Elizabeth Pitcairn - The Red Violin

Celebrated American violin virtuoso Elizabeth Pitcairn has earned a stunning reputation as one of America’s most beloved soloists. Ms. Pitcairn made her New York debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 2000 with the New York String Orchestra and she appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music. She has recently been named the Artistic Director of the Luzerne Chamber Music Festival. She is a member of the distinguished faculty at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles, where she currently resides. Her upcoming concert schedule and recordings are featured on www.redviolin.net.

Celebrated violin virtuoso Elizabeth Pitcairn has earned a stunning reputation as one of America’s most beloved soloists. Ms. Pitcairn made her New York debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 2000 with the New York String Orchestra and she appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music.

The signature artist performs in partnership with one of the world’s most legendary instruments, the "Red Mendelssohn" Stradivarius of 1720, said to have inspired the Academy award-winning film The Red Violin. Ms. Pitcairn collaborated with Lionsgate Films for The Red Violin DVD – Meridian Collection in special feature documentary interviews by Pitcairn and Oscar-winning composer John Corigliano.

Ms. Pitcairn returned to perform at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center and received a stunning review for her performance of Corigliano’s Red Violin Suite. Philadelphia Inquirer music critic David Patrick Stearns wrote “(Pitcairn) played with a level of identification that suggested she wasn’t performing so much as speaking through Corigliano’s near-perfect balance of head and heart...” Ms. Pitcairn performed debut concerts to great acclaim with the Puerto Rico Symphony, the inaugural season of the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra (NY) and debut recitals for the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts.

Upcoming performances will feature a return performance with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, a debut performance at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center Verizon Hall and the complete Vivaldi Four Seasons with the Marin Symphony conducted by Alasdair Neale.

Strings magazine featured Ms. Pitcairn as their November 2007 cover artist. She demonstrated the Hammer Stradivarius for the international press at Christie’s NY, which was televised on CNN, Fox News and CNBC, and was featured on the homepage of Yahoo. While performing at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, she gave televised interviews/performances on CTV, Radio Canada and Global Quebec. John Schaefer of WNYC, New York’s public radio station, presented her in two special interviews and Classic FM (London) broadcast a national interview on Pitcairn’s career.

Tommie Haglund, one of Sweden’s foremost composers, composed a violin concerto for Ms. Pitcairn. The world premiere was broad-cast nationally on Swedish Radio to tremendous ovations and critical acclaim. In June 2009 Ms. Pitcairn returned to record the work with Swedish record company Phono Suecia and Finnish conductor Hannu Koivula for an upcoming CD of Mr. Haglund’s music. In addition, she took part in a documentary that is being filmed for Swedish television featuring Mr. Haglund and his music.

A native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Ms. Pitcairn began studying the violin at age three and performed her first concerto with orchestra at 14. Her path brought her to Los Angeles to study with preeminent violin professor Robert Lipsett at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. She is currently a member of the distinguished faculty at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles. She was a former adjunct professor of violin at the USC Thornton School of Music, teaching there from 2001 - 2008. Ms. Pitcairn is on the Board of Directors and an alumna of the Young Musicians Foundation (Los Angeles), the American Youth Symphony (Los Angeles) and the Luzerne Music Center (NY). Se has recently been named Artistic Director of the Luzerne Chamber Music Festival.

Her former teachers include Robert Lipsett, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Jascha Brodsky, Sylvia Ahramjian and Julian Meyer. At the Marlboro Music Festival she performed chamber music with members of the Juilliard and Guarneri String Quartets.

She was born in 1973 into a closely knit musical family: her mother is a Juilliard-trained cellist and her father is a baritone, past president of the Opera Company of Philadelphia and currently Vice President of the Academy of Vocal Arts. Ms. Pitcairn’s younger brother David also studied cello and piano, but became an aeronautical engineer, following in the footsteps of their great uncle Harold Pitcairn, legendary inventor and pioneer in aviation. She has studied piano, ballet and horseback riding and is currently interested in voice, international ballroom dancing, and emphasizes health and fitness as part of her musical training and career. She attended the summer language immersion school at Middlebury College in Vermont, emphasizing the French language for international programs and audiences.

Her discography, featured on www.redviolin.net, includes recordings of Tchaikovsky and Mozart Concerti with the Slovenia Radio Television Orchestra, as well as the Bruch Scottish Fantasy and the Bizet/Sarasate Carmen Fantasy with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra of Bulgaria as well as the Spring 2010 release of Swedish record label Phono Suecia’s production of Hymns to the Night.

Carmen Fantasy - Seguidille