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Stephanie Chase
is internationally recognized as
“one of the violin
greats of our era”
(Newhouse Newspapers)
through solo appearances with over 170 orchestras that
include the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, San
Francisco Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, and London Symphony
Orchestra.
Her
interpretations are acclaimed for their
"elegance,
dexterity, rhythmic vitality and great imagination"
(Boston Globe),
"stunning power"
(Louisville Courier-Journal), "matchless technique"
(BBC Music Magazine), and
“virtuosity galore”
(Gramophone).
“Renowned
for her impeccable intonation” (Temperament,
Stuart Isacoff), her playing is also characterized by
“great intensity
and a huge tone, the epitome of the modern violinist”
(The Baroque Cello Revival, Paul Laird).
In 2009 Ms. Chase’s rendition of Elgar's
Violin Concerto
(with the Louisville Orchestra) was selected as a “Classical
Act of the Decade” and her 2011 New York recital with
pianist Sara Davis Buechner was chosen as one of "20
Concerts to Hear this Fall" by WQXR and a “Critics' Choice”
by
Musical America.
During the current season, Chase and Buechner will
perform all ten of Beethoven’s Sonatas for Violin and Piano
in three-concert series in New York and Vancouver, prior to
recording the set.
A top medalist of the prestigious International Tchaikovsky
Competition in Moscow, Stephanie Chase has performed
concerts in twenty-five countries throughout the world and
is a recipient of the esteemed Avery Fisher Career Grant.
With conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn, she was a featured
soloist with the Hong Kong Philharmonic on its first trip
ever to the People's Republic of China, which was an
historic event that garnered worldwide attention.
Equally at home in the virtuoso's repertoire,
historically informed performance practice and
contemporary music, she offers
a diverse repertoire of over 60 concertos and large
works for violin and orchestra and has collaborated with
conductors that include Zubin Mehta, Leonard Slatkin, Leon
Barzin, Herbert Blomstedt, Frans Brüggen, Marin Alsop,
Enrique Diemecke, Roy Goodman, Hugh Wolff and Stanislaw
Skrowaczewski.
Ms. Chase is also an advocate of contemporary music and has
premiered music by composers including Earl Kim, Edward
Applebaum, Eleanor Hovda, Joan Tower, Yehudi Wyner, Richard
Pearson Thomas, and Taavo Virkhaus.
Stephanie Chase’s recording of Beethoven’s
Violin
Concerto (on Cala Records) is
“one of the twenty
most outstanding performances in the work's recorded
history” (Beethoven: Violin Concerto; Cambridge
University Press) and honored with the highest possible
ratings by BBC Music Magazine and
Classic CD,
including
“Record
of the Month.” This is the world premiere recording
of the Concerto on period instruments and features
her own cadenzas.
Other
recordings by Ms. Chase have been selected by
Stereophile
as a
“Record to
Die For” and by
Gramophone for its
“Hot List,”
and include three world premieres.
Recent releases
include an album of music for violin and piano by the
Bohemian-American composer Rudolf Friml (Koch International
Classics-7662), and works for violin and piano by Viteslava
Kapralova (KIC-7742).
Profiles of Ms. Chase have appeared in newspapers throughout
the world and in such music journals as
The Strad and
Musical America, and her numerous television
appearances include interviews for CBS "Morning News" and by
Sir David Frost. More recently she has been profiled in
The Epoch Times and
Woman Around Town.
Born in Illinois to one of America's oldest and most
prominent families, Stephanie Chase's first violin teacher
was her mother, and her father, (Robert) Bruce Chase, was a
noted music arranger and composer as well as a violinist.
At age two she was already performing in public, and
made her debut with the Chicago Symphony six years later as
the youngest winner ever of the orchestra’s Youth
Competition. She commenced studies in New York with Sally Thomas of The Juilliard
School and within a few years embarked on extensive national
tours as a soloist and recitalist, making her Carnegie Hall
debut as soloist with the National Orchestral Association at
age eighteen. Shortly thereafter she became a favorite pupil
of the legendary Belgian violinist Arthur Grumiaux, which
was followed by summer chamber music studies at the famed
Marlboro Festival in Vermont with many of the late-20th
century’s most prominent musicians including Rudolf Serkin,
David Soyer, Rudolf Firkusny and Felix Galimir.
Also renowned as a chamber musician whose festival
appearances include Bravo! Vail, Kuhmo, Bargemusic,
Caramoor, Music
from Marlboro, and the Minnesota Orchestra’s
Sommerfest, Ms.
Chase is a co-founder and Artistic Director of the Music of
the Spheres Society, which presents chamber music concerts
and lectures that are “dedicated to “exploring the links
between music, philosophy and the sciences”
(The New Yorker).
As a former artist
member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, she toured
internationally with the group and is featured on several
recordings made by the Society, in a variety of repertoire.
Ms. Chase is additionally applauded through her
concert performances in the dual roles of violin soloist and
conductor and is recognized as a talented music arranger
whose works are performed to rave reviews by the Perlman
Music Program, The American String Project, and the Music of
the Spheres Society, among others.
From 2007 to 2011, Stephanie Chase programmed and hosted a
"Music and Imagination" course at the Philoctetes Center in
New York, an institution that was founded for the study of
imagination.
She is currently a Professor of Violin at the Steinhardt
School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New
York University and gives master classes at prominent music
conservatories throughout the United States that include The
Juilliard School, Mannes, the Shepherd School at Rice
University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the San
Francisco Conservatory.
A frequent judge for the concerto competitions at The
Juilliard School, Ms. Chase was a judge for the 2011
Concorso Postacchini in Fermo, Italy.
Ms. Chase is lineally descended (tenth generation) from
Aquila Chase, who arrived from England about 1639 and
settled first in Hampton, NH and then Newbury, MA. The
founder of one of New England's most important family
lineages, Aquila's other descendants include jurists,
founders of colleges, bishops, senators and a Supreme Court
judge.
Her
current hobbies include learning chess, studying the "music
of the spheres" and
Stradivari violins, researching her genealogy, and strength
training.
Ms. Chase plays a violin made in Venice in 1742 by
Petrus Guarnerius, which she pairs with a bow made by
Dominique Peccatte.
To download a
program biography and other promotional materials,
please take the
"PRESS PACKET" link in the toolbar.
Stephanie Chase is represented by Carrie Feiner
Concert Management. Telephone: (914) 725-0200.
Email:
Feinerent@gmail.com
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