Elmar Oliveira (born June 28, 1950) is an American violinist.
The son of Portuguese immigrants, [1] Elmar Oliveira was born in Naugatuck, Connecticut. Oliveira was nine when he began studying the violin with his brother John. At age 16 he appeared in a nationally-televised concert from Lincoln Center of child prodigy performers hosted by Leonard Bernstein, as part of Bernstein's Young People's Concerts series. [2] He later studied with Ariana Bronne and Raphael Bronstein at the Hartt College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. In 1978 he won (ex aequo together with Ilya Grubert) the first prize at the Tchaikowsky Competition in Moscow.
He was a Grammy nominee for his 1990 CD of the Barber Concerto with Leonard Slatkin and the Saint Louis Symphony. [3] His recorded works for Artek, Angel, Sony Masterworks, Vox, Delos, IMP, Naxos, Ondine, Élan, and Melodiya range widely from works by Bach and Vivaldi to contemporary composers. His best-selling 1997 recording of the Rautavaara Violin Concerto with the Helsinki Philharmonic (Ondine) won a Cannes Classical Award and has appeared on Gramophone’s "Editor’s Choice" and other best recordings lists around the world.
Oliveira is a Distinguished Artist in Residence at the Lynn University Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, Florida. [4]
Elmar Oliveira performs on an instrument known as the "Stretton", made ca. 1729-30 by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu, and on several other violins by outstanding contemporary makers, including Michael Koeberling and John Young. [5] Before purchasing the Stretton in 1994, Oliveira owned and performed with the 1697 Molitor Stradivarius, which he purchased in 1989. [6]
Oliveira has received honorary doctorates from Manhattan School of Music and Binghamton University. He received the Order of Santiago, Portugal’s highest civilian honor. He has served on the juries of some of the most prestigious violin competitions, including the Montreal, Indianapolis, Naumburg, and Vianna da Motta.
He remains the only American violinist to win the Gold Medal at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky International Competition, which he did in 1978. [7] He is also the first violinist to receive the coveted Avery Fisher Prize in 1983, in addition to capturing First Prizes at the Naumburg International Competition and the G.B. Dealey Competition.
Isaac Stern was an American violinist.
David Fyodorovich Oistrakh was a Soviet Russian violinist, violist, and conductor. He was also Professor at the Moscow Conservatory, People's Artist of the USSR (1953), and Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1960)
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-American violinist. He has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a state dinner for Elizabeth II at the White House in 2007, and at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. He has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perlman has won 16 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Emmy Awards.
Midori Goto, who performs under the mononym Midori, is a Japanese-born American violinist. She made her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11 as a surprise guest soloist at the New Year's Eve Gala in 1982. In 1986 her performance at the Tanglewood Music Festival with Leonard Bernstein conducting his own composition made the front-page headlines in The New York Times. Midori became a celebrated child prodigy, and one of the world's preeminent violinists as an adult.
René-Charles "Zino" Francescatti was a French virtuoso violinist.
Robert Nathaniel Mann was a violinist, composer, conductor, and founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet, as well as a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music. Mann, the first violinist at Juilliard, served on the school's string quartet for over fifty years until his retirement in 1997.
Leonidas Kavakos is a Greek violinist and conductor. As a violinist, he has won prizes at several international violin competitions, including the Sibelius, Paganini, Naumburg, and Indianapolis competitions. He is an Onassis Foundation scholar. He has also recorded for record labels such as Sony/BMG and BIS. As a conductor, he was an artistic director of the Camerata Salzburg and has been a guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra.
David Oei is a Hong Kong-born American classical pianist.
The Walter W. Naumburg Foundation sponsors competitions and provides awards for young classical musicians in North America. Founded in 1925, it operates the prestigious Naumburg Competition.
Sirena Huang is an American concert violinist. She has received numerous awards, including First Prize at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, First Prize at the Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition, First Place at the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians, and Third Place at the Singapore International Violin Competition and the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition. She has performed with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Huang was appointed as the first Artist-in-Residence of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra in 2011.
Augustin Hadelich is an Italian-German-American Grammy-winning classical violinist.
Martha Strongin Katz is a violist and member of the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) in Boston, Massachusetts, where she teaches viola and chamber music. She was a founding member of the Cleveland Quartet, along with her former husband, Paul Katz (cellist), and Peter Salaff and Donald Weilerstein (violinists). From 1969 until her departure from the group in 1980, she performed more than 1,000 concerts, including appearances at the White House, the Grammy Awards, on the NBC Today Show, and in the major concert halls of five continents.
Jay Zhong is a contemporary Chinese-American classical violinist. He was born in Beijing, China.
Piotr Janowski was a Polish violinist and first Polish winner of the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition.
The Molitor Stradivarius is an antique violin made by Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari of Cremona in 1697, the very beginning of the maker's celebrated "Golden" period. It bears the label "Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis / Faciebat Anno 1697" and is branded to the lower rib, "Curtis Phila."
Albert Ivan Stern was a violinist born in New York City.
Daniel Alan Heifetz is an American concert violinist and pedagogue best known as the Founder of the Heifetz International Music Institute. His career has been focused on education and the art of communication through performance.
The Violin Concerto is a composition for solo violin and orchestra by the American composer Joan Tower. It was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition and the Snowbird Institute. The piece was first performed by the violinist Elmar Oliveira and the Utah Symphony under the conductor Joseph Silverstein on April 24, 1992, in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is dedicated to the violinist Elmar Oliveira. The composition was a finalist for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Vera Tsu Weiling is a professional violinist and Professor and Master tutor of the Central Conservatory in Beijing and Shanghai Conservatory. She is featured in the Academy Award winning documentary From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China, directed by Murray Lerner. Tsu Weiling serves as co-chairman of the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition and vice-president of the China Violin Society.
Shannon Lee is a Canadian-American violinist. She won fourth prize at the 2019 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Belgium, top prize at the Sendai International Music Competition in Sendai, Japan, and second prize at the International Naumburg Competition.