Tag Archives: Violin

Danbi Um, Violin

Praised by The Strad as an “utterly dazzling” artist, with “a marvelous show of superb technique” and “mesmerizing grace” (New York Classical Review), violinist Danbi Um captivates audiences with her virtuosity, individual sound, and interpretive sensitivity. A Menuhin International Violin Competition Silver Medalist, winner of the prestigious 2018 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and a recent top prizewinner of the Naumburg International Violin Competition, she showcases her artistry in concertos, solo recitals, and in collaboration with distinguished chamber musicians.

After winning the 2014 Music Academy of the West Competition, Ms. Um made her concerto debut in the Walton Violin Concerto with the Festival Orchestra, conducted by Joshua Weilerstein. Past concerto engagements include appearances with the Israel Symphony, Auckland Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony, and the Dartmouth Symphony.

She also recently appeared in recital and in chamber music performances in such venues as the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Harris Theatre in Chicago, Wigmore Hall in London, and at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Ms. Um is a winner of Astral Artists’ National Auditions. She plays a 1683 “ex-Petschek” Nicolo Amati violin, on loan from a private collection.

Susie Park, Violin

Sydney native Susie Park first picked up a violin at age three, made her solo debut at five, and, by 16, had performed with every major orchestra in her country. Susie has grown into a musician distinguished by unusual passion and versatility, and today performs internationally as an orchestral, chamber, and solo artist.

Susie’s international career was launched at age 16, when she took first place in the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition in France. This led to performances and reengagements throughout the US, Europe, and her native Australia, where highlights included performances for crowds of over 120,000.

Susie went on to receive additional top honors at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and the Wieniawski Competition in Poland. Susie has since concertized around the world, soloing and touring with European orchestras including the Vienna Symphony, Orchestre National de Lille, and the Royal Philharmonic; American orchestras including the Pittsburgh Symphony and San Francisco Symphony; Korea’s KBS Orchestra; Orchestra Wellington in New Zealand; and all major symphony orchestras in Australia.

Working with conductors including Simon Rattle, Hans Vonk, Alan Gilbert, Fabio Luisi and Yehudi Menuhin, Susie has been heard in venues ranging from New York’s Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Chicago’s Millenium Park, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Washington’s Smithsonian Institute, Vienna’s Musikverein, Cologne’s Philharmonie, Düsseldorf’s Tonhalle, and Sydney’s Opera House.

Jennifer Frautschi, Violin

Two-time Grammy nominee and Avery Fisher career grant recipient violinist Jennifer Frautschi has appeared as soloist with innumerable orchestras including the Cincinnati Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and St Paul Chamber Orchestra.

As chamber musician she has performed with the Boston Chamber Music Society and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and appeared at Chamber Music Northwest, La Jolla Summerfest, Music@Menlo, Tippet Rise Art Center, Toronto Summer Music, and the Bridgehampton, Charlottesville, Lake Champlain, Moab, Ojai, Santa Fe, Seattle, and Spoleto Music Festivals.

Her extensive discography includes several discs for Naxos: the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, conducted by the legendary Robert Craft, and two GRAMMY-nominated recordings with the Fred Sherry Quartet, of Schoenberg’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, and the Schoenberg Third String Quartet.

Her most recent releases are with pianist John Blacklow on Albany Records: the first devoted to the three sonatas of Robert Schumann; the second, American Duos, an exploration of recent additions to the violin and piano repertoire by contemporary American composers Barbara White, Steven Mackey, Elena Ruehr, Dan Coleman, and Stephen Hartke.

She performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius violin known as the “ex-Cadiz,” on generous loan from a private American foundation with support from Rare Violins In Consortium. She currently teaches in the graduate program at Stony Brook University.

Simos Papanas, Violin

Simos Papanas was born in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1979. He has studied violin, baroque violin, composition and mathematics at the New Conservatory of Thessaloniki, Oberlin College and Yale University. He studied violin with Petar Arnaoudov, Taras Gabora and Erick Friedman, baroque violin with Marilyn McDonald and composition with Christos Samaras.

He has played as a soloist with orchestras such as the Staatskaplle Dresden, the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Kammerorchester Basel, the Geneva Camerata, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Athens and Thessaloniki State Orchestras, the National Symphony Orchestra of the Greek Radio, the Sofia Philharmonic, the Sofia Soloists, the Cyprus Symphony, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Southwest German Symphony Orchestra, the American Bach Soloists and the Philharmonia Moments Musicaux (Taiwan).

Papanas has recorded as a soloist for Deutsche Grammophon, BIS and Centaur. He has performed in festivals such as Verbier (Switzerland), Schlesswig-Holstein (Germany), Savannah Music Festival (U.S.A.), Sommets Musicaux Gstaad (Switzerland), the international violin festival of St. Petersburg, the Athens Festival and the Tokyo Music Festival, and at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Palau de la Musica (Barcelona), St. Petersburg Philharmonic Grand Hall, Semperoper Dresden and Athens Herod Atticus Theater. His compositions have been performed and recorded around the world (U.S.A., Russia, Canada, Peru, Iran, Japan, Taiwan and most European countries), in prestigious concert halls such as the Musikverein in Vienna, the Tonhalle in Zurich and the National Concert Hall of Taipei. Since 2003 he has been concertmaster of the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra.

Ida Kavafian, Violin and Viola

The versatile Violinist and Violist Ida Kavafian is Artistic Director of Music from Angel Fire (for thirty-four years); co-founder of Tashi, OPUS ONE, Trio Valtorna and Bravo! Colorado (Artistic Director for ten years); an Artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; former violinist of the Beaux Arts Trio; faculty member of The Curtis Institute (she holds the Nina von Maltzahn Chair in Violin Studies and received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching), Juilliard School and Bard College.

She has premiered numerous new works including concerti by Toru Takemitsu and Michael Daugherty, toured and recorded with jazz greats Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis as well as Fiddler/Composer Mark O’Connor, appeared with the Guarneri, Orion, Shanghai and American String Quartets, and had a solo feature on CBS Sunday Morning.

Some of Ms. Kavafian’s many recordings include two world premieres representing her wide range – Fire and Blood by Michael Daugherty with the Detroit Symphony, Neeme Järvi conducting, and Mark O’Connor’s String Quartets. She also appears frequently with her sister, violinist Ani Kavafian in recital and concerto. Their television credits include features on CBS Sunday Morning and NBC’s Today Show.

Born in Istanbul, Turkey of Armenian descent, a graduate of Juilliard studying with Oscar Shumsky, she was presented in her NY debut under Young Concert Artists with pianist Peter Serkin.

Her violin was made by J.B. Guadagnini, in Milan in 1751.

Together with her husband, violist Steven Tenenbom, she breeds, trains and shows prize-winning Vizsla show dogs, including the 2003 #1 Vizsla in the US and the 2007 National Champion.

Ani Kavafian, Violin

Violinist Ani Kavafian enjoys a prolific career as a recitalist, chamber musician and professor. She has performed with many of America’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony.

This season, she will continue her longtime association as an artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with appearances in NYC, and around the U.S.. She will be conducting master classes at Oberlin College as well as in Detroit, and Boulder. This past summer she participated at festivals including Chamber Music Northwest, the Heifetz Institute, Sarasota Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Great Lakes Festival, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, and Virtuoso Bel Canto Festival in Lucca, Italy.

Ms. Kavafian became a professor of Violin at Yale University in 2006 and will be performing the full production of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale at Zamkel Hall in 2018 with colleagues and students from Yale. She has received the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions award and has appeared at the White House on three separate occasions.

Her recordings can be heard on the Nonesuch, RCA, Columbia, Arabesque, and Delos labels. Ms. Kavafian and Kenneth Cooper have recorded Bach’s Six Sonatas for Violin and Fortepiano on Kleos Classics of Helicon Records. A recording of string trios by Mozart and Beethoven by the Trio da Salo has also been released on Kleos. Mozart Piano and Violin Sonatas with pianist Jorge Federico Osario was recently released by Artek

Bella Hristova, Violin

Internationally acclaimed violinist Bella Hristova is known for her passionate and powerful performances, beautiful sound, and compelling command of her instrument.

Her numerous prizes include a 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, First Prize in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and First Prize in the Michael Hill International Violin Competition. She has performed extensively as a soloist with orchestras including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the New York String Orchestra, and the Kansas City and Milwaukee Symphonies.

She has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and Boston’s Isabella Gardner Museum, and regularly appears with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 2017, she toured New Zealand performing the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin with renowned pianist Michael Houstoun. “Bella Unaccompanied,” Ms. Hristova’s recording on A.W. Tonegold Records, features works by Corigliano, Kevin Puts, Piazzolla, Milstein, and Bach.

A committed proponent of new music, she commissioned iconic American composer Joan Tower to write “Second String Force,” which she premiered and performed in recitals throughout the United States and abroad. She further collaborated with her husband David Ludwig on a violin concerto written for her through a consortium of eight major orchestras across the country.

Hristova began violin studies at the age of six in her native Bulgaria. She studied with Ida Kavafian at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and received her Artist Diploma with Jaime Laredo at Indiana University.

Ms. Hristova plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin, once owned by the violinist Louis Krasner.

Oliver Neubauer, Violin

Violinist Oliver Neubauer attends the Juilliard School where he is a proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship and a student of Li Lin and Donald Weilerstein. Prior to his studies at Juilliard, Oliver took part in the Perlman Music Program and attended the Juilliard Pre-College Division and the Dalton School in NYC.

Oliver has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the National Repertory Orchestra, the Sound Symphony Orchestra, and the Symphony of Westchester. Oliver was the first prize winner of the 2020 Adelphi Competition, recipient of the Gold Award at the 2018 National YoungArts Competition, winner of the 2017 Young Musicians Competition at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and winner of the Artist in You Competition sponsored by the Doublestop Foundation.

He has participated in masterclasses with Ana Chumachenco (at the 2019 Kronberg Violin Masterclasses), Ani Kavafian, Edward Aaron, Jorja Fleezanis, Daniel Phillips, and others. He has also performed and worked with Carter Brey, Fred Sherry, Ani Kavafian, Michael Kannen, Ara Gregorian, the Ulysses Quartet, and Steve Tenenbom.

Oliver’s festival appearances have included the Four Seasons Winter Workshop, Mostly Music Series, Summerfest La Jolla, Music@Menlo, Lake Champlain Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Music in the Vineyards, Art in Avila in Curaçao, and Music from Angel Fire. This summer, Oliver will appear at the Perlman Music Program Chamber Workshop, Music from Angel Fire, Bravo! Vail, and Verbier Festival Academy.

Oliver plays on a J.B. Guadagnini violin, generously on loan to him from the Juilliard String Instrument Collection.

Clara Neubauer, Violin

21-year old violinist Clara Neubauer attends The Juilliard School as a proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship in the studios of Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin. She has recently performed at festivals including the Ravinia Steans Institute, Taos School of Music, Music@Menlo, Perlman Music Program, Bravo! Vail, Four Seasons Festival, Music From Angel Fire, and La Jolla Summerfest.

Winner and Silver medalist at the 2020 National YoungArts competition, Clara was the first prize winner in the 2019 Symphony of Westchester Competition and the 2017 Adelphi Young Artist Competition and was recently featured on the WQXR Young Musicians Showcase.

Clara made her concerto debut with the National Repertory Orchestra at the age of 10 and her Lincoln Center debut at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Young Ensembles Concert in 2013. An avid chamber musician, Clara was a winner of the 2017 Young Musicians Competition at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and a Young Performer at the Music@Menlo Chamber Music Institute for five years.

She has collaborated with artists including Shai Wosner, Frans Helmerson, Anne-Marie McDermott, Daniel Phillips, Robert McDonald, Carter Brey, and the Dover Quartet.

Born on 9/11/2001, Clara shared the stage with Bernadette Peters and Robert DeNiro hosting a 9/11 Memorial benefit and can be heard leading the audio tour guide “for children and families” at the 9/11 Memorial Museum, available as a free app at the App Store.

In her free time, Clara loves to cook, read, and play ping-pong.

Kerry McDermott, Violin

Violinist Kerry McDermott has been recognized as one of the most versatile and exciting artists of her generation.

A first violinist with the New York Philharmonic, Ms. McDermott joined as its youngest member at the age of twenty-one, and has since appeared as soloist with them throughout North America. She has garnered prizes and awards in major competitions including the Montreal International Violin Competition and the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow – where she also received a special award for “Best Artistic Interpretation”.

At age seventeen, Ms. McDermott became the youngest winner in the history of Artists International Auditions which resulted in her New York recital debut. She has performed on tour throughout Holland with Reizend Muziek, as well as North American tours with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Muir String Quartet. Ms. McDermott has also appeared at Summerfest La Jolla, Angel Fire, Music in the Vineyards, Chamber Music Northwest, Bravo! Colorado, Caramour, Marlboro, Tanglewood, Wolftrap, Mostly Mozart, OK Mozart, Newport, Fredericksburg, Ravinia and on three continents with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles.

She has recorded for Cala, New World Records and Melodia, and her media appearances include a PBS/ABC/BBC Documentary, the motion picture FAME and an AT&T commercial for National Network Television.

She is a member of The McDermott Trio with her sisters, pianist, Anne-Marie and cellist, Maureen, and a Master Artist and National Reviewer for the National Young Arts Foundation.

Ms. McDermott is an alumna of the Manhattan School of Music and Yale College.

Arnaud Sussmann, Violin

Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Arnaud Sussmann has distinguished himself with his unique sound, bravura, and profound musicianship. Minnesota’s Pioneer Press writes, “Sussmann has an old-school sound reminiscent of what you’ll hear on vintage recordings by Jascha Heifetz or Fritz Kreisler, a rare combination of sweet and smooth that can hypnotize a listener.”

A thrilling young musician capturing the attention of classical critics and audiences around the world, he has appeared on tour in Israel and in concert at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg, the Dresden Music Festival in Germany, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. He has been presented in recital in Omaha on the Tuesday Musical Club series, New Orleans by the Friends of Music, Tel Aviv at the Museum of Art, and at the Louvre Museum in Paris. He has also given concerts at the OK Mozart, Moritzburg, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Mainly Mozart, Seattle Chamber Music, Bridgehampton, and the Moab Music festivals.

He has performed with many of today’s leading artists including Itzhak Perlman, Menahem Pressler, Gary Hoffman, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Wu Han, David Finckel, and Jan Vogler. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Sussmann is Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, Co-Director of Music@Menlo’s International Program, and teaches at Stony Brook University.

Daniel Phillips, Violin

Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as a veteran chamber musician, soloist, violist, and teacher. A graduate of The Juilliard School, his teachers were his father Eugene Phillips, Ivan Galamian, Sally Thomas, Sándor Végh and George Neikrug.

He is a founding member of the 31-year-old Orion Quartet, in residence at the Mannes College of Music and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York City. They have recorded the complete quartets of Beethoven and Leon Kirchner.

Mr. Phillips won the Young Concert Artists auditions and bronze medal in the Leipzig Bach Competition in 1976, and has been an up and coming young soloist ever since. He gave debut recitals at the 92nd street Y and Alice Tully Hall which received great reviews in the New York Times. He has performed as soloist with the Pittsburgh, Houston, Boston and Yakima symphonies and has been a regular performer at the Spoleto Festival, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the International Musicians Seminar in the UK for the last four decades. This summer he will return to the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont.

He teaches at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, Mannes College of Music, Bard College Conservatory, and The Juilliard School. He lives with his wife, flutist, Tara Helen O’Connor with their two cute mini dachshunds on the upper west side of Manhattan.

Benjamin Beilman, Violin

Benjamin Beilman has won praise both for his passionate performances and deep rich tone which the Washington Post called “mightily impressive,” and The New York Times described as “muscular with a glint of violence.”

Mr. Beilman’s international touring schedule in 2017-18 and 2018-19 includes performances with the Houston, Oregon, Cincinnati, North Carolina and Indianapolis Symphonies, and Orchestra St. Luke’s, as well as play-directing both the Vancouver Symphony and the New Century Chamber Orchestra. Abroad, Mr. Beilman performs with the Sydney, Trondheim and City of Birmingham Symphonies, as well as the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. “Demons,” a new work written for Mr. Beilman by Frederic Rzewski and commissioned by Music Accord, was premiered in 2018 at Baltimore’s Shriver Hall Concert Series and the Boston Celebrity Series.

Other current and upcoming recital appearances include Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, Kennedy Center, Spivey Hall, Philadelphia’s Perelman Theater, and Carnegie Hall. Mr. Beilman earned worldwide notoriety upon winning First Prize in both the 2010 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the 2010 Montréal International Musical Competition.

He has since gone on to receive a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a London Music Masters Award. Spectrum, a Warner Classics CD featuring works by Stravinsky, Janáček and Schubert was released in 2016.

Beilman studied with Almita and Roland Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago, Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank at the Curtis Institute of Music, and Christian Tetzlaff at the Kronberg Academy.

He plays the “Engelman” Stradivarius from 1709 generously on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.

Carmit Zori, Violin

Violinist Carmit Zori came to the United States from her native Israel at the age of fifteen to study with Ivan Galamian, Jaime Laredo and Arnold Steinhardt at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Ms. Zori is the recipient of a Levintritt Foundation Award, a Pro Musicis International Award, and the top prize in the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition. She has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and has given solo recitals at Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Tel Aviv Museum and the Jerusalem Center for the Performing Arts.

In addition to her appearances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Ms. Zori has been a guest at the Chamber Music at the “Y” series in New York City, Festival Casals in Puerto Rico, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music festival, the Bard Music festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival. Carmit Zori is a regular participant at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. Ms. Zori founded the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society in 2002. She is a member artist of The Israeli Chamber Project.

Ms. Zori recorded on the Arabesque, Koch International, and Elektra-Nonesuch labels. She is a professor of violin at Rutgers University and at SUNY Purchase, where she also serves on the chamber music faculty.

Aaron Boyd, Violin

Violinist Aaron Boyd has established a versatile career as soloist, chamber musician, orchestral leader, recording artist, lecturer and teacher. Since making his New York recital debut in 1998, he has concertized throughout the United States, Europe, Russia and Asia.

Boyd appears regularly as an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and has participated in the Marlboro, Music@Menlo, La Jolla, Bridgehampton, and Prussia Cove festivals. A prize winner of the Ecoles D’art Americaines de Fontainebleau, the Tuesday Musical Society and the Pittsburgh Concert Society competitions, Boyd was also awarded a Proclamation by the City of Pittsburgh for his musical accomplishments.

A passionate advocate for new music, Boyd has worked directly with such legendary composers as Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter and Charles Wuorinen and was founder of the Zukofsky Quartet (Quartet-in-Residence, Bargemusic); the only ensemble to have played all of Milton Babbitt’s notoriously difficult string quartets.

As a recording artist, Boyd can be heard on the BIS, Music@Menlo Live, Naxos, Tzadik, North/South and Innova labels. Boyd has been broadcast in concert by NPR, WQXR, and WQED, and was profiled by Arizona Public Television.

Born in Pittsburgh, Boyd began his studies with Samuel LaRocca and Eugene Phillips and graduated from The Juilliard School where he studied with Sally Thomas and coached extensively with Paul Zukofsky and the legendary cellist Harvey Shapiro.

Formerly on the violin faculties of Columbia University and the University of Arizona, Boyd now lives in Dallas where he serves as Director of Chamber Music and Professor of Violin at Southern Methodist University.