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UVMC Hosts Two Violin Master Classes

Thanks to presenting partners Lebanon Opera House and Hopkins Center for the Arts, UVMC will host two master teachers and performers in February. Grammy award winning violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman will teach UVMC students, in conjunction with his February 7 Lebanon Opera House “On Location” performance of Bach’s solo cello suites arranged for violin. Saul Bitran, first violinist from Cuarteto Latinoamericano, will coach UVMC violin students, in conjunction with his February 11 concert at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College. Both events are free and open to observers. The community is invited to observe master teachers in action working with student performers.   

Johnny Gandelsman Master Class Saul Bitran Master Class

Sponsored by Vermont Violins

Johnny Gandelsman

Grammy award winning violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman’s musical voice reflects the artistic collaborations he has been a part of since moving to the United States in 1995. Richard Brody of The New Yorker has called Johnny Gandelsman “revelatory” in concert, placing him in the company of “radically transformative” performers like Maurizio Pollini, Peter Serkin and Christian Zacharias.

As a founding member of Brooklyn Rider and a member of the Silkroad Ensemble, Johnny has closely worked with such luminaries as Bela Fleck, Martin Hayes, Kayhan Kalhor, Yo-Yo Ma, Mark Morris, Anne Sofie Van Otter, Alim Qasimov & Fargana Qasimova, Joshua Redman, Suzanne Vega, Abigail Washburn and Damian Woetzel. He has appeared with Bono, David Byrne, Renee Fleming, Rhiannon Giddens, I’m With Her, Christian McBride, and many others.

Saul Bitran

Saul Bitran, first violinist of the award-winning Cuarteto Latinoamericano, is an Associate Professor of Violin at the Boston Conservatory at Berkeley. Saul has received some of Mexico and Chile’s highest artistic awards, including the Bellas Artes Medal and Order of Merit Pablo Neruda. The Cuarteto Latinoamericano is one of the world’s foremost string quartets and champions of new music from Latin America. Founded in 1982, the Cuarteto has toured extensively throughout Europe, North American, South America, Asia, and Australia, as well as premiering over one hundred new works composed for the quartet. Accolades include winning two Latin Grammy Awards and the prestigious Diapason d’Or. Bitran was Associate Professor and Artist in Residence at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1987 to 2008, and he has taught at numerous music festivals including the Dartington International Summer School, Centre d’Arts Orford, Chamber Music Institute at Holy Cross, Grenoble Festival, Festival de Música de Cámara de San Miguel de Allende, and others. Saul is concertmaster of Unitas Ensemble, a Boston-based orchestra committed to introduce Latin American repertoire to US audiences. As a soloist with that orchestra, he made the premiere recording of Paul Desenne’s violin concerto (The Two Seasons of the Caribbean Tropics). Bitran’s noted solo appearances have included the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, and National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa, as well as with prominent conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gerard Schwarz, Eduardo Mata, and Keith Lockhart, among others. Bitran is a graduate of the Samuel Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, Israel, under the tutelage of Yair Kless.