Symphonie Espagnole

About Giora Schmidt

Praised by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as "impossible to resist, captivating with lyricism, tonal warmth, and boundless enthusiasm," American-Israeli violinist Giora Schmidt opens Rockford Symphony Orchestra’s 2024-2025 season in Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto, returns with Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra in Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole, and reprises his Dvořák Violin Concerto with Haifa Symphony Orchestra.

As featured guest artist, Giora Schmidt has performed in front of the globally renowned Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa’s National Arts Centre.

Appearances also include those with the Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile, and Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM in Mexico. In collaboration with US orchestras of national repute, Giora Schmidt has performed with those of San Diego, Naples, Fort Worth, Knoxville, Louisville, Columbus (OH), North Carolina, Arkansas, Charleston, Anchorage, Santa Barbara, Sarasota, Las Vegas, Albany, San Luis Obispo and Bellingham (WA), as well as the ABT Orchestra.

Giora Schmid’s symphonic collaborations include those conducted by Andreas Delfs, Asher Fish, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Domingo Hindoyan, Jun Märkl, Itzhak Perlman, Carlo Rizzi, James DePriest, Grant Llewellyn, Alexander Mickelthwate, Thomas Wilkins, and since 2023 with Yaniv Attar, Dirk Kaftan, Tito Muñoz, Zbyněk Müller, Gerard Schwarz, Andrew Sewell, and Yoel Levi.

Most recently, Giora appeared with the Prague Chamber Orchestra and in season opening concerts with Phoenix Symphony Orchestra and Portland Symphony Orchestra. 2024 and 2023 festival appearances include those with the Eastern Music Festival, Montreal Chamber Music Festival, Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz in Germany, and the Cartagena Music Festival in Columbia. These, in violin concertos by Tchaikovsky and Dvořák, as well as Piazzola's The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, and Porumbescu's Balada.

In recital and chamber music, Giora has performed at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, San Francisco Performances, the Louvre Museum in Paris, and Tokyo's Musashino Cultural Hall. Festival appearances include the Ravinia Festival, the Santa Fe and Montreal Chamber Music Festivals, Bard Music Festival, Scotia Festival of Music and Music Academy of the West. He has collaborated with eminent musicians including Yefim Bronfman, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Ralph Kirshbaum, and the late Lynn Harrell and Michael Tree.

Deeply committed to education and working with the next generation of violinists and young musicians, Giora is currently on the artist faculty at New York University (NYU Steinhardt); having previously taught at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music (CCM), the Juilliard School, Orford Musique Academy (Quebec) and the Perlman Music Program.

Born in Philadelphia to professional musicians from Israel, Giora began playing the violin at the age of four. A graduate of the Juilliard School, his teachers have included Geoffrey Michaels, Patinka Kopec, Dorothy DeLay and Itzhak Perlman.

He is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, The Classical Recording Foundation's Samuel Sanders award, and was a Starling Fellow at the Juilliard School.

Giora plays a c. 1830 violin by Giuseppe Rocca and strings kindly sponsored by Thomastik-Infeld, Vienna.

Press

Cleveland Plain Dealer
”High on individuality, Schmidt's rendition of the great [Tchaikovsky Concerto] was impossible to resist, captivating with lyricism, tonal warmth, and boundless enthusiasm. Where so many performances are carbon copies, this one was his alone.”

The Chronicle Herald
“Schmidt can teach you more about Bach and the violin by just drawing his bow across the strings. His musical mind runs to clarity of musical design, not just illumination of its architecture, but also dramatic recreation of musical line and counter melody, firmly supported by a bass line, making them light up one after another and sometimes all together like a virtual string trio.”

The Miami Herald
”…[with] an acutely focused gleaming sound, Schmidt also possesses a daunting technical arsenal and sailed through the bravura passages of the outer movements [of the Mendelssohn] with remarkably even articulation at a rapid tempo, without breaking a sweat.”

South Florida Classical Review
”Schmidt clearly can make the violin do whatever he wants.”

Newsday
”...Schmidt held the audience rapt. There was not a cough or rustle to be heard. [He] made this most familiar of concerti [the Beethoven] sound fresh, almost improvisatory, as if the music had never been heard before.”

ReviewVancouver
”Stunning silky tone, technical wizardry, and immensely stylish playing.”