Stephanie Chase
Violin
Soloist
"One of the violin greats of our era" (Newhouse News), Stephanie Chase’s triumphant win at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow has led to an international career featuring concert performances in twenty-five countries, and the award of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Ms. Chase has appeared as soloist with the world’s most illustrious orchestras, among them the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, American Classical Orchestra, Hanover Band, San Francisco Symphony, and Hong Kong Philharmonic, and her playing is widely acclaimed for its "elegance, dexterity, rhythmic vitality and great imagination" (Boston Globe). Most recently, her rendition of Elgar's Violin Concerto with the Louisville Orchestra was selected as a "Classical Act of the Decade" (December 2009) and the New York Times noted that "the fine violinist Stephanie Chase was an elegant soloist" with the American Classical Orchestra (November 2009).
In addition to the virtuoso soloist’s repertoire, Stephanie Chase excels in period instrument practice, contemporary music, chamber music, and music education. She made the first recording ever of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Romances on period instruments, which features her own cadenzas and has been declared "one of the twenty most outstanding performances in the work’s recording history" (Beethoven: Violin Concerto, Cambridge University Press) and honored with the highest possible ratings by BBC Music Magazine and Classic CD.
Born in Illinois to musician parents, Ms. Chase gave her first public performance at age two and made her debut with the Chicago Symphony at nine, as the youngest winner ever of the orchestra's Youth Competition. After her Carnegie Hall debut at age eighteen, she became a pupil of the legendary Belgian violinist Arthur Grumiaux and subsequently studied chamber music at the Marlboro Festival. In addition to her solo appearances, Ms. Chase is a guest of illustrious chamber music festivals worldwide, including Caramoor, The American String Project, Music from Marlboro, Bargemusic, Kuhmo (Finland), and Nuits de Bourgogne, and she has toured internationally and recorded with the Boston Chamber Music Society.
Her music arrangements are performed to rave reviews in venues that include Carnegie Hall and Benaroya Hall. "A Fantasy about Carmen," a work she created for string orchestra (inspired by Sarasate’s virtuoso for violin and orchestra featuring Bizet’s music from Carmen), was premiered in 2005 in Zankel Hall in a performance by the Perlman Chamber Orchestra conducted by Itzhak Perlman, and performed and recorded by The American String Project. For TASP, she arranged three additional virtuoso works by Sarasate – Caprice Basque, Romanza Andaluza and Zigeunerweisen – which are available through MSR Classics in live concert performances, and the Perlman Chamber Orchestra is currently featuring her Zigeunerweisen on its programs.
Stephanie Chase records for Koch International Classics, Cala Records and Harmonia Mundi. As a music educator, she gives master classes throughout the United States and teaches violin at New York University’s Steinhardt School and at the Aaron Copland School at Queens College, and she is a co-founder and artistic director of the Music of the Spheres Society, which is "dedicated to exploring the links between music, philosophy and the sciences" (The New Yorker).
Her hobbies include learning chess, studying the "music of the spheres" and Stradivari violins, and strength training. For additional information about Stephanie Chase, please visit her website at www.stephaniechase.com.
