Violin virtuoso Elizabeth Pitcairn has earned a reputation as one of America’s most beloved soloists. She made her New York debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 2000 with the New York String Orchestra and appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music. She made her Walt Disney Concert Hall debut with the California Philharmonic and at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. She returned to China to perform the Bruch Violin Concerto with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. This season Pitcairn gives recitals in New York and Pennsylvania with pianist Barbara Podgurski, in Hungary with Aniko Szokody, and in Mexico with Louise Thomas, and makes her Fisher Center recital debut with Cynthia Elise Tobey. She also performs in Bulgaria with the Classic FM Orchestra, and records the Bruch and Beethoven Violin Concerti, conducted by Maxim Eshkenazy.
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Pitcairn performs 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. The 10th Anniversary Meridian Collection DVD (2008) of The Red Violin features Pitcairn in a special feature called “The Auction Block.”
Born in 1973, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Pitcairn comes from a close-knit musical family (her mother is a Juilliard-trained cellist). She began playing the violin at age three and made her debut with orchestra at 14. She studied with preeminent violin professor Robert Lipsett at the University of Southern California. Pitcairn is a member of the faculty at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, California; an alumna of the Marlboro Music Festival; and former faculty at USC. She has performed with the Vaasa City Symphony in Finland, and the Helsingborg and Jönkopping Symphonies in Sweden under the baton of Hannu Koivula. She has also appeared in Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, and Brazil, and has performed at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center with pianist André Michel Schub. Pitcairn is the CEO and artistic director of the Luzerne Music Center (LMC) Festival in upstate New York. LMC provides training for gifted music students ages nine to 18.
Pitcairn commissioned Sweden’s renowned composer Tommie Haglund’s Hymns to the Night, which she premiered in 2005 and later recorded with the Helsingborg Symphony for Phono Suecia, receiving a Swedish Grammi nomination. She also commissioned a Sonata for violin and piano by Russian composer David Finko. Her discography includes the Tchaikovsky and Mozart No. 5 Concerti with the Slovenia Radio Television Orchestra, and the Bruch Scottish Fantasy and Sarasate Carmen Fantasy with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra of Bulgaria. Pitcairn is represented in Italy, France, and Russia by the Premiere Artists Agency. Her gowns are provided courtesy of LaFemme Fashion. The “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius is fitted with Wittner Finetune-Pegs and travels in a titanium case provided by GEWA. She also performs on a replica of the “Red Mendelssohn,” made for her by luthier Christophe Landon. For Pitcairn’s tour schedule, interviews, and a history of the “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius, please visit www.redviolin.com.
Cynthia Elise Tobey was accepted at the age of 10 to The Juilliard School of Music, where she studied piano with Herbert Stessin for six years. She made her orchestral debut at 14 with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. Tobey is a native of Rhinebeck, New York, where she grew up and attended Dutchess Day School (2000) in Millbrook and Rhinebeck High School. Her piano studies began locally with Margaret Shafer of Annandale-on-Hudson and Blanca Uribe of Vassar College.
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Tobey earned her B.M. from the Curtis Institute of Music (2007), studying with Seymour Lipkin; her M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University; and an artist studies diploma from the Konservatorium Wien in Austria. A doctoral candidate at Columbia University, she currently studies with Evelyne Crochet, protégé and principal teaching assistant of Rudolf Serkin.
Tobey is an instructor of piano and chamber music at Columbia University. She is also on the piano faculty at The Bard College Conservatory of Music, Preparatory Division. A top prizewinner of numerous competitions including the New York Gifted Pianists Competition, Leschetizky Piano Competition, Jacob Flier International Piano Competition, and Frederic Chopin International Piano Competition, she is also an NFAA Scholar in the Arts and recipient of the U.S. Academy Achievement Award, Bard College Humanities Award, Michael and Cecilia Iacovella Capuzzi Fellowship, and Festorazzi piano prize.
A dedicated piano teacher and music educator, Tobey has been on the piano faculty at the Luzerne Music Center since 2008, where she is the chair of piano studies, chamber ensemble instructor, and frequent performer on both the Faculty Concert Series and the Chamber Music Festival.
Sara Carina Graef’s works have been performed throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Turkey, and the Czech Republic. She won the inaugural Northridge Prize for Composition for her orchestral piece
night shows to my eyes the stars, and the Premio Citta’ di Pescara Composition Competition in Italy for her piano solo
Nottanosti. Graef recently served as composer in residence at the Luzerne Music Center in New York, and has been an artist in residence at the Wurlitzer, Ucross, and Ragdale Foundations; the Oregon Bach Festival; the Ernest Bloch Festival; and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She received her B.M. in composition and flute performance from Southern Methodist University and her M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in composition from the University of Southern California. She is a professor of music at California State University, Los Angeles, where she teaches composition and theory and directs the Composer/Performer Collective.