Maria Bachmann

A student of Ivan Galamian and, after Galamian's death in the early '80s, Szymon Goldberg at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, violinist Maria Bachmann made her professional debut in 1987 at Town Hall in New York after taking top honors at the Fritz Kreisler International Violin Competition in Vienna. She has since established herself as a leading concert and recital hall artist throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Bachmann is best-known as an ardent supporter of new music; she has premiered many new works, including those by George Rochberg, Leon Kirchner, Albert Glinsky and Paul Moravec. Her 1993 debut recording for BMG features 20th century pieces (the earliest was composed in 1941 by Messiaen), played in collaboration with award-winning pianist Jon Klibonoff. But she is not exclusively a new-music performer; a disc of the violin concertos of Beethoven and Mendelssohn (BMG again) received warm reviews. In 2011 she made the premiere recording of Philip Glass' Sonata for violin and piano. The previous year, she gave the world premiere performance of Moravec's Violin Concerto. Chamber music is also a key ingredient of Bachmann's career. She has appeared in concert and on compact disc with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and in1993, she founded the Bachmann-Klibonoff-Fridman Piano Trio, which had a distinguished multi-year run as the resident ensemble at WQXR-FM in New York City. In 2001, that trio was superceded by Trio Solisti, comprised of Bachmann, Klibonoff, and cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach. Bachmann is also artistic director of the Telluride Music Festival. Bachmann formerly played a violin made for her by the late American luthier Sergio Peresson, but now performs on 1782 violin by Nicolo Gagliano.