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One of the most
prominent and accomplished American musicians before the public today,
Stephanie Chase is acclaimed from Boston to Beijing as “one of
the violin greats of our era” (Byron Belt, Newhouse Newspapers).
Her “elegance, dexterity, rhythmic vitality and great imagination”
(Boston Globe) and “great sense of style, matchless technique and
flawless intonation” (BBC Music Magazine) have brought her solo
appearances at cultural capitols throughout the world, as guest artist
of the world's most distinguished orchestras that include the New York
Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Her most
recent appearance at Carnegie Hall was in May 2008 as soloist in
Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
Hailed as a
“first-rate artist” by the New York Times, her performances —
of a concerto repertoire that encompasses the Baroque to the
contemporary — are met with
rave reviews. Recordings by Ms. Chase have been awarded the
highest possible ratings by Cambridge University Press and BBC Music
Magazine, featured by Classic CD as “Record of the Month” and
selected by Stereophile as a “Record to Die For.” A recipient of
the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Ms. Chase is also a top
prizewinner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
Recordings
by Ms. Chase have been awarded the highest possible ratings by Cambridge
University Press and BBC Music Magazine, featured by Classic CD as “Record of
the Month” and selected by Stereophile as a “Record to Die For.” A
recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Ms. Chase is also
a top prizewinner
of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
Her interest in
historically-informed music practice has led Ms. Chase to perform on period
violin as well. Following a number of concerts as guest artist of the Mozartean
Players and the Classical Quartet, she was invited to make the first ever
recording of Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Romances on period violin.
Because Beethoven did not compose cadenzas for the Concerto, she created
her own. This renowned recording (on London-based Cala Records), with Roy
Goodman and the Hanover Band, is declared “one of the twenty most outstanding
performances in the work's recorded history” (Beethoven: Violin Concerto;
Cambridge University Press) and has been honored with the highest possible
ratings by BBC Music Magazine. Chase has also recorded Mozart Concerti on
period violin, with the Hanover Band, and Brahms's Horn Trio, with Lowell Greer
(playing natural horn) and fortepianist Stephen Lubin.
 Born
in Illinois to one of America's oldest families, Stephanie Chase made her first
public appearance at the age of two. By age six, she was nationally recognized
as a child prodigy through appearances on television and performances in the
Chicago area. Her debut with the Chicago Symphony followed her first prize win,
at age eight, in the Chicago Symphony’s Youth Competition. That same year she
was featured performing a Mozart Concerto on WGN’s “Artist’s Showcase,” in a
program that was awarded the illustrious George Foster Peabody Award for
excellence in television broadcasting. Further studies with Sally Thomas of the
Juilliard School ensued and, following two appearances at age thirteen on Sir
David Frost’s television interview program, Ms. Chase embarked on a major
concert career, touring as a teenager across the United States and Canada and
appearing as soloist with orchestras that included the Chicago, St. Louis,
National and American Symphony Orchestras. Her Carnegie Hall debut was at age
eighteen, in which she appeared as soloist in the retirement concert of the
eminent conductor-educator Leon Barzin.
Desiring to
further her interpretive skills, following her Carnegie Hall debut Ms.
Chase chose to study with the legendary violinist Arthur Grumiaux, who
remained her mentor until his death in 1986. During the 1980’s she also
studied chamber music with at the renowned Marlboro Music Festival in
Vermont with many of the 20th-century greatest musicians, including
Rudolf Serkin, Felix Galimir, Misha Schneider, Rudolph Firkusny and
Marcel Moyse.
Stephanie Chase’s
triumphant, award-winning performances at the Tchaikovsky Competition in
Moscow led to international fame and concert tours of North America,
Europe, Central and South American, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.
In 1986, she made an historic tour of the People’s Republic of China as
soloist with the Hong Kong Philharmonic on its first ever trip to the
PRC. The following year she added the prestigious Avery Fisher Career
Grant to her list of awards.
Although she
excels in the virtuoso’s repertoire, Stephanie Chase is an amazingly
versatile musician who performs a body of compositions encompassing the
Baroque through the 21st century. Her concerto repertoire of over
fifty-five works features many 20th-century compositions, and her
interest in musicology and performance practice is reflected in her own
original cadenzas for concerti by  Beethoven,
Mozart, and Haydn.
Stephanie Chase's
most recent recordings include music for violin and piano by Rudolf
Friml (on the Koch International Classics label, KIC-CD-7662), music for
violin and piano by Viteslava Kapralova (KIC-7742) and works for violin
and guitar by Mauro Giuliani, performed on period instruments (KIC-
forthcoming). In October 2008 she recorded a collection of violin music
from the libraries of her parents and grandfathers for Koch
International Classics, in collaboration with famed pianist Warren Jones
and due for release in 2009. In addition to the Koch International
Classics label, Chase has recorded for Cala Records, Harmonia Mundi, MSR
and Paulus.
Also renowned as a
chamber musician, Ms. Chase is a co-founder and Artistic Director of the
Music of the
Spheres Society, which presents chamber music concerts and lectures
that explore the links between music, philosophy and the sciences. As a
former artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, she toured
internationally with the group and is featured on several recordings
made by the Society, in a variety of repertoire.
Ms. Chase is
additionally applauded through her concert performances in the dual
roles of violin soloist and conductor. Concerts she has conducted with
the Jupiter Symphony, The Chamber Orchestra of the Spheres, and the
Symphony by the Sea (MA) have been extremely well received, and she has
led performances from the solo violin position with orchestras
throughout the United States and Mexico, including the String Orchestra
of New York and the New Century Chamber Orchestra.
Her music
arrangements have been performed to rave reviews in venues that include
Carnegie Hall. "A Fantasy about Carmen," a work she created for string
orchestra (inspired by Sarasate’s virtuoso "Carmen Fantasy” for violin
and orchestra), was premiered in 2005 in Zankel Hall (Carnegie Hall) in
a performance by the orchestra of the Perlman Music Program conducted by
Itzhak Perlman.
 Ms.
Chase's Spanish Suite, an arrangement for string orchestra of
additional music by Sarasate, was premiered in 2006 by The American
String Project in Seattle and received enthusiastic reviews from the
audience, critics, and performing musicians alike. This live-concert
recording is now commercially available on the MSR label. Her
arrangement for string orchestra of Paganini's 24th Caprice,
entitled "A Capricious CHASE," premiered in Seattle in May 2008. In
addition to Paganini's music, Ms. Chase has inserted the musical
spelling of her own name (C-H-A-S-E) into the work, in the tradition of
J. S. Bach. In May 2009 the American String Project premiered her
arrangement for string orchestra of Manuel de Falla's Siete Canciones
espagnolas.
Since Fall 2007,
Stephanie Chase has programmed and led a "Music and Imagination" course
at the Philoctetes Center in New York, an institution that was founded
for the study of imagination. Her programs have included "The Rhythmic
Brain" (with music therapist Eric Barnhill, founder of "Cognitive
Eurythmics"), "Five Centuries of Violin Making" with Stewart Pollens,
and "Reaching Consensus in the Emerson String Quartet" with violinist
Philip Setzer. These programs are streamed live internationally through
the Center's website and are available for viewing on YouTube.
Stephanie Chase is
lineally descended (tenth generation) from Aquila Chase, who arrived
from England
about 1639 and settled first in Hampton, NH and then Newbury, MA. The
founder of one of New England's most illustrious family lineages,
Aquila's other descendents include jurists, founders of colleges,
bishops, senators and a Supreme Court judge. Ms. Chase counts among her
ancestors Salmon Portland Chase, who served as governor of Ohio,
Secretary of the Treasury under Abraham Lincoln and, later, as Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court. Among his accomplishments were creating a
national banking system with paper (flat) currency, and he was
instrumental in having the phrase "In God We Trust" placed on American
currency. Chase was a noted supporter of women's rights, the abolition
of slavery, and prison reform, and it is in his honor that the Chase
National Bank (later Chase Manhattan Bank) was named. As Chief Justice,
Salmon Chase presided over the impeachment trial of President Andrew
Johnson in 1868. Other ancestral relatives of Ms. Chase include
Philander Chase, who was the first Bishop of Ohio and Illinois; among
his accomplishments were work was as a missionary to the Indian
populations of Oneida County, NY and as an emancipator of slaves in New
Orleans.
Stephanie Chase
teachers violin at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education,
Culture and Human Development and at the Aaron Copland School of Music
at Queens College. Her current hobbies include studying the "music of
the spheres" and Stradivari violins, researching her genealogy, and
weight training. She resides in New York City with her husband,
Stewart
Pollens, who is the founder and director of Violin Advisor, LLC.
From 1976-2006, Mr. Pollens was the conservator of musical instruments
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is an award-winning author of
books on Stradivari’s instrument-building techniques, a history and
analysis of the early pianoforte, and the French bowmaker Francois
Xavier Tourte.
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excerpt from Ravel's "Tzigane"
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