Jan Sloman
Jan Mark Sloman enjoys a multi-faceted life in music. As a violinist, he has had a distinguished career in leadership positions of string sections of orchestras in the United States and around the world. Based in Dallas, where he long held the title of Principal Associate Concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and is presently Principal Associate Concertmaster Emeritus, Mr. Sloman also performed for extended periods of time internationally as concertmaster of orchestras in Florence, Italy, Lugano and Geneva, Switzerland, and Melbourne, Australia. In the United States, he has been guest concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony. He has worked with many of the world’s most prominent conductors, including Carlos Kleiber, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, and Riccardo Chailly. Mr. Sloman’s concerto performances have ranged from Bach and Beethoven to Tippett and Shostakovich, and his recital and chamber music performances have been highlighted by concerts with artists such as Leonard Rose, Nobuko Imai, and Yo Yo Ma. Mr. Sloman was a University Scholar at Princeton University and attended the Curtis Institute of Music as a student of the legendary Ivan Galamian. Other teachers included Sally Thomas, Paul Makanowitzky, and Jaime Laredo. In the past two decades, Mr. Sloman’s attention has increasingly turned to teaching. He has a large private studio in his home and for nine years taught both graduate and undergraduate students as an adjunct professor of violin. He has recently added Skype teaching and works with students throughout the United States. Since 2010, he has been on the faculty of the Meadowmount School of Music, and in March of 2015 accepted an appointment to the violin faculty of The Cleveland Institute of Music. In 1997 he founded The Institute for Strings(TIFS), an educational program that has chamber music as its primary focus. Experienced professional musicians teach TIFS students the technical and interactive musical skills that provide these dedicated string students a solid foundation for the performing experience. The success of Mr. Sloman’s students at major conservatories and competitions has brought him increasing national recognition as a teacher and mentor of the next generation of string players. In 2004 he received the Texas Music Teacher of the Year award given by the TexasMusic Teachers Association and in 2010 was named YoungArts Performing Arts Educator of the Year by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. His summer studio at the Meadowmount School of Music receives generous financial support from the Dorothy and Richard Starling Foundation.
Ivan Zenaty
Web site: www.ivanzenaty.com
Music critics, fellow musicians and audiences have recently been calling Ivan Zenaty “the most important Czech violinist.”
Ivan Zenaty has appeared repeatedly as a guest artist with orchestras in his homeland (primarily with the Czech Philharmonic, the Prague Symphony Orchestra and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra) as well as with famed ensembles internationally. Also attracting much attention are his solo and chamber music projects (the complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo on one evening or the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas from recent seasons).
With his exceptional wealth of repertoire (including more than 50 violin concertos from Bach, Vivaldi, through Beethoven, the complete works of Mozart and all of the great Romantic works to Stravinsky, Britten, Schnittke and Henze) Ivan Zenaty reaches a broad public without abandoning the world of classical music for even a moment. Besides the technical perfection one would expect, he is also appreciated for his taste and style and for his captivatingly beautiful tone.
The violinist began his professional career with his participation in the finale of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1982, followed by his debut with the Czech Philharmonic and Libor Pesek (1983) and his victory at the Prague Spring Competition (1987). He earned the title of laureate at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Young Performers (1989). In 1990 Mr. Zenaty made his debut in London, in 1991 at the Berliner Philharmonie and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, in 1994 in Tokyo and in 1996 in New York and Buenos Aires. He has collaborated with Yehudi Menuhin, Yo-Yo Ma, Serge Baudo, Valery Gergiev, Andrey Boreyko, Neville Marriner and other important musical figures of his era.
The musicianship of Ivan Zenaty has been influenced the most by his personal encounters with Nathan Milstein, Ruggiero Ricci and Andre Gertler, and a major change to his musical thinking was initiated by Professor Bezrodny at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. Of even greater impact, perhaps, were his private lessons with Josef Suk and many subsequent years of their collaboration, climaxing with performances at the Würzburger Mozart-Festspiele and the Prague Spring Festival and with a recording of the complete works of W. A. Mozart.
Ivan Zenaty's recordings have always aroused the enthusiastic acclaim of listeners and music critics. Throughout the period of is artistic activity, there has been an apparent concentration on the complete works of such great composers as Telemann, Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Schulhoff, Dvorak and Grieg recorded for Dorian Recordings in New York. His new complete Dvorak recording (www.audite.de) has attracted extraordinary attention, as has his recording of both violin concertos by J. B. Foerster with the BBC SO London and its music director Jiri Belohlavek (www.supraphon.cz).
Thanks to the Harmony Foundation of New York, Ivan Zenaty plays on a rare Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu violin made in 1740.
A natural counterbalance to Ivan Zenaty's concert and recording activities is his work as a pedagogue. Besides master classes in Germany, Spain and the USA, in 1996 he accepted a professorship of violin performance at the Hochschule fuer Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden. Professor Zenaty is often invited to serve on music competition juries (Prague Spring, Königin Sophie Charlotte, Pancho Vladigerov, Violine in Dresden), and he has repeatedly served as chairman of the jury of the International Beethoven Competition.
Mr. Zenaty joined the CIM faculy in the fall 2012.
Kimberly Meier-Sims
E-mail: kxm117@case.edu
Director, Sato Center for Suzuki Studies, received a Bachelor of Music degree in education and violin performance from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and a Master of Arts degree in violin performance from Western Illinois University. Her teachers have included John Kendall, Allen Ohmes, and Almita Vamos. She has taken long term Suzuki training with John Kendall, Almita Vamos, and Doris Preucil. In the summer of 1986, she studied violin and pedagogy with Dr. Shinichi Suzuki. Ms. Meier-Sims was a full time violin instructor at the Preucil School of Music (1984-1996). At The University of Memphis Scheidt School of Music (1996-2004), she was a member of the music faculty conducting the graduate Suzuki pedagogy program, coordinating the Suzuki String Prep Program, and directing the Suzuki String Summer Institute. She held positions in the Cedar Rapids Symphony (1984-1996) and was a frequent substitute with the Memphis Symphony. She has published articles in the American Suzuki Journal and the Tennessee Musician. In 2001 she won Tennessee's"Outstanding Teacher Award" and the"Tennessee Governor's School Award." She has taught at Suzuki institutes and workshops throughout the U.S. and Ireland. In 2002 she was the violin coordinator for the American Suzuki Conference in Minneapolis. She was appointed to the CIM faculty in 2004.
Joan Kwuon
Violin virtuoso JOAN KWUON joins the violin conservatory faculty and has been named Artistic Director of the Preparatory Division. She performs as soloist with orchestras throughout the world, and in concert venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Krannert Center, as well as performing arts centers in Toyko, Seoul, St. Petersburg and Prague. She made her Tanglewood Music Festival debut with the Brahms Concerto at the invitation of André Previn. Highlights of recent seasons include the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Dutoit and Matthias Bamert, and a U.S. tour as soloist in the Brahms and Tchaikovsky Concerti with the State Symphony Orchestra of Mexico. Ms. Kwuon also performed with the London Symphony Orchestra with Maestro Previn, the BBC Orchestra of Wales with Thierry Fischer, the Moscow State Radio Symphony with Sergei Kondrashev, the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Toyko with Heinz Wallberg, the Buffalo Philharmonic with JoAnn Falletta and with the Seattle Symphony performing the Tchaikovsky Concerto. In February 2008, she appeared in duo recitals with Andre Previn at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her 2008-09 season includes the Opening Gala Concert of Ravinia's Rising Stars series, the Beethoven Concerto with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, with Music Director Heiichiro Ohyama, and her debut on the prestigious San Francisco Performances series. She has collaborated with Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Juilliard String Quartet, Bright Sheng, Gilbert Kalish and Vladimir Feltsman. Tony Bennett invited Ms.Kwuon to perform duets with him at Jazz at Lincoln Center and Tanglewood. With advanced degrees from Indiana University, Juilliard and the Cleveland Institute of Music. She currently teaches at CIM and the The Juilliard School. Ms. Kwuon is grateful to Elliott and Mona Golub for the generous loan of the 1734 'Spagnoletti' Guarneri del Gesù.
William Preucil
Distinguished Professor of Violin, was named concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra in 1995. Previously, he was first violinist of the Cleveland Quartet from 1989 to 1995. He was concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra from 1982 to 1989, as well as the Utah Symphony and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Preucil has appeared frequently as a recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestras and at major chamber music festivals in the U.S. and abroad. He first studied violin with his mother, Doris Preucil, one of the first Suzuki Method teachers in the U.S. He attended the Interlochen Arts Academy at age 14 and earned his degree from Indiana University as a student of Josef Gingold. Mr. Preucil was on the Eastman School of Music faculty while the Cleveland Quartet was in residence there. Among his numerous recordings, Mr. Preucil is featured on the New World Records release of Stephen Paulus' Violin Concerto, dedicated to him, with the Atlanta Symphony. He has also recorded on Telarc with the Cleveland Quartet, including the complete Beethoven string quartets. As a member of the Lanier Trio, Mr. Preucil recorded the complete Dvořák piano trios, named one of the top ten records of 1993 by Time magazine. He was appointed to the CIM faculty in 1995.
Stephen Rose
E-mail: sxr87@case.edu
Violin, was appointed to the violin section of The Cleveland Orchestra in 1997, and is now principal second violin of the Orchestra. He received a Bachelor of Music degree from CIM and Master of Music degree from Eastman School of Music. Teachers include William Preucil, David Cerone, David Updegraff and Sally O'Reilly. He has appeared in recital and chamber music concerts throughout North America and Europe. Mr. Rose was the former first violinist of the Everest Quartet, the Resident String Quartet of the Midland-Odessa Symphony, from 1992- 1996. The Quartet was a top prize-winner at the 1995 Banff International String Quartet Competition and presented concerts and master classes throughout the U.S. Mr. Rose has presented master classes at the National Orchestral Institute and the New World Symphony and has been a faculty member at ENCORE School for Strings and Kent/Blossom. He has been a participant at summer music festivals, including the Mainly Mozart Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Orcas Island, Music at Gretna, the Mimir Chamber Music Festival, the Pacific Music Festival (Japan) and the Festival der Zukunft in Switzerland. He received an Alumni Achievement Award from CIM in 2005, and was appointed to the CIM faculty in 2001.
Joel Smirnoff
President, holds the Mary Elizabeth Callahan President's Chair at CIM. He is a native of New York City and former chair of the violin department at The Juilliard School. He has been a member of the Juilliard String Quartet since 1986, and the ensemble's leader since 1997. The Quartet, founded in 1947, has become a living American legend and won four GRAMMY Awards. Formerly the group's second violinist, Mr. Smirnoff attended the University of Chicago and The Juilliard School and was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for six years. Second Prize-winner in the International American Music Competition in 1983, he made his New York recital debut in 1985 at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall as part of the Emerging Artists series and at Town Hall as part of the Midtown Masters series. In 1997, he was featured violin soloist at Tanglewood in a concert dedicated to the memory of violinist Louis Krasner, performing the Berg Violin Concerto under the direction of Bernard Haitink. Mr. Smirnoff has participated in the world premiere of numerous contemporary works, many of which were composed for him. Mr. Smirnoff is a Sony recording artist and has solo recordings on GM, CRI and Northeastern Records. Mr. Smirnoff has served as Chair of the Violin Department at The Juilliard School since 1993 and served as Head of String Studies at the Tanglewood Music Center during the late 1990s. Mr. Smirnoff has been on the faculty of Tanglewood since 1983. He has served on the juries of the Naumburg and Indianapolis Violin Competitions. He also pursues an active career as a conductor, both in the U.S. and abroad. In the summer of 2000, Mr. Smirnoff made his official American conducting debut with the San Francisco Symphony, conducting an all-Tchaikovsky program. He has also been a frequent guest with the New World Symphony and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. In May 2004, he received rave reviews for his debut with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, replacing Peter Oundjian, who had fallen ill. In Europe, Mr. Smirnoff has conducted the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and a European tour with the Basel Sinfonietta and Charles Rosen as soloist in the Elliott Carter Piano Concerto. Mr. Smirnoff has led both the Juilliard Symphony and the Juilliard Orchestra in concert. He has also appeared in concert with the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Phoenix Symphony, the Chicago Philharmonic, the Western New York Chamber Orchestra and the Texas Music Festival Orchestra. Mr. Smirnoff also plays jazz, performing frequently as improvising soloist with Tony Bennett. His solos were featured on the GRAMMY Award-winning CD Tony Bennett Sings Ellington Hot and Cool. He has also been guest soloist with Gunther Schuller and the American Jazz Orchestra, as well as the Billy Taylor Trio. Mr. Smirnoff was born into an eminent New York musical family. His mother sang with the Jack Teagarden Band under the stage name of Judy Marshall and his father, Zelly Smirnoff, played in the NBC Symphony under Toscanini and was second violinist of the Stuyvesant String Quartet. Mr. Smirnoff has been president of CIM since 2008.
Jaime Laredo
E-mail: jlaredoviolin@gmail.com
“…music-making of unusually high quality – the sort of playing which comes only from understanding, love, painstaking care, and, quite simply, great ability.” -- The Guardian, London
Performing for over five decades before audiences across the globe, Jaime Laredo has excelled in the multiple roles of soloist, conductor, recitalist, pedagogue, and chamber musician. Since his stunning orchestral debut at the age of eleven with the San Francisco Symphony, he has won the admiration and respect of audiences, critics and fellow musicians with his passionate and polished performances. That debut inspired one critic to write: 'In the 1920's it was Yehudi Menuhin; in the 1930's it was Isaac Stern; and last night it was Jaime Laredo.' His education and development were greatly influenced by his teachers Josef Gingold and Ivan Galamian, as well as by private coaching with eminent masters Pablo Casals and George Szell. At the age of seventeen, Jaime Laredo won the prestigious Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Competition, launching his rise to international prominence. With 2009 marking the 50th anniversary of his prize, he was honored to sit on the Jury for the final round of the Competition.
In the 2013-2014 season, Mr. Laredo continues to tour both as a soloist and as a member of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, including conducting engagements with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. 2013 also marks the second year of Mr. Laredo’s tenure as a member of the violin faculty at The Cleveland Institute of Music. During the 2011-2012 season, Mr. Laredo celebrated his 70th birthday with engagements at the 92nd Street Y with colleagues, family and friends. Mr. Laredo and Sharon Robinson recently gave the world premiere of a commission by Richard Danielpour dedicated to and inspired by their marriage, entitled Inventions on a Marriage, which explores in “musical snapshots” the bond of long-term relationships. In past seasons Mr. Laredo has conducted and performed with the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Detroit Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others. Abroad, Mr. Laredo has performed with the London Symphony, the BBC Symphony, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the Royal Philharmonic, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which he led on two American tours and in their Hong Kong Festival debut. His numerous recordings with the SCO include Vivaldi's Four Seasons (which stayed on the British best-seller charts for over a year), Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, "Italian" and "Scottish" Symphonies, Beethoven's Violin Concerto, and recordings of Rossini overtures and Wagner's Siegfried Idyll.
The 2011-2012 season also marked Jaime Laredo’s 35th anniversary as the violinist of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. The Trio celebrated its three-and-a-half decades together with a national tour and three new commissions by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, André Previn, and Stanley Silverman. Founded by Mr. Laredo, Sharon Robinson, and pianist Joseph Kalichstein in 1976, the Trio performs regularly at Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y in New York, and the Kennedy Center, where they are the ensemble in residence. They have toured internationally to cities that include Lisbon, Hamburg, Copenhagen, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Helsinki, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, and Melbourne. The trio was named Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year 2002.
For fifteen years, Mr. Laredo was violist of the piano quartet consisting of renowned pianist Emanuel Ax, celebrated violinist Isaac Stern, and distinguished cellist Yo-Yo Ma, his close colleagues and chamber music collaborators. Together, the quartet recorded nearly the entire piano quartet repertoire on the SONY Classical label, including the works of Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Fauré, and Brahms, for which they won a Grammy Award.
Mr. Laredo has recorded close to one hundred discs, received the Deutsche Schallplatten Prize, and has been awarded seven Grammy nominations. Mr. Laredo's discs on CBS and RCA have included the complete Bach Sonatas with the late Glenn Gould and a KOCH International Classics album of duos with Ms. Robinson featuring works by Handel, Kodaly, Mozart and Ravel. His releases on the Dorian label include Schubert's complete works for violin and piano with Stephanie Brown, and Virtuoso!, a collection of favorite violin encores with pianist Margo Garrett. Other releases include Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante and Concertone with Cho-Liang Lin for Sony. In May 2000, KOCH released the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio's two-CD set of the chamber works of Maurice Ravel, to follow the complete trios and sonatas of Shostakovich. More recently, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio has released multi-disc sets of the complete Brahms’, Beethoven and Schubert Piano Trios, and Mr. Laredo has also released an album on Bridge with Sharon Robinson and the Vermont Symphony entitled “Triple Doubles,” which includes three double concertos dedicated to the Duo: Daron Hagen’s Masquerade, a new, fully-orchestrated version of Richard Danielpour’s A Child’s Reliquary, (originally written as a piano trio for the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio); and David Ludwig’s Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra. The next major endeavor for the husband-wife duo is a Double Concerto written for them by Andre Previn; premiere performances are scheduled to begin in November 2014.
A recent project titled Two x Four celebrates the relationship between the teacher and the student through music. With his colleague and former student Jennifer Koh, Mr. Laredo and Ms. Koh kicked off the inaugural season with the Delaware Symphony performing the Double Concerti for Two Violins by J.S. Bach, Philip Glass, and two newly commissioned concerti by composers Anna Clyne and David Ludwig. Subsequent performances have taken the duo to the IRIS orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Vermont Symphony, Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Kennedy Center, the Miller Theater of Columbia University, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Alabama Symphony. A recording of Two x Four on Cedille Records is scheduled for spring 2014.
Recognized internationally as a sought after violin teacher, Mr. Laredo has fostered the education of violinists that include Leila Josefowitz, Hillary Hahn, Jennifer Koh, Ivan Chan, Soovin Kim, Pamela Frank and Bella Hristova. After 35 years of teaching at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, 7 years at Indiana University’s Jacob School of Music, Mr. Laredo teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where his wife cellist Sharon Robinson also holds a teaching position. Additionally, Mr. Laredo is celebrating his 20th year as the conductor of the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, which brings young musicians from around the world to the stage every December.
In demand worldwide as a conductor and a soloist, Mr. Laredo has held the position of Music Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra since 1999. Mr. Laredo begins his tenure as Principal Guest Conductor of the Westchester Philharmonic in 2014. In 2009 Mr. Laredo and his wife were named the Artistic Directors of the Linton Chamber Music Series in Cincinnati, Ohio.
As former Artistic Director of New York's renowned Chamber Music at the Y series, Mr. Laredo created an important forum for chamber music performances and developed a devoted following. His stewardships of the annual New York String Orchestra Seminar at Carnegie Hall and the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis have become beloved educational pillars of the string community. A principal figure at the Marlboro Music Festival in years past, he has also been involved at Tanglewood, Aspen, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, and the Hollywood Bowl, as well as festivals in Italy, Spain, Finland, Greece, Israel, Austria, Switzerland and England.
Born in Bolivia, Jaime Laredo resides in Guilford, VT and Cleveland, OH, with his wife cellist Sharon Robinson.
He joined the CIM faculty in 2012.
