjork, Carol Cole, and Charles Castleman.
Nicole Cody
Second Violin
Nicole Cody is the principal second violin of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra, principal second violin of the Oneota Valley Community Orchestra and performs regularly with Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony and other regional orchestras. She performed as first violinist with the Epinoia String Quartet until 2020. In addition, Nicole has been teaching high school orchestra and music theory in the Decorah Community School District since 2009. She holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and a Master of Arts in Music from the University of Northern Iowa, where she studied string pedagogy and violin with Fred Halgedahl and wrote a classroom technique book for use in high school orchestra classrooms. In the summer, she works as an AP Music Theory Reader for the College Board. She is an active member of the American and Iowa String Teachers’ Associations and is the current chair of the Iowa All-State Orchestra.
Angela Kracher
Viola
A native of Iowa, violist Angela Kratchmer maintains an international career as a teacher, performer, and arts administrator. With degrees from Luther College and the Eastman School of Music, Kratchmer is completing an Artist Diploma at the University of Miami Frost School of Music where she serves as a Henry Mancini Institute Fellow and Teaching Assistant to her teacher and mentor Jodi Levitz. Kratchmer's former teachers include Spencer Martin and Carol Rodland. She is on faculty at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. An avid player of chamber music, Kratchmer has participated in coachings and masterclasses with the Juilliard, Ying, Brentano, Parker, and Avalon string quartets, with additional instruction from eminent chamber musicians such as Colin Carr, Violaine Melançon, and Kim Kashkashian.
Craig Hultgren
Cello
Craig Hultgren has had more than 300 solo compositions created for him. The New York Classical Review commented that he, "…played with impressive poise and sensitivity…" for Dorothy Hindman's 2016 chamber music retrospective at Carnegie Hall. Hultgren received a 2022 Performance Award from the Doug Davis Endowment for the video of his performance of Lukas Foss’ Capriccio at the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival in Memphis. A recipient of two Artist Fellowships from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, he is a founding member of Luna Nova, a new music ensemble with a large repertoire of performances available on iTunes. Hultgren is featured in four solo CD recordings including UK composer Craig Vear’s hyper-media concerto Black Cats and Blues on Métier Recordings. Hultgren has also entered the realm of digital online releases with four works Songs for Cello and Piano by Ben Hippen available on Spotify. Currently, he is President of the Oneota Valley Community Orchestra Board of Directors in Decorah and also serves as Secretary for the Iowa Composers Forum after completing three years as Chair.