Zina Schiff

Violinist Zina Schiff has been described by The New York Times as an instrumentalist of “Luscious high voltage … vintage Heifetz.” The comparison to the legendary Jascha Heifetz is apt, as Ms. Schiff is a Heifetz protégé. With a special blend of virtuosity, musical integrity, and communicative power, she has dazzled audiences and critics throughout the United States, Eastern and Western Europe, Israel, Australia, and the former Soviet Union.

Zina’s many awards include the young Musician’s Foundation Debut Award, the San Francisco Symphony Foundation Award, and a grant from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music. A student of Ivan Galamian at The Curtis Institute of Music, she is the only violinist to have won both the Junior and Senior Auditions of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Zina recorded the score for the MGM movie The Fixer, composed for solo violin by Academy Award winner Maurice Jarre. Named one of the “Top Ten College Winners” by Glamour Magazine, Zina has been selected as an “Outstanding Young Artist” by Musical America.

Zina has performed at such summer festivals as Music from Bear Valley, Sewanee, and Newport, Rhode Island, where her artistry was described as “pure perfume.” Radio listeners are familiar with Zina’s appearances on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” WGBH’s “Morning Pro Musica” in Boston, and New York’s WQXR. Television viewers worldwide saw Zina on the PBS “Nova” program entitled “What is Music?,” where she performed the Sibelius Concerto on an experimental violin by Texas A&M professor Joseph Nagyvary.

Zina’s debut recordings were “The Lark Ascending” and “Bach/Vivaldi,” as soloist with the Israel Philharmonic. Her CDs—”Here’s One,” a collection of American music, and “King David’s Lyre,” a set of works by Jewish composers—were selected as Critics Choices for 1997 by the American Record Guide.

Reviewers on four continents have been excited with Zina’s “communicated sincerity and sensitivity – call it charisma” (San Diego Union) and her “complete mastery of the violin” (London Daily Telegraph).